Category Archives: moldies but moodies

I’m Looking Through You

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Trying to write, computer keeps shutting down from being too hot. Maybe it’s what I am writing that is too hot. Maybe it’s the email attachments that are too hot. Maybe it’s Chris Murtagh. Or Mark Walden. Or Keith Moh.

Maybe it’s a lot of things. But in any event, I should write as much as I can before the computer crashes. That means you should ignore or overlook all errors, both spelling and grammatical.

I asked Bill is his Mac was working and he bought a new cable for it a few weeks ago, just never got around to hooking it up. He tried to tell me where the cable was for the Mac but it wasn’t where he said it was.

He did say he was taking half a day from work and would hook it up so I could use it tonight. Well he did come home, the mail was here and there are four boxes of Crystal Light precariously set on the edge of a table.

Plus there is a plastic supermarket bag in the middle of the floor filled with garbage which wasn’t there when I left the apartment this morning. And there is no cable hooked up to the Mac.

Right now I have a fan blowing full blast into the now uncovered computer tower on the floor. Seems to be doing the job. Plus it’s not the 90 something degree heat that was going on all day.

Today I went back to work. My Monday, your Wednesday. I didn’t want to go to work but really didn’t have much of a choice. The mantra continues. Sometimes the mantra is an albatross, sometimes it actually makes sense. Tonight it made sense.

It was just Calvin and Sean and myself tonight, after Don Birch left at 7PM. I write with what seems like the grim computer reaper standing behind me. The computer could shut down at any moment. Must continue writing.

Work was a bore.

It’s now September 1. Some kids are going back to school. Occasionally the feeling of despair that I felt when I was but a child comes into my frame of reference. How I hated school.

From day one. I think the only good time I had in school was actually 8th grade, 1976. I couldn’t wait to get out of school. The idea of college which I did hold as a possibility was dropped when in Junior year of high school when Sister Reginald told us that we were there in her class because we had to be there.

When we went to college, no one was going to make us go. It suddenly became clear. If I don’t want to do something, chances are that I won’t do it. If I don’t have to go to class, then I won’t. That would be a total waste of money.

Plus, my parents did not pay for my brothers and sister to go to college, so they weren’t about to pay for me. And they made just enough money that I wouldn’t qualify for student loans, and forget about scholarships.

I hated school, and education so much, all I could do was try to not fail ( and risk a beating by my father). I did so well in not failing that I didn’t really learn anything.

Luckily for me I knew some very intelligent people and learned all I could from them, as well as accumulating as many life experiences as I could. Like do not put a metal snap from your pajamas up your nose.

There.

I’ve written. The computer did not crash yet.

I’ve Found Someone

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Another day. This one was a bear. And not the heavy set hirsute gay male kind. No this was a bear, and difficult to bear. Nothing bad mind you but just a bit of a funk. And my co-workers seemed to be feeling quite the same way.

It wasn’t so bad, since I slept well while Bill was doing his best Ralph Kramden imitation in Atlantic City. I was the dutiful Alice at home.

I made coffee and actually went to the supermarket to get cereal which I had run out of and since it was on sale I was able to get 2 boxes for $3.00 which is a deal indeed. Then picking up some of my dry cleaning before heading home for a breakfast of cereal and coffee, in tandem, not together.

Out of a desire not to watch First Look NY on TV I went out and caught the bus. A nicely paced walk up Ninth Avenue, buying some organic cookies which I shared with some of my co-workers. But I saved most of the cookies for myself instead of giving them all away like I’ve been doing.

It was a beautiful day outside once again. A Spring/Autumn like day, sun shining, a nice cool breeze. Lot’s of people out of town and a lot of people from out of town took their place. The area was really not too crowded, at least inside.

Perhaps there were a lot of bedbugs as an infestation has been reported nearby.

It was certainly slow at the cigar shop. The usual playful bitchiness was going on between myself, Raymond, Don Birch & Sean. By this time Bill had made it home and was sleeping the sleep of bus drivers.

I went out for lunch and had a nice phone chat with Annemarie telling me the latest tales of the Humboldt County scene. After the phone call with Annemarie I sat on a bench near the park and read Pop: The Genius of Andy Warhol which I had ordered through the BCCLS system.

I had to return the Leo Castelli biography (just as he had gotten to Manhattan after World War II) since it was due back on Monday and not renewable. Andy Warhol is a fun read and yet it has nothing that I hadn’t read before. Just the same sentences & names in a different order.

Made it back to the shop where headaches both real and imagined ensued. Nothing insurmountable but it did include one instance of me telling Raymond that I resented him for something that he had said. A misunderstanding on his part but a misunderstanding that got under my skin and laid eggs.

It took a while for things to clear up and I had to put him in his place. Like I wrote, the day was a bear and this was the most bearish part. I don’t feel like writing about it in detail but I will say I was right and Raymond was wrong.

There was a sweet moment in the day. A woman came into the cigar shop, en route to a party. She was an attractive woman and needed to buy some cigars for a birthday present for a friend of hers. I made a recommendation and she went for it.

I offered to wrap the gift and we chatted. She was single and tired of looking for Mr. Right. I told her to stop looking and she said that she had. I suggested that she consciously stop looking and he might appear. She looked pretty good, in a nice dress as I told her of the civil union Bill and I had a few months ago and the celebration last month.

She enjoyed the story and really enjoyed me telling her that she was wearing a really nice dress (and she was). I also told her my old adage that straight men will undress a woman with their eyes, whereas a gay man will dress them with their eyes.

She laughed as I finished wrapping her gift and I wished her a good night and a happy birthday since she was turning 40 in 4 days. I also told her this could be her year. I think I helped make her night that much better and I really enjoyed doing so.

Now I am home, writing this. I have a day off tomorrow and then 5 days of work. I won’t be writing tomorrow unless there is something extraordinary to write about, and I certainly hope there won’t be.

It’s my day off goddammit.