The Drain I Am

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Uncertain Smile The The
Book of Angels Jim White
Ain’t going to take it, Tom Robinson Band

Saturday and Sunday, while walking down Madison Street from the really big supermarket, I noticed about a dozen Robins. Usually, it’s a big thing you make a wish when you see the first one of the spring, but here we are in winter, and I’ve seen at least a dozen or maybe half a dozen on Madison Street

It is Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, back at work after a 3-day weekend. It was a boring three-day weekend, and yesterday, Monday, Martin Luther King Day, it all came together, not necessarily in a good way but in a necessary way.

Mike was supposed to come over and hang out, and of course, something came up that prevented that from happening. It’s always something with his parole officer, that’s the standard excuse, but the latest one was that his front door was broken, so he’s been stuck in the apartment all weekend.

I expressed my disappointment and suggested I come over, but he never responded to that, and then later, when we texted, he said he’s the one who invited me over, and I turned it down, which is not true at all. I think I was getting played, and I still think I’m getting played.

And then I had a talk with Bill about something that happened 15 years ago. Basically, we have a relationship which 98% works fine, 2% does not work, and we get through it. Mike calls it spousal abuse. I said it was more like neglect. Bill mentioned that we will never be in that situation again, which was an ear opener, if not an eye opener.

I was a selfish lover, basically just took care of my own needs and not anyone else’s, which is not a good way to be.

That’s how I had been most of my life. My chickens have come home to roost. I mean, they did come back 15 years ago, and here they made another appearance.

I felt better about it yesterday, talking with Bill today, not so much, but I have smoldering embers to deal with. Both Mike and Bill had suggested that I go elsewhere to find physical satisfaction.

But I am wary. I am 63 years old. I have dodged many bullets in the past, and I don’t want to get in the firing range again, even though they seem to be suggesting that’s what I do.

I think going to the land of the solo sexual is where I best belong. I take care of things myself takes about 15 minutes, no need for rejection or disease control. Perhaps I will also fold into myself and reduce communications with Bill and Mike on matters that concern me.
I certainly don’t want to hear about Mike’s beloved and their plans anymore, even though I will keep hearing about them and cannot actually tell him to stop.

And then there is Bill’s endless spiel, which goes on and on and never stops unfolding. I know I’m not perfect, I’m going to be totally reminding myself that I’m not. They’re also fond of telling me that I keep forgetting things, which may be so.

Perhaps it’s the early onslaught of Alzheimer’s disease, I wouldn’t know, maybe somebody told me that, and I forgot about it. Things were easier prior to November 2024
Nowadays they are complicated and difficult to get through, perhaps ignorance is bliss, but I was very blissful in 2024, although still unhappy, dealing with the monkeys and assholes Barry McGarry

My cousin Ginger died on Sunday. Her service is on Friday, and I cannot attend. That may have played a part in my state of mind over the past two days, although when I brought it up to Bill, he asked if I was really that close to her, and I had to admit I was not, so that negates anything that I might have been feeling, according to Bill

And now names from the past; today’s names are Carlos Baez, Florence Ligouri, and Diane Maldonado.

Carlos was a forklift driver from the Bronx working in Saddle Brook who was having an affair with Florence Liguori. And went on for a number of years, everybody knew about it, they weren’t hiding anything. Florence adored Barbra Streisand, and that’s why she answered my question, because I looked up something about Barbra Streisand today.

Things cooled between Carlos and Florence when Diane Maldonado arrived on the scene. Whereas Florence worked in the post office shipping department of the book Warehouse in Saddle Brook, Diane Maldonado was currently installed at the offices on the other side of the building.

Florence was dropped, and Diane was embraced, crushing Florence in the process. Carlos was one of the people who, when he found out that I was gay, was fully disgusted and didn’t have anything to do with me.

Carlos was also an ex-junkie, and according to William Burroughs, there’s no such thing. Once a junkie, always a junkie.

Carlos is more than likely dead and left a wife and kids in the Bronx for a couple of white chicks in North Jersey. He was a scumbag, attempted to take a higher moral ground, and judged me because I was gay.

Uptown Uptown Uptown

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9:00 a.m. on January 16th, 2026. It is bitterly cold outside. The wind cuts you like a knife, the cliche wielded with errant caution.

An incident involving my father just popped into my head from the center of 1991, 35 years ago. Despite everyone warning me not to, I lived with my father after my mother passed away, and figured he had been a change band as we all had been, but that was not to be the case.

I gathered a lot of material and possessions and had them stored in the basement of my parents’ house, and my father, having not much to do, wandered into the basement and saw various items, including a mixtape that Jet Watley had created named after an Iggy Pop song, “I got my cock in my pocket.”

My father saw the tape and was furious and felt I was disrespecting my mother by owning a cassette with that name. I was fairly certain then, as I am now, that my mother would not have cared.

It is the Friday of a three-day weekend, and most everyone is happy about that. I know I am. I was in bed by 11:00 and slept soundly, waking up at 6:17, 8 minutes before the alarm clock went off. So I gave myself a head start.

Mike is occupied with his beloved, and Bill is on the road due to return tomorrow, the day that Mike’s beloved heads back to the West Coast. Bill remarked that Mike has no sense of direction, and it’s true. They had a plan, Mike and his beloved, to visit the Statue of Liberty, so they took the PATH train to the World Trade Center and found it to be too cold, so they opted to go to Times Square

But Mike did not know how to get to Times Square, so he called m,e and I told him we could take any train from down there to 42nd Street, which would get him to Times Square. But he could not understand if it was uptown or downtown, and I had to remind him that it was uptown, uptown, uptown.

The same thing happened last Friday when he wound up in Brooklyn after getting on the wrong train; instead of going uptown, he went downtown and wound up in Brooklyn.

Mike and his beloved had dinner at a BBQ in Times Square, as well as seeing the third Avatar movie. Bill and I saw the first Avatar movie and did not like it, not because of the movie, but because it was an IMAX and we were in the first row, so it was very uncomfortable, and we had difficulty following the plot. We are so uninterested that we never thought anything about it again.

Remembering a conversation with my brother Brian a few weeks ago, thinking about how he was told that he was not fired because of the regard in which my mother was held. Larry Ioli told him that. Larry could usually be found before work at the hilltop tavern on Essex Street getting an eye opener before heading into the office. He was one of those managers who was thrown out after being caught embezzling for a number of years.

But the name that popped into my mind was Lou Nagy. He was a character from Lincoln Park and drove a forklift. He had a filthy mouth on him that was generally funny if not off-color, and had a Newport hanging out of the corner.

I played guitar for a little while last night and it went quite well I have to say I was inspired by Jeff Buckley and tried to figure out a certain song but as things happened things don’t go in the direction that I intend that something new comes out of it that is what happened last night though I wound up playing Please Please Me by The Beatles my version not as faithful but still key elements were involved

I am really no good on my own. I thought to get in the way, and they’re not very good thoughts. I spoke to Mike earlier; he called me up while his beloved was getting ready to shoot some videos, which is nice, I suppose. And Mike was telling me that he’s so in love with his beloved Dell laptop.

So much so that Mike was saying how he wished he had a Dell laptop rather than the HP that he purchased. I have to admit it pissed me off a bit. Considering that Mike had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the concept of owning a laptop, and now he is envious of his beloved’s laptop.

Beloved also has a hotspot which they’ve been using for Wi-Fi, which made Mike very happy, but Mike hasn’t done anything to get Wi-Fi for his apartment as far as I know. And he’s mainly using the laptop to look at porn, not to increase his computer skills, which would only help him in a job search. No, it’s all about porn.

I was hoping he’d use the laptop to write his poems and his fabled play which I have heard so much about that is stored in his dome but so far don’t say no typing no creativity just a whole bunch of masturbation. But it’s his life and not mine, and he can live it anyway he wants, because that is obviously what he is doing anyway