Wonderful World Beautiful People | johnozed

A Saturday in the cigar shack. I had to open today which was not so bad. Last night, a mellow night at home spent with Bill. Watching TV mainly as well as a few laughs as usual. I love him so much, he really is a good guy. I would be so lost without him and I can be sure that he feels the same way about me.

We’re going into our 12th year together and mainly it’s been a lot of fun. He is renting a Zipcar and I will meet him and Rand & Lisa at Journal Square, where from there we will head to Chaz’ party. Bill was up before me yet again this morning, asking if I wanted to get up at 7:30. Since it was 7:20 and the alarm did not go off by then I must have given him the look of ‘what the fuck are you doing?’.

He scurried off and 10 minutes later I got out of bed. He was situated in front of the TV, watching the Today Show. I shuffled on by, making coffee before stepping into the shower. Soon I was at the bus stop waiting for my 8:30 bus. After a stop to get an egg sandwich I continued my way up the avenue to the cigar shack. Where it was 14 degrees the other day, today it is going to be close to 60 degrees. Quite nice again.

I was 10 minutes early and set about starting up things in the shack. A few minutes later I hear someone opening the door to the cigar shack and to my surprise it was Bradley. I asked what he was doing in so early and apparently he had forgotten that he was not due in for another 2 hours. So instead of going out and enjoying the very pleasant morning, he sat in the man cave with an extremely regular customer until his shift started. I didn’t really mind, it was not busy for at least the first 90 minutes.

Tonight is Chaz’ party. It should be fun, especially since Kathe will be there as well as possibly Connie. Not that it wouldn’t be fun without them,it’s just that I hadn’t seen either of them in quite some time. Well, besides seeing Kathe at the Path train, I hadn’t seen Connie since Bill and I had our civil union party at Maxwells in the summer of 2010.

I also feel really good today. Perhaps I turned a corner, perhaps something good is going to happen. In any event I am going with the good feeling for as long as I can, for as far as it will take me. I will be taking lunch in a half hour.

It’s nice enough to spend the lunchtime outdoors, but then again some food would be nice and that would make it an indoor thing. I suppose I have enough time to make up my mind sooner or later.

Just got home from a really fun party. Too many Lowenbrau! And one hidden Amstel!

Little Anthony and the Imperials – Shimmy Shimmy Coco Bop

I won the Mega Millions the other day. $2.00 which is $2.00 more than I had when I first walked into Hoboken Daily News. Now I just have to get the remaining $999,998 and I should be set. I can wait, but hopefully it won’t be too long.

Today has been a day off. Nice and sunny, it made for a beautiful autumn day. I planned on getting up early, but not as early as it was when I woke up to Bill going through his laundry as I lay sleeping. Who knew folded clothes in a bag could be so noisy?

Bill left wearing clean clothes and kissed me goodbye as I lay trying to go back to sleep. I intended to get up even earlier than I do when I have to work but of course that is not how things turned out. I slept a few minutes later than I usually do. Not that I am complaining, I do enjoy my sleep.

So I got up, made some coffee and showered. I emailed an associate of the do nothing counselor Joe Monaco who Joe arranged a meeting with. I had big plans and I know I could have worked it all out with some hustling but I didn’t need the stress. Plus I had a lot of laundry to do.

After a cuppa I headed to the supermarket to get some items that we were running low on. Not too many people roaming the aisles, no rock stars (Ira!) suggesting I buy organic milk so I was in and out in no time.

Came home and had a nice breakfast and started on the laundry. Three loads altogether, and after it was done I headed out into a beautiful afternoon. A stop at the bibliothèque to pick up two books I requested on impulse. The Letters of Samuel Beckett 1929-1940 and a bilingual edition of Waiting for Godot/En Attendant Godot.

I keep going back every now and then to Samuel Beckett for some reason. He is/was stimulating. I planned on heading into the city to visit Occupy Wall Street, the encampment down on Liberty Street by the World Trade Center. I made plans to meet Jimmy Seltzer there.

On the way to the Path train I stopped by the Guitar Bar and said hello to Mr. Wonderful, Jim Mastro. Jim is on Letterman tonight playing behind Garland Jeffries so I definitely plan on catching that. I stopped off and bought a few pounds of bananas for the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

They’ve been out there for weeks and could use the food, and most everyone likes bananas. And they are good for energy, stave off the blues and help prevent nasty leg cramps in the middle of the night!

The Path train from Hoboken to the World Trade Center is remarkably fast, must faster than it is to Christopher Street and midtown. It being a Friday afternoon, quite a few people were leaving work early, and there were also a lot of tourists as well as hawkers of 9/11 memorabilia.

I called Jimmy Seltzer once I followed the sound of the drums to the demonstration and we met up. He was with a co-worker who split after a few minutes leaving Jimmy and me to walk around and chat. I took a few pictures of the people and their signs.

Jimmy soon headed back to work and I hung about for another hour. I thought I would see someone I knew but didn’t. Once again they must have seen me first. I decided to head uptown and take the bus. In midtown I ran into my old pal Jesse and we talked for a few minutes.

After that I was in the queue at the bus terminal. I nabbed a seat as the bus filled up and once again stared at my smartphone. At one point I looked up, past the heads of people seated in front of me and saw a young woman who looked a lot like Lily Mastro.

I texted her and she eventually scanned the bus and saw me. I waved and decided to get off the bus a few stops after mine and walked her to the Guitar bar where she was meeting up with her father. We hugged once we got on the street, and she’s enjoying college life and majoring in Biology.

After using the loo in the Guitar Bar I left my faux daughter with her real father and headed home. It was a good day off and a great day out spent with some really nice people.