johnozed

Another decent day at the cigar shack. Does this mean tomorrow won’t be? I can’t say. It’s been fun working with Thomas once again. We bust each other’s chops all day long. Tomorrow Bradley will be in the mix therefore changing whatever chemistry exists between Thomas and myself. Maybe. It’s all speculation.

It’s been a long day nonetheless. I slept really well last night and have been getting up earlier than I had been. Slept too late earlier in the week and had to rush around, which I would rather not do. 15 minutes makes all the difference. Thomas has headed home for the day, after getting his craft beer.

Now it’s me and Jerry Vale doing his Maria Eftimiades imitation. Actually he isn’t. I just wanted to throw her name in the mix since it popped into my head the other day. She was an editor at People magazine when I worked there in the late 1990’s. She playfully smacked me on the arm when she overheard me talking to Pedro on the phone, talking about chicks.

She was shocked to hear that. She is probably in deep shock now that the word chicks is being used everywhere, even by women. When she playfully smacked me, I told her to consider the alternatives. No harm was intended by the use of the word and of course, no chicks were harmed in the writing of such a line.

It’s a summer evening on a Friday, the area of the cigar shack is quiet now. Not much foot traffic. Not much of anything actually. One hour to go for me, then I’ll go home, sleep for a few hours and then come back for some more. It’s OK. It’s a job, not an adventure.

Jimmy Seltzer graciously invited me and Bill out to the Hamptons. It doesn’t seem likely with our schedules being all over the place. I told that to Jimmy and he said it would be fine if I went out there by myself on a weekday.Mr & Mrs Seltzer wouldn’t be there and I could have the place to myself. That is an extremely gracious offer from Jimmy Seltzer and I would love to take him up on it. I’ve never been out to the Hamptons anyhow.

Less than an hour to go now. I might as well do something rather than stare at the few stragglers passing by the cigar shack. And now I’m home again, back on the mainland. It was a fast hour at the shop, Jerry Vale regaling me with stories about seeing Led Zeppelin in Chicago in the 1970’s. He’s only 7 years older than I am and seems much older.

He’s trying to keep his head above water while working part time in the cigar shack. He doesn’t know how to deal with Thomas and myself and since Bradley acts like he’s the boss, Jerry Vale falls in line with whatever it is Bradley has to say.

I am just glad to be home. One more day until a day off. Hooray for me.

Wow. It’s Thursday. It’s interesting for me at the cigar shack. There are days when I feel I have a grip on things and I think things will be alright, then I go in the next day and all that is forgotten and tossed in the rubbish pile. Today is one of those days.

Yesterday was good, me and Calvin and joined by Jerry Vale, then today with Bradley & Thomas. Thomas is great, Bradley has the amazing propensity to be a pain in the tuchis.

Just had an interesting chat with Jimmy Seltzer who basically schools me on matters economic. He says things are going to get worse than they are now. I can see it, I can feel it. I used to look at Don and Raymond and wonder how they could work in the cigar shack for two years, and now I find myself in the same position.

No, it hasn’t been two years but I am over one year. That is simply the situation I find myself in. The mantra continues ‘at least you have a job’. Some people don’t. Some people are still looking. Danny the K and Greg Stevens have not responded to my email. It’s disappointing but what can you do?

More disappointing is the twenty something young man who was so fucking self absorbed, he wouldn’t move half an inch so someone could sit next to him on the bus. He was so fucking engrossed in whatever stupid game he was playing on his cellphone. A regular C U Next Tuesday type.

I was the unlucky guy to try to sit in the seat next to him. Oh how I wanted to punch him in the skull, but instead decided on saying ‘wanker’ when he got off the bus at 14th and Washington. He probably didn’t hear me and if he did he didn’t know I was talking about him, or more than likely did not know what a wanker was. Go ahead, look it up, I’ve got time.

It could have been a better day, but it wasn’t. Calvin was out of the cigar shack most of the day, attending a meeting across town. When he did eventually came back he was all doom and gloom which did not help matters in the cigar shack with Thomas and myself. Bradley usually plays the role of being aloof so how he felt was relatively unknown.

On August 22, the staff has to meet at 8AM across town to renew our tobacconist licenses. I don’t have a tobacconist license and frankly I wasn’t looking to get one. Perhaps I should. It doesn’t look like I am going anywhere else really.

A friend of former co-worker Raymond stopped by, Frank. Nice guy, he’s been out of work for nearly three years, and he has a wife and kid to support. He was looking to buy a gift for someone and after looking at a few items, said he would come back another time.

Before that I had to look at pages of what might be ordered for the store, such expensive items, no one I know would want or buy these things, but I guess a $14,000 humidor is just right for some. It really is a tale of two cities.

Bill just came home from rehearsal. He was feeling ill most of the day, took off from work and slept a lot. I checked in, in the morning and told him I would call again at lunch time. And I did just that, only I got his voice mail at the beginning and ending of my lunch hour.

So he’s alive and able to go to rehearsal, and leave me wondering if I would be coming home to a corpse in the bed. But he’s fine and I guess feeling a whole lot better.