Today is Wednesday. Today is Annemarie’s birthday! Happy Birthday to Annemarie! She saw Talk to Me over the weekend and I think she loved it. I burned a CD of 70’s Soul hits and put it the package with the David Sedaris recommendations (Dorothy Parker, Flannery O’Connor) and other CD’s as well as The Word magazine from the UK and a few other things, some still to arrive. A pretty good issue that I was more than glad to send over to the west coast. I would have bought a new copy but it was two months old when I bought it already and other copies of the same issue were in really bad shape. But who cares? It’s Annemarie’s birthday!

Work was good, not too much to do once again. Wound up leaving the office around 3:15 to go to Chinatown to order some business cards for someone in the office and for myself. I guess it’s official, I am an office manager. Once again it was a gray day, and though it wasn’t raining it was humid humid humid. Everything damp, water in the air, but not falling down. It was also 58 degrees this morning so I dressed up again, though not with a tie this time. I looked good, maybe a little too Sopranos. Gray suit, black pinstriped shirt, gray thick and thin over the calf socks. All I needed were some gold chains around my neck and maybe a nice gold chain for my wrist. But no, not my style. Not into the bling.

I did enjoy a nice Padron 5000 natural after leaving the printer. I thought I would have enough time to smoke it walking from Centre Street to the World Trade Center Path train. It turns out I didn’t so I sat in a concrete park under a tree by the various courthouses downtown and happily puffed away. After a while I was able to time it and finished it by the time I got to the train. It’s little things like that, that make it worthwhile. Got to Hoboken, all safe and sound.

I was walking up Washington Street when I decided to send a text message to Annemarie, to wish her a Happy Birthday once again. Not so fast. The phone wasn’t on. Did I turn it off somehow? I just got the phone 13 days ago and still trying to figure it out. I turned it on. It turned itself off. I turned it on again and it turned itself off again. That’s odd. Luckily I just passed a T-Mobile store so I turned around and walked in. I spoke with Jennifer Malik who couldn’t help me since I didn’t have the receipt on me, nor did I have the box the phone came in.

Apparently I was supposed to carry them around, both the box and the receipt. Jennifer tried to plug in the AC to see if the battery was dead, but couldn’t figure out how to plug the adapter into the phone. Since I didn’t have those things I couldn’t be helped. I asked for a number to call and Jennifer gave me her card. I then asked to use their phone since mine was kaput. Jennifer reluctantly let me use the store phone.
Feel free to email Jennifer, jennifer.malik@t-mobile.com and let her know that she should have continued the course and gotten that GED.

The first person I spoke to on the phone, Angela 2972 was of little or no assistance and hung up on me when I asked if I could get credit for the time that my phone will be out. They offered to send me a battery and that would take 3 or 4 days. I called another number since Jennifer dialed some number that got me to Angela. It seemed like an odd number and I thought so when the next person I spoke to had no record of my conversation with Angela 2972.

This guy tried to help me, really he did but somehow I was passed off to someone else who couldn’t do that much. I came home and plugged in the new phone and that worked, but the battery was getting to be quite warm. I called up again and they tried to convince me to get a new phone. I told them I wasn’t too happy with the WiFi plan. Bill phoned in and suggested that I try the old phone. I did and the old fan was working just fine. I thanked Bill and got back on with T-Mobile and told them to cancel the WiFi. It wasn’t really working as good as I thought it would, or as good as the New York Times said it was. Stupid gray lady!
So I’m back to the regular cellphone and I’m pretty much happy about that. Actually I’m happy that I’ll be able to call Annemarie later and wish her a Happy Birthday once again.

Happy Birthday to Annemarie, the best sister in the world!

Rainy Tuesday. Relentless. Woke up this morning and it was 57 degrees out. I wore a suit yesterday since it was in the 60’s and since it was below 60 degrees this morning I wore a suit again. A different suit at that. I do love wearing a suit, though I am sure it throws some people off since basically for the past two and a half months I mainly wore casual collared shirts or a guyabera with khakis. This look is almost the exact opposite and it’s also the most comfortable look for me. And I get compliments for it.

Last night was a lot of fun, seeing Jim and Meghan and Lily and Ruby and the Jack of Hearts. Oh wait, the Jack of Hearts wasn’t there. It must have been the Guinness. I took about 60 pictures last night, and I had to pick the best and edit them down so they would be the right size for the blog. And on top of that, I had to write at least 500 words like I’ve been doing since October 2005. Tomorrow is Annemarie’s birthday and she got a package that Mina Theta sent her. Good old small mouthed Mina Theta brought to you as a courtesy of her parents and McMann and Tate. Thanks Mina!

I had nothing to read on the bus ride home tonight so I wrote instead. Old school, pen to paper. Here’s a bit of that.

On the bus, nothing to read so plan B. Write.

The usual Hobokenites pile on the bus, each body increasing the temperature inside. People are balking at having to stand for the 20 minutes rush hour ride back to the Jersey side. It seems old fashioned to be writing with a pen and paper. Most everyone else has their crackberries or their PDA’s, and one or two of them have laptops. I have a notebook and a black pen. Old school, that’s me.

Lot’s of rain today. Someone online in Colorado wants to make me rich. With my luck it’s probably a resident of the Overlook Hotel.

Work was calm, good and busy. Actually had things to do. Tomorrow I have to go down to Chinatown to order business cards for myself. Woo hoo. Hadn’t been in Chinatown since May.

I just texted Carla the receptionist about a FedEx I needed to send to Greg Stevens out in the Hamptons. She dropped it off for me. Carla is good. So much for being old school. One foot in the waters of the 21st century I guess.

“Alright, I’ll meet you there around 6:30”, the guy a few rows behind me talking on his cellphone.

Had a quick talk with brother Frank today, mainly about the Sunday night shows on HBO which we both watch. It was good and brief and almost like old times.

My handwriting isn’t as bad as I thought it would be (you can’t tell here) despite writing on a crowded bus rolling and rocking through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Finally back in Hoboken, the home of the vain. Saw quite a few cute guys on the street today. Even caught the eye of one of them who was checking me out as I lit my Padron cigar after work.

Have to learn to take photos unobtrusively. Sometimes I’m so self-conscious I don’t take the camera out. Other times if I feel that something is Art, I have no problem. I think it’s a Duchampian ideal. Or even Warhol-esque. Doesn’t matter since they are related after all.

Here’s something you may have seen before. Or maybe not. I haven’t seen the whole video from start to finish but it’s oddly compelling. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT THE VIDEO…..