Where is it going? Who needs to know?
At work early, as usual, no matter what else wails in my personal life. I made it to the first doctor’s appointment in over a year yesterday. I feel like I’m lying when they take my BP and it’s close enough to perfect. I think it was 135/80-something. Feels like a lie because it’s the pharmaceuticals doing thier magic, not my natural or health-conscious behavior. I also took extra anxiety meds for the day since I knew I’d be having sex later. That would have lowered the BP even more, I think, but do not know. Is it all lies? I sometimes wake up with heart pounding rapidly. I blame it on using a seasoning with too much MSG, which I didn’t realize was the case until recenty. Can an over-seasoned pork chop lead to a nocturnal heart attack?
Brief chat last night with a woman I dated 30 years ago. We’ve been friends ever since. If I comment on this it often surprises people. But she’s like a kid sister to me now. We always pick up right where we left off. Only thing I never knew about her from our years together is that she learned to drink. On the phone, at least, she’s a lot of fun after a couple of beers. She never drank when I knew and she berated me for doing so, saying it would ruin me and that it shouldn’t be that way because I am, as she said “neat.”
Head feels funny today, both inside and out. I discovered a blob of soap on my body after exiting the shower. Returned briefly to wash it off, later left thinking I had left shampoo in my hair. I did not but that’s become kind of a fear of mine, emerging from solitude into a world where no one else left shampoo on their hair. I could find a sink somewhere, or maybe a spigot standing at ease on a cemetery plain.
I walked through a cemetery last week, in RIdgewood. There are two Linden Hill cemeteries in Ridgewood and I continue to make the rookie mistake of thinking there is only one. Another rookie mistake I made in RIdgewood once (only once) was being on the Brooklyn side and boarding a Queens-bound subway not realizing it was going from the Bk side of Ridgewood to the Qu side.
This morning’s N train did not have an N on the front of the first car. It had a “NOT IN SERVICE” placard. I mumbled to myself “So that’s what the N stands for.” Some jokes are old the first time they are uttered.
Speaking of subways, a small miracle has transpired. A few weeks ago I posted here of being robbed of $101 by the MTA. A 30-day Metrocard became defective after about a week, leaving the aforementioned value on the useless card. An MTA worker gave me a form and a postage-paid envelope and, with a sullen, somber look expressing the futility I faced ahead, she said to fill it out, mail it in, and you’ll get your refund. I had zero confidence this would work but guess what? It did. A check from the MTA for $101 arrived yesterday. The paperwork I had to fill out was straightforward but also nit-picky and hard to read. It was required that it be filled out and mailed within 24 hours of the card being deemed defective. They said they would check the postmark on the mailing. I thought I got it into the blue mailbox in time but you cannot rely on USPS carriers to pick up mail from those curbside boxes and postmark them the same day. I guess someone did.
I don’t know how this refund affects the pre-tax status of things. I pay for Metrocards with an employer-supplied Commuter Benefits Card. Money added to the card comes from my paycheck pre-tax. This apparently is a better deal than I give it credit. What am I talking about? I shall deposit the check and use it to buy a 30-day Metrocard with what feels like money out of my pocket, when in fact the $101 is the same cash that was deducted pre-tax. I’m on the hook for the remaining $31, which in theory I should be able to get from the Commuter Card balance but in practice that won’t work since you can’t pay for Metrocards using multiple instruments, at least not at the vending machines.
Time to stay my righteous, holy day.
