I awoke at 4:30 A.M. with that old guy need to pee. So, on goes the side lamp, a short trudge to the toilet and back to bed. I figure I might sleep for a bit more, so I set a podcast to stop after 30 minutes, listen to the most handsome people start their conversation and fall back to sleep.
I awake before the six o'clock alarm and decide to have a lie-in.
You see, I am terrible about using my vacation days during the year and my boss is reminding me every November to use up my days so I don’t lose them. We are allowed to carry-over ten days, which I always do; but December always includes scattered days off so I don’t lose any. Today, well, this week includes those days. I was on a train Monday, and had stuff booked for Tuesday, so today is an actual “day off”!
I turn-on the Bluetooth speaker again, grab my phone, open the Handsome podcast, start it from the beginning, and roll out of bed. At 67, I do literally roll out of bed. I had heard that expression all my life, but it wasn’t until my body overheard the definition of elderly and decided it was time to move from “spry middle-age” to “overweight old white guy,” that I truly understood what it meant to “roll” out of bed. And, this morning, rolling out of bed is what I was doing while Fortune Feimster, Mae Martin, and Tig Notaro introduced themselves to their pretty little listener: me!
First thing: take my old guy medication. Does every old guy take a pill every morning? Mine is a pink pill as a replacement for my thyroid.
Then back to the bathroom, bluetooth speaker in hand for the standard sit, followed by a brush, a glance, smile, a happy sigh in the mirror, and the shower ritual.
There are two rugs on the bathroom floor: one that lays in front of the toilet, sink, and bathtub, and another that lays in front of the shower door. I know this is going to sound weird, but I hate for those rugs to be wet, even though that’s, ostensibly, their sole purpose. So, after I turn on the shower to let the water run until the temperature is correct, I take a large old bath towel from the linens we received as wedding gifts 26 years ago, and stretch it out from one of the rugs to the other. They were very nice, plush towels that are no longer plush but still remarkably absorbent a quarter century later, and a tad frayed. This towel makes a perfect “rug on top of the rugs” rug. And by the time I get it placed, the water is the perfect temperature.
I take Fortune, Mae and Tig into the shower with me and close the door. The invention of waterproof Bluetooth speakers is a godsend for music and information freaks like me. This means, however, that I don’t see these Handsome devils on video; but, I know what they look like. I listen to them discuss the rooms from which the three of them are podcasting. The conversation evolves to home improvements and devolves to lots of pubic innuendo about yard work and topiary. Yes, I am laughing aloud while shampooing, etc.
For the record, I never did any yard work while growing-up in the projects in Roxbury, and my child never did any yard work while growing-up in Brooklyn. She also did little housework. That stuff really should be left to the professionals.
I step out of the shower, onto the antique towel cum rug, and dry off to Mae Martin explaining that non-custodial kidnappings have decreased by 27% since 2015. That’s a relief. The Handsome podcast is the soundtrack to my Wednesday mornings. Life just isn’t the same without these three remarkable comedians starting my day.
Underwear on, deodorant, powders and lotions applied.
I continue as if it’s a regular day, a work day.
Jeans on, shirt on. Super casual since it’s not a work day. Make the bed while the Handsome crew talk about a tits-out hot tub, leaving me giggling so hard that I sneeze. Remember, if you are installing a hot tub, don’t call the Tits-Out Hot Tub Company. Sigh!
Lights off and meander to the kitchen for the breakfast ritual. Still feels like a work day even though I’m wearing a casual plaid shirt. I pour four “cups” of water into the coffee maker, two heaping scoops of Bustelo into the basket, click the “Strong” button and the “On” button while listening to three Handsome adults discuss topiary and tits. Does life get any better? I don't think so.
I look at a box of cereal and sigh, I don't want cereal, even though there are delicious blueberries and macerated strawberries in the fridge. I open the refrigerator as the coffeemaker gurgles, and see the usual breakfast suspects: breads, oat milk, eggs, cooked bacon, jams, cheeses, and their lunch and dinner time companions and beverages. I often make myself a BEC on an English muffin (a crumpet for my English readers). For the other non-New Yorkers, BEC is the classic NYC bacon, egg and cheese on a roll. You can get this delicacy at every deli, as well as many bodegas and coffee carts. I don’t want a BEC, so I decide to make an omelet with Brie cheese and bacon alongside a toasted English muffin with black cherry jam.
The Handsome crew announces that Rob Thomas is their guest today and he asks a question about what they spend money on now that they wouldn’t have spent money on when they were younger. As usual, my Handsome morning crew meanders in, around, and through the question, making me laugh and sigh. They sort of switch it to a discussion of their first extravagant purchase after they could afford such a thing.
I think my first personal extravagance after settling into a career, was a full-length black leather duster. When it comes to the original question, something I buy now that my younger self would not have bought, the answer is certainly: Art.
The Handsome crew winds-up as I sit for my morning feast. Damn, this black cherry jam is fucking excellent!
Next is a podcast about the musician and activist Fela Cuti, whom I have always enjoyed and admired. It’s the first in a series and I will eventually listen to all episodes. I clear the breakfast dishes, clean the omelet pan and look around the kitchen.
Time for the morning puzzles, which I share with my sister and a friend in Boston.
- Wordle: 5/6, which is terrible.
- I think my average is about 3.8. I win 98% of the time, and my longest winning streak is 179 days.
- NY Times Mini: 1:44, which is absolutely horrible!
- I almost always, except for Saturdays, get the Mini in well under a minute. My best time is 21 seconds, twice.
- Connections: 2 wrong guesses, which is not bad.
- I'm not very good at this one. My win percentage is 87% and my longest streak is 18, having played exactly 500 times.
The housekeeper is coming today. This is her third visit.
My housekeeper of ten years retired and I feel rudderless, alone, and terrified of the future. I have lived with the luxury of a housekeeper for more than 30 years, than half of my adult life. Myrian, my last housekeeper had become like a member of the family! I watched her kids grow-up, she watched my kid grow-up. She knew how to do my laundry and fold my clothes. We knew each other's rhythms, so that when I became a work-from-home professional, we were never in each others' way. Basically, I did whatever she said! When the pandemic lockdown happened in 2020, she said she would not come. I agreed. I cleaned the bathrooms, washed and vacuumed the floors, did the laundry . . . you know, like a normal person. I didn't die.
During those days, my employer told me to stay home, and we would figure it out. I got paid every week. We all had projects to continue with, but there was no new business and no real new projects, all our customers were in the same mode, so there were few, if any, meetings or calls with them. Things were slow, and scary. How long could this last?
I started writing online about working from home, and that became part of my job. We managed to get things done, but it was different, and employers like mine continued paying our salaries.
What about the service workers? How were they getting paid? What about Myrian?
Each week I put her pay into an envelope as I begrudgingly did the housework. We texted once a week about the situation, Ten weeks later, she returned to start weekly cleaning again. I was so happy to see her, not just because I hated doing the house cleaning, but because she was like a member of the family: she knew me, I knew her, we liked each other, we cared about each other. She wasn't just "the housekeeper," she was Myrian. She was someone's daughter, someone's mother, someone's partner, she was a hard-working person, and I liked her, I cared about her. I handed her the envelope and said: "My employer paid me while I wasn't really working, so this is your pay while you couldn't work." She cried, I cried, we hugged. Neither of us ever mentioned it again, but I told all my friends with housekeepers to get a sense of how they had handled the lockdown. I was disappointed; but it doesn't matter what they did, it only matters what I did.
Most of my experience with housekeepers has been positive. I only had one bad experience, and it only cost me a little and they were gone after just a few weeks. It's not easy to find a housekeeper. I'm inviting a total stranger into my home to touch my things and watch my lifestyle. If they are untrustworthy, it could be a disaster. It's three weeks into the new housekeeper. Things seem to be OK, but I miss Myrian and I fear I will never get the quality of care I received from her.
Since the new housekeeper had just started with us, I did not give her a Thanksgiving bonus last week. I had given Myrian a departure gift, since she really deserved the Thanksgiving bonus.
It's also Christmas season. As I stood there staring at the now misting humidifier, I decided that giving the new person a holiday bonus was the right thing to do. I opened the card drawer, found a lovely little card of an angel designed by Mary Hopkin, wrote "Merry Christmas" inside and inserted the same amount I would have given Myrian. I placed it with the money she collects for her services and moved on to the next task: recycling.
Podcast ends so I switch to my music playlist and click "random" to hear all my favorite singers and bands. First up is the Isley Brothers, and that's a good start!
I'm a pretty diligent recycler. I breakdown my boxes, shred my personal papers and junk mail, and sort my plastic and glass. Twenty-odd years ago, which was about ten years into urban recycling policies, a brother-in-law told me that recycling is a lifestyle choice, and shouldn't be policy. I knew he was wrong then, and I have always embraced the process.
It doesn't matter that the City of New York sends its recycling to a landfill, it only matters that I follow the policies and recycle in the conscripted manner. I pray that some day soon, the United States figures out how to actually recycle the recyclables, but as long as conservatives and neoliberals make public policy, such policies will fail.
Now that is done and I hear Joe Bataan, followed by David Bowie.
Now to open the BlueSky app, the last of the social media platforms I use. I make "on this day" posts and do the MusicSky challenges. On this day in 1948, Ozzy Osborne was born, so I make a post about that, grabbing a public-domain photo from Wikipedia. I always give photo credits, and Wikipedia almost always provides a credit. My current MusicSky challenge is "Twenty Songs by Year," and I am doing 1975. So each weekday I post a song from 1975, and by the end of December, I will have posted twenty songs. Today's song is "Gloria" by Patti Smith. Yesterday was "Young Americans" by David Bowie. Tomorrow will be "Shame Shame Shame" by Shirley & Company. I like these challenges.
Good artists popping-up in the playlist: Stiff Little Fingers, Wu-Tang Clan, and Style Council.
The groceries arrive forty-five minutes late. I want to ding the pre-paid tip, but decide that taking back some of the seven dollars is not going to make me feel any better, and service workers are grossly underpaid, under-appreciated, and under-tipped, so I can just let it go.
Somehow I ordered four boxes of cereal instead of two, and I don't really have space for the extras. I look at my order and see that I added two boxes of cereal two times. Yup, that's four boxes! Maybe the cleaning lady will take a couple of boxes home. She has kids, they will probably eat the cereal, even if it's gluten-free and has no sugar on it. They can add the sugar, but I don't think they can add the gluten.
Myrian would always take the extra food I had in the kitchen before it went bad. This is particularly helpful with my farm-to-table delivery when I will sometimes get more celery or more tomatoes or more potatoes or something I could never consume before they turn. I hate throwing-away food, and I have not yet established a rapport with the new person that includes them taking my unwanted food. Maybe today will be that day.
Do you get a farm delivery. Since I have reduced my spending with Amazon, I have been seeking different alternatives; and Farm to People has been great!
I send a Snapchat message in an attempt to set-up a booty call. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We'll see.
The housekeeper arrives and we negotiate a slight change that gets my office cleaned first so I can go in there and stay out of her way. Generally, she starts at the front of the house and cleans until lunchtime and I give-up my office for a lunch break and she cleans there before I go back in for the rest of her time here.
She doesn't like our mop for cleaning the tile floors and wooden floors. I think: "This is the type of mop Myrian always used." She opens her phone and shows me the type of mop she likes for cleaning. I agree to get one. We discuss laundry detergent, soaps, and cleaning supplies. I suggest she put any empty bottles on the kitchen table and I will get them replaced before her next visit. She smiles. I interpret this as agreement.
I resist looking at work emails. I was texting with a colleague on Monday. It seemed to me that he was responding in a perfunctory manner, but I may have just been being too sensitive; and then I realized: paid time-off gives me a break from work, and it also gives them a break from me! They leave me alone, and I should leave them alone. I can be a lot!
I failed on Tuesday, but I am not going to look today!
I get a text from the potential booty call. It might happen.
Hmmmm . . . another David Bowie song! My favorite: "Panic In Detroit"!
I see there are notifications from BlueSky, so I open it and look at the Likes and Comments on my posts. I was really into this when I used Facebook, Instagram, and Threads; but I don't use them anymore. On Martin Luther King Day, back in January, the current American president was inaugurated and began his second term as ruler of the free world. I did not watch any of those proceedings, but I saw on Facebook that Mark Zuckerberg was sitting behind the president and decided at that moment to stop using all the Meta apps. That man and those apps are absolute garbage, and I am done. I canceled Twitter the day Elon Musk purchased it. So, you can really only find me on BlueSky. I use Substack, too; but that's not social media.
"I Can't Help Myself," by Orange Juice is playing. It is not a cover of the Four Tops song, but it references the Four Tops and I love when pop culture is self-referential.
I wander around the apartment while the laundry is being done, taking pictures of art I want to hang or move. It's a bit overwhelming, but has to be done. I have acquired some photographs, which I generally don't collect, and I am considering a wall of photographs. I have some nice piece by photographers who are in famous museum collections, and it feels like I should really hang them as a group.
Oh! A bowl of candy on the dining room table. Sure, I'll have a miniature Snickers!
I return to a Kristeen Young song playing.
There are two new paintings I recently acquired at The Bishop, in Brooklyn. I really want to hang them and have to find space for them.
They fit into my recent interest in contemporary cubist work, which also led to acquiring these pieces by Mike Capp:
I love collecting art. I started around 1995 and wish I had unlimited space and money, but I do not! Who does? Well, I guess some people do!
Last night I went to MoMA for a guided tour of their Fifth Floor, which is the most famous floor of their collection: Van Gogh's "Starry Night" and a ton of Picassos, the Dada and Surrealism galleries, Matisse, and so much more. The woman leading the tour was a very knowledgeable art historian. She selected pretty safe paintings to discuss; but at the end she had a couple of minutes left and I asked her to discuss "The She-Wolf," an early Jackson Pollock that is installed on that floor, instead of the Fourth Floor, where his more famous works are installed. She did a great job changing gears like that. It was a fun night. I was impressed.
T.Rex is singing "Teenage Dream"!
A surprise Facetime call from my daughter! Hooray. Pause the music! We discuss stuff and chat a bit.
"Echo Beach" is playing.
I have not yet secured my season tickets for the Brooklyn FC soccer team's 2026 season. It should be easier, but the link I got weeks ago has expired, so I sent an email admitting my failure to take action and asking for a new link.
I have been a season ticket holder at Red Bull New York since 2003, but I have become disenchanted with that organization and that league . I already purchased RBNY seats for 2026, but that will be my last year as a season ticket holder. I really can't support that league or organization anymore, they are really terrible. I'm certain I will find problems with Brooklyn FC and USL; but they are new and I'd rather give them a chance than continue supporting a team and league I have grown to despise.
Ooooo! "As Time Goes By"! I always think this song should be followed by Dylan's "Just Like A Woman," but it never is!
A long list of emails included the expected increase in Christmas Sale ads that one might expect. I deleted more than I read, but I read some.
No invitations to fabulous parties, openings, or events. The art scene is at Art Miami this week, and I did not go. I await reports back from gallerists, artists and collectors I know who are in attendance. I hope everyone has a fruitful trip.
So, that's about it. I did not intend to make this so long, but I did. If you made it through the entire thing, I am duly impressed.
Until the next time . . .
Sent from a mobile device.
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