Today is Wednesday, October 8, 2025. Yesterday I was attending my gay men’s reading club meeting along with my friend “Harvey.” I did go to Julius’s afterward for some libation and conversation. Even though I’m more of a coffeetotaler, I relented and had a glass of beer.

I took the F train to West 4th Street around 3 and got down before 4. So I walked to the Jefferson Market Library where our meeting is always held and went to the second floor to comb the books on the shelf to purchase. Of course, I definitely didn’t need any more books; I am close to finally finishing Lake Success by Gary Shteyngart. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys an entertaining read and this book is surely that!

Don’t worry, folks, I didn’t buy any more books yesterday. I then started walking back to the IFC Center where I got a text from Harvey saying he would be on time. He had called me earlier to say that the train he would have taken was cancelled and that another train was scheduled for a later time; he expected to be late then, but he wasn’t.

When we met, Harvey indicated he was hungry, so we discussed where we might dine. I heard about a Chinese restaurant called Steam located near the library, but we never got there. Harvey spied an Italian restaurant called Osteria 57 and examined its menu outside and suggested we eat there. I did say that we just dined on take-home Chinese food the other day and said I would be amiable to eating Italian food.

The place was quite empty since it wasn’t even 4:15 yet. But we chose a nice table near the window in the front to sit. We were given two menus: one for lunch which actually ended at 5 and one for dinner. We preferred to choose from the dinner menu, so we selected some nice dishes from that listing. I eschewed an appetizer this time to select spaghetti cacio e pepe, which is basically spaghetti with Pecorino Romano cheese and pepper. Harvey chose some fish entree, fritto misto that included Montauk shrimp, local calamari, and zucchini tempura.

Harvey’s hunger was not slaked until he had dessert which turned out to be gelato. I decided against having my own dessert and helped myself to two spoonfuls of Harvey’s gelato.

Then it was time to stroll toward the Jefferson Market Library, but not until we spent a little time in a bookstore opposite the legendary gay bar called Three Lives & Company. I made the conscious decision before we entered that I would not purchase a book from this lovely little bookstore. But Harvey did! He bought a new hardcover book called 38 Londres Street (which I never heard about) by Philippe Sands that chronicles Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and his involvement with a fugitive SS officer. Harvey thought the book would be a nice present for his Chilean wife, “Sofia.”

Now it was time to walk toward the library after Harvey paid for his book. When we got to the room in which we hold our meetings, we already saw an almost full room of sitting avid book readers. When it was time to begin the meeting – at 6:30 – the room must have close to 60 guys.

We started the meeting by discussing one cultural thing we did this month. When it came to my turn, I spoke about seeing The History of Sound. That was last Saturday.

Then it was time we dived into discussing Guapa by Saleem Haddad. All of us dissected the book with erudite analysis; however, Harvey and I had trouble hearing many of the men’s comments. We whispered this to each other during the 90 minutes the meeting ranged over.

Later, I took this up with our organizer, “Jerry,” at Julius’s. He listened to me as I made the suggestion that he announce that members speak up during the next meeting. I do hope he will do this – if not, I’ll remind him of this in November.

I then went home by myself since Harvey did not stay for a drink or to schmooze with the other members.

When I got home, I eagerly went to try out our restored television set which was delivered to us after 5. I took the two remotes and clicked the “On” button. And the set came on and I was able to watch regular TV.

However, when I pressed the button for my apps, the streaming services, I was unable to connect to the services – like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, etc. The screen where the apps appeared looked very different from what I used to have. And when I clicked on an app, I got nothing. Thus I decided we’d have to call “Ernest” today and ask him to return to get these apps working again.

So I spent another night in the bedroom watching the Ed Gein series on Netflix. This time I don’t think our upstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling as she has since I went in there after the Sony died. Boy, what a victory!

In the meantime, in our fascist American moment, the news just gets worse and worse, with today’s arraignment of former FBI director James Comey for charges of lying to Congress – which is definitely a spurious charge since we all know that Comey was on the Orange Turd’s enemies list and he publicly sicced his lapdog of an attorney general, blonde bimbo Pam Bondi, on him. A trial date was set for January 5, 2026, which is an ironic one, since the next day, January 6, would mark the fifth anniversary of that second infamous date in U.S. history. Comey’s lawyers have rightfully claimed the charges are just the result of a sitting president’s vow of vengeance against the former FBI director. The arrest of a public official like Comey should outrage every American who is shocked by this fascistic regime and to what measures it would take to overthrow the rule of law. I should hope this case will be dismissed outright before any evidence is ever presented in such a kangaroo court in this country.

The news gets even worse as the Supreme Leader calls for the jailing of Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Democratic Governor JB Pritzker because of their opposition to the Orange Turd calling in his private army, ICE, into Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. This is what the Orange Turd actually wrote: “Chicago Mayor should be in jail for failing to protect Ice [he couldn’t even capitalize ICE here – the idiot!] Officers! Governor Pritzker also!” He wrote these incendiary remarks on his stupid “Truth” Social.

After these developments, all I can say is, “Are we living in America right now or in a banana republic?” I can’t wait until the protest scheduled for October 18 to express my disgust of what is happening under Dump and his evil regime.

Maybe tomorrow Ernest will fix the television set once and for all. He’s set to come after 5. In the meantime, I’ll sit one more time in the bedroom to watch another episode of Monster: The Ed Gein Story.

And so it went!

Here’s a great sign from one of the protests I participated in that says it all!