Ann Boyles | johnozed

Well I just got back from an excursion to the wonderful wastelands of Secaucus. Juan drove me out to Syms where I wanted to check out their sales and man what a pitiful selection they had to offer. Definitely a better selection in midtown Manhattan.

The only things I liked were suits that I already owned and I was glad to see that they weren’t on sale. I bought a French cuff shirt instead, with a tab collar, which I could never find in NYC. Surprisingly it was made by Sean John.

P. Diddy himself. I can easily picture him drinking Cristal, puffin on a stogie and frantically sewing into the wee hours of the night. He’s that hands on. I don’t care for his music but his clothes I don’t mind.

And I don’t mean the t-shirts with his signature on them, or the jeans or the bandages. I do own two of his suits which I think are quite nice.

I almost bought a silk scarf to go with an overcoat that used to belong to my late cousin. It was specially made for him and even says so on the inside. And since we shared the same name, it’s perfect.

My brother Brian was hanging onto it for a few months since he got two other coats that fit him better than this overcoat. I can’t wait to wear it to work. I think it looks snazzy. I’ll try to post a pic of myself wearing it.

I did have a nice phone chat with my brother Frank. I mentioned that when we meet, the first five minutes are generally tense. Like a chemical reaction. When you mix baking soda with vinegar there a chemical reaction for a moment, lot’s of foaming going on and after that it generally calms down. That’s how it is with Frank and myself.

He complimented me on my guitar playing yesterday which was a first. I’ve been intimidated by him when I would play guitar in front of him. I told him that I often tried playing in front of him, maybe a Beatles song I practiced and when I payed it for him he would tell me it was wrong and nothing like the number I was trying to play. That happened a lot so I eventually stopped playing in front of him.

Now he said he enjoyed my playing and wouldn’t mind jamming sometime. Which is something I always wanted to do, but generally got shot down. But still I’m willing to give it a go.

Last night Bill was here for a few hours and Juan stopped by too. It was like old times and by old times I mean, September. That was when Bill was still staying here mostly and Juan hadn’t started school yet.

A lot of laughs, some jazz and some beers added to the festivities while we watched The Onion DVD which was a gift to Bill and myself from my niece Meghan and her husband Rob. It was a lot funnier than we expected. Many laughs out loud and a few, ‘Oh no’s!’

Bill had to go back to Stuyvesant Town so he left around midnight and he took most of the energy with him, leaving Juan and myself to watch Scrubs before Juan leaving at 12:30. After all the Guinness I had had sleeping was incredibly easy.

Bow Tie Juan at Syms

Woke up around 9:00 this morning, no hangover, and no sluggishness. Ran some errands, had breakfast and did laundry. Now Juan is off to the mall at Wood Bridge, Bill is in Stuyvesant Town and I’m here again.

It was great being with Bill the past couple of days. It was actually the first time in a long time that we were able to spend hours together. And now I miss him. He gave me a pair of really nice braces that weren’t easy to find and weren’t cheap either.

I gave him some cufflinks, some braces and a tie with buses on it. Those things weren’t easy to find either. He liked them. Juan may be back later.

Ann Boyles might be in Manhattan tomorrow, which would make it so much easier for Ann to meet Bill. She said she wanted to meet him and he said he wanted to meet her after hearing me talk about her. Of course it’s all up in the air, nothing really set in stone.

Just got back from a visit to McSwells where I had dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Paterson, as well as Meghan Taylor Mastro and the daughters Lily (mine) and Ruby (Jim’s). Almost wasn’t able to pull it off.

You see I was at work and as the day crawled along I just started feeling bad. Not ill necessarily, but more like feeling blue. I left the office around 1:30, no one was in really and the feeling in the office was ‘so what?’

So I walked across town, enjoying a Padron, listening to Girl Talk and still enjoying it. I left two voice mails for Bill and a text message but he didn’t get those until I was home, putting the kibosh on meeting up with him for a few minutes outside his building. Plus it was too cold to socialize outside.

I was home for a little while when I heard from Meghan. She was coming to Hoboken with Lily and Ruby and the Paterson’s. The Paterson’s are actually Ann Boyles and her husband Pat Paterson.

I explained how I was feeling and said I would try to make it after I took a much-needed nap. The nap definitely did the trick, deep sleep for almost two hours. Cleared my head of whatever malaise was troubling me.

It was almost interrupted by phone calls but I wisely shut the ringer on the phone off. It was dark when I woke up and mere moments after awakening, Meghan called telling me that she and the girls were walking up to McSwells to get some food.

I had to stop by the library to pick up Philip Norman’s biography of John Lennon and Sarah Vowell’s new book, The Wordy Shipmates. Quite timely since I finished the New Yorker already, finished Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine a couple of weeks ago, and though I took Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, about Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet out of the library I’m not as interested in it as I was when I first ordered it.

After trying not to break my neck on the unshoveled ice I made it to McSwells where Yo La Tengo where eating dinner before their third Hanukah show. Ann met me at the door since she saw me on the sidewalk walking by.

She still looks as adorable as ever and still the same Ann Boyles I knew way back when, still funny to be around. Pat Paterson, her husband is a really nice guy who I might have met before when he worked for Dreams So Real and Guadalcanal Diary among others back in the day.

Despite the last time I ate at McSwells I gambled again and ordered a burger, which was fine. Ann didn’t have problems with her burger but I think Meghan and Lily and Ruby had issues with their orders, as did Pat with the flavorless fish and chips.

After dinner we did a quick walk by the river, around where Maxwell House used to stand. They’re all condos now, no more big neon sign with a coffee cup, and no more ‘good till the last drop’.

Got some great pictures of everyone, the only who was missing was Jim who was minding the Guitar Bar. We walked back down Washington Street, Pat finding some thrown away stilts that he did a credible job of walking on for a couple of feet.

Alas, I had to head home and write this, they continued to collect Jim from the Guitar Bar and head back out to Glen Ridge. It looks like I will be going out to visit on Saturday and it seems quite possible that Bill will join me, so Ann will finally get to meet the man in my life, as I just met hers.

So here’s to Ann and Pat and Meghan, Lily & Ruby, and of course, Jim. Cheers!

And I said hello to Ann Boyles on behalf of bhikkhu and Harpy. She responded in kind.

There were some fairly large pics here, but not any more.
I’m still using Bill’s Mac and can’t figure out how to rotate certain pics. If you know how, please feel free to fix them and send them back to me so I will repost them. Can’t seem to use xnview on the Mac you see. Made everything easier….

well actually I went to my PC and loaded the pics onto a flash drive after ediiting on xnview on my PC….