Manhattan

Writer’s Workshop — Kicking the Habit

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For his Writer’s Workshop this week, John Holton gives us six writing prompts and we are tasked with choosing one of the prompts (or as many as we want) and writing a post that addresses that prompt (or those prompts). I am responding to only one of the prompts this week:

  1. Write a post inspired by the word cigarette.

My mother smoked cigarettes, as did my oldest sister, so it was only natural that I would take up that nasty habit, which I did in the 11th grade.

By the time I was a senior in high school, I was up to a pack a day and I continued smoking that much and more for the next 20 years.

Then, one day in 1983, I was sitting at my desk in my office on the twentieth floor of a high-rise office building on Broadway and 53rd in Manhattan, back when smoking inside office buildings (and just about anywhere and everywhere else) was commonplace.

I took the last cigarette out of the pack of Marlboros that was in my shirt pocket and stuck it between my lips. I crumpled up the empty cigarette pack and casually tossed it into the trash basket next to my desk. I reached into my front right pants pocket, pulled out my Zippo lighter, and with my thumb, I flicked the lighter’s wheel, which ignited the flame. I held the flame up to the tip of the cigarette, and inhaled deeply, drawing smoke deep into my lungs.

Then I noticed that there was another lit cigarette, half smoked, sitting on the edge of my glass ashtray on my desk.

I knew at that instant that it was time to quit smoking. I had two cigarettes going at the same time, having started to smoke a new cigarette before having finished the one I had already been smoking.

I snuffed out the old cigarette in the ashtray, took another drag off of the cigarette I had just lit, and then snuffed it out in the ashtray. I picked up the ashtray and emptied its contents of half a dozen smoked-to-the-filter cigarettes and their ashes into the trash basket. I got up, empty ashtray in hand, walked to the men’s room, where I washed out the ashtray.

I walked back to my office, set the clean ashtray on the outside corner of my desk, and put my Zippo lighter next to it.

The time was just past 11:00 in the morning. The month was August. The year was 1983. I was sitting at my desk in my office on the twentieth floor of a high-rise office building on Broadway and 53rd in Manhattan. That was the last time a cigarette touched my lips. That was the last time I inhaled cigarette smoke into my lungs.


Badge by Patty, http://anothercookieplease.com

WDP — Same Question, Same Answer

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Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
View all responses

This WordPress Daily Prompt was first posed on April 27, 2023. Here it is, two years later and my answer is still the same:

It was 1978. I had a decent job, for decent pay, at a decent company, and I liked what I was doing. I’d been there for almost ten years and I was not looking for a change.

Then, out of the blue, I got a call from a headhunter — an executive recruiter is what he called himself. He wanted to talk with me about “an exciting opportunity.” I wasn’t playing hard to get, but as I said, I wasn’t looking for a career change, so I told him I wasn’t interested.

He said, “Let me overnight some information to you. Take a look, read it over, and I’ll call you the day after tomorrow.”

I said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

The next day I received a package that contained information about a small, relatively new start-up technology company in the same field I was in, health benefits administration systems. The company was looking for someone who could lead the design and development of automated health claims adjudication systems. The compensation was good. The benefits were good. And the offer included equity (i.e., stock) in a privately held entity.

I had a few concerns, though. (1) We lived in the Washington, DC area and the job was in Manhattan, so we’d need to relocate. (2) My wife was pregnant. (3) Going to work at a small, start-up company was risky business.

My wife and I talked about the opportunity, the risk, the rewards, and the timing. She said it was my decision to make. I met with the headhunter to review some details. The owner of the small company and two of his associates flew to DC to meet with me.

Long story short, I took the risk of leaving a decent job at a well-established company that I’d been with for a decade, and I moved from DC to a Jersey suburb of Manhattan with my pregnant wife for a job with an entrepreneurial technology start-up.

Fortunately, as I look back at that risky decision, I have no regrets at all.

Four Line Fiction — The Long Walk Home

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Even though it was a hassle with him living in Brooklyn and her living in Manhattan, they’d been regularly seeing each other for around nine months and Carolyn thought it was time for their relationship to evolve to the next level, suggesting that they should get a place together.

But Kevin was two years younger than Carolyn and he just wasn’t ready to make the commitment she was apparently seeking when she told him that she thought it was time for him to shit or get off the pot.

Kevin said he wasn’t there yet and he needed more time, but Carolyn said that her biological clock was ticking and that she couldn’t wait indefinitely for him to finally come around, so she stood up, put on her coat and boots, grabbed her purse and umbrella, and left Kevin’s flat.

She tried to find a taxi, but the snowstorm made finding one close to impossible and the subway trains were running late, so Carolyn pulled her coat collar tight around her neck and started the trek back into Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge, the tears rolling down her cheeks keeping her face perhaps a little warmer against the frigid air.

Written for Greg’s Four Line Fiction prompt. Photo credit: Shannon Stapleton/Newscom/Reuters.

WDP — Risky Business

Fandango7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Describe a risk you took that you do not regret.
View all responses

I had a decent job, for decent pay, at a decent company, and I liked what I was doing. I’d been there for almost ten years and I was not looking for a change.

Then, out of the blue, I got a call from a headhunter — an executive recruiter is what he called himself. He wanted to talk with me about “an exciting opportunity.” I wasn’t playing hard to get, but as I said, I wasn’t looking for a career change, so I told him I wasn’t interested.

He said, “Let me overnight some information to you. Take a look, read it over, and I’ll call you the day after tomorrow.”

I said, “Yeah, sure, whatever.” The next day I received a package that contained information about a small, relatively new start-up technology company in the same field I was in, health benefits administration. The company was looking for someone who could lead the design and development of automated health benefits claims adjudication systems. The compensation was good. The benefits were good. And the offer included equity (i.e., stock) in a privately held entity.

I had a few concerns, though. (1) We lived in the Washington, DC area and the job was in Manhattan, so we’d need to relocate. (2) My wife was pregnant. (3) Going to work at a small, start-up company was risky business.

My wife and I talked about the opportunity, the risk, the rewards, and the timing. She said it was my decision to make. I met with the headhunter to review some details. The owner of the small company and two of his associates flew to DC to meet with me.

Long story short, I took the risk of leaving a decent job at a well-established company that I’d been with for a decade, and I moved from DC to a Jersey suburb of Manhattan with my pregnant wife for a job with an entrepreneurial technology start-up.

Fortunately, as I look back at that risky decision, I have no regrets at all.

Closing Arguments

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“Now that all of the facts have been verified and presented to the jury, I’m sure I will be able to cobble my closing arguments together pretty quickly,” Daniel Snyder, the assistant DA, told his boss.

“I hope so, Dan, because the jury is going to be sequestered during deliberations and the longer this takes, the worse our chances for a guilty verdict get,” Elliot Harwood said. “Just make sure you can effectively bridge any potential gaps for the jury in your closing statement.”

“I’ve got it all laid out,” Dan said. “It’s not a slam dunk, but I think my approach is solid and the law is obviously on our side. The jury members will see that clearly.”

“That’s why I’ve got you at the top of my ADA rotation, Dan,” the Manhattan District Attorney said, “and I’m counting on you to bring a guilty verdict home. I’d hate to have to bench you if you lose this case. I won’t hesitate to reassign you from Manhattan office to the Bronx. And that’s not where you want to spend the rest of your career, is it, Dan?”

“I’ve got this, Elliot,” Dan said, hoping the beads of perspiration forming on his forehead would escape Elliot’s notice.

Written for these daily prompts: E.M.’s Random Word Prompt (verified), My Vivid (will), Your Daily Word Prompt (cobble), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (sequestered), Ragtag Daily Prompt (bridge), The Daily Spur (approach), and Word of the Day Challenge (rotation).

FFfPP — The City That Never Sleeps

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B19993E0-B6B9-4A30-8C80-C0A970C02194“They called it the city that never sleeps,” Jessica said.

“‘Called’ being the operative word,” Hal said as he and his wife walked the empty streets of Manhattan. “Now it’s dark and desolate.”

“Do you remember the last time we were here?” Jessica asked. “Back in the Before Times?”

Hal pulled out his smartphone and showed her a photo. “We took this one from our hotel room,” he said. “The city was all lit up and was teeming with people.”

Jessica put her head in her hands and started sobbing. “This is so sad and it was preventable.”

Hal grabbed Jessica’s hand and squeezed. “The city had turned the corner and the pandemic was seemingly defeated,” he said. “But then the President, in the name of rebooting the economy, opened everything up again, suspended social distancing, and told people to go congregate. ‘It’s time to return to normal,’ he insisted.”

“And the virus returned with a vengeance,” Jessica said. “It was out of control and two-thirds of the population perished. The government collapsed, anarchy ensued, and our once great cities are empty and in ruins.”

“All due to the ego of last president of this once great nation,” Hal lamented.

(200 words)

Written for this week’s Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner from Roger Shipp. Photo credit: Morguefile.com.

A New York Minute

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Jim Adams’ Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Music Challenge this week features the song “New York Minute” by Don Henley, a member of The Eagles, featured on his third solo album, The End of Innocence.

When I read Jim’s post, I was reminded of something that I hadn’t thought of in years. I was born in New Jersey and also worked in midtown Manhattan for a dozen years, but the first time I ever heard the expression “a New York minute” was when I was living in Dallas in the late eighties.

My impression of people from Dallas is that they don’t move at a particularly quick pace. They always seem to be “fixin’ to” do something, rather than actually doing something.Fixin’ toThat said, they will eventually get around to finally doing whatever it was that they said they were fixin’ to do.

So when I asked a guy who worked for me to get me some information about a prospective client, I was surprised when, instead of saying, “I’ll be fixin’ to do that, boss,” he said, “I’ll have that for you in a New York minute.”

I gave him a quizzical look, and he said, “You know, real quick-like, like they do it up in Nooo York.” I told him I’d never heard that expression, and he looked at me and said, “Well, damn, I thought you was a yankee.”

“I’m actually a Red Sox fan,” I said, at which point it was his turn to give me a quizzical look.

So thanks, Jim, for conjuring up the memories.