AD's Journal 2024

    I was in the middle of my morning constitutional on the toilet when the phone rang – well before the 7 a.m. alarm, and so, I had to answer for fear it might be bad news from my ex-wife and daughter. It was the Home Depot delivery man, who was due to deliver some wood for a repair we were making in our sun room. I thought he was confirming the delivery for later in the day. “No, I’m here, I’m outside,” he said. Outside? Now? I glanced out the window at the back yard. The long predicted snow had arrived and was still arriving, just covering the ground at this point, but sticking and getting heavier. Home Depot had predicted delivery for between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., not at 6:15 a.m. Yet, I understood why when I flicked on the radio and heard the forecast had changed, and the two to four inches they told us last night we would get today had suddenly become 6 to 9 inches, and the delivery guy apparently needed to unload the 11 boxes (very, very heavy boxes) before the roads be

     She posted a video explaining much of it yesterday, but not everything. In fact, she made a point of not explaining the exact reasons for her moving, except to say that it had been mounting for a while and came to a head suddenly and sooner than she expected. She wasn’t crying; yet it felt like she wanted to. She didn’t say why exactly she chose to go back to that part of New York State where she previously lived, except to say even though NY is expensive, it is cheaper than where she is living currently – hinting that part of the motivation may be financial. She also pointed out that her family lives in the area (somewhat south, but easier to reach than from where she is now.) But she deliberately did not go into the gritty details of the rest, which if judged by the pattern of her life, may involve a ruined romance. I don’t think this has anything to do with me or my decade old journal that I have been posting, but I stopped posting – at least temporarily – until

  Feb. 12, 2024   Oh no, not again. Does this never stop, this endless shifting of sand, draining, the hour glass of good time so creates the need to turn it over and begin again, never easy, always hurting, sense of change that changes nothing, she merely older, perhaps not wiser, though maybe believes what does not kill her will make her stronger and it does, only it hardens her heart, making it impossible to reach, this once tender being scarred over, made so remote even the best intentions cannot reach her, though deep down, she needs to be reached       2024 journal menu email to Al Sullivan

   Yesterday’s news was more than a little shocking. But it raises a lot more questions than her brief response on Facebook answered. All this comes at a time when it appeared she had settled down, had found a measure of happiness, a job she liked and a home she intended to remain in. But suddenly, she’s packing up and moving, not just locally, but over a distance, similar to moves she’s made in the past when some life changing event occurred, usually when some plan of her fells through or some romance failed. These faraway moves seem designed to get her out of the old environment into a new one where she could start fresh. This is why her current move is so much more puzzling. While it is a huge leap, just as going from NY to Hudson County to Weehawken was years ago, or even prior to that, a plunge into a marriage that took her on a five year musical tour that eventually brought her to New York, after which she leaped out of Hudson County to NYC, and then to where she live

  Back again. I have huge gaps in this journal because I still reserve more sensitive material to handwritten notebooks. While I might scan and post them eventually, I’m still uncomfortable transcribing them. It may take a decade for me to feel free enough to do so, by which time I might have passed off this mortal coil and not have to worry about it. This depressing though it inspired by the host of doctors’ appointments I have scheduled over the next month and the fact that once again I have come down with a cold and had to sleep for 36 hours straight just to restore my energy levels. Thursday, I paid a visit to our new digs in Hoboken, where I got to interact with the other reporters, all of whom are required to be there at last three days a week. I’m the old man in the crowd by decades and hate the idea. I’ve never felt comfortable standing out too much from the crowd, even though I want my writing and other artistic aspects to do so. Because I could not get access