The Commuter

"Well, you must tell me, baby
How your head feels under somethin' like that
Under your brand new leopard-skin pill-box hat"

How was your commute? Mine took way too long. I left earlier but arrived later.

Took my dog to the park early this morning and it was perfect. The grass has gotten so long but the breeze was biblical. The word basil comes from the Greek βασιλεύς (basileus), meaning "king", as it is believed to have grown above the spot where St. Constantine and Helen discovered the Holy Cross. The Oxford English Dictionary quotes speculations that basil may have been used in "some royal unguent, bath, or medicine". Basil is still considered the "king of herbs" by many cookery authors. An alternative etymology has "basil" coming from the Latin word basilicus, meaning dragon and being the root for basilisk, but this likely was a linguistic reworking of the word as brought from Greece. It's all Greek to me. I just named her that because I like pesto.

So the suit I'm wearing today is nice but way too big. I feel like David Byrne in that Talking Heads video. Its one of my back-up suits because all my others are at the cleaners; its one I bought for my dads funeral a few years ago. When he died I guess I was a real fat fuck.

On Friday a friend and I were text messaging each other and Dylan and his birthday came up - he turns 66 on Thursday. My dad put out a Dylan bootleg back in the day. And just as my friend suggested I cover a Dylan song from my dad's bootleg a guy got on the freight elevator with a pair of old school walkman headphones around his neck, blasting "Like A Rolling Stone". It freaked me out, I had chills for a while after that.

Oh, back to the dry cleaning; so I dropped off a suit on Saturday morning and the cashier was crying when I walked in. I didn't want to say anything at first but I had to. She told me she'd just been robbed. Some lady had asked to use the phone and stolen an envelope out of the register. The girl was shaking; I think she was just afraid her boss was gonna be pissed. I told her to call the cops and that her boss should be happy she was alive and hadn't been robbed at gunpoint or anything. I think it was only like $300 or something but the girl was really freaked. Her boss must be such a dick.

I listened to "The Life Pursuit" and almost all of "Blonde on Blonde" before we hit 48 and Madison this morning. I don't think anything that good has come out since "Pursuit"; nothing I've heard at least. New music for me is sort of a blinking cursor after that record; unless I'm being naïve of other albums I love that I don't realise were released after "Pursuit". If you know me, school me, please!

So the bus was packed and I sat on one of my nuts for the whole ride. It sucked. But it's beautiful outside so that's fine. Everything is fine I guess. I signed a lease for a new apartment on Friday, that was cool. I can't wait to have a porch.

Sopranos last night was good. AJ reminds me of Darlene from Roseanne now.