Well, I guess today should have been the day filled with apprehension as I was apprehensive for too much of the day. It was a type of ‘why me’ day. A client came into the office this afternoon. He met someone from the company yesterday on the street outside the building. The someone he met with suggested that his assistant who was also there set something up for him in the future.

The future was today. He showed up and as usual, I was respectful and trying to figure out wo was supposed to see. I asked him for the name of the person he met with yesterday he didn’t know. I asked if it was a white guy and he looked at me blankly. He mentioned a woman and I asked if he knew her name but of course, he didn’t.

I got his name and entered it into the system. He was in the system and there was a name attached to that page. I contacted the name on the page and the name on the page did not know who I was talking about since he was not the guy that met with this client on the sidewalk. There are other steps that I took but no one was really helpful.

They were able to tell me to take the steps that I had already taken which brought me to that point so that was something. Finally, the woman who did meet with this client showed up and brought him to another floor.

The woman who usually fills in for me when I get my break was out today and her replacement was to be a woman from the other side of the world who has stated that she was afraid of me. Knowing that, I was all set to vanish when she arrived but her terror was so great that she did not have to. Instead, the young woman who misquoted me in July was going to do it which made me feel quite uneasy.

In any event, I had a good cigar all set as I walked up blocks away from the office to sit in my usual spot on Thomas Street and just wonder what the hell am I doing. As I approached my spot I saw a homeless man splayed out on the steps. I could have sat there a few feet away but decided not to.

Instead, I stood about 50 feet away and enjoyed what I could. Then to my right, about 20 feet away, I hear a loud voice spouting some sort of noise and then he was 3 feet away and staring right in my face. I clutched my metal water bottle in case I would need to use it as a weapon but after a few uncomfortable seconds, he continued on his way when I felt something under my collar.

It was one of those moths that people were instructed to kill. I got it out of my collar but was too put off to kill it as it flew off. Then across the street, a van was unloading something. The van’s radio was quite loud. It was not music playing but rather a radio talk show about how great god is and how life would be better if we loved their god. The god who demands love and respect and will kill you if you do not love and respect that god.

There was no relief on this break and I walked back to my building’s entrance on Murray Street finishing a pretty good cigar while not really enjoying it. There is no one to talk to about his job.

I do talk to Bill but that is at the end of the day and by that time I am trying to forget it. Bill offers his ears and I try to take advantage of those ears but today I was just a jumble of words. It has to be me, it can’t be everyone else.

I glanced at some job listings on my phone before I headed back to my desk. Let’s face it, the youngsters in my office generally see me as an angry old white man.

If the orthopedic shoe fits…

After four days off, it was back to work today. There was not much apprehension, as I woke up in an OK mood following a good night’s sleep. Bill was up already of course, making coffee and staying out of the way as I shuffled to the shower. And about 45 minutes later I was on the street, resuming the routine that I have ably performed for the past couple of years.

I have a few routes to take to the Path train and I took a somewhat scenic one, a block from the Hudson River after a stroll downhill through Stevens Park. I opted for the empty train rather than get on the train that was a bit crowded and about to leave.

I am almost finished with the Nick Cave issue of Mojo. I can only wonder what other people think when they see Nick Cave looking polite on the cover. Then again these people stare at their phones so not much at anything that is not on a screen. It was a good issue, just the Questions page and the last page to go in that issue, then it’s on to the Bob Dylan issue.

That is what I read during the morning ride, in the afternoon it’s usually a book. Now I am reading interviews with Stephen Sondheim. It’s a fine read, Sondheim is tolerating the interviewer who is writing for the New Yorker which never really treated Sondheim right.

The last bit I read involved Sondheim, Meryl Streep, and the interviewer at the American Museum of Natural History for a P.E.N. gala. Lot’s of in jokes between Sondheim and Streep, leaving the interviewer on the outs seemingly.

At work today there were about a dozen or so Birthday messages and that was nice. Yes, I noticed that my supervisor’s supervisor didn’t do any such thing like that though I did send him a birthday greeting when it was his birthday in August. C’est la ve I reckon, not everyone can rise to the wonderfulness that is me.

Yes I actually wrote that. Tongue in cheek with Bill in my ear. Do I have a new attitude towards this job? I can’t really say. As I wrote earlier, there was no apprehension. There is still the thought in the back of my mind that if it’s going to happen, if they’re going to let me go, then they should do it and get it over with. I won’t be happy about it but it beats this cruel charade that has been going on since July 9.

But if it was hard looking for work in my fifties, it certainly won’t be easier now I am in my sixties. The thing is, I sometimes see job listings and think, ‘Oh I can do that’ but the cold water in the face is ‘Who is going to hire someone in their sixties?’ I should not have watched Robert de Niro and Anne Hathaway in The Intern. I didn’t see the whole movie but enough to give me an idea of a silly little hope.