I woke up sad. I’m sad about having to go to the office again. I really didn’t want to but I’m a slave to the dollar. I generally try to get out of bed before the alarms go off but this time the alarm caught me. It’s been a while since that happened and for a second I wondered how to stop the alarm. Then reality came to me and the alarm was silent.

Last week in the bagel shop I was thisclose to Shaun Moray who I went to high school with. I wrote about him a few weeks ago with another variation on his name as I don’t want him to do a search for his actual name and come across this here blog. We made eye contact and there was a hint of recognition on his face but by that time I was out the door beating a hasty exit.

This morning I saw him on a bike heading north. Then on the Path train as I sit and read Mojo with Bob Dylan on the cover I see Hugh Batista a co-worker who went to the same high school as me and Shaun Moray.

Being in the sad state of mind I was in, I had no desire to communicate with him in any way, so I basically buried my face in Bob Dylan’s Mojo. I do like Hugh Batista enough to change his name should HE decide to do a name check on himself and wind up alongside Shaun Moray reading this here blog.

I knew Hugh would be going with the crowd to the exits that everyone goes through. Me, being me, went the other way once again, adding a couple of minutes to my commute just to avoid people. And once I got to the office everything was just as I dreaded.

I was done with the majority of my tasks within the first 90 minutes, then Schlomo the DKB started sending me direct messages about 3 or 4 items that I mislabeled and sent out. There was no excuse on my part and I did say I was sorry and then went out of my way to apologize, all via texts.

This was when I was certain I was going to be let go. Some days I can deal with the sword of Damocles over my head but this was not one of those days. It all weighed heavily upon me.

Then I found out a relative of mine was having surgery which was a shock. I had no idea there was a problem but these relatives play their cards close to the vest not giving me any hint of something being amiss. I get the news from 3000 miles away.

From what I understand almost 12 hours later the surgery was a success. Not sure if I should say anything to the patient since it seems I wasn’t supposed to know in the first place. And with the depression going on right now in my life, perhaps it’s best if I maintain that distance.

Another day of bike riding and another good day for it. Once again I started a little bit earlier than usual, about a half hour early. My Sunday morning routine is as follows: I wake up by 9 AM and paddle through the apartment, turning on Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley. I started watching that show in 2019.

Bill and I were in Easton PA for a friend’s party. The friend is a bus driver and Bill and I sat at a table with his fellow bus drivers. Bill was in his element and I was enjoying myself, finally able to put a face to the names I had heard for a number of years. We spent the night in a motel and when we woke up I put on Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley.

She’s so likeable and the stories presented were more or less very positive. Not all though, some gravitas to the sweetness is required. After Jane Pauley, it’s usually the Golden Girls. It’s a Gay thing it seems.

I had read on the social medias of drag shows where episodes of Golden Girls are performed and there’s definitely a gay mindset in the writing. And now Nathan Lane and Matt Bomer are set to be in a TV show ‘Mid-Century Modern’ which is said to be a Gay version of The Golden Girls for the 2020s on Hulu. That’s what I read.

I did mention in a post from 19 years ago, meeting Rue McClanahan on the street outside of Putnam Lovell, what was the actual name of Wanker Banker. It’s titled Kangaroo and it is December 15, 2005.

Writing about December 2005 coincides with contact with sweet Sarah, a dear co-worker from those days. Sarah was a beleaguered office manager after working alongside me at the reception desk. It seemed I was not cut out to be office manager though after Sarah left the Putnam Lovell fold I actually became the de facto office manager, sans title and salary.

It fell to Sarah to arrange a holiday party and still did a great job, finding a mansion off Fifth Avenue, getting it catered, and hiring a DJ as well as a choral group from Columbia University to sing holiday classics. I was having a good time, ingesting substances, and getting drunk.

Sarah and her husband who was there as well lived in NJ and we shared a towncar home, me being dropped off in Hoboken and the two of them off to the wilds of NJ. The car slowly drove down Ninth Avenue and at a red light her husband decided to get out of the car and walk down 47th Street.

Sarah called out for him but he wasn’t hearing her. I got out of the car and chased him down, grabbing him by the arm and spinning him around. I yelled at him, ‘What the fuck are you doing’. He mewed ‘Leave me alone’ I told him to stop acting like a faggot and get in the car.

He was stunned by me saying that. I told yes, I am a Gay man and you are being a little faggot. It actually got him in the car. I had a feeling this guy was a jerk, not so much an asshole but a mere jerk. Apparently, he was a controlling narcissist and after 20 years Sarah had enough of his manipulation.

Bill and I went to her wedding in San Francisco twenty years ago which coincided with my sister’s fiftieth birthday wish we also went to surprise her. After the wedding and reception, Sarah and her husband and friends went out for some after-party cocktails. We did the tourist thing, riding a cable car.

There was a semi-aggressive homeless guy panhandling and Sarah’s new husband took it upon himself to loudly berate the homeless guy which proved to be embarrassing for all concerned.

Maya Angelou said it best: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.”