Another night of not sleeping so well, today is a Friday so I might be able to sleep well tonight. Bill is returning, and that always helps when I’m sleeping in the bed with him. He’s been on the road and Mike had come over yesterday to work on job applications as well as his resume, which is paltry at Best. I don’t know how much padding can be done to his resume since there’s not much to put and there are the albatrosses around his neck.

So it’s a Friday, and I am at work, and it’s as slow as I expected it to be. Marcus is somewhere but not here. He’s been a bit standoffish as of late. Jimmy Chile is in another office today, and he’s just been outstanding as usual. He’s a wonderful raconteur, and I brought in a DVD of Spalding Gray Swimming to Cambodia so he can watch it.

It’s been unbearably hot in the upper ’80s. I have not put in the AC yet, but that is down the line, perhaps sooner rather than later. I would like to get a bracket to properly put it in the window rather than hoping for the best, which is what I’ve been doing for the past 25 years.

My brother Brian gave me an air conditioner a short time ago, which, while new, wasn’t as active as I had hoped. The AC that I bought 25 years ago at Lowe’s with Julio and Claire was working fine, but we did not use it last year. Ideally, I would like to get two braces, one for the bedroom AC and one for the television room AC. This seems to be a situation to be rectified.

It is a Friday, which means I am eating healthy today. Last week’s Chopt salad was bearable, though. While I was eating it, I was still hungry with each bite, and it wasn’t as filling as the salads I used to get daily at Elim Deli on Park Place.

So I have been helping Mike try to find a job last night, and we filled out applications for Target as well as Trader Joe’s. Target had gotten back to him, asking him to fill out a form that would give Target a tax credit should they hire him. He has called me up several times this morning, and thankfully, it’s slow, so I was able to take each call that came in.

My gathering of steps seems redundant today. I’m fairly certain I set it up before I left for work this morning, though when I checked a short time ago, it wasn’t the case.
Mike was supposed to come over tonight, but once again due to circumstances beyond his control once again he remains housebound.

And it’s a slow day, a slow Friday. Marcus is running around now, he’s communicating earlier, and I respond in kind, mirroring with my empathy.

I bought a pair of sneakers online through Amazon a few weeks ago and they still have not been delivered I’m having them dropped off at whole foods so I can just pick them up there a block or so away but it just seems like a waste of my time I should have just gone to a store and bought a pair of sneakers without having to do this bullshit dance with Jeff Bezos.

I am even more embarrassed to admit that I fell for a Facebook ad online about dying one’s hair from gray to another color, and in my red-eyed moment of weakness, I actually proceeded to order it, and I think it’s coming from China, and it’s not here yet, as well. They’re probably the same cost as the sneakers that I had ordered, so perhaps it’s a race from 1 to the other, the sneakers and the hair dye shampoo, which more than likely will not be used since the moment has passed, I really don’t know.

Enrique Venegas. I had a crush on Enrique. We’d hang out and smoke cigarettes and I’d watch him grab his dick through his pants at his father’s Texaco station. He did not know how he was driving me crazy, and I fantasized about him many a time back in the day.

A memory of Enrique and his girlfriend Lisa, going to a NY Cosmos match the night Donna Summer’s Bad Girls and Hot Stuff were first broadcast on the radio.

Finally one day I offered to give Enrique a blowjob following an elaborate lie but he was horrified and refused and he never spoke to me again. He was part of the graduating class of 1980 that did not continue to college. I’m sure he told a few classmates, or at the very least his girlfriend Lisa.

Enrique and one or two other young men joined the armed forces. I believe Enrique joined the Navy. I realized there was nothing for me, so I did not go to college since I hated my education so much, and the armed forces weren’t going to happen, so I went full-time at the book Warehouse HBJ in Saddle Brook, New Jersey.

Kevin Wagner also worked at the book Warehouse, and though we were friendly in high school, we got along great after high school. Kevin was one of the people who found out I was gay when I was outed in 1982. He was greatly upset that I did not trust him enough to tell him that he had to find out via a third party.

He was hurt and never spoke to me again. He never understood that I valued his friendship to maintain the lie in fear of losing his friendship. It was a lot like Colin and Isaac in that episode of Ted Lasso, but without the happy ending.

I attended the 20th Paramus Catholic High School reunion in the year 2000. I was very gacked out. I had cash and hired a town car to drive me to and from the dining hall on Route 17. I also had enough money to get cocaine, which I did throughout the night. I saw my classmates and regretted seeing them, vowing to never see them again.

The classmates I did want to see did not attend. I later found out that one of them, Jim Carley, had died 3 years before while jogging. The other friend, John Nesselt, was not there and still does not maintain any online presence.

I did see Jimmy Bartoli and Santo Munafo, who I went to grammar school with before high school, and during high school, we did not have anything at all to do with each other. Jimmy seemed happy to see me, and Santo was angry because somebody had put out something that said he was gay.

I might have known the one who did that, never thinking they would see Santo again, but I kept my mouth shut while Santo raged. The thing is, Santo isn’t ga,y just upset that somebody might think that he was, although he was not.

At the reunion, every 20 minutes, I kept running to the men’s room. There’s also the only one tipping at an open bar, knowing that you get better service at an open bar if you tip. I stood there grinding my teeth, smoking a cigar, and drinking Heinekens, running down the clock until it was time to leave. I was so gacked out that food was not an option. This was a few months before I met Bill, so things were spiraling out of control somewhat.

Things certainly got better when Bill entered my life. He’ll get along with his classmates from high school and looks forward to seeing them. I have read about a classmate from grammar School as well as high school who has gone to jail for embezzlement as well as a financial scam on the New York Yankees Walter Hass was his name and he was always a shady type showing me his penis in his swimming pool.

Like I posted yesterday my hesitancy to write anything about the job that I have been enjoying seems to have been jinxed today or at least overnight…just having an awkward day not able to connect reaching out for help sending messages and emails to people that are not responding and these seems to be big names that I am trying to deal with so I don’t know whether or not it’s connecting or not.

So I gather my steps and wander around the area with a sinking feeling in my stomach. Now I sit outside the building smoking a mini cigar and I wonder what fate will be falling when I return to my desk.

Oh, and it’s very hot today in the 80° range.