Actually am keeping the headache at bay. Went out in the evening and bought some enteric-coated Bayer at Duane-Reade. I knew there would be a severe headache coming on because my dinner consisted of the bottom half of the Ben & Jerry’s pint and a half-pint or more of vodka. Smirnoff vodka, as Shirley’s has been out of Svedka pints. It’s like someone went in and bought out her entire stock.
I can’t believe I finished that pint. And the pint of the other stuff. I remember the absolute worst hangover-headache I got was from a couple of chocolate vodka martinis at Maxwell’s, circa 2000. They had coffee beans floating on top. In those days I couldn’t treat headaches with just aspirin. I had to have codeine and probably pseudephedrine.
One night in September 2001 I worked late and took a black car to Hoboken, went to Maxwell’s, had two beers and a bowl of chili. They had good chili. Next morning I felt and looked very puffy. Had trouble getting dressed, felt bulgy all over. Bus down Washington Street, at PATH station you could see smoke coming out of the World Trade towers. At that point only one had been hit. The second one got hit while I was underground. We sat in the PATH train under Tower 2 for ten minutes, then they backed it out and let us out at Exchange Place, from whence I wended my way back to Hoboken, pausing at the JC waterfront to sketch the burning towers, even drawing the implosions when they came down.
I was booked to fly to London the next day, September 12, on Virgin Atlantic, but of course I didn’t. Flew a month later. That was the time I met Tim Lees, staying in Northmoor with Steve and Alma. We took the bus into Oxford and met Tony Smith at Magdalen College. He gave us a tour, pointed out Edward Gibbons’s old rooms (from the outside), said the college had been very busy a day or two before because Chelsea Clinton had just arrived. Tony is still alive now, I believe, though no longer president. I gather he’s pretty far gone. I tried to get in touch with him a year or two ago but no response.
Those black-car limos we always took when working late. After 9/11 they cracked down on that, we had to have prior approval on a voucher. I think the department was cutting back, under new management. Since it was too much trouble to go to Hoboken most of the time, I stopped spending time there. (The PATH station at the World Trade Center was knocked out for months, and the the whole area was barricaded. To get home I’d have to take a subway to West 4th St, walk to the West 9th St PATH station, wait for the train, then either do a long walk home to 928 Hudson or share one of the rattletrap taxicabs.) I kept paying my $600 per month for the share with Marian, but I often wouldn’t show up for weeks. Moki was out of his bad moods of 1999-2000, so it was easy to go home to him. A short walk to the subway from 388 Greenwich, change from the A to F at West 4th St, emerge at 57th and Sixth, walk upstairs. From 2002 through 2005, I probably didn’t spend more than 20 days at the Hoboken flat.
Asshole not burning much anymore. It was still flaring at 4pm when I was walking down Sixth on my way to St. Patrick’s to continue the novena. St. Patrick’s and St. Paul the Apostle are about equidistant from home, but I usually tend toward the latter because it doesn’t have crowds, it’s set up better for contemplative prayer, and I can browse at the Time Warner Center on the way to and back. Three long blocks across town, two or three short blocks around Columbus Circle. Bobo and Hope live nearby on 60th; I never see them on the street. Bobo I once ran into waiting for the A train though.
Coming back from St P’s, crossed west on 54th, across from University Club. South side of street is all boarded up. Construction site? Went to Chase, took out $20 on the USAA account, then to Klein’s for an avocado and bottle of bleach—because I’d used up the bleach, wasted it, in the laundry room when the big Wascomat washer didn’t run. Moved my laundry over to two small washers. Everything’s a dingy yellow now, including the NYAC Fitness Month 2000 shirt. Anyway, with avocado and bleach bottle in plastic bag from Klein’s I headed over to Shirley.
Bleach is hard to come by these days. No bleach at all in the Duane-Reades, not for months. Klein’s has it, both Clorox and the Brand X I bought.
Moki next to me in bed after 6 am, mumbling about how Biden hasn’t fucked up in his three years. Asks me to make him a drink, but I’m pretty sure there isn’t any more v. (Actually I’ve now made him a light one, using the dregs from the dozen pint bottles collecting out there.)
Today, Thursday, must write something for somebody. Review the Philby series, which was about as bad a waste of a brilliant story as you can get. Later, roundup on Joe Kennedy. Shall we do something on the Truth Seeker, perhaps as P. J. Collins?
In the laundry room yesterday, a tenant, female, possibly Jewish, was carrying on over her mobile, complaining that Jeffries Morris was sending in commercial window-washers who’d made a mess last August. She has two apartments there, she repeated several times. She wants to have the windows cleaned again in time for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Was slightly apologetic to me for carrying on like that.
