Finding a full time job, the saying goes, should be a full time job. So it goes with what I expect to be an essay in human futility. Finding a job will not be easy for me. I had a nauseating moment of clarity today, a moment in which I saw no future and a rotten past. The business I am in is sleazy. It did not used to be. But even if it was more palatable it wouldn’t matter, since the work I put in no longer pays off. It is such a different game now. All I can do is keep digging this hole I’ve dug for myself. Someone asked what my ideal fix to my life’s woes would be. After some mental gnashing I concluded that a roommate would go a long way, and that I should consider finding that. But that is something one cannot rush, I guess. That feeling of nausea is unlike anything I’ve felt before. It’s like my heart was being pulled out of me. I could be homeless, or living in a hellish sounding clime of the house I grew up in with my sister’s incontinent octogenarian inlaws.
John-Paul is the name of the barista. Interesting guy. Just learned he inherited a 1-bedroom in Manhattan and pays no real rent and has no real expenses. Guess that sort of thing is real. He works here 20 hours a week just to keep his sanity but unplugged completely from technology after a long career doing exactly what I do with web sites and such. if I had no expenses I’d probably do something similar.
Looking at myself in a mirror. Not liking what I see so looking away.
The feeling of nausea is wearing off. More a sense of urgency fraught with dismay and self-defeatist loathing. I was sort of hoping other customers would be here today so there would not be the ongoing sense that conversation is essential or expected but it’s ok. He was talking an ocean a minute for a while. This place is really quite tiny, and the pecking sound of my fingers typing are the only noise, save for what I guess is a machine somehow involved in the coffee creation process.
Another friend I’m going to see this week wrote to say that when we meet up there need not be any conversation or talking. We can just sit together and read or do something in silence. What a dreamboat. If I was gay I might want to spend the rest of my life with him. I went to meet him a couple of weeks ago but he forgot and I saw there alone at the Woodside coffee shop. I honestly did not mind. It was a nice walk and the coffee was good.
Might start drinking earlier, and more. Or maybe not.
The photos on the wall here are by a Hungarian who is friends with the owner of the shop. They are for sale at $60 each, and 2 have sold. But the ones that sold are still on the wall. Turns out that what the buyer gets is not what’s on the wall but something else. We are not sure what but it is likely something very similar. Very nicely framed, I think.
I’ve been using what I call the Getaway Bag. I found it at my father’s place after he died. It is black leather, and while nothing fancy it’s a handsome enough looking thing. I call it the Getaway Bag because when I found it I thought it was evil, something that my dad somehow used in planning to kill himself. This was the bag that carried his soul away. I don’t know how I came up with that, but I felt like we’d been robbed of his soul and that this was the bag he used to carry out the theft. It was conspicuously present in his apartment. I mean, it was sitting there in the living room for no apparent reason, completely empty and so clean and new looking that I wonder if he ever used it for anything. It’s a fine bag, though. I alternate among my lavish assortment of beautiful bags but I’ve been using this one for weeks now. I’ve lost all the morbid associations that caused me to label it the Getaway Bag but I still call it that.
I only came here for the sake of conversation, and to write. The coffee is quite strong. I like typing on this keyboard. Life’s simple joys. I should sell the television. I think I might need the money that badly. I’ve also been getting repeat offers of $1500 for one of my domain names from a buy in China. The China thing might seem sketchy except that the domain name happens to mean something significant in that country. I don’t think I’d deal directly with anyone in a domain name sale, though. I’d go through brokers or auctions.
I was writing a story about John Wick and the Calvary scene in that movie when I came across a web site of someone else who wrote about it. That person, it seems, lives on the same street as I, and is possibly in a building next door to Dutch Kills Centraal. He and some friends spent Christmas Day walking the perimeter of Manhattan. That’s something I’d like to do, though I’d be happy with just walking the full length of the Island, right down Broadway. That’s a healthy afternoon’s walk. The perimeter takes way too many hours. I posted a comment to his web site an he replied. That surprised me. I am used to being ignored.
