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I Believe in the Man in the Sky

OK, its 10:19 and I just got home a few minutes ago. It hasn’t been such a bad day. ‘Always room for improvement’ which is what I say lately when someone asks how I’m doing. And of course, there is always room for improvement.

Last night Bill came home from the play Ankhst, feeling sick as a dog and holding a bottle of Nyquil. I prefer to go to bed after Bill goes to bed and he was waiting for the Nyquil to kick in. I suggested that as usual he would fall asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but he didn’t see it that way.

Being sick, he did not think it would work. I waited for him to go to sleep before I joined him in bed. He was wearing his mouth guard to help prevent his snoring, but of course by the time I made it to bed, he was snoring. I nudged him, told him out loud he was snoring but it had no effect.

He snored all night, leaving me to wake up crabby and without enough sleep. He was apologetic when I told him before heading off to work at the cigar shack, and said he would make sure it didn’t happen tonight.

After last week’s debacle with work, someone (perhaps drunkenly) putting the wrong hours into the wrong Excel spreadsheet cell, I was a bit anxious to get to work on time. The bus arrived as it should have and I sat in the back watching the bus get more crowded at each stop.

No one I knew on the bus and there hardly ever is, so I stared out the window as we drove past the Burlington Coat factory, the site of my excursion yesterday. We were at the bus terminal in no time and I strolled through, headed to the subway.

Some guys singing Tracks of My Tears, accompanied by a stand up bassist. They sounded good enough to warrant me throwing a dollar in their collective hat. I was soon inside the cigar shack, working with Calvin and Thomas, the new guy.

Thomas used to sell shirts and suits and now he’s selling cigars. A safety net made of tobacco I suppose, caught me and now it caught Thomas. Calvin was in the humidor and to my surprise in walked Donald the K, someone I used to work with and who I’ve been corresponding with lately.

It was good to see him and it seemed he was happy to see me. He and his wife are now empty nesters and lately they find themselves strolling the shopping area on weekends. It was a brief visit and I told him I would call him later next week.

Thomas was fun to work with and the cigar shack was fairly busy. With three of us working, that meant I was actually able to leave the cigar shack for an hour for lunch. Been a while since I was able to do that. It really breaks up the day.

I was even able to go to the internet café and do whatever it is that I do online for 10 minutes. Now I’m home again, Bill is still in the play. He told me they cut the play from 3 hours to 2.5 hours including the 10 minute intermission. I just hope he is feeling better.

Tomorrow is Sunday and so I don’t think I will be writing. Unless there is something to write about. And I have my doubts that there will be. But I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.

It’s all so Bala Cynwyd sometimes, isn’t it? I blame the solar storm.

I’ll Never Smile Again

No three day weekend here. For some it was President’s Day weekend and today being a Monday made for a federal holiday. Oh how I remember those 3 day weekends. It isn’t easy trying to avoid looking at the past but sometimes it pops up and I have to wonder where did I go wrong?

Well its official, Putnam Lovell is no more, they’ve been sold off by Jeffries, the company that snapped up a few former employees and friends, especially dear Brenda, such a sweetie and a dedicated worker. She sent me an email and I called her a few days later and left a voice mail but I haven’t heard from her since.

Also thought about Wolff Olins. How I despised that place and now I look back and think it wasn’t so bad. I’m sure things might be different if I did not find the memo describing my job as needing 2 people to do it. They knew it and had no problem running me into the ground.

I was so cut off from most everyone that I had no real connection to anyone. And the ones I was connected to had left soon after I did.

Yesterday I worked at the cigar shack and the Bradley was in good form. He didn’t pick up the fact that I quoted him almost word for word before I left on Saturday, asking him if he was mad at me, as if that would be the reason that he wasn’t talking to me.

Yesterday he talked and was relatively amusing. Today I woke up to find that it had snowed overnight. That didn’t make me very happy, in fact I said ‘Fuck’. It would have been nice to be off today but that’s not how it works. I got out of bed and released some water and then decided to go back to bed with the TV on, so I would drift off too far.

Then I got out of bed a little before 9:00, one less thing I had to do was done. Made coffee, poured cereal and showered. I was dressed and out on the street after 10:00, walking up to the bus stop to catch the 10:30 bus. It did not arrive.

I called Bill and he checked the schedule, everything should have been running on time. I used the ‘My Bus’ program on my cellphone and that told me there would be a bus at 10:50. At 11:00 I headed to the Path train.

The train was crowded with other bus riders, all unhappy from having to go to work on a federal holiday as well as having to stand for the ride into the city. That’s one of the main reasons I don’t take the Path train. I like to sit as I commute.

I could have caught the B or D train when I was finally in the city but opted for the N or the R train. I’m more comfortable with those trains, even though that drops me off about 2 blocks from the cigar shack, where the B or D train would drop me off right outside the shack.

I called Bill once I was headed to the shack and he couldn’t understand why I would take the N or the R. I was frustrated, he was confused and it started to get heated. It cooled off considerably once I called him back a few minutes later.

Overall I was a half hour late, me ‘Mister I Hate Being Late’. The day went well, the Bradley was OK to work with, actually funny again. Of course that could all change tomorrow, which isn’t here yet.

I did meet Larry Gatlin today. He’s a country singer from the Gatlin Brothers and I also met Jane Wenner, former wife of Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone. Both of them were quite nice.

It wasn’t so bad a day.