I am at a place that describes itself as a “coffee cooperative.” I almost refused to enter the place on account of that pretentious moniker but whatever, it is here and so am I. I am watching the payphones, as I do. This is my third and probably final attempt at recording Christmas music through Steinway Street payphones. I posted a playlist today. For some reason the payphone site is getting a lot of traffic, all across the site, not just to the top page. Not blockbuster traffic but enough to make it interesting for me again.

Silent Night, of the songs I managed to capture, sounds funereal and post-apocalyptic when heard through the rugged, staticky sound of a landline payphone.

I m trying to do things, however laborious it seems at times. The things I used to find fun and interesting have become hard labor. Trying to reverse the apparent death spiral of laziness that characterizes my life.

A somewhat weird encounter on Twitter the other night. Did I already write about this? Well if so, here I go again. OK, never mind, I already did write on the matter of the person who posted a picture of a woman using a payphone, and it was the same woman I photographed using that same payphone in March of last year. The posture of that woman was so similar that I thought Daphne (the Twitteree) had taken it at the same moment as I. I was even looking for myself in the background of her picture. But no, she took the picture last week.

…

That was two days ago. Today is today. Wednesday. The big news is that John once again offered to give me one of his old payphones, and this time I said sure, why not. I’ll get him a couple of beers, or whatever he drinks, if he drinks. He is going to wire it to allow free incoming and outgoing calls, but I might try to fiddle with its innards myself and make it a real coin-fed device. Sounds like he is whittling down his stable of phones to zero. I have to say, I cannot believe he is still hanging on to this business. He have a job with Titan for a while, so that probably paid reasonably well. But now it’s just him and his roughly 30 phones in NYC and CT. I want to get more details out of him about the business and its history, but with him I always feel like he has an agenda, one which I do not understand. I remember his comment after the documentary screening: “I finally understand you a lot better.” That would confirm my belief that people in the business don’t understand why I get so much attention for this stuff.

I saw someone flying a drone. I can’t remember the last time I saw one of those but this one was damn impressive. Went really high and fast, over the Woodside Houses on Broadway. It was not exactly close to me but for some reason it sounded like it was. It sounded like a weed whacker was flying toward my head.

I went to the library, thinking that that place could be my new ghetto coffee shop. Intending to sit for a spell I could find not one empty seat. Not the type of crowd I expected, either. I expected a bunch of noisy kids (there were a few) but people looked positively millennial. I am at the ghetto coffee shop now.

I explained my pension windfall to a bartender friend last night. He seemed to concur with my logic, which is neither here nor there at this point but I’m still actually happy to hear it. By my logic the amount of money I would take in monthly if/when I hit 65 would likely never amount to as much as I got now for taking it all at once. Even if I do make it to 65 how likely am I to make it to 70? Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. It’s a bit of a gamble if you look at it that way but for this amount of money I don’t have any reason to second guess my decision to cash it out now. Thing is it’s not like the monthly stipend would ever increase. It’s not like a regular investment. After taxes that stipend would have been good for a mere $200/month. What’s that going to be worth in 18 years? Hah, I’ll be clawing for dear life at 90, damning myself, wishing I had that $200 for beer money.

My life is stupid and I know it.