Station to Station

Leave a reply

Well it’s day two of a return to normalcy. Not much to report really. Greg Stevens due to return tomorrow, Vivek the day after. I’ve been doing my best to get along with Tom Chin, mentioning how I plan on running a tighter ship this year which made him wonder what the hell was I doing last year. The proper answer was not much. This year I plan to budget my time, and make sure the receptionist has plenty to do.

Her name is Lydia, she’s originally from Estonia. She’s actually a tennis pro at Greg Steven’s country club and since this isn’t exactly tennis season, in order to prevent her from roaming the winter streets of Southampton, we found a spot for her, just fine and dandy. She’s willing to pitch in, roll up her sleeves and get dirty. If only we had some dirt for her to work with. She seems content with stocking the refrigerator and checking the machines and making sure there is paper in each one. And she’s being schooled on how to make a proper cup of coffee.

I spoke to the woman she replaced the other day, Carla who is doing well at her gig, not so new anymore since it’s been a few months already. We had plans to meet during the holiday season but things being what they were and me being who I was, we decided that soon we’ll meet up for drinks after work. Same thing with Brenda, formerly from Wanker Banker. Drinks promised but never delivered. I didn’t want to sit and bemoan my fate so I avoided drinks with her. I think we are good enough friends to be able to pick up where we left off and have some drinks soon enough.

Since it was in the 60 degree range today and seems to be that way for the rest of the week, this could be the week to do it. But with who? Brenda or Carla? Can’t have them both together since they both want 100% of me. Carla might be in the lead since I actually spoke to her on the phone, and hadn’t spoken to Brenda since last year. And on the contacting friends from the past, thanks to Bill I’ve been re-enrolled in Facebook and in so doing a few friends from McMann and Tate have crept up and invited me to be their friend.

Not all of the knobs from McMann and Tate though, just the cool ones, who are effortlessly cool, not balding pates trying to regain some semblance of being hip by buying high priced Diesel jeans and rolling them up just right. But it’s the nice, cool ones that get my attention and rightfully so. I guess it’s a good way to start out the year, reconnecting with former coworkers, now friends. So here I am, in January sitting next to an open window. Not much of a breeze and it’s quite balmy out.

I ordered a book for someone for Christmas in December via eBay, it didn’t get here in time for the holidays. That’s what you get when you order a $26.00 book for $6.00. But it took almost a month for a book to get from Bellmore Long Island to midtown Manhattan. I’m sure if it wasn’t for my doing some detective work and directly contacting this woman through her email, not via eBay did the trick, or else I’ll still be waiting. So I’m reading the book now, it’s quite good. I won’t mention the title since I plan on giving it to someone once I’m done with it. Then they could give it to someone when they’re done reading it. Nice plan, huh?

And today, David Bowie turns 61, Soupy Sales turns 81.

“Be true to your teeth, or they’ll be false to you”.

Run Through the Jungle

2 Replies

Well it’s officially over, the holiday season. Everyone went back to work today, most everyone went back to school. I’ve decided to adapt to whatever is put before me. I plan on running a tight ship this year, tighter than last year. Hopefully the powers that be will see that. I’m not planning on leaving. It’s a good gig. No more fooling around, nothing but focus focus focus! That’s my mantra this year. The other night at the party while Martha was regaling us with tales of Hollywood, I mentioned the fact that I write a blog.

I didn’t give any info, just that Martha was one of the people back in the day who encouraged me to write. I told her if she needed 750 words the next day I would be able to deliver it. It’s true, I can easily knock off 750 words should the need arise. Picture it, a theater, something goes wrong on stage and the cry goes out, ‘Is there a blogger in the house?’ I leap to the stage, size up the situation, grab someone’s laptop and dash off a pithy monologue which might go a little like what you have just written. Only pithier.

I remembered after the fact that Martha was looking for someone to finance her latest projects, and that I used to work with someone at Wanker Banker who had a background in film and was looking for projects. So I got in touch with Chaz and he gave me Martha’s number and I left a voicemail about what and who I knew, also sent an email to Diane from Wanker Banker about that sort of thing. Who knows? Perhaps anything could happen or nothing could happen. I did my bit however small. Woke up this morning to the news of a bar on fire in Hoboken.

What used to be Fabians, a nice dive bar turned into McSwiggan’s, not a dive bar burned down during the night, not only knocking out the bar but the apartments above it. That’s too bad. The people lost most everything. Not a good way to start the year. It burned for hours. I had gone there a few times when it was Fabians. It was also the spot in 1990 when I had a birthday party with Denise Foster and Allison Lee. We were all born on September 12.

Many drinks were consumed and I drank most everything in front of me to the dismay of Jim Mastro who in my drunken fog came through and warned me about mixing drinks. That was about all I remembered. I was going out with Gus MacKenzie at the time. He turned up late and months later turned into a real jerk. But enough about him. It is a terrible thing that all of those people lost their apartments.

Work was ok today. I trained the new receptionist and rather than inundating Linda with all the tasks expected of her, I decided to give her a little bit each day. I’m a lousy teacher I think. I didn’t have too many good teachers so I’m winging it. She wasn’t in tears when I left so I guess her first day went well. That’s about it from this end. Hopefully things are ok on your side of the computer screen. Peace out/in!

Oh, at 5:14 this afternoon it was 57 degrees. It’s January.

Here’s Phillip Glass for Sesame Street