Well they were the best of time and the worst of times…

Yesterday, I made my way into Manhattan. I had to really think about when the last time I’d gone into the city was. Now, two things here… you’ll notice I said ‘the city’ because if you grew up in the New York metropolitan area, you don’t say you are going into Manhattan you say you’re going into the city.

New York City is big and has five boroughs… the Bronx (the only part of New York City connected to the continental United States) and then four other boroughs that are stand alone islands or part of an island… Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens (the last two part of Long Island).

If you go to any of the other four boroughs you all them out by name… Manhattan? That’s ‘The City’ to the natives.

Our language moment out of the way, I realized the last time I had ventured in, I took the train in on my annual celebration last year to go and visit the Statue of Liberty with a friend and then to have the most amazing dinner in the Green Room at the Grand Brasserie which was wonderful. It was truly a good day but I was indeed tired after it all.

This time I drove in and parked on the Upper West Side and then took the subway down to where I needed to go (Hudson Yards).

The drive was… well, they have done all these things in the city now to make driving impossible. It’s a joke really. Aside from the stupid congestion tax, they’ve blocked lanes, put up these stupid dining sheds, changed the timing on lights, lowered speed limits, basically EVERYTHING YOU CAN FUCKING DO TO MAKE A CITY NOT A CITY!

If you want to live in the country? MOVE TO THE FUCKING COUNTRY!!!! It’s amazing. The people in charge are just assholes. I spoke to a friend of mine who lives in Brooklyn, teaches in Manhattan and has refused to take the subway for the last several years so he drives in and pays the stupid Congestion Tax and even he admits the Congestion Tax HAS DONE NOTHING! A trip that would take him 20 minutes by car now takes 40 minutes. SO MUCH FOR AIR QUALITY!!! It’s amazing to see disingenuous politicians and rich Manhattanites try to mask their NIMBY BULLSHIT behind supposed loftier aims… they’re reducing pedestrian deaths (try again), they’re reducing congestion (they aren’t)… the only thing they are doing is making life idyllic for rich people living in Manhattan who EVEN THOUGH THEY HAVE A MULTITUDE OF PUBLIC TRANSIT OPTIONS OWN CARS!!!!

This is some true lefty bullshit here.

Working people? People who work off hours and live outside of the city without adequate public transit options? People who need to drive in because the public transit commute would involve too many facets? Well, TOUGH, you’re just FUCKED and a casualty of liars.

Okay… so with my screed out of the way. The drive was a pain in the ass because certain roadways were backed up and then any workaround or bypass you can use just becomes tortuous because of what they’ve done.

I did get down to the city and the first thing that happened as I was at the light coming off the exit to local streets was that there was a shirtless man hanging out at the light trying to intimidate people into giving him money. WELCOME TO THE BAD OLD DAYS!!!

Rudy Giuliani got rid of squeegee men, panhandlers, homeless on the streets and at least Bloomberg didn’t let the city slide backwards but with a parade of Democratic idiots? DiBlasio, Adams and now the Communist… we’re right back where we were in the nineties but instead they’ve made it so it’s impossible to escape.

Think about it… I haven’t gone in in over a year and I’ve stopped going in even though I’ve lived here all of my life and the very first thing when I do get into the city is getting into a confrontation with some clown trying to grift and because I have my window open on a hot day and make it clear he should stay away the response I get is a tantrum where I am looking around in the car for a heavy object to use to hit said beggar with if he gets any closer to my personal space.

THAT’S TODAY’S NEW YORK.

Anyway, I looked for a while for a spot. Looking for a spot is a zen labor. The more desperate you are to find a parking spot the less likely you are to find one. I though I spied a spot close to where the highway exit was but there again was said beggar and I didn’t want to leave my vehicle unattended around him so that was out.

Back and forth I went along side streets and avenues, at one point I was simply too far from where I wanted to be anyway and I turned back to get closer and when I released myself from the whole experience there before me was a car pulling out and I just pulled right in. ZEN.

I walked over to the subway station. Upper Broadway is so different now and the one thing Manhattan proves is that it is in a constant state of change. So, I looked around as I walked and it struck me I did really miss that walking around Manhattan that I used to do. It’s something you can’t really do in the same way outside of Manhattan since it’s so dense and there is a discovery on every block. Then I saw someone who you only really see in Manhattan, a very striking tall blonde (dyed) woman standing talking with a man. Her mien only works in Manhattan, it wouldn’t be the same anywhere else.

That’s what walking around the city is like.

When I tried to use the stupid card to take the train it didn’t work but that’s another story and the token lady helped me out and just used her card to get me through the turnstiles which was nice of her. The train ride was really the same standard subway ride I’m used to and it was only three stops to get from where I started to where I was going. The ride itself was super quick (another benefit of being a native). It was one of the reasons I parked where I did.

Got off the second express stop, headed downstairs and caught the 7.

I laughed waiting for the 7… I was looking at the mosaic. It’s Times Square but throughout the 7 line stop the walls have a big TS emblazoned on them. Meant nothing years ago but sure does today. Ironically this is after Times Square has been scrubbed of the wonderful seediness of times gone by.

And after a moment on the 7 I ascended into the glistening monstrosity that is Hudson Yards. Another part of the city I can remember quite differently.

I went to the Edge which is this glassed in wall for the company meetup and as I said I’m not big on these things but I hadn’t seen anyone in over a year and it was nice. Mind you, I am likely the oldest person there and one of the very few men in attendance. Remind me again how white men have this big privilege thing because I must have been absent when they handed all that stuff out and have spent my entire life eating shit at work.

Male white privilege, more nonsense from people who want to push their craziness on the world.

So, the time on “The Edge” was brief but I really have to say as these things go? Save your money.

It’s nice and all but the whole thing is set up to take your money from you… you enter through a store where they want to sell you stuff. They take your picture (which they want to sell you later), everything up top is more high priced tchotchkes and the like and overpriced snack bar crap (I kid you not, $7 for a hot dog, A FUCKING HOT DOG!!!!). On your way out you exit through ANOTHER STORE and before you even get to the store they’re trying to sell you that photo thing.

Some people went to have early happy hour and I did attend after taking advantage of the highly discounted company store where I stocked up on some things and after doing so checking $40 bucks on over $60 bucks worth of stuff! So that made the trip somewhat worth it but then as I was with the other folks at the happy hour I got the second best annual celebration present as I was told they were renewing my contract so at least for now as much as I may complain I don’t have to worry about having a job for at least another 14 months!

YAY! 

I haven’t really been writing much lately.

It’s disappointing really because I can’t say I’ve done much of anything outside of work, work and more work.

In the meantime, the disaster that grows around me just continues to grow and I am reminded of the Shelley poem: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

There aren’t ‘works‘ though in any sense, just a house that continually falls deeper into disrepair and amasses more clutter. I simple have been lacking the energy to do anything these days and there is just so many things I should be doing that I have allowed to slide.

Tomorrow, there is a work event that requires me to go into the city and truth be told I’m just not looking forward to it.

Why?

Well, I had set up an Omnicard which they use now instead of the Metrocard but they fucked around with that even though they took my picture and my money to fund the card. They sent back my application but oddly enough didn’t send back the money I had loaded on the card just creating another problem to deal with.

So, if I go into the city, there’s an opportunity to rectify that but I really don’t care to be bothered to tell you the truth.

I have to desperately get a haircut before I go in, simply because days and weeks and months of working from home and not really needing to go out means that I am unkempt. I need to clean myself too having developed bad hygienic habits over the period of time. I have to do laundry as well.

Work has been such that it’s been a clusterfuck of disaster as the people within my own company just continue to fuck up and then fuck up more and fuck up even more after that meaning I have to pick up their slack and things keep coming to me late and in groups which they shouldn’t. Then I have to track down people to look at things and approve then and deal with vendors as well but everything instead of happening in a smooth flow all has to happen at once because my company KEEPS FUCKING UP!

My own annual celebration was recent but I didn’t even take time off and even though I was offered the opportunity to be feted didn’t do that either because work is simple exhausting.

And then I’m worried too about next year and being renewed.

So, I just work, make food, vegetate and watch the tube and really don’t accomplish anything else. It’s not a great life but I’ll take it.

The other day, I reached out to a few people. I don’t know why really other than maybe being a bit lit at the end of the day and the mind wandering.

I reached out to a friend who I worked with and who I just simply hadn’t had any contact with and the next day early my phone was blowing up with messages from him.

Younger than me by almost a decade he relayed how he has Stage 4 cancer. We had a long conversation shortly afterward, it’s sobering really but the truth of it is and the thing you don’t realize when you are a young person is that you are not invincible nor are you eternal. You may have grandparents but there isn’t a guarantee that you will match their number of years logged on the planet.

He’s a good guy too… that’s what’s really sad about it. Not that there ever is a situation to be happy about these things.

Since, I started this job, two of the women in our group have died. I’m not talking about dying of old age either, both of these women died before they hit 55. One was the woman that hired me at my previous job and she was really a nice person and the other again was a super nice woman who had stepped back from work. The thing of it was over the summer I had reached out to her via email and told her how much she was missed and never heard back but she died shortly afterward making me feel a little foolish,

I guess this is my roundabout way of saying, yeah… life can be fucked up. There are times when you feel you are in a rut and nothing is happening or maybe things aren’t going the way you want them but even though that’s the case? You really should be counting your lucky stars because in all honesty there are no guarantees, every fucking day that you are on this planet is a gift, every new day opens up before you with possibility and don’t take it for granted because there are a lot of other people who would willingly trade places with you. 

Oh my god!!!!!

I had said I’m loving Lanterns and last week I already said that I suspected Noah, the Manhunter’s grandson is the one who killed Hal. This is something apparently I was not the only one noticing but I was just rewatching the preview for Episode 7…

Episode 6 kind of dragged but was a necessary evil to get you to a certain point in the story. Yes, Hal Jordan IS DEAD! This bothers me quite a bit because I like Kyle Chandler’s Hal Jordan and want to see more of him. I also like Aaron Pierre’s John Stewart… when they get casting right it only makes the thing even better.

Anyway, back to the preview of Episode 7. There are a bunch of cuts but one has John Steward punching someone. The someone he’s punching is wearing a cowl.

Does that mean they have found the new Spectre of the DCU?!!?!? Remember… James Gunn is calling this phase of the DCU, GODS AND MONSTERS!!

 

I’m loving Lanterns.

If you haven’t watched it I would suggest you do because it’s really terrific. HBO made one of the best comic based series with Penguin and they’ve followed up now with Lanterns. Given that Peacemaker is so much fun I have to say as far as the TV side of things goes they’ve been doing a great job.

Last week they revealed who the Manhunter was which was something I had already guess at. The season only has three episodes left and the first episode ended with John Steward finding Hal Jordan shot in the head on a snowy grandstand in the remote Nebraska town where much of the series takes place.

My money is on the Sheriff’s kid being the person who shot Jordan. They hinted at it in the most recent episode in a bit of throwaway dialogue that was aptly camouflaging an important plot point. It won’t take long to see if I’m right.

Again, HBO is really knocking it out of the park with these DC shows and Disney hasn’t really been doing all that well with Marvel properties recently since Wonder Man finished so it’s nice to see something good show up. 

There are times where you feel like you’re going through a desert.

Lately, I haven’t really been all that compelled to write anything on the blog.

The summer was a lost summer and even though I had time off I don’t feel I made the proper use of it. Even now as I write this I had the last week off and I can’t say I really accomplished anything at all which is frustrating to say the least.

My days are occupied by cooking a ot of the time and just getting through a day which flies by way too fast at this point in life.

Oh, and I went for another medical test last week. This time it was an MRI which I managed to get through fairly well.

If you haven’t ever had any kind of MRI it’s really an experience to say the least. You lie down on this long flat pad and it gets lifted up and moves you into a tube. Once you’re in the tube and the best way I can describe this is for you to imagine a huge very thick donut with a person size hole in the middle. In this case the donut is solid material and the contents of the donut are magnets that spin around you.

It makes a ton of noise when they are doing the test. Lots of clacking while this is all going on and they give you headphones to drown out the noise and also for you to get instructions.

The first time I went for one of these was over twenty years ago. Before I went I was continually asked, ‘Are you claustrophobic?’ ‘Are you claustrophobic?’ ‘Are you claustrophobic?’

I had never known myself to be at all claustrophobic but this is one of those instances where people keep asking you about something you’ve never even thought about and if they hadn’t asked you, it likely would not have been an issue but in this case they asked and they asked and they asked and when they put me in the machine well the first thing was it was a tight fit in that tube. I mean to the point where as I went into the thing my arms were pressed to my sides.

Also, I just went in and then made the mistake of opening my eyes and seeing the top of the tube right there. It was a very, very confined space.

I immediately freaked out. I went back the next day after the doctor who had sent me for the MRI prescribed two valium. Once I had the valium? No problem.

Also?

VALIUM IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!!!

Seriously, I mean after I took the test and was on my way home I noticed just the difference in the way I felt, all the stress and anxiety I carry around and normally feel was entirely gone. It was simply amazing! This was me as a perfect person.

Sounds weird right?

If it was up to me? I’d be taking valium every day. I can see how people could get addicted to it. Although unfortunately it’s a drug that the more you take of it, the less effective it is and it’s very addictive from what I hear. In any event, valium has been the solution to the MRI experience as well as some other things.

The last time I went the guy played classic rock music which helped. This tech didn’t do that unfortunately but I was able to master my thinking during the test which helped using some visualization I hadn’t tried before and given that I had gotten only a single valium instead of two (which is really what I should get being a big boy) was necessary. Then there is also the sleep mask I wear now when doing these things so if I open my eyes it’s just black which strangely isn’t as anxiety ridden as seeing the narrowness of the tube.

So, I got that done. Then I did some spackling for my 88 year old surrogate parent which was my good deed. I had repainted her screen door recently so I’ve been trying to bank some good karma.

The rest of the time while I was off I just idled away the days. That’s not a good thing but it’s been an exhausting year. 

I just had to see…

How fast I could get in and out and get something up on the blog. I’ve been really bad lately. I’ve started a bunch of things and then just run out of steam even though the drafts queue has something of a logjam going on.

Summer is going by way… way… way too fast and honesty I’m just not taking advantage of it the way I should be. There’s plenty of yardwork to do, lots of things to do around the house but all of it is getting undone or even just not started.

Days fly by, weeks rocket past and I simple don’t know where the time goes.

I’m also struggling lately it seems. I don’t know what changed but things are very, very tight. I’m someone who doesn’t like being in debt and I can’t say that I am deep in debt but because of the situation I am living a very monk like existence.

There is so much shit around here that I simply need to sell, stuff that takes up space and that really is worth money that people will buy it but I have to get off of my lazy ass and follow through.

Work has been up and down and that’s likely part of the problem. I thought I would be able to coast through the rest of the summer but some internal dynamics have made the job a helluva lot more difficult that it should be. Holding people’s hand to get them to do their fucking job correctly and running interference with a client isn’t fun.

I really don’t need to spend time covering for the people on my team who are fucking up and somehow think they are being put upon to do their jobs which is something I admittedly find amazing.

I have to admit to being a little worried that the company would bag on me early even though my contract is supposed to run through the end of the year but it’s sounding like that’s just me stressing for no reason and I’ve even made inroads to the point where if my contract for the current role I’m in ends there may be another position in the company they would want me for (this is a good thing).

I actually had someone tell me that if my contract winds up ending and they are cutting me loose to let them know because people with my skills are hard to find and they will be looking for a place for me.

 I don’t want to work FOREVER but I do need to work for another couple of years before I could retire and even then things will be tight so if I can extend it until 70 and increase that SSI payout, why not although one wonders if it will be there when I do retire and if it’s not well I’ll be really fucked!

 Anyway, hope your summer is going well. I have a vacation coming up so I’m looking forward to doing lots of fun things I’ve been putting off! 

Summer is my happy time.

It’s been really hot and truthfully I haven’t been outside too much but summer is still my happy time of the year regardless. The days are longer and for me that’s the biggest bonus there is… give me sunlight, sunlight and more sunlight and I am happy. Banish the dark and banish the night.

Even though it’s my happy time of year I have to admit to just not feeling like doing much.

What’s that about?

In the past few days, I repaired a trash can lid doing some plastic welding and felt like it was a major achievement. I also hung new drapes over my work window which also was something of an achievement. I have a long list of things I need to do around here and the truth of it is I just am not getting to things the way I should be.

Today, I realized I could very well be out of work before my birthday which would be very, very, very, very, very bad.

I simply am not at a point where I can afford not to be working and I am so close to achieving some major goals. Those goals though are dependent on me continuing to work so now the anxiety of looking for a gig raises its ugly head and the first order of business is to scramble around and see if I can latch on somewhere within the company by letting people know this project is wrapping up.

In all honesty? I’d really like to work a little more than another two years, maybe three and then just call it.

It’s so hard to save and so easy to spend it seems.

This year, it seems as if money is in even more short supply even though I have been working and I’m trying to understand why that is. I get a sense I know the answer to it aside from prices going up and my salary staying the same but also some decisions I made as well as some things changing.

Medicare is good but it isn’t great and it is surprisingly expensive between all the premiums and the out of pocket expenses.

Last week I was off for most of the week although I did peek into work from time to time and I had set things up in such a way that the train kept moving forward.

You’d think I got a lot done but I didn’t. I did get a medical test, saw some doctors, met a friend for lunch, took another person out for their birthday and saw Supergirl as well as made sure my cousin got flowers for her birthday and it seemed like the week went by fast. I’ve got another week off coming up and honestly I can’t wait and the another week in the beginning of September but all in all it just doesn’t seem like there is enough time to do everything or maybe it’s that I don’t have the energy.

I keep trying to think about what I did that was so earth-shattering but then I remember I did a lot of cooking. There’s always cleaning to do too… I’m just mister excitement what can I say!