Back to work. Not a good day at all. Didn’t get up and do any paper work. Didn’t even really play the piano. I did refill the Dammpchaser. I’m surprised I remember the name of the thing and I’m surprised I refilled it. It’s a piano humidifier. I think it has 2 kinds of humidifiers going on but I’m lousy at technical things. Basically, I ordered it and someone came in and hung out under the piano and attached it. I plug it in, the green light goes on and when it needs water the yellow light blinks. The water lasts in my apartment for about 2 weeks. There’s a plastic can with a red water line, which is not accurate in my opinion and there’s a bottle of liquid, which I think is oily and you pour a capful of that into the water each time you fill it. I hate filling it. There’s a tube that extends from a tank and lies in a little lip at the edge of the piano. You pour the water into the tube and the water goes back to the tank of some sort. It’s the most unpleasant and messy thing to refill. No matter what I do, water gets everywhere – mostly all over my rug and on the floor. Today I put paper down again but brought in a pot so that any overfill would hopefully go in the pot. It was better at first but then I couldn’t control holding the plastic can which has the water in it and the hose. I have the can tilted and the small nose fits in the hose but the water leaks out of the hose. It seems like since the yellow light goes on to refill the damn thing that the hose would be empty. But it’s not. So your filling up a hose that’s still full and it remains full and you keep pouring water into it. At one point, the holes wasn’t taking any more water. And then you have to manouever getting the nose out of the hose and holding the hose so that the water doesn’t spill. All over everything, which it does and the pot is of no consequence and anyway it’s sitting on the paper, on top of the rug and it’s on an incline and won’t stay in the proper position.

That was No. 1 disaster. No. 2 was trying to get the USPS (United States Postal Service) to take back some small boxes that I was not accepting. I ordered a product, sort of like vitamins, back in early autumn and they keep sending me more. Last week 2 boxes came at the same time. The postman rang my bell. I finally called them and got them to remove my name and said I would be sending their product back (unopened) and then I would getting a refund. They gave me a special number that I had to put on the boxes. So I finally got this done – writing down Return To Sender and putting this number in several places. On 4 boxes. And then I put them downstairs by the mailboxes only they sat there. Today I planned to call UPS, because I thought they were delivered by UPS and not the postman since they weren’t being picked up. It turned out it wasn’t UPS. After a series of phone calls, one of which was to call and have someone pick them up, which was going to cost me $13.00, and another which was to my local post office, where I’m told the postman won’t pick them up but I can talk to the manager who is out at the moment but I can call back, I hear the postman downstairs and I make a beeline for the first floor. The upshot is that the packages are bulky and the postman has other mail in the carriage he/she (today it’s 2 guys) wheels around and that there’s a security factor involved. If I don’t take them back myself and clear them, they’ll probably come back to me.

I don’t get out of the apartment until 5PM and now I have to take a cab so I won’t be late. And even then, there’s no guarantee I’ll be on time. But it’s Monday, so I’ll probably make it. If this was a Friday, it would definitely take me an hour in the cab. Thankfully I saw one as I was walking towards Columbus Avenue. It was on the other side, but there was no traffic around it, and he saw me, so he made a u-turn. Most of the time none of the cabs I want will make a u-turn. But then I always see other cabs making u-turns all over the place. I did make it to work on time but I’m not happy about being back at work at all.

I took off last Thursday and Friday to support 2 artist friends of mine. A female friend of mine that I recently saw, after not seeing her for maybe 10 years prior to that, was having an opening of her photography at a gallery in Chelsea on Thursday evening. I went early, first visiting another gallery, the owner of which was African-American and whom I had met on the subway 2 summers ago. We had talked about movies or a particular movie and he’d given me his card. The gallery was closed at that time as it was the summer. I had called several times after, over a period of a year or more, but he was never in. Knowing I was going to Chelsea, I looked at the card and saw that his gallery was in the same building as the gallery where my friend was having her opening.

The building was large with maybe 8 floors of galleries and/or studios and each floor has maybe 20 galleries, which means a lot of walking down halls. The African-American gallery, the N’Namdi (I think that’s right) was on the 3rd floor (and at first I thought there was no elevator). I just did some research and it is N’Namdi. George and his son. He opened his first gallery in 1981 in Detroit. Now there’s a gallery in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. I was pleasantly surprised at the exhibit. James Porter. I had heard about this man and his art recently and seemed to have stumbled upon the exhibition.

I liked my friend’s show. Only I was there alone and I had tried unsuccessfully for that not to be the case. I had invited someone that I’ve struck up a friendship with here at the Financial Center, who said he was a photographer, or at least interested in photography. I told him about the exhibit over a month ago. And like coming to my concert in December, he screwed it up, wasn’t abl;e to come and also I had gone out of my way to give him dates, phone numbers, directions. I was spoon-feeding this person. No more. He’s young. In his 20’s. He holds down a job and is very personable but other than that – I don’t know.

Then on Friday, I went to see and hear a guitarist/composer friend of mine that I have seen at least 5 times before. But I went again. And this time I absolutely hated his music. And I hated being in this small little college club where more than 2 things are going on at the same time and it was very very noisy. I also hated hating my friend’s music. And I know I’ll never go hear him again.