Today’s quote
is about leaving the past behind.
Apparently, I decided to take that advice
literally.
It is not often that I wake up on my
couch with my clothes and shoes still on. When I checked my messages, my
bartender informed me that I had left with an open tab, and my neighbor
downstairs sent me a picture of a cigar ash in the back hallway along with a
note explaining that the hallway smelled like a casino.
I never get a Thursday night off from the markets,
so it turned into one of those nights where the walk to the local bar was 675
steps and the walk home somehow stretched to 913.
I’m sure I left quite an
impression on my acquaintances. Hopefully they remember that I rarely go out on
a school night. That still isn't much of an excuse for pounding down four,
maybe five, Old Fashioneds.
It is 3:30 on a Friday morning and I
don’t have to stand at a trading desk today.
It would have been nice to wake up next to
someone who loves me and make a pot of coffee together, but instead I’m sitting
alone with a cool breeze drifting through the window and a headache pounding
behind my eyes.
Yesterday I quit all my social media
accounts.
I had been on Facebook since 2008. Eighteen
years with Mark Zuckerberg is longer than I was married to Terese.
This morning I reached for my phone to
check for likes and comments that no longer exist. I never thought of myself as
an addictive person, but apparently, I had become pretty attached to posting my
thoughts to a shit ton of strangers.
At some point I started wondering why I was
sharing my worries and anxieties with 1,679 people. The truth is that I
probably never met 1,300 of them.
The more I thought about it, the more it
seemed like one more thing from the past that needed to be left behind. So
today I must slink down to the bar, pay my tab, apologize if necessary, and
find a way to deodorize the back hallway.
After that?
Who knows.
It is a national holiday. I don't have to
work, I don't have Facebook and I don't have TikTok.
What I do have is a
three-day weekend and a little more time to look for gusto and astonishment.
Happy Friday, Chalkheads.
Now if you will excuse me, I need a large
glass of water and enough aspirin to make peace with yesterday's decisions.
