Thomas | johnozed

It must be a Friday since there weren’t that many people out while I was busking this afternoon. The toddlers were kept in a short leash and the infants were just a drive by. No matter, I just practiced my playing, I’ve been focusing on the Beatles so today was I Dig a Pony and I Saw Her Standing There. I figure that most everyone likes the Beatles (it’s odd to meet someone who doesn’t) and their songs are easy and fun to play and recognizable. I’ve been wrestling with Baby’s In Black, it is easy enough with the chords, it’s the waltz timing that I am having trouble with.

Get Back is incredibly easy to play and sing along with and tomorrow I will see if I can get some backing vocals on Twist and Shout. Tomorrow is the party that Rand, Lisa and Lois are having for me, bring a guitar, a musical instrument and some food. Some people have RSVP’d and some have contacted me telling me they can’t make it. That’s too bad but them’s the breaks. Some people have to work, some people have to work around the house. Still it should be a good time with the friends that do arrive.

I texted my former co-worker Thomas today, wishing him and his fiancé a wonderful time at their wedding. Bill and I were invited but we couldn’t afford a gift and a rental car, and since we couldn’t very well show up without a gift we opted out. Thomas did express regret that Bill and I weren’t going to be there, and I bet as soon as the texting stopped he forgot all about it and continued to feed those butterflies in his stomach. As it should be. Thomas is a good guy, good enough to call him his real name, Brian.

I heard from my dear friend Billie from DC a few times this week. Apparently he sent me a birthday card which never arrived. He told me he sent a card to a friend in Baltimore in June and the friend didn’t get her card either. Both cards had cash in them. Someone in the USPS is a thief and stealing cards, or at least what accompanies the cards. Billie was justifiably pissed off and filed a complaint with the post office. Nothing will be done and no money will be recovered.

And Bill has been stressed. His aunt died last week, a week after his cousin was murdered in Puerto Rico. Bill’s mother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s was sharing a room with her late sister at Bill’s cousin’s apartment, and now it seems that Bill’s mother will have to go to a home. Bill’s mother has gotten worse, to the point where she doesn’t recognize her own son anymore. Obviously she can’t be left alone and a rest home seems to be the only way to go. So there is a sadness that is mixed in with the happiness of the week.

I suppose that’s how life is- you have to take the good with the bad. We’ve had some wonderful times this week and of course there is the underlying current of sadness. I am just glad that I can be there for Bill, if only to offer a hug and a shoulder to cry on. My life would be a mess if he wasn’t around and I am certainly glad he is, just as he is glad I am around. You’re riding high on Monday, and you’re shot down on Thursday. But we’ve got each other and that’s enough.

So happy it’s Thursday is one of my favorite acronyms as of late. And it’s Thursday and I am somewhat happy. It’s been a busy day too which was good. The day started out once again, Bill kissing me goodbye. I roused myself from slumber after trying to bargain with the alarm clock. The clock always wins.

After breakfast and getting dressed I walked over to the dry cleaners and saw Mona. I dropped off two of my shirts and two of Bill’s then headed to the bus stop. I chatted with Bill on the phone as I walked.

Overcast and muggy was the weather and since there was nothing I could do about it, I just sat on the bench, smoking a cigar that I actually started last night and listened to the iPod. Specifically a singer named Res which I bought back in 2001. Her songs have popped up on the iPod and has been the subject of some discussion.

It was a fun listen, I remembered being in HMV on 42nd Street and hearing it and asking the DJ who was playing, then I went and bought it. It’s a really good record and nary a word has been heard from her in 10 years.

Today I worked with Thomas and Bradley with Calvin once again sequestered in his office. It wasn’t as busy or containing the financial windfall I helped cause yesterday but still it wasn’t half bad, perhaps it was something I could write home about, or at the very least, write about here.

Still quite a few diplomats and their entourages in the vicinity, women buying gifts for their men in the form of cigars. Jimmy Seltzer made it in, earlier than usual and paid me a very nice compliment about how something that I recently wrote was good enough to perhaps expand into a book.

A very nice thing to hear rather than read what the spammed mastorhaters write, almost always wrong but hey even they have their chance to write though it never gets published, at least not by me. Perhaps Greg, Peter and Bobby Brady have a blog somewhere, or a favorite bathroom wall they write on, I really couldn’t tell you.

Jimmy Seltzer is a prince though and his compliment helped carry me through the day. And ‘My Friend, My Friend’ also made an appearance which was nice, good to see him since I see him so infrequently these days.

Tomorrow promises to be a busy day, I hope to get up early enough to get chores done, laundry, groceries and a stop at the bibliotheque. That should make the day packed with enough things to do.

Now there’s less than fifteen minutes left in my day, work wise. It’s a been a good one, Thomas is a pleasure to work with. Very sharp, a bit witty and a snappy dresser. I write this knowing full well that he won’t be reading this.

He’s a good man and will make his fiance quite happy, he is devoted to her 500%.