Category Archives: Mood Mambo

I Hope They Get To Me In Time

A Monday and a day off. Quite nice, overall though there was a bout of despair, earlier in the day. I don’t understand it, I enjoy having a day off but the past 2 times I had a day off I was miserably depressed. Last week I took a Xanax to deal with it, this time I merely got out and walked around.

Last night wasn’t so bad, I was tired enough to go to bed about an hour earlier, like a little before midnight. At 12:20 I was out of bed and surfing the net. I did fall asleep but I was awoken by my own snoring. At the usual time that I go to bed, 1:00 I was able to fall asleep. I slept alright and woke up this morning feeling somewhat rested.

I went out with some shirts for the dry cleaners and a visit to the supermarket, where I saw the mighty Isis on my way out. Coming back home and after breakfast is when the despair crept in. But it was a beautiful day, a bit windy but alright to go out and run the errand I needed to run.

A while back I bought a Timex watch with a leather strap and after wear and tear over time, the leather strap started to fall apart. I held it together with a rubber band but it looked unsightly. Last Friday I was in midtown and stopped by a shoe maker and had the band replaced with a metal band, sort of like a Speidel watch band, but it wasn’t.

I liked it and that was all that mattered. On Saturday while working at the cigar shack, I looked at my watch and saw that the watch band was hanging together by a metal thread. All it took was for me to touch it when it fell apart. I guess I was fortunate that I was standing still and not walking on the street or something like that.

I tried but I could not get it together, unable to connect one part to another since a piece was missing. That meant I spent several moments looking at my wrist and wondering what time it was. Waking up was difficult since I wear the watch to bed and usually check the watch to see what time it is, rather than actually lifting myself from the bed to look at the alarm clock.

So much easier to lay there, one eye open with my trusty Timex watch one inch from my eye so that I could see its face, so blind am I without my glasses.

I anticipated some difficulty with the shoe maker since it was a cash transaction and no receipt was given or asked for. So I took the bus into Manhattan on my day off and walked over to 39th Street, off of Sixth Avenue. I walked in and they seemed busy, but the guy behind the counter sort of remembered me. Must have been the codpiece I was wearing.

I explained what happened and he took the watch and opened up a box filled with metal watch bands. Finding one that best suited my machismo, he set about taking off the old watch band and putting on the new one. It took about all of five minutes and I was soon back on the street where I ran into my old Rasta pal, Jesse.

After a brief chat it was a walk to the Path train which I rode reading Kurt Vonnegut and listening to Carole King on the iPod. It was a beautiful, yet breezy afternoon and I am glad I was able to get out and enjoy it, if only for a short while.

technical ecstasy, what?







04 In Dark Trees

I Found A Love

Well it was back to work for me again today. Back to the cigar shack. Yesterday could have been better but what can you do? Being anti-social, I do not call any friends and I am somewhat relieved when they don’t call me as promised. No hard feelings.

Sean, the former co-worker from the cigar shack is trying to become a corrections officer and I told him I would try to get him in touch with Pedro. But Pedro doesn’t return my calls and Sean never called me like he said. Same thing with Mike C, when I saw him the other day doing volunteer work at the library he mentioned giving me a call, to go over to his place and hang out and listen to music.

No call, no worries. It’s nothing new, I don’t want to see anyone, I don’t want to hang out with anyone, and I don’t want to chat online with anyone most especially. I do not like the fact that my chat room window opens up on Facebook when I prefer it closed.

I don’t have the time to buy frames or photo albums for the pictures I had developed by CVS so I will mail them out next week when I do have the time. The left coast wing knows this already, the east coast wing will find out when I show up empty handed on Saturday night.

I thought I would make some nice gifts from some photos from over the years and I could swear last year when I did the same thing, it did not take that long for them to be shipped. I had them shipped to the CVS near the cigar shack instead of Hoboken so maybe that is the problem. In any event, nothing from this relative until next week.

There’s a picture of my sister in law Elaine with her daughters Meghan and Corinne and I am not sure if I gave them the same picture last year. Bill of course is so supportive and tells me they will see how much I care, how I captured the moment and presented it to them. Nice sentiment, but it doesn’t stop me from looking like a fool if they get the exact same photo that they got the year before.

And speaking of presents, totally out of the blue, the ultra kind and thoughtful Jimmy Seltzer bought me a present. He really did not have to and it was not expected but it should come in handy should I get drafted into the Swiss Army.

It’s been a very long day today and tomorrow promises to be just like today, another eleven hour day, Zack asked if I could come in at 11:30 instead of 12:30 and of course I could not say no. So tomorrow will be long and busy and of course Saturday will be even more insane. I will be closing tomorrow night and opening on Saturday morning.

For me, Christmas is just a day off. I’ll give myself some wiggle room and say that is at least how I feel right now. And I have all those wonderful tracks that Pandora picks out to listen to at work since the playlist of over 200 holiday songs seems to have fallen out of favor. What do I know? I only used to be a DJ. Let some computer faraway decide what to play. Sort of like Clear Channel Communications if you ask me.

You know what? I am not so fond of the holidays anymore, though it does give me an opportunity to see most of my family, if only for a few hours. And hey, I do have Sunday off.

Once again, Julio asked me out for one drink before he flies off to Denmark tomorrow and of course I had to turn him down. C’est la vie.






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