Tick Tock

Leave a reply

It is Saturday night, the last Saturday in April, for Hoboken this year. It’s been a humid day. I woke up stressed and a bit depressed. The job weighed heavily on my mind. I got through it somehow. Bill is on the road crazy early tomorrow, so he went to bed earlier, around 7:30 PM.

Mike is here and in the loo. I cued up a favorite Harry Potter movie for him and paused it when nature called. In the interim, I am playing 10CC, I’m Not in Love which always brings me to being in the car with my father in the summer of 1975. My father must’ve had a top forty station playing, which is why I heard it with him driving.

I am always drawn back to that summer day with my father. Not a bad memory, and if it’s a good memory, it’s because of the song. It really could have been anyone driving, but my memory points to my father.

Bill, Mike, and I ran some errands in between a few raindrops. I offered to let them off easy since I was the only one with an umbrella, which could fit two, but with three people, that meant someone was going to get wet. But it wasn’t a steady rain, just some sprinkles here and there.

The really big supermarket was a bit empty since our favorite cashier, Arti, had her last day on Tuesday, and she was heading back to India. Bill and I tried to guess why she was leaving, and we both agreed that L’Orange Merde might have had something to do with it.

Or perhaps her visa expired. Or she saw the writing on the wall. Regardless, both Bill and I looked for her at her perch, and though there was someone doing Arti’s job, there was a void in her place.

Mike had hoped to watch the Hunger Games Part 3, but the timing was off with Bill’s early bedtime, so we binge watched Abbott Elementary, which is funny and not depressing. Now I am playing Raphael Saddiq, Instant Vintage, which is an all-time favorite of mine. I first saw Raphael on TV, with Tony Toni Tone on Saturday Night Live.

I knew the songs, so I was prepared. After Tony Toni Tone split up, he formed Lucy Pearl which is where I saw him play with Dawn from En Vogue and Ali Shaheed Mohammed from A Tribe Called Quest. It was a wonderful show that I attended with my friend Gian East. I could have sworn Raphael was looking straight at me and smilin’ that smile of his. Just a wonderful memory.

Mike is off the porcelain throne, and I switched the Harry Potter to Finding Nemo. Something more lighthearted, which is sorely needed in my life. A wonderful talk with Annemarie this afternoon. Another confession on how I do not believe in myself.

The hurdles and roadblocks that I see are not there because of anyone else but me. Easy to write and recognize. All I have to do is keep on keepin’ on. Fake it till I make it.

Now What?

Leave a reply

Later than I expected. Back to the Friday routine of coming home, getting out of my work clothes, and doing the laundry. I hope this becomes a regular thing. Work was good today. Quiet, just me and Kimberly. I actually did things, applied the instructions, and did well. I did say aloud that I knocked it out.

Most of the office was out since it was Friday. Not many people on the train for the morning or evening commute. That was enjoyable as I read Sweet Soul Music by Peter Guralnick. Last night, after posting on this here blog, I had a phone call from my brother Brian. He was calling to see how the job was going.

He had been worried when I was let go from Bratty McGrotty. I told Brian exactly what was going on in my head. My coworkers like me and believe in me, and that is 180° from Bratty McGrotty and the nest of vipers. The only thing is, I do not believe in myself. Brian knew what I was talking about.

We never got support from home, and we never supported each other. Always quick with a cutting quip. Years later, those planted seeds were not so harmless, and here they are strangling me. I think Brian was taken aback by my honesty, and I felt relieved unloading that to someone who isn’t Bill.

Bill, who is tremendously supportive and loving, and sees in me what I do not see in myself. Brian was very supportive as well, his wife Karen chiming in that she loves me, and that is always good to hear. Mike called after that and got the same spiel. And Mike, too, was supportive.

Here I am surrounded by family and friends who love and support me, and I cannot do that for myself. I used to make jokes about it, funny jokes too. Not so sure how funny it is, and I don’t really turn on the self-deprecation these days, mainly though, since I have nowhere to tell these wisecracks.

Bill’s heard them before, and Mike doesn’t understand where they’re coming from. This is a job that a lot of other people would kill to get, and here it landed in my lap. I do look fondly on earlier jobs, the HBJ warehouse where I was employed, more than likely, since my Mother was so admired.

I should have been fired from that job a few times.

Then there was Murdoch Magazines, where I worked with friends I knew from Maxwell’s and made new friends from Queens. Then the music business. Those jobs, those worlds, and some of those people don’t exist anymore.

I would go back in a minute if those jobs were still around. A simpler time. A simpler world. Now everything is up in the air. And being 62 is no picnic either. I’ve got to get it together at this late date. Easier said than done, and easier to write it too. There it is, in digital print.

Now what?