Cigars | johnozed

It is fucking cold out today. I know its January and this is how it’s supposed to be. It was 19 degrees most of the day, perhaps hitting 22 degrees which actually felt nice. Then the wind blows in off of the river and there is nothing you can do but quicken your pace. Now it is 18 degrees and I am not going out again. And like when it is very hot outside and the brain fries and poor decisions and answers are forthcoming, it’s very much the same when it’s below freezing. No time to talk, just get the hell out of my way. I decided not to go to the supermarket and picked up some Chinese food.

I rarely eat Chinese food, but I know it’s a hot meal and at a good price. Of course I got the chicken and broccoli and forgot to request brown rice until it was too late. So white it is, or was. I hurried on home and found neighbor Frank from the second floor moving recyclables. They had really piled up and it seems like our handyman Robert is missing or not doing that job anymore. I helped Frank as much as I could and wound up putting my dinner in with the recyclables.

It took a second or two before I realized I was not holding my food anymore. Like I wrote, it’s so cold that I can’t think straight (though I never really could anyhow). I found my food and after moving and kicking a few things to the curb I bid Frank a good night and climbed the stairs to the fifth floor. It was dark in the apartment, Bill is not home yet. I got the layers of clothes off and put the food in a bowl once I got settled in. And then I promptly devoured the chicken and broccoli and white rice.

The day was spent at the cigar shop. I was running low on cigars and Shlomo did ask yesterday if I could come in for a little while. I had no problem with that, but did not anticipate sitting in the cigar shop next to a mostly ineffective space heater and still wearing my coat, over a suit jacket, over a turtleneck sweater. Shlomo was there as well, spending most of the day in the cellar with a shady guy named Moishe. He had two eyes by the way, though an eye patch would have made a difference somehow.

I chatted with Juan online. He’s going to a wedding with his boyfriend and was asking questions about these trousers going with that jacket. I did what I could and tried to steer him in the right direction. I think it worked. He wants to look nice, it’s his roommate’s brother’s wedding. I finally got myself a haircut from my barber Tony. I did that last night. Glad I did though I asked for a trim and he went way beyond a trim. I really felt the lack of hair today whenever the wind would blow in my direction.

Time Is On My Side

Monday Monday, can’t trust that day. And you know what? You really can’t. Monday’s are nothing but trouble. Unless you have Monday off, then it’s perfectly alright. Today I find myself at the cigar shop. Another urgent text from Shlomo, begging me to come in and sit for a few hours. I don’t mind. He worked all weekend, including hanging out with that football player who shot himself in the leg a few years ago at a New York City nightclub. No gunshots were fired or heard so I guess it went well, and there was no chalk mark’s outlining a body either.

It’s a federal holiday for Martin Luther King’s birthday and today is also the second inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama. The reich wing GOP did their best to make sure Obama would be a one term president, they stated that as their game plan in 2008 and with that they failed spectacularly. What might be egg covered their faces, but with their greasy hands it could be something wholly other than egg. In fact sometimes it’s paired with an occasional egg and the product of that joining proves to be quite a fetish for that GOP.

I think the first inauguration that I paid attention to was in 1993, with Bill Clinton being sworn in and Maya Angelou saying her inaugural poem. I was working with a woman named Terry Eigenlaub at Skyline Studios, she was the bookkeeper and I was going through the files in the lounge outside of Terry’s office as Maya Angelou’s poetic voice filled the room as Terry yammered on in her office. Maya Angelou’s poem certainly struck a chord and is memorable decades later, more memorable than whatever it was that Terry was complaining about that cold January morning in 1993.

I don’t remember much about the next inauguration in 1997. I might have been working at Right Track Recording and dealing with Eric Andrew Simmons and he was none too pleased with a democratic president being re elected. I do remember Eric Andrew Simmons being thrilled that Newt Gingrich and his ‘contract with America’ was passed some time later, with Eric Andrews Simmons sporting wood to go with his hair plugs and pregnant lactating women porn. I do have to wonder whatever happened to that rat dog he grew tired of and abandoned, Sammy I think it’s name was.

Of course there was no celebrating George Bush’s inauguration. Not at all. Best forgotten, that. In 2009 when Obama was being sworn in, I was working at the BIO-IB gig. It was an exciting time and let the people in the office that I would be out of the office, watching the swearing in on a big screen in Rockefeller Center. I bought a couple of cigars and cheered loudly with everyone else when the final words of the oath of office were said. A woman stood nearby me and commented on the cigar I was smoking.

I was anticipating some stress but she mentioned that she enjoyed the aroma, that it reminded her of her grandfather. Then it was back to being an office manager, rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. One of the companies that was subletting space from BIO-IB, a company that was profiting from bad mortgages, had nothing but bad things to say about the new President. I told them to shut up. One of them later killed someone while drunkenly motorboating by the Statue of Liberty.

It’s been fairly busy today, I guess it’s from a few people having off for Martin Luther King’s holiday. A few people came in after waiting online for the Cake Boss and wanted a couple of sticks for the ride home to wherever it was that they came from. Bill is off today and he is just so super great and I of course am a morning behemoth. I am a lucky guy to have a guy like him to turn a blind eye to my morning crabbiness. Not such a bad day after all I think.