Category: Text

Shower troubles

The new shower accoutrements are a mixed bag. On the one hand, when I sit for the first time there is a cushion there to rest my back on. That is nice. I never laid back like this before, or at least not very often, because of...

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Feeling bad

Not going to be a fun day. Feeling fibers of my flesh. Slept poorly but with ambitions to the contrary. I think I’ve become adept at relaxing the muscles in my face. That was harder to accomplish thanI expected but I think...

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Upped my shower game

And I think it’s a win. I got a shower cushion nad I think it fits perfectly. I can lie back in the tub without the cold shock and ongoing discomfort of rubbing my spine against the tub’s cold surface. I mean, this...

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Slept well

Saturdays it feels like I get the place to myself. The workplace. I don’t, but with few others on board and a general tendency to avoid shitting where you work I get a crystal clean bathroom and kitchen that only I will...

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Say nothing

A correspondence with a dating site woman has kicked off in the usual stereotypical way. I write two or three complete sentences, she responds with a single word, at most two words. Breadcrumbing, it’s called. I hate it. I...

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Peanut Butter Park

I had a dream in which my sister and her husband announced they were going to a place called Peanut Butter Park. It was an amusement park with a peanut butter theme, something every childhood never knew it needed until now. That...

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That’s the way I like to eat it

You didn’t say it. I did. I said everything there was to say about the leafiness, the hardness, the annoying sticker and the goo it leaves behind, needing to be scrubbed off. You cannot eat that apple without payments to...

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Sartorial Twitches

Wearing an ex-girlfriend’s socks, and the underpants of an unknown man. I know how the socks came into my possession but the underpants remain a minor mystery involving misdirected mail opened before checking the recipient...

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Someone is trying to tell me something

I don’t know who she is but I hear her voice, deep and raw, slumbering in my head, talking in her sleep. It is the same warnings I hear but cannot understand as they slip and strain through the sounds of an air conditioner...

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Connection

Something I’ve been afraid to say outloud to myself, for fear of what I do not know, is that I’ve been hopelessly, painfully lonely these past few years. I’ve made new friends, had some interesting/wonderful...

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Subways

Express went local. 5 vibe felt off. People very tall sitting down like fallen trees. I had a whore in my head. Hundreds of them. Watched an interesting-looking woman navigate her way around, tourist, traveling alone, looking...

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They Watch Me

The only thing anyone does at this company, the only reason anyone shows up and gets paid to be here, is to watch me eat strawberries. I lift each strawberry, one at a time, and bite into it, sometimes ingesting the entirety of...

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Letter from E. October 7, 2020

Autumn arrived like a brick wall, but I’m getting adjusted. The waning light and cold keep you on your toes, but then, there is also the beautiful slanting light in the trees, the snow on the mountains and the feeling that...

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Water

Woke up to a kind of flood. Stagnation. Water surrounding me, it seemed. FOrtunately my shower head has an on/off switch, where any time I use it I have to remind myself that up is off and down is on. That seems counterintuitive...

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Back at Work

As much as I sometimes feel it has squashed my life into a pancake, I cannot lie that it feels safer here at the office than at home. I worked from home for 20 years, almost completely in solitude. It gains on you. It envelopes...

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Another Day

I made it through a rough couple of days and nights. I feel fine now. It was scary but I had a friend who cared about me, and that made all the difference. You don’t always know who your friends are, or who they are not. I...

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6, 6, and 6

I read yesterday that dating sites and apps have ruined sexuality for a majority of men. I believe it. THe 6, 6, and 6 rules says that the only men getting anywhere on those apps are 6 feet tall and muscularly handsome, have a...

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All the Lights Are One

Typically, in this room, lights are on but only half way. Corners are dark but not uninhabitably so. Not like my recent shower-in-total-darkness experiment, which proved fruitless. Lighting all across this floor is strange...

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Robbed of $101

I have most likely been robbed by the MTA of $101. That’s about how much was left on my 30-day unlimited pass before the card became “damaged.” A Fulton Street MTA rep handed me an envelope with a questionaire...

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Zines in Cabinets

A ‘Zines exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum was enough to make me give the NYPL CulturePass a try. I think you can only use it once a year but it gets you free general admission, which would be $20 in this case, to a number of...

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Darkness

I don’t know why, or if I read about it somewhere, but I decided to try showering in complete darkness. Door shut, and when I shower around 5am there is minimal to no light coming through the small opaque window with a...

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Going Up?

That is what I asked the full-face masked gentleman on the elevator today. His response: “I hope so.” It made me chuckle, and he caught the fact that I am a person who can laugh at a wry, impromptu joke. In my...

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Stramblin’ Man

Yesterday was mostly midtown, and kind of oppressively so. I felt horrible for oversleep and poor diet. I find myself thinking about the past more than I prefer. Watching videos of myself from 1997, leaving New York and setting...

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Mystery

Instead of shoveling weak and flaccid news articles into my head I decided to be present on the subway last night. Aware of my surroundings. I noticed a woman wearing a green jacket,, covering up I don’t know what other...

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Bursten

Levees break. Bellies burst. Eat your nectarines and soothe the pits with your tangy tongue. Pits are sulky, strident beasts, idling in earthless oil. We need them to guarantee our back pockets remain shaky, and taut....

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No more nothing

Have no posted here in a while. No reason for, no reason against. Been watching videos from the old Handycam. Digitizing them. Some of it is hard to swallow. From 1997, mostly. Atlanta. A sorry time of my life. Sorry I ever did...

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Electrical eccentrical

Lightning fight in the brain. Arriving here I articulate the words “I’m nothing special” even though certain individuals here will look at me with just that shine, an element of glow that knows itself, knows...

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No More Strawberries

A pound of strawberries had been my breakfast staple for workdays for most of last year. I think I shall move on from this tiny but beloved ritual. They have become too expensive, the task of transporting them in my already...

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Alone in the Kitchen

I have to remind myself: I am not a career person. I did not come to this job looking for eternity, retirement, pension. I was told last week that, given my reputation and duration of employment, it is virtually impossible for...

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Strawberry Weirdness

Who would think the quest for cheap strawberries would send me into a strange place… Typically, I buy strawberries at a local produce stand up the street from me. They’re not always the best quality, but with...

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Shopping Cart

Started a poem yesterday, handwritten, not typed. Feels different that way, even if it should feel familiar. It’s about 3 kids who find a dead dog in a shopping cart on Hoe Avenue, at the Hoe Avenue Garden. It’s...

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Christmas

I woke on Christmas day to nothing working. Web sites down, wifi creaky, hot water took 10 minutes to reach hottity. This after another rough night of sleep, or something resembling sleep. I wonder sometimes if I will die,...

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Serenity

I felt it yesterday, unexpectedly, given the tumult and travails of the morning hours. Nothing shocking happened. But it was uncomfortable. I felt sour, tiny, bitter… I looked forward to the job itself elevating me from...

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Happy

Yesterday was an utter waste. I bought perfunctory groceries (beer and cheese), and spent other parts of the day shopping for food, asking myself why. Why? I feel better with a hunger high than I feel after eating a soulless,...

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No Witnesses

I feel lucky no one was around just now to see me panic over not being able to find my bottle of anxiety meds. I was certain they were in the outer pocket my mymulti-pocketed messenger bag. But after ransacking that pocket to...

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Tickertape Man

Yesterday. A craggy, ceaseless, mentally violent series of panics, the likes of which sent me to the MRI chamber only to be to ld my brain was “unremarkable.” I opened this gift of a day by watching soap suds circle...

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Headphones

I’ve been listening to music on headphones as if I’m the first person ever to discover that one can be on a subway or walking on a city street oblivious to the surroundings thanks to loud music and noise-cancelling...

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Meta AI: No Homeless Allowed

I’ve used DALL-E pretty much exclusively for generating random images. It’s fun. The censorship aspect is irritating at times. In certain contexts, you can have homeless men but not homeless women. You will never be...

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The sugar box and a doorknob

Today’s downsizing, again relatively modest, saw the disposal of an empty box of “Sugar in the Raw” and a ziploc bag containing the remains of a decimated doorknob. I kept the empty sugar box because I liked...

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She was 11-Feet Tall

Sunday was another rain day. I stayed inside most of it. I don’t like being inside a place I’ve been in for something like 25 years. I just renewed another lease. Not happy about that, but should I be? It’s...

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Feel good

Nothing to say. Reflecting on my absence in life. It’s like I’m not here. So much...

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Movement

Yesterday. All I wanted was to move. Up at 6am I made short order of grocery shopping. I am consistently being awarded the Senior Discount even though I am not 62, and I do not feel close to 62. I don’t even fuck old but I...

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Filling up

The PBX encountered something I never thought it would. It filled to capacity with .wav files, every last one of them needless and superfluous since I eliminated the “glitch” that was not a glitch. Or did I eliminate...

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Diet is everything?

Feeling much better this day after the last, which was torturous at times. Felt like I’d been eating tree branches. Innards asunder, ass under. Crazy dreams came from that, reminding me of the one strip I could never...

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Working This Day

Working Thanksgiving Day, same as I did last year. Works for me. I’m no fan of holidays. Weird dreams last night. I was in a receiving area adjacent to the Trump Tower. Many of us worked there and knew the grounds but many...

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Feel Fine

el fine today after a few days of feeling like I’d been eating tree branches for breakfast lunch and dinner. I read some random source saying that everyone should stop taking Omeprazole immediately. I’ve taken it...

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So many things

Have so much on my mind these days, yet so little to show for it. No action. All thought funnels, emptying into an indifferent sky. I don’t want to talk about most of it, but I do write about it offline, for my...

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Sitting

This spot has taken on some kind of meaning to me. It’s where I sit most workday morning, for about 45 minutes, typing forgettable accounts of the previous days’ adventures and heroics. At this time I am recording...

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27,252 steps? Is that even possible?

Yesterday I walked, but I don’t see how 27k+ steps is even possible. More importantly, I nearly choked yesterday on a sandwich. It was at the Myrtle/Willoughby G train station in Brooklyn. Nobody around, really, and I had...

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Mt. Vernon

Yesterday I made it up to Mount Vernon West on the Metro North. Nice ride up, a bit of a mess on the return, in between I scoped out (what else?) payphones. I found more than expected. Well, put it another way. I knew there...

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DST Got Me

I arose at 5am, after lying wide awake since 4:30. Two days ago this would have been an hour later. I made use of the time, but now I am at work earlier than ever. No problem. I encountered the Marathon yesterday. Props to the...

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Where to go

On Wednesday, I went up to the Bronx, to an area which, on one map at least, would have been called Laconia. I had intended to walk from there to Co-Op City but it was cold and I just didn’t feel the joy. The 5 train from...

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Weather

80 degrees Saturday, Rain and 50s Sunday, 60s and clear Monday. The weather has been messing me up. All seasons in a week. Now it’s daylight savings time on Sunday. Who needs this strangulation of time and temperance? Even...

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Passages

Word comes fast these days. Almost immediately. Whose turn is next? Yours? Your nemesis? Mine? Last month, I learned that an acquaintance from long ago died in his sleep. No cause given, at least not in any circles I could...

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Present

Walking the walk, thinking about the unpaid time spent commuting to and from work. Ways to make it productive. Take notes? Document? Walking from Broadway toward Gold Street, I briefly challenged myself to document something I...

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Leading Versus Teva

What an obscure comparison. Like I’m comparing a pharma to a shoe. The only reason I noticed today that the manufacturer of the Lorazepam I take has changed was because the pills are now twice or even 2.5 times the size of...

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Crazy little thing

Nothing crazy, really. Was watching some porn and the music playing sounded vaguely like “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” but there was and is nothing crazy to report, I don’t think. I slept poorly. I’ve...

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Payphone Tour Video, and Some Morning Prattle

Some surprises, some failures on this tour of Manhattan’s last publically-accessible pay telephones. Sitting in the break room, by the air conditioner, freezing my ass off, teeth are almost chattering. But I like it. This...

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Ready for Rain

With the first umbrella I can remember ever paying more than $1 for, and with waterproof boots in place, I am ready for the rain. The new umbrella will be bigger than any I’ve ever owned. 53 inches, I think? I will use it...

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Feeling out of place

Yesterday, as with most days, I started writing a bit of whatever, some mental detritus from the pulpit of solitude, when somehow it all vanished. Several sentences of carefully planned, thought-out, pre-chewed then...

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Columbus

It did not lead to too much kerfuffle for me but I had no idea until I got to the office that today was Columbus Day. In fact I did not know until I got all the way upstairs and looked it up. I did not want to appear ignorant by...

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Early as ever

I am not at my usual spot for the morning strawberries and meaningless prattle. All the tables and charis were removed from for use at some event last night. I think it was Family Night, where people brought their kids or...

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Masbate

When I received an email from someone saying she was in Masbate City, I thought it had to be a joke. Where was the “tur” splicing apostrophe? Mas’bate City? Alas, there really is a Masbate City, but the...

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L

I don’t remember now why I intended to title this posting with the letter L. I don’t know what I am anymore. I walked yesterday. It was hot, but among the midtown skyscrapers I had trouble finding places sun could...

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It rained

Like a lot of people, I knew rain was coming, but had no idea it would be the most rain in one day since the 1970s (I think I read that somewhere). Flooding in all the usual places but a few surprises, I guess? Highways and...

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Staying In

Rain is worse than I thought. Waterfalls in subway stations, oh my. I thought it was just going to be steady rain but it’s coming down fast and angry. Maybe not at this moment. Within this office building I am blessedly...

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More rain

It seems my days off, with one memorable exception, all happen to land on beautiful weather days, this amid stormy weather patterns that last for days. Lucky me. Sunday is said to be mid-70s and sunny. Today and tomorrow are...

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Holes

Finding a decent pair of socks proved to be quite a challenge this morning. I found one pair after another, artfully stuffed into itself by laundromat personnel, but every pair seemed to have large and capacious holes. These...

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Early

I get to work early most days. I sit in one of the break rooms and I type. Today I type these words. In earlier days I typed other words. Different words. Someone unfamiliar to me adrressed me by name a few moments ago. I...

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Extremes?

Is life really full of extremes? Some days it seems so. But then I think on it and define that what seems extreme today was routine yesterday, and will be so tomorrow. Sitting naked on the bathtub floor today, showered by...

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5 Days

I think the last 5 days of feeling the life inside me stagnate and form self-gripping fists of self-loathing and disdain have passed for now. I don’t even look at mirrors anymore. I don’t like what I see. But I feel...

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4 Days

I took 2 days off from work, combined with two regular days off amounting to 4 days unmoored. 4 days of not knowing what to do or where to go. Sunday and Monday were rain days, which seemed to enhance whatever feeling of misery...

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MetroCard all the way

I had heard the news but somehow it never seemed like a time to take advantage. I felt like a bit of a n00b yesterday in using, for the first time, a MetroCard to get to Nassau County via the NICEBUS. There is one bus from...

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Rough Night

Dreams were rough and tumble. A homeless dude decided there was a lot of money in my bag and he wanted it. There was no money in my bag so instead he wanted my water. I carry an 8oz. bottle everywhere in case I need to take a...

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Three of us

Only two of us were in the bed. So I knew it could not be her standing over us, reaching down and grabbing our shoulders in repeated attempts to throw us out the door and into the neighbor’s back yard. I woke up, startled...

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Messed up N/R/W

No W at all this AM, and the N was running only every 20+ minutes, or so it seemed. The 7:24 was uncommonly packed, but not insufferably so. I ventured around again yesterday, this time being more cautious about the heat. Sunday...

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Work Away

One of the reasons I welcomed working at an office again after 20 years of doing my own thing was relying on someone else to pay for things like air conditioning, or letting someone else manage the computer network, or letting...

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It Was Hot

I was looking forward to the 90-degree heat. Maybe I should have tamped that enthusiasm. I had no idea where I might want to go, where to spend part of the day. Listlessly I checked on the Little Free Library and the Community...

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Fresh Pants, New Shirt

Sartorially I feel a little different than usual. Brand new shirt. Have not had one of those in over a year. Short sleeves with no pocket. Not tuckable. Casual but classy. I think I’d been wearing the same pants for a...

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Late Being Early

I’m a little late today, only an hour early versus the usual 1.5 or so. In a previous post I think I mentioned that I saw a woman on the subway who I had not seen for months. She is interesting to me for her art and...

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Time for Another Day

Word on the radio was that subways were a disaster all around. I had no problems. Seems delays were all about the 1/2/3, I think, and of course the new and never-ending F/M debacle. I purchased a cheap piece of technology, with...

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I Have no Banana Today

My morning routine had come to settle on 16 ounces of strawberries and a single banana. I neglected the banana, thinking it might go bad overnight or over 2 days. Here I am bananaless. Sans banana. I am in a state of NON-BANANA....

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A Lot of Questions

Dude who sells me strawberries, once in a while, will ask a whole lot of questions. Today he asked why I go to work so early. In an earlier episode he had asked what time my job starts. I told him 9am. He obviously remembered...

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Tony

Yesterday I spotted, quite by chance, a headline in a hyper-local Queens newspaper. It mentioned...

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Day 2

The new gig at the same company started yesterday. I’m in training now, which has periods of abject boredom that drive me to near panic. That happened a lot during the first rounds of training last year. I blacked out huge...

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Monday Monday

My first day on the new division. Not certain where to go or when to log in. I don’t care too much about all this, the change of job function. It’s the same task just not as urgent or anxiety-stoking. Yesterday sent...

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The Future Is Mine

It’s probably not worth getting terrifically excited about. But for the moment I’m happy as ass. Mobing to the new division of this company at last, something like 9 months after being told I would start in 2 weeks....

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Extra Early, or Under Late?

Got here maybe a half hour earlier than usual. Nobody here. I could work this shift if I asked nicely. The overnight. I might have been wired for that in earlier years but not anymore. It’s also hard to get. Folks on the...

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Sunday Looks Good

Things finally moving again at the workplace. I don’t like to blab on about work but I’ve become happy here. That’s not my normal disposition. I don’t talk about it much because no one wants to hear from...

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A Woman Masturbating

I was engaged in a pitifully mundane task. Punching 19 digits and a 4-digit PIN to see how much money was left on an Applebee’s gift card that’s been in my wallet for something like 7 years. Sitting outside the...

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Yesterday was Baisley

Baisley Pond Park had been on my list of things to see for I don’t know how long. Hard to say why, except that it is there, on a map, looking strangely enticing. I chose a perhaps misbegotten route, from the A train...

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Mabobs

That word came to mind yesterday when someone mentioned my websites to me. I update this one but few people know of it. The payphone site, though, that’s become a thingamabob. I don’t know where websites fit in to...

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I Know Better

As habits go mine is probably typical. I think highly of myself, but quickly quash that instinct with post-natal discoveries of weakness, character flaws, arrogances and fallibilities. I am nothing. I do not inhabit or inform...

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Needs So Little

I was looking at a woman on the N train yesterday. She was small, occupied minimal space, and seemed to move only when necessary. Whatever that means. Her purse was smaller than some of the pockets in my new messenger bag, her...

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People Talk

I think it’s food. All anyone talks about is food. Indirectly, when discussing the nuclear...

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Bites and Grabs: “Who’s There?”

Something biting my arm and squeezing the back of my neck felt so real I had to wake up twice and shine light on my arm to be certain no creature or other had sunk its teeth or claws into me. Through the nearly rigor-mortis...

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