What’s it doing outside? | johnozed

It’s been a very nice day off today. I slept really well finally. Still it would have been nice to have been off on a Saturday or Sunday (or maybe a weekend) like most people but I suppose it’s a tradeoff. I have five days off coming up and I am looking forward to them.

My sister will be in town and my nephew Earl might also be around. There will be time spent away from Manhattan, away from Hoboken which is something to anticipate. I just have to get through Thursday and Friday and it should be fine.

I spent a lot of time indoors today, throwing things out. Newspapers and other things, and lots of shredding was done. Still there is more to shred but I paced myself in the 90 degree heat. I found out yesterday that my former roommate William is in the hospital with a collapsed lung as well as fluid. I hope to pay him a visit if he is still in the hospital.

There is still some affection for him after 11 years of living together. It wasn’t all a bed of roses and we did have major fights, with the underlying theme of one trying to get the other out. I left voluntarily after finding an apartment thanks to Julio and moved back to Hoboken, specifically Julio’s now former building.

I found the Weehawken abode through William’s brother Charlie, whom I write about here as Chaz. Chaz saw the apartment on Jane Street via Blankie Blank. I knew Blankie Blank from Maxwells, one time even giving her a ride home when I still lived in Lodi.

The apartment was something of a fixer upper and that was too much for Chaz and his wife. He knew I was living in a crappy situation in Lodi and mentioned it to me. Chaz suggested that I check it out and maybe think of having William as my roommate since he was due back from Mexico and had no real place to stay.

One night I ran into William who had just gotten back from south of the border just that minute and told him about it. He was interested and I made the arrangement to check it out. We liked what we saw and that night made a deal with Blankie Blanks mother & father.

They lived on the second floor of the joined building in 129. William and I were taking the second floor on 127 with Blankie Blank and her brother Toatly living underneath our floorboards. There were ups and downs in the 11 years.

A major event occurred when William’s then girlfriend Monica believed William when he told her he was going to kick me out. Monica and I went head to head and William hid in his part of the apartment. Needless to say Monica never set foot in the apartment again, as far as I knew.

I’m sure I was no saint either and that William has his tales about me.

I’d be disappointed if he didn’t.

A day off and it’s been somewhat busy. After shaking off the strange dream of me trying to kill Rosemary’s Baby I got out of bed and started my day. I woke up with I Can See For Miles by the Who in my head.

A shower, a shave, some breakfast and coffee and soon I was off to the bibliothèque to find out what the hell is going on with my library card. I dropped off some CD’s last week and they were still on my card and in danger of being late. Bob Dylan’s Witmark Demos (Volume 9 of the Bootleg Series), The Scissor Sisters Night Work, the Jimi Hendrix Experience- Are You Experienced and the motion picture soundtrack of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. The quite helpful librarian took a look and saw they were back in stock and dutifully removed them from my online library card. I love my bibliothèque.

From there it was off to the supermarket to buy groceries. Then it was home for a spell, did some cooking for tonight as well as for the week and also made some tuna salad for lunch for when I go back to work tomorrow and the days following.

Right now it looks like a major storm is approaching from the west. Yesterday, one of the bright spots in the day of staring into the abyss was seeing a hawk flying above the border of Hoboken and Weehawken, above the area called the Shades, in the shadow of Troy Tower. It took a few seconds to recognize it as a hawk and not merely a sea gull and yes it was majestic to watch. It was the high point of my day. I neglected to write about it and wish I had a taken a photograph of it.

And now it is raining.

I was also thinking about my education today and why I didn’t continue onto college. Would things have turned out differently? Probably. I had 13 years from kindergarten to senior year of high school which was mainly spent trying not to fail and get a passing grade.

I remember in junior year of high school, Sister Reginald telling the class that we were there because we had to be, but when we continued onto college there would be no one forcing us to go to class. Me being the type of person to not do something that he doesn’t want to do, had an epiphany and realized that it would be a waste of money since I loathed education and more than likely would be skipping classes.

For some reason I also remember a classmate, Don Francis being made to stand out in the hallway for something that he had done and slowly unzipping his zipper with a smile on his face while staring at me in class as he looked through the door. Don Francis left my school that year and I never saw him again though perhaps if he told me to go to college with him I might have, even though I believe he was straight.

So from Mrs. Burson to Mrs. Talamini to Sister Carla to Sister Reginald I did not enjoy school, going through it with much difficulty and when I graduated high school it made more sense to go from part time to full time working for Harcourt Brace Jovanovich where I worked in the college department and read a lot of the books on my own time that my classmates were paying hundreds of dollars to own.

Who knows, perhaps they bought the books I had already read. In any event, I don’t have any regrets about not continuing my education and with the employment situation today and knowing a few college and university graduates who are currently out of work it doesn’t seem to make much of a difference anyway.

And still I delete hundred, perhaps thousands of spam subscribers to this here blog. It’s an ongoing process and if I don’t stay on top of it, it turns into several pages of names and email addresses to be deleted. I don’t know what will happen if I do not delete, but I am more comfortable with the three subscribers that I have.

So thank you Rand, HarbCard and Denali Kid for subscribing. And I guess some recognition should also go to lazy teat Greg who reads this blog every day. Well scratch Denali Kid off the list. Just sent an email and it came back as undeliverable.