Tag Archives: books

And So It Goes

Today is Wednesday, February 5, 2025. As you know, I was absent from this venue yesterday because of my having lunch with an old school colleague on East 70th Street and Second Avenue, at a place called Beach Cafe. From there, I rode downtown to West 4th Street to meet my friend “Harvey” in front of the IFC Center whereupon we had a very pricey repast at the Waverly Diner, then walked to the Jefferson Market Library to attend our gay men’s reading club to discuss the novel Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. The meeting was very well attended, what with possibly 57 people all sitting in the round. I learned so much about the book which I finished about two weeks ago from the scintillating analyses offered by a cluster of the most articulate members at the meeting. That’s why I would easily consider this book club as one of the best that’s offered. We never veer off course to discuss personal matters. We truly stick to discussing the book at hand. This time the organizer waived the introductory comment section of the meeting in which everyone speaks about a cultural event they’ve attended in the previous month. There were just too many people at the meeting to even do this. That in itself would probably have taken a half hour or so to do, so it made sense to just dive into the book right away.

Earlier, I traveled to the East Side to meet my former colleague, “Sally,” whom I recently reconnected, in all places, Instagram when I posted a video of our cat Atticus. We were originally going to meet in January, but she had to cancel that rendezvous because of illness. Therefore, yesterday was chosen, even though I had the second event scheduled at 6:30. However, even if we had an extended lunch, there was no way I could be late for the men’s reading club, which turned out to be true. Sally and I did chat for a long time: about 3 hours. We had many years to catch up with. Also, her husband, “Stuart,” joined us as well, about 10 minutes into the get-together. We had such a good time filling each other in about our personal journeys since retiring from teaching that we promised to get together after Elliot and I return from Argentina at the end of February. Luckily, for me, I discovered early on that Sally was on the same political page as I: being an anti-Trump patriot.

That still left me enough time to take the subway to West 4th Street and meet my college pal, “Harvey,” in front of the IFC Center. I waited for Harvey inside the movie house because of the cold. He did arrive a little after 5 and we then walked to the Waverly Diner, where we had a quick bite. Actually, Harvey just had a bowl of lentil soup, while I had a cup of the same soup and a tuna melt.

After dinner, we ambled over to the Jefferson Market Library. Before long, the room filled up with over 50 bibliophiles, ranging in age from the early 30s to the 70s, I would imagine. The discussion soon got hot and heated, with opinions expressed by a smattering of the 50 men in the room. I was more of a spectator this time; I might have ventured to speak only once or twice. I preferred to listen to what the other guys said about the book.

After the meeting, a cluster of us walked over to Julius’s where we stood in the rear of the bar and talked about more personal matters. I spoke to three guys primarily. One lost his partner just three years ago. The other was celebrating 35 years with his significant other. The third gentleman was not as forthcoming about having anyone else in his life. In about an hour or so, I declared it was time to leave and go home.

To more prosaic matters: Who has heard the massively unpopular garbage from the sitting president the other day in which he insanely proposed that the United States occupy Gaza in his joint conference with his MAGA counterpart, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Isn’t this the height of tomfoolery? I think the only reason the bastard is proposing this is so that he can raze the area, throw out 2 million people living there, and build Trump hotels on the land. I think the guy is losing it from this ridiculous suggestion. This immediately resulted in pushback from other countries in the Middle East. One must ask how would this country go about removing and housing 2 million Palestinians? It’s logically impossible without sending in masses and masses of U.S. troops, spending trillions of dollars, and coordinating with regional powers who would not want to cooperate, to say nothing of how cruel it is. Dump stupidly called the area “the Riviera of the Middle East.” This foolhardy proposal should – and must – be shot down by Congress before it ever sees the light of day! Hey, I’m now hearing that Democrats might announce a movement to impeach the twice-impeached Orange Turd a third time over this absurd idea. It could happen.

There is a sliver of a silver lining in this dire dystopian situation, though, emerging right now in these dis-United States in the number of protests that were held in all 50 states directed toward Dump’s authoritarian agenda. If I had known about this, I might have participated, but I think our protest was in Albany, not New York City. There is now also more blowback by Democrats against the disgusting executive actions taken by Dump in his first three weeks of his second term. Five former leaders of the agency targeted by Dump and the Muskrat, as I’ll now call this South African billionaire rat, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have also spoken out against the Chump administration’s horrible attempts to dismantle the humanitarian agency and called on Congress “to swiftly protect the Agency’s statutory role.” So there is, finally, some pushback against this evil regime. We’ve had enough and it’s not even four weeks into the guy’s term.

And so it went!

Here is Atticus resting on Elliot for the first time. It’s taken a long while for him to get close to us like this. And we love it!

And so It Goes

Today is Tuesday, January 7, 2025. Though I wrote yesterday that I was going to attend my gay men’s reading club, which I did, I declined to go to the local bar after 8 since I believed it was better to get home early tonight since we’ll be leaving tomorrow for Florida in the afternoon. So I got home quickly – around 8:45 p.m. I lucked out in having an E train rumble into the station on West 4th Street within minutes of getting on the platform.

Today also marked Atticus’s one-year anniversary appointment at Juniper Valley Animal Hospital, in Middle Village, at 11:30 a.m. I wish we didn’t have to take our furry baby out in the bitter cold, but we had no choice. The wind surely was somewhat fierce today. So when it was time to leave, I got the new car and parked out in front for Elliot to take Atticus out in his cat carrier. Then we drove to the vet; on Queens Boulevard, we got stuck in traffic for about 20 minutes because of construction going on in one lane. I believed we were going to get to the vet’s office later than 11:30, but we somehow arrived just in the nick of time. I think we arrived around 11:15.

Inside, we were stuck in the waiting room for about 20 minutes. For the entire drive to the doctor’s office, Atticus was very quiet. He scrunched himself in the rear of the cat carrier, as I sat next to him poking my finger into the black-and-white carrier to try to pet him. Atticus didn’t respond to my ministrations.

Even in the waiting room, Atticus remained quiet. While we waited, other “clients” came in, mostly dogs. At one point, a tall young, tattooed man came in with an Alaskan husky who promptly went to the front of Atticus’s metal house and put his snout smack dab in Atticus’s face. Our cat did nothing.

Finally, we were called into an examining room. Elliot grimly reminded me that this was the same examining room in which we put down Jocelyn, our first cat, in October 2022. In a short while, Dr. McCarthy sauntered in and proceeded to give Atticus a complete examination. He listened for heart murmurs, looked into his mouth at his teeth, and gave him a vaccination. He also trimmed his claws and back paws. All throughout this prodding and probing, Atticus was a true trouper. He didn’t flinch; he didn’t hiss. I was surprised; given how he behaves with us, I expected more fire from him. The vet declared him fit as a fiddle; he did say, though, that he was inclined to gaining a little weight, so he suggested we diminish his supply of dry cat food during the day. I believe Atticus weighed in at 8.5 pounds. He originally weighed in last January at 5.6 pounds when we first adopted him. So there was an increase of about three pounds here over the year. This area is always a sensitive one for indoor cats since they cannot go out.

We were very happy over the salutary report we received from the vet who admitted he had five cats at home. It was time to take Atticus home.

When we dropped Atticus off, I went upstairs with him and gave him two treats for his exemplary behavior. I then went downstairs where Elliot was waiting for me and we went to lunch at Jax Inn Diner, on Northern Boulevard.

At 4, I bid adieu to Elliot and took the subway to West 4th Street. I went to the Jefferson Market Library earlier to see if any copies of this month’s book could be picked up at the front desk and I was told there weren’t any by a librarian on the second floor.

I then walked to the Waverly Diner for a light bite. Oh, here he’s eating again, you might moan, and you’re right!

When I got back to the library, I entered our back room and arranged the straight-back chairs in a semicircle as a favor to our organizer. Then the guys slowly walked in after 6. I must say I was quite amazed over the number of members who attended the meeting: I think we had close to 40 guys there, despite the cold weather. When our group leader, “Jerry,” walked in at 6:15, he casually announced that the author of the book, Tim Murphy, was going to grace our meeting at 7:15 p.m. And he told me that he was going to sit right next to me. Boy, was I in goosebumps.

Thus we had only about 45 minutes to express our true feelings about Murphy’s book before the author himself walked in. Most of the members expressed some criticism of the book, while others said they enjoyed it. And Mr. Murphy was exactly on time.

Sitting right next to me, Murphy enthralled his audience for the next 40 minutes until a custodian announced, at 7:55, that the library was closing. Some members even braved voicing their personal criticisms of the book – but ever so gently. Murphy took the criticism in stride; he even agreed that this book wasn’t as good as others he’s written. What I found quite telling throughout Murphy’s presentation was that he forgot some of his own characters’ names in the book we were discussing. The members had to remind him of the characters’ names throughout his talk.

The majority of those in attendance remained mute throughout Murphy’s presentation, including this blog writer. I couldn’t think of anything remotely witty to say, so I remained silent.

With the meeting over, some of us congregated outside and some began walking to Julius’s. That’s when I decided to walk to the subway to come home a bit earlier than usual.

Now it’s getting late and I’m going to finish this entry.

Have a good six days in my absence. Don’t get into any trouble.

And so it went!