Finally. It took forever to get to Friday but it’s here. It also took forever to end. At one point I thought it must’ve been close to 4:00 and it was not even 2:00. It was hellish but I got through it. Almost hooked up with Pedro who had a day off and was downtown. I hadn’t seen him since August and it would’ve been nice to see him if only for a few minutes but he was waylaid in traffic and got fed up, heading upstate to his home in the country. I really couldn’t complain though Pedro would’ve been a welcome distraction from the tedium.

Felicia made yet another final appearance, on her birthday to have her exit interview. There is so much bullshit that goes on in that office, it’s really pathetic. Raige Piney, (vaginal slang word inserted here) has the makings of a double chin. She’s one of the non-thank you types. The others are Web and Baldy. Dondi is alright by me. Those are names I gave out a few months ago to some of the guys who desperately try to be hip. Wearing a ski cap all day in the office does not make one a teenager or even twenty something. Unless it’s freezing in the office I can understand that but it was quite warm.

I am relieved that I won’t be seeing any of them for the next nine days. I have no plans to go to Soho. I dread running into any of them outside of the office. Plus I’m not so keen on Soho anymore. It’s just not the same place it used to be. What will I do during those nine days? Well on Thanksgiving the plan is to go to Trenton and have dinner with my cousins. Tomorrow there may be a chance to go into the city and meet up with Sweet Sarah and go to the Museum of Modern Art, which I haven’t been to since the last century. It was her birthday the other day and she’s such a good person., so why not?

And now, the iPod shuffle

Barrington Levy, ‘Moonlight Lover’
Great classic Reggae which sounds so good on a loud sound system, heavy on the bass. This is a digitized version of a cassette, recorded from an album complete with hissing and pops. This is how Reggae should sound I think, don’t you? Barrington has a great voice and it’s a great song, old school.

Daúde, ‘Marinheiro Só’
Daúde is a Brazilian singer that Pedro and I saw quite accidentally at Summerstage a few years ago. One of the best times ever with Pedro and the show was amazing. It was a hot day and we were sprayed with a hose from the stage. Neither one of us ever heard of Daúde but we were big fans after her set. A few days I wandered around the Brazilian section of midtown, going to various record stores, trying to find her records. Nobody had them so I wound up spending a lot of money on imports at the Virgin Megastore n Times Square. It was better than humming songs to indifferent shop owners off of Times Square.

The Wailers, “Satisfy My Soul’
More old school Reggae, from the undisputed masters, Bob sounds young and vulnerable. He remade the song years later, but this is an early rough version, from the Songs of Freedom boxed set.

Otis Redding, ‘Sitting on the Dock of the Bay’
Otis’ most famous song, a big posthumous hit. Never really got into Otis until a few years ago. One of my earliest memories featuring Otis Redding was returning from a trip to West Point with the Lodi Boy’s Club. The driver played nothing but Otis Redding. I didn’t understand it then. Now I do. I think.

Honey Cone, ‘Stick Up’
Old school disco. Very gay disco at that. I prefer the Three Degrees, ‘When Will I See You Again?’ recorded and released around the same time. It’s funny how 2 minutes and 52 seconds could seem like an eternity. From the Soul Hits of the Seventies compilations.

Al Green, ‘Here I Am (Come and Take Me)’
Classic Al Green from his greatest hits. Al Green wove a lot of thread in the tapestry of my musical youth. Pass the dutchie!

Crazy rainstorm a happenin’ right now. Good thing the windows have been repaired. I could’ve been blown away at least in one sense of the words. Another ok day at work. My attitude improves mainly because I get to run errands around town and it gets me out of the office. It’s been good to have Rachel around. It was also a plus to not really have any major client meetings today. Most of my coworkers are still retarded and rude. They don’t say thank you at all. Not when holding an elevator for them and not when I fetch a bottle of wine for them. Unforgivably rude. Where is Serial Mom when you need her?

During one of my errands I was walking through Soho and I knew a group of them all went out to lunch somewhere, en masse. About ten of them where probably rude and obnoxious to the wait staff. As I was walking I was feeling strange, a fear of seeing them outside the office during daylight. I really have to get out of there. On one hand I do want to see what kind of bonus I will be getting. It better be an improvement over what I got from Wanker Banker, though in one of my last conversations with Felicia, she told me an amount which was basically the same as Wanker Banker. Should I believe a liar?

This week has been achingly slow, crawling to Friday. Time Will Crawl, besides being a Bowie song was also a title of a previous blog this week. It turned out to be true. I should have written, ‘John Wins the Mega Millions’, but that song hasn’t been written yet. Maybe I’ll write that during my nine days off, title a blog entry with the same name, and then win the Mega Millions. I’ll actually title it, ‘John Wins the Mega Millions Next Friday the 24th of November 2006’. I like the sound of that.

Twice this week I’ve read about cholera. What a terrible way to go. I had no idea the disease kills so fast. It got me thinking I should attempt to read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I tried reading 100 Years of Solitude but couldn’t get into it. That was back when I tried to read the important works of the 20th Century. I tried reading James Joyce, Ulysses, but I couldn’t get past page 48 after several weeks. I think there’s an interesting new version that actually uses punctuation which could make it an easy read. Tried reading Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49. Eventually I gave up on those guys.

I am about to read The End of Faith by Sam Harris. The description says it delivers a startling analysis of the clash between reason and religion in the modern world. Sounds like a fun read. Just in time for the war on Christmas. And outside the storm rages on.