Second .MOBI of the day, this time from ghetto coffee shop. I recorded a short audio bit but have not done anything with it or the other sounds.
I just e-mailed a friend who might know about such things to ask if he knows anything about getting gigs as a classical musician on board cruise ships. That is not exactly my idea of a dream job but it’s something I always wanted to try, at least for a little while. Jobs last anywhere from a week or two to several months. I think I might actually go insane living on a ship for very long. My dad went on a cruise to Mexico once and said it was the most boring thing he ever did. I would think 2 nights on a cruise ship would be tolerable but I he was at sea for something like 10 days. But of course I’d be working and making good money, so I assume my attitude would be different. It would be nice to actually get work doing the only thing for which I ever went to school. I’ve never taken a single computer course but that’s where most of my coin comes from.
There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel in my journey through all those cassettes. It remains to be seen how much time I intend to spend organizing or sorting them. I found a neat one I forgot about. My sister and I just goofing around, with the voice of our mother coming through once in awhile. It is a CERTRON brand tape, which I think was the cheapest kind you could buy back then. I think it was the 8th grade for me, since it sounded like my voice had changed, but I’ll listen more closely again and look for forensic clues as to the exact date. I can sometimes infer exact or close-to-exact dates of recording from things like the television news or the radio.
This coffee makes me feel like I have to take a dump. Can’t do that here. That would cause a fuss and a ruckus, or a russ and a fuckus.
…
Ah, criminny, I never sent yesterday’s second .MOBI, which now becomes today’s first and probably only posting, unless I do something with the audio.
A totally clean bill of health was just handed to me. I don’t know how I get away with it but I find that my body still has a remarkable ability to heal. It must be quite a positive that I have never smoked or done drugs. Liver functions are good, LDLs are perfect, cholesterols are fine. The fact that I did not drink for two weeks ahead of this blood test, well, I do not think makes much of a difference. I think it might make a difference if I did a full detox, like in the emergency room those two days. Maybe the adventure in sobriety does make a difference but I don’t intend to find out by testing blood after a bender. I had blood drawn once when I was doing my gin and tonics and the doctor said everything seemed fine, although I thought I heard him say to another doctor that my liver enzymes were high but that was ok because I don’t drink. I don’t know where he got that idea, since he never asked and I said nothing about my boozing. I guess it’s a form of plausible deniability.
The last time I got this blood test paperwork back was around the time I had a Tinder date with who I think lived in Sleepy Hollow. She was a medical transcriptionist and knew how to read these reports, unlike me. She was impressed by my fabulous health, though showing her this stuff had the vague feeling of showing a woman that I had no STDs, even though I don’t think AIDS or anything like that were looked for. I never saw her again and that was fine with both of us. she made a comment that took a while for me to consider. She said something like “You’ll be the one who didn’t drink,” or something like that. Between that and other comments it sounded like she was going to writing a story about her Tinder adventures for Marie Claire or some women’s magazine along those lines. I did not drink. I had seltzer. I was drinking at the time but I chose not to because it was too early for me, like 4:30 or so. This was at the Oyster Bar Saloon at Grand Central, which might be my favorite place of all time if the beer list didn’t suck so hard.
Something amusing happened. There was someone in the waiting room ahead of me. The doctor came out and yelled “Thomas.” I assumed he meant me but in act the other guy’s first name was Thomas. The doctor found that highly amusing, maybe a little too much so. I mentioned the time I met a guy and said “My name is Mark,” and he replied “Thomas.” I did not tell the real meat of the story, because I wouldn’t think the doctor cares, about how this Thomas person actually knew I was “that Mark Thomas” because he was a fan of my receipts web site. I still get a laugh out of that even after telling the story a billion times.
A brief text message chat with Tiffany last night was right in line with what I was saying before about the Sunswick and early RaR. We have running gags and punchlines that we can send over any time, for the rest of our lives, and we’ll always get a laugh or at least a satisfied recognition out of it. I said that I quit going to local bars when I realized I had not stayed friends with anyone I’ve met at a bar in the last 7 or 8 years. I’ve made friends in those years but they all moved on. I gave up on Sunswick in particular when I realized that the only person I talk to there is one bartender… actually I talked to him and the owner of the place, who has called me “Thomas” for as long as I’ve known him. Tiffany and I have talked about this before but I said it again: Sandra and Melissa deserve all the credit for making that scene what it was, with Sandra really the leading force. I think I said something to that effect to Sandra’s mother at the funeral, that she was the only reason I had as many friends in Astoria as I did. She and Melissa may not be the only bartenders I’ve ever known who actually introduced customers to each other but they did it better than anybody else.
But, you know, things change. Social scenes move on, people get sick of each other, others move away either physically or emotionally. I don’t mean to make it sound like I want the Sunswick days back again. I do not. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t get nostalgic. I just get old.
…
I spent a good three hours crafting a story about those phone booths I checked in on the other day. It was good exercise. Writing like that, on a subject that sometimes feels like an albatross around my neck, is not always easy. But writing is a good tonic for things. I should never stop doing that.
…
The inquiries about how to get gigs on cruise ships turned up a few interesting clues, in particular a Montreal agency that sounds like it hires musicians almost constantly. I also found that musicians who’ve had those gigs do not, as a rule, regret the experience or talk about it like it was hell on earth. That’s encouraging. If I follow through on this I could even imagine subletting 2B and really raking in the $.
At the Windmill. Going to walk around some, and try to avoid the landlord as he does his weekly placement of the recycling.
Oh, something quite strange happened with regard to taking out the cardboard and paper for recycling. I don’t know why this would have happened but I took the garbage bag full of cardboard and stuff downstairs, putting it in the same spot I’ve put it for as long as I’ve lived there. The next day I opened the door to the apartment and saw that someone had placed the bag at my door. That makes absolutely no sense. To even know it was my bag one would either have to rummage through its contents and look for my address on a piece of postal mail, or else they would most likely have to be the owner of the building. But why would either of these scenarios have transpired? It’s not like the bag was full of rancid chicken or anything inappropriate to being recycled. Really very strange. OK, moving on.
