It was 20 years ago that I worked for Putnam Lovell. Things were going well, and by the end of the year, things would be pear-shaped in 2004. I was in the top 3%. By the end of 2005, I was persona non grata. The writing was on the wall, and I knew I had to leave as other people had left before me.

I jumped from a very corporate financial firm to a laid-back situation at a creative firm, but run by a creative nut like Mariane Sobatini. She was nuts, not very supportive, and she was the woman I reported to. Before going to a company party, I had to go to her apartment where she opened the door nude, and I was nonplussed.

She’d offer me drugs, and I did take them, so there was that. But I didn’t fit in with most of the people; out of 150 people, maybe two or three people I got along with. And I don’t know where they are nowadays, so the connections were quite superficial at best.

It is another gray day in Manhattan on a Monday morning. I got in early enough and found out that I have off on Thursday, which is Juneteenth.
And it’s a paid holiday!!!
That’s something nice.

So I cashed in some favors and added some codes, and took Mike to see the musical Chicago. We wandered through the theater district to get to the theater where we were going but it was a surprise for Mike so he kept thinking we’re going to see this, we’re going to see that when I got very close to the theater with that Hell’s Kitchen was playing I think he thought we were going to see that but that was way out of my price range.

He enjoyed Chicago. The seats were good, and while it was raining on the way there, it had stopped raining when we left the theater. I lit up a cigar and we walked over to 5th Avenue just to have a stroll down to the PATH train. Passing a Barnes & Noble, I suggested he run in there and see if they’re hiring, hoping for some birthday magic on Mike’s behalf.

He went in, came out a minute later said they were not hiring. Then he announced that he did not appreciate me sending him in there on his birthday when he did not want to think about looking for a job. He was greatly upset and let me know. I apologized, stating that was not my intention, I just thought maybe something could happen.

And so another angry discussion with Mike. It had been 72 hours of angry discussions with Mike, and this was the cherry on the cake, albeit a birthday cake. We stopped, we talked, and things did not improve. A list of things of grievances that he had with me was brought out. I explained that the grievances that he has with me, his complaints, but just as easily be applied to him, as that’s how things go, you complain about somebody, and those things that you can complain about can easily be applied to you.

I mentioned that he was very quiet, and he took offense to that. He claims that he’s not the type to go talk, talk, talk when looking down the street, talking about inane things (my choice of words, not his). And he’s so quiet and he tends to walk behind me that when I saw the open door for the PATH train, I took it thinking he was behind me and he was not.

I was in the PATH station when he called, furious that I had abandoned him. He was dead set on going home to his crib rather than coming back to the apartment in Hoboken. That was fine with me because I was getting tired of this.

It was too bad that this happened on his birthday. When we got back to the apartment, we had a couple of hours of therapy where he stated his problems and I stated mine while mainly listening to what he had to complain about. Things got better. I went to bed, he stayed up taking cigar photos and videos for his many admirers.

The next day was somewhat better. We went to the really big grocery store and walked back, and actually had a fun walk back. I guess that was the talk that we should have had after the play, walking to the PATH train. We stayed in, watched a lot of TV, and I took some photos and videos with Mike giving directions.

There was a plan for him to leave this morning and come back tomorrow, but that plan fell by the wayside, and I left him at home this morning. He has a trial run on Wednesday from 6:00 to 7:00 at a restaurant in the West Village. Mike needs to get a job, any job, as soon as possible.

Now I am trying to find out what to do for Bill’s birthday, which is fast approaching at the end of the month. It all depends on Bill’s availability, whether he’s working or not. I don’t know his availability, and neither does he, so it’s hard to plan in advance.

The ideas that I do have can be taken care of on the day of the event. Bill’s birthday is a Sunday, and a Saturday night could be a good night to do something.

Yesterday’s post was made private and since no one reads this I had Google’s Gemini AI Program rewrite it in the manner of Oscar Wilde.
And it goes a little something like this…

Oh, the delightful tapestry of life, woven with threads of entanglement and embroidered with the most exquisite absurdities! It is Friday, the thirteenth of June, a date which, one might imagine, augurs not ill fortune, but rather a certain piquant complexity, perfectly suited to the dramatis personae of my present predicament.

My association with dear Mike, you see, is a veritable masterpiece of complication, a symphony of discord that commenced, it seems, even before our paths properly converged. There was, I confess, a certain online dalliance, a digital prelude to the impending chaos. His cigars, ah, his cigars! They held a most peculiar allure, a veritable siren song, drawing me in both literally and, one might say, metaphysically.

We met, we cavorted, we even, dare I say, enjoyed ourselves. But alas, as is ever the case with such pleasantries, the serpent of complication soon slithered into our Eden. Other figures, like uninvited guests at a rather exclusive soirée, materialised, and my delicate sensibilities were, for a brief spell, quite ruffled. I navigated the tempest, as I invariably do, with a certain panache for self-sabotage, selecting, I fear, the most circuitous and perilous route to resolution. But what is done, as they say, is done; one must simply adjust one’s cravat and move on.

Now, poor Mike, a man whose financial affairs seem to resemble a particularly avant-garde abstract painting, is in rather disastrous straits. His departure from his employment, executed with a flourish of imprudence, has left a jigsaw puzzle with, regrettably, more missing pieces than available solutions. It seems Bill and I, the unlikely pillars of his crumbling edifice, are alone in a position to offer succour, even if that solace extends no further than the humble offer of a couch upon which to rest his weary head, should his rent become an insurmountable trifle.

My heart, naturally, bleeds for him. And for myself, of course, for I am inextricably bound to this delightful farce. And for Bill! Oh, poor Bill, unwittingly ensnared in this silken web of intrigue, thanks entirely to my curious fascination with Mike and his rather smoky proclivities. Mike, it seems, endured an interview yesterday, the results of which remain shrouded in the tantalising mists of uncertainty. One gathers they were, in a most peculiar turn of events, attempting to dissuade him from the very pursuit of gainful employment. How utterly delightful!

Then there is this other gentleman, with whom Mike had, shall we say, a certain arrangement. I confess to a flicker of something akin to jealousy. And so, with a spirit of pure, unadulterated curiosity, I engaged in a delicate online ballet with this individual, always, one must understand, speaking with the utmost reverence for Mike. This fellow, it must be said, possessed a unique talent for prevarication, and a rather amusing predilection for orthographical innovation, rendering “paisan” as “PizzaAnn.” One might charitably suggest a certain lack of intellectual luminescence on his part, though I fear my own involvement in this online escapade hardly speaks volumes for my sagacity either.

Mike, with the keen intuition of a man perpetually on the precipice of financial ruin, discovered my little diversion and, quite understandably, took umbrage, accusing me, with a rather dramatic flair, of poaching his acquaintances. My intention, I assure you, was merely to orchestrate a delightful trio, a smoking circle of camaraderie and shared contemplation. But alas, this individual, a master of dissimulation, was perhaps playing both of us for fools, and thus, the most glorious muddle ensued.

The gentleman, who seemed to entertain rather grand notions of affiliations with the more organised echelons of society, saw fit to ring me at the ungodly hour of four this morning. My telephone, mercifully, was in a state of tranquil repose, blissfully unaware of such impertinent disturbances. His subsequent appellation of “tool” led me to suspect that Mike, in a moment of unguarded candour, had perhaps elucidated upon my more prosaic, offline existence.

In any event, the current tableau is awash with an excess of melodrama, an operatic cacophony of Mike’s woes, overlaid with this astonishingly imbecilic escapade. It is, quite simply, an unholy mess. And Mike’s increasingly frequent presence, Bill confided last night, is beginning to fray the delicate threads of his patience. I offered to intervene, to gently broach the subject with Mike, but Bill, ever the stoic, demurred, declaring it his own cross to bear.

Furthermore, it is Mike’s natal weekend, and while I had made certain arrangements, it appears the festivities shall be, shall we say, rather more subdued than initially envisioned. A fortunate turn of events, perhaps, as it will undoubtedly afford me the opportunity to retain a few more of my rapidly dwindling sovereigns. My phone, a veritable fortress of solitude, remains in its “do not disturb” reverie, permitting only those celestial beings adorned with a star to penetrate its digital sanctity. Though, I must confess, one such star, mysteriously removed last night, was, by the dawn’s early light, quite miraculously restored. Such are the exquisite ironies of life, wouldn’t you agree?