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I Am Not A Human Being

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Yes I am back in the cigar shack. It’s a Thursday. It’s been a slow and steady day, busy enough at the cigar shack. Hyman called a few times, of course I was working and could not take the call.

The good news is that he’s heading to a rehab facility in Manhattan on the Upper East Side, a place for elderly Jewish people of which Hyman certainly is. We will have to be in touch with each other via cellphone until he is on his feet again.

Bumped heads with Thomas earlier but I’d rather not get into that. The manic high that I had been on the past few days is dissipating and returning things to a relative normalcy.

It was a gorgeous and breezy day in which I had a good lunch, enjoying a cigar on a bench near the shack. At the end of the month cigar smoking as well as cigarettes and pipes will be illegal to smoke in the parks, beaches and gathering spaces throughout the five boroughs of New York City.

I will be able to sit on a bench outside the park since I won’t technically be in the park. The smoke may waft over the walls and fences of parks, but that wouldn’t be my problem.

Now I am home. It was a long day, some interesting things happening. Thomas and I had some words. It all happened when Calvin was at lunch. The ever so eager Thomas tries to juggle 3 balls when he can barely handle one.

Thomas asked me to take a call, a call in which he told the caller that Calvin was with a client. No, Calvin was at lunch. I took the call, explaining to the caller that Calvin was unavailable but if they would like I would write down the order and give it to Calvin when he was available.

No, the caller said, I could do the order, it didn’t matter if it was me or Calvin. The caller was a bit of a nightmare, not really knowing what they wanted and me getting exasperated when trying to explain to them what products we had in stock for them.

It wasn’t about cigars, it was about fragrances, which we also sell. I put the caller on hold and went to check on something, passing Thomas I mentioned that this caller was a pain in the ass.

Thomas snapped and said quite tersely that he told me the call was for Calvin. I wasn’t going to have him talk to me the way that he did and snapped back at him, telling him not to get snippy with me. I said it such a manner that it shut him down for a bit.

He’s just so eager to please that if anything gets in his way or threatens to derail his plan he will try to roll right over whatever lay in his path. Things got better afterwards, he’s not the idiot that the brain dead Bradley has shown itself to be.

Calvin had to leave early and it left Thomas and myself to close up. That’s it, end of story.

It was so much easier last night to knock off 1000 words in under an hour than it is to write 500 words in two hours. Strange but true.

In April this here blog had 1,414 visits. The top ten cities are as follows:
1) New York
2) Hoboken
3) Philadelphia
4) Chicago
5) Not Set
6) Lakewood
7) Bilbao
8 Atlanta
9) Eureka
10) Arcata

And the bottom ten, each with one visit:
1) Wyncote
2) Skopje
3) Marlboro
4) Ajax
5) Eagle
6) East Brunswick
7) Darien
8 Homestead
9) Angouleme
10) Ciudad Obregon

Thanks to all readers. I suppose the lurkers and trolls should get some credit somehow.


I Ain’t Hiding

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Today is Iggy Pop’s birthday, and Jim Osterberg is 64 years old. Still has a great body, still rocking the stage with the Stooges. I was reminded just a moment ago about how when I moved in with my father (quite ill advised) and he was going through my stuff in boxes in the basement.

In one of the boxes was a collection of cassettes, including some tapes that my late friend Jet had made for me. One of the tapes was named for an Iggy Pop song on it, I Got My Cock in My Pocket. My father found that tape and was thoroughly disgusted by the name of the cassette.

He made a point of telling me so, by yelling at me and telling what a pervert I was and how my mother would never have stood for something like that. True she might have been upset by the title of the cassette, but she would have gotten over it eventually.

This guy was more focused on just putting me down. After all I was the great disappointment in his eyes. I do have to thank Iggy Pop for pissing my father off like that. Cheers to you Iggy!

Today is also the birthday of Robert Smith from the Cure as well as the drummer for Wire, Robert Gotobed. A great punk rock birthday day which I would not have known about if it weren’t for Facebook.

Last night I slept really well, pillow between my knees providing great relief. The pillows help as does a soft gel of Fish Oil and Ibuprofen in the morning. Bill kissed me good bye and I mustered a smile. I had to concentrate to do such a thing and I think Bill appreciated it, though he says I always smile when he kisses me goodbye in the morning.

I don’t see that, I always feel I am scowling when he wakes me up with words of encouragement and a nice kiss. My knee felt better this morning until I have to descend four flights of steps. Still thinking of looking into workers compensation and according to Bill and a lawyer I know, getting the info sooner rather than later would be for the best. The window for ‘exploiting the system’ will be closing soon and my knee does not seem to be getting better.

I did get a new pair of shoes delivered today, but they went to Julio’s workplace and I will have to get them from him at some point tomorrow. And in my workplace today, it wasn’t so bad. I did pretty good in sales.

Hobbling and limping around might have a place in hustling for sales commissions. “Oh lets buy some cigars from that gimp.”, sometimes said sotto voce as I lead the customer into the humidor, carrying a torch in my hand and a tray to carry cigars while saying ‘Yes Master..’ over and over.

It was Calvin and the brain dead Bradley who was quite miserable today, no Thomas around to make him feel superior and that he was Thomas’ boss. It wasn’t so bad though. The weather was nice and I sat on a bench near the park and enjoyed a cigar and finished last week’s New Yorker.

No time to start writing during the day, so I am writing it all now, at home. Tomorrow is a day off and I found out today that Sunday is a paid holiday. That’s super great.

Because you know, Easter is when Jesus comes out of the tomb and if he sees his shadow, it’s six more weeks of Lent.

I haven’t heard anything about yesterday’s meeting. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe never. Oh well…


a rose for Antonia Mastropeirro