Man, on Man. Is Mercury retrograde or what?
Last night arrived at Rocco's in New London – were we to have dinner with his sister in Danbury – and saw he had packed his bag. The pal I called in Beacon who works at DIA Center – where we were going to head after dinner – called the night before from Ft Lauderdale, informing me he wasn't in town. Whups. I forgot that Rocco had had the dogs kenneled for the weekend and was planning to grab a hotel room. I mean, I was supposed to arrange all that and as it all fell apart, I didn't communicate any of that effectively with Rocco.
But we had a lovely dinner with Mary – who's very attractive – and her husband Frank. They're quite similar in many ways, temperamentally, I think. But I was relieved that we all had a lovely evening. Rocco was certainly a sport about the changed plans, I think. But we were both tired: halfway back, I took over driving back to New London.
Was still in bed with Rocco when Jim called. I could barely make out that he was in the hospital with stomach pains. Rushed through breakfast to get up there. I arrive in the parking lot of RIH only to then get another call from Jim, saying he had a hernia and that he was doing OK.
Then I stopped off to drop off a letter at the EProv PO. On impulse I walked into the library next door and to the adult magazine rack was and grabbed “Writer's Digest.” Some woman was letting her fucking brat squeal all over the place. I shushed her child and she defended, “She's only three years old.” I shot back, “She'll quiet down if you ask her. Tell her to quiet down. You're the mom.” I grabbed a copy of WORKING MOTHER and threw it down on the low table in front of her and said flatly, “Get a clue, Mom.” She grabbed her child and said, “Fuck you,” in plain earshot of everyone around, then yanked her out to the kid's area which, I note here, is twice the size as the rest of the library.
I almost lost it, but instead stopped myself short. Instead, I left the library and headed home. I couldn't believe myself. It was as if I had walked into the library just to make a scene. I felt like a shmuck and a half.
Then home, finally – I called Pete and he told me that his movie screening, which I was really looking forward to going to with Jim and Rocco, had already started. Oops. Must've screwed up the time – I thought it was later this evening. Piss.
Then my cute Filipino postman John knocks on my door, reminding he'd had my mail on hold since I left for NOLA. Fuck. He himself had been out for three weeks with a shoulder injury.
If all this mishegus, having your mailman out with an injury, and forgetting to have your mail restored, aren't sure signs of retro Mercury, I don't know what. Is anybody up on astrological transits?
Oddly, I feel much better now, having told of this little incident. Rocco's coming up and we'll go for a nice walk. Then a nice dinner. Then a nice fuck. Then a nice sleep. Then a nice breakfast. And so on.
I wanted to take a moment to thank folks for their consolations for my whining about losing part of my beard. I just hate shaving, of course, which now seems the only option to make it look OK. But I'm hugely attached to my beard. Otherwise everything's pretty good health-wise: taste buds still a bit flat, some slight hearing muffling, perhaps. But the skin looks really good. Who was it that suggested that this is an opportunity to go out and buy some obscenely priced moisturizers?
