Category Archives: Shed a tear

Mr. Lee

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Well today was the day of the interview. Not much to report on. Just met with a staffer at an agency. They check you out before sending you to the actual company. Then the company interviews you and then makes their decision.

The only drawback I can see if the fact that they are asking for a college diploma, ideally a bachelor’s degree and I did not go to college due to my loathing of education.

If you think I’m smart, it isn’t because of schooling. It’s more from the people I’ve met and things that I’ve read on my own. Obviously I don’t recommend this for everyone. I don’t regret not going to college, but I wonder what those college graduates who are presently jobless might be thinking.

The interview went well I think though. Met with Peter Lee since the original person I was supposed to meet was out today. We clicked I think and he mentioned that if this doesn’t happen, then he would keep me in mind for other positions that might come up.

I think they’re connected through the New York State Department of Labor so they might get a kick back if they can place someone in a job somewhere. The job was originally posted through their Paramus NJ offices and when Peter mentioned that I was ready to say I can’t work in Paramus.

But no, the job is at 38th Street and Fifth Avenue. I do have to take a skill test which Peter sent to my email. That’s a bit nerve wracking even without the pressure. Of course it all boils down to confidence and that is something I generally lack.

I’m going to wait until Bill comes home so he can bolster my spirits and perhaps give me a nudge in the right direction while I do the test. He’s been so good lately with his belief in me (though he always believes in me, a lot more than I believe in myself) and I can say that without him I’d more than likely be lost.

I have given advice to various people in the past advising them to stop beating themselves up, the world is always more than willing to do that to them. And of course I have difficulty in following my own advice leaving me with the wringing of my hands, the scratching of my head and an overall sense of uselessness.

With all that on my mind it’s no surprise that I didn’t sleep to well last night. I was tired enough but couldn’t really sleep too well due to the fact that Bill’s sleep apnea mask was making some noise which kept waking me up.

At some point I did ask him to take the mask off. He heard me ask him that but still slept with the mask on.

I did eventually get a couple of hours of sleep once Bill went to work. And then’s when I had a dream about my father. And it wasn’t a bad dream.

I never dream of him as far as I can remember but it started out with my brother Brian cleaning the front of 13 Riverview, where we used to have bushes. I went into the house where I saw my father and gave him a hug.

He was talking to someone about me, saying that I used to be called Idaho John since that’s where I was conceived (?) but now that I go out with men of color (that would be Bill) I’m now called Black John.

Yes it was a weird dream and I quite sure I wasn’t conceived in Idaho in any event.

Just got a phone call from the previous job. My replacement was asking me about the dimensions of a glass table piece that was broken last year. As if I carry that info around. I never had the info to begin with and suggested she get a tape measure and measure it herself.

Such knuckleheads they be.

It's me

It's me

This Charming Man

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Just woke up from a dream, where I was on the phone with a former co-worker. She’s been out of work too and there wasn’t too good a connection so I had to ask her a few times what she had just said. In the dream I was in the apartment and walking through the kitchen and all of a sudden there was a water leak from somewhere where there isn’t any pipes or anything like that.

Just thought it was odd and it’s what actually woke me up from a fairly deep sleep of about a hour.

The day has been OK. Last night was cool too. Last night was watching Olbermann and then Radio Days with Bill. Funny thing is, when I first saw Radio Days in 1986 I didn’t much care for it. It was good, but I thought it was too treacly.

Too close to Neil Simon territory for me. It wasn’t until a few years later did I realize that it’s probably one of Woody Allen’s best. Seth Green was excellent in in. I wonder whatever happened to him?

We totally bypassed the news and watched instead 30 Rock from the other night. That had to be one of the funniest episodes ever, if only for Alec Baldwin on the subway. He had the panhandler spiel down pat.

It was hilarious, not to demean panhandlers of course. At least the ones who actually need to beg for money, not the scam artists.

It was 11:30 when Bill decided it was the best time to start shredding papers. That was a bit unnerving. I wound up going to be around 1:00, leaving Bill to watch Colin Ferguson with Ewan McGregor alone. I did catch the Pixies on Conan O’Brien and they were actually pretty good. Looked like they all were getting along too.

Never quite got into the Pixies though even after I’d seen them at McSwells. Slept well and woke up to see Bill shredding some more paper. The room was more crowded than it was before I went to sleep. Bill was off for some physical therapy, deep tissue massage for his knees.

I went out and got the paper and some bagels. Nothing for the third floor family though. Bill came home with his own bagels and eventually did what he does all the time with his bagels. He puts them in the oven until their charred and then he eats them.

Drives me crazy and stinks up the apartment with the odor of burnt bread. He’s a strange one that Bill, but I can’t help but love him. Despite that, with each gnaw of a burnt bagel I climbed the wall an inch or two.

I decided to head into the city just to get away. A walk around midtown on a Saturday afternoon. No one around except tourists and they were easy to avoid.

I hadn’t had a cigar in a while so I bought one at Barclay Rex and wandered around. It wasn’t as exciting as it sounded though and soon enough, I was on the Path train heading back home to Hoboken.

Bill was off driving to Atlantic City today and isn’t coming back until tomorrow. So no burnt bagels tonight.