Daydreaming At The Uxi Duxi

The maintenance guy woke me up at around 4 PM with loud knocking on the door.
He was there pursuant to a "work order" that I had placed at the front desk regarding my toilet.
Reggie is his name, I think.
He is a heavyset black man, probably in his mid thirties, or however many years older than 18 someone who probably played football in high school would have to be to have developed a gut like his.

He walked past the heating and air unit that has its own problems, and past the pile of dirt mixed with Harold the cat's excrement on the floor around his litter box, to get to the toilet. (Harold has been thinking "outside the box" with his excrement lately).

For the past couple weeks, I've been flushing it by stopping the bathtub and running its faucet while doing my business, and then having to scoop water out of the tub and fill the tank of the toilet before it all leaked into the bowl, in order to get a good flush -a satisfying flush, where the water is sucked down and disappears and then a secondary reassuring sound, as of the shit leaving the building, is heard from somewhere way down in the pipe.


Being below sea level here in New Orleans, shit seems more inclined to want to come up from the toilet, rather than go the other way.

Now that this blog post has ground to a halt on that note:

A Birthday Card From Mom

I got a card from my mom.

My birthday crept up on me this year, which flew by, with the months feeling like weeks.

Mom mentioned "the ravages of age" and "looking forward to the end of the journey," which caused me some concern.

Here I am, 27 years younger than her and am straightening my apartment up a bit before laying down to sleep, to spare me the embarrassment of having them find dust everywhere and maybe some crumbs on the floor around my body.

My nieces, whom I haven't met nor drawn yet, are "growing up, smart and well rounded in their activities."

With their uncle neatly tucked away in New Orleans.

There are "hurricane not too far from here" type warm gusts of wind blowing outside -I didn't wear my hat.

Wednesday Night Busking?

I supposed I should shut this down and go out to busk. If I leave soon, I could pluck my first note by about 10:45 PM.

"Did you see a tip basket blow by?"

Lilly said that she hasn't heard me playing much lately, the last time I saw her, and she is right; she hasn't. I guess the strains of my harmonica penetrate to her room and give her comfort in the sense that it is audible evidence that she is helping a lowly busker to make a living.