A rainy day and I’m not bitter. I was bitter yesterday and a tad resentful but time heals most wounds and I’m feeling alright. Definitely did not go out and play guitar today, and definitely did not respond to any acting/singing/monologue improvisation suggestions.
Today with the weather and the melatonin, made for getting out of bed quite difficult. I remember Bill leaning over me, kissing me goodbye and telling me how good I looked and then back to sleep, eventually waking up to the sounds of the Electric Light Orchestra singing Telephone Line.
That brought me back to 1976, being in a car with a kid, Paul Gaulvin, who lived a block or so away from me in Rochelle Park. I didn’t know Paul Gaulvin at all and was sort of forced into being his friend by my father who worked with Paul’s father in some capacity.
Paul’s mother was driving us somewhere when Telephone Line came on the radio. The mother was the boss of that household, the father your basic milquetoast. I believe there was an older sister in Paul’s life and they fit the nuclear template quite well, Paul and his sister fighting like cats and dogs.
Ultimately Paul and I never had much in common. We experimented with cigarettes when we were 14 years old and I remember Paul buying a pack of Camels saying that they were good because they had hashish in them.
Though Paul and I went to the same high school, we really didn’t hang out with each other, he was in a smarter class and I wasn’t. I also remember the last time I hung out with Paul, at his graduation party 29 years ago, where I got so drunk that I fell flat on my back.
There I was talking to someone and next thing I knew, I was looking up at the sky. Paul’s mother made sure I got home safely, having Paul and maybe someone else walk me home over the Route 80 overpass. Last night Bill came home just in time to catch the 11:00 news.
He asked me if I had heard from my brother Frank and I said I hadn’t. I fell into the old family trap of ‘I’m always calling him. Why should I call again?’ That in turn prompted a discussion of my family, how things were different for Frank being the oldest and me being the youngest.
Basically, by the time I came of age my parents were tired of raising kids and I was left pretty much to myself. Of course I was also living a double life, a life that my family still doesn’t know about. And that’s probably how it should be.
Somethings are better off unknown.
I do recall telling Frank about some aspect of my growing up and living a secret life and that flipped him out quite a bit. That was then, this is now and I live a quiet life, content to stay at home and watch TV.
And tonight I will be watching the penultimate episode of Lost which will hopefully be an improvement on last week’s episode.
In the hallway
in the rain
