Yesterday a tough day---don't even ask me why? A little spillage while my friend Harlo was installing my new computer---not the easiest thing to deal with. Got it under control.
This morning---awoke at around 2:30 A.M. Needed some coffee and a muffin. Determined not to wait. So, per usual, got dressed and embarked for the grocery store four blocks away, sometimes it seems like my second home, during the pandemic and my health problems. 3 A.M. east side of West End Avenue, very quiet, many doormen, I am usually the only person on the street. Four blocks going---pick up my coffee and muffin and then do the four blocks that return me to my apartment. A great journey! Well, it is a little daring to do this at 3A.M, and don't forget that I have also done this at 4 or 2 A.M. as well. Return to the apartment and enjoy the fruits of my labor---good coffee and a muffin that fulfills my sugar quota. Then back to sleep, usually.
Now, almost 7 A.M. Ostomy bag change today---my nurse-helper Jill will visit me and we will change the bag together---except that I have almost reached the point where I can do it myself. Still, I wait....
Waiting means entertaining myself, since I have already taken my first trip outside. This is not easy, as I am anxious to finish the change---what are my reading options? A few days ago, I bought a book from a second hand bookstore a few blocks away. It is Dynasty---a sixteen year comprehensive history of the Yankees through their winning years----1949-1964. I had read the book before---actually when it first came out---I remember the time well, early summer of 1975. That was right before I began my affair with Nancy--the affair which lasted through January of 76, and which I was responsable for ending---or at least moving out of the comitted picture. A stable relationship, we did a lot of things together---we enjoyed seeing movies and plays---I was working as a "counselor" at the time on the lower east side---a school two blocks south of Houston Street called PS 4. But it had to end. Soon I would embark on my next relationship---one that would prove a lot more devastating in the end. But my time with Nancy created a relative calm in my life---how did I get into this...? Oh yes, the book about the Yankees. At the same used bookstore a few days ago, I saw Philip Roth's Letting Go---his first novel after his major success with the novella Goodbye Columbus and some telling short stories----and bought that for a dollar. This is a novel that I have read parts of many times---still always interests me. The narrator, a young would be writer, finds himself involved with a married couple about his age---and what follows are the ramifications of that triangle. Of course the book is enormous---about 600 pages---so the narrator encounters and is involved with many others as well. How much of it will I read...? Not sure---it is kind of like having an old friend around--but yesterday as I was reading the opening chapter I was surprised by how many new ideas I was encountering. I first read the novel in my Junior year at Hopkins---probably some heavy memories linked to that as well.
But as for now....I wait.....
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