Oct 16

TIGHT SPACES & ME

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wasn’t going to write about this. It was too scary for me to contemplate but every time I took the subway, I saw her desperate face so I had to put fingers to keyboard and punch out this story. I’d left work near the Brooklyn Bridge as usual and caught a west-side train at Chambers Street. I like to walk so I strolled through the park at City Hall with its magnificent fountain and old-fashioned faux gas lighting, crossed several streets and headed west on Chambers Street. I could take the express train uptown to upper Harlem, renamed Hamilton Heights but I like to wound down before I get home and shake off the day’s events so I caught the Number One Local. The ride was slower than usual but I didn’t mind, catching the Number One that far downtown usually yields a seat. I had a good book to read and seat at the train’s door so I was happy. At 50th Street and Broadway, the train lurched to a stop. The doors opened but we sat there until an announcement came over the PA about traffic on the line. The dispatcher was holding us in the station. […]
Oct 08

FUNNY THING ABOUT CARS

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
So I get this early morning phone call from my kid. “Hi, Mom.” “Why are you calling me at two in the morning?” I say. I think, Early morning calls are never good news. It’s how I learned of my father’s death. “Don’t get mad, Mom; I was in an accident.” “What kind of accident? How serious was it? Are you hurt?” I pause breathing heavily, waiting anxiously for an answer. I’m hoping my son can’t be hurt too badly if he can still talk to me. I hear him sigh, take a deep breath, and then he tells me. “I think I broke my ankle. I fell asleep driving across the 59th Street Bridge.” I hear the piercing wail of sirens in the background as my son talks to me. An unfamiliar voice interrupts my son and says, “The ambulance is here to take your son to the hospital.” “Could you please find out what hospital?” “Where are they taking him?” the stranger asks. The ambulance driver says, “St. Clare Hospital on 54th Street and 10th Avenue. The stranger introduces himself. He tells me that he happened on my son’s accident and helped break the windshield to pull him […]
Sep 25

WHY I WROTE: CeeCee, Finding the perfect house for the perfect woman

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
How do you handle an annoying client? You own a small business. You get some of your clients through online ads you post, while other clients come to you through referrals from your satisfied clients. You really can’t afford to lose the annoying client. She’s wealthy. She has great contacts in the art world that you’d like access to. You think she can provide that access if she only stops acting so crazy. What do you do? When I worked for the city of New York, I encountered my share of annoying clients. I never quite figured out how to handle them as well as I’d like. I thought writing a story about what I should have, could have, or would have done might ease my mind and make an interesting storyline too. My romantic novel is CEECEE, finding the perfect house for the perfect woman. Thanks for reading! BL Wilson Here are the links for: CeeCee, Finding the perfect house for the perfect woman: Amazon Kindle USA: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074YKGJCF Amazon Kindle UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B074YKGJCF Createspace: https://www.createspace.com/7462060 Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/743712 Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/UJwqkSkrbpg Ask David: http://askdavid.com/reviews/book/lesbian-romance/15257 Connect with BL Wilson at these links: Blog: http://wilsonbluez.com Facebook Business Page: https://www.facebook.com/patchworkbluezpress Goodreads: http://bit.ly/1BDmrjJ Linked-in: http://linkd.in/1ui0iRu […]
Sep 18

SO THIS IS REDEPLOYMENT: Tuesday, May 19, 2009

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Much has happened since my last post, so it’s difficult to know where to begin. but I’ll certainly try. Laura, a sweet woman, a dear friend, and coworker, got caught up in the city’s layoff cycle. If Mayor Mike (Bloomberg) has his way, she’ll be gone, just another terminated provisional (a worker who isn’t civil service) victim biting the city’s budgetary dust and soon to be standing in the unemployment line. Her story is like so many provisionals working in city government. Laura relied on a mentor to get her a job with the city. Through various connections and or political patronage, she got a city job. She moved up the career ladder, never giving a second thought to taking civil service exams that might keep her job in a financial crisis. “Why take a test?” she’d say to anyone who would listen. “Civil Service tests are expensive,” she’d add. After all, she’d only be working the job for a short period until she found something better. Two or three months on the job turned into a year and then a year became two years. Two years became four and she was promoted several times and given two or three […]
Sep 11

REDEPLOYMENT: Thursday, April 30, 2009

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Well, it finally happened. What I’d been wishing for but dreading too happened yesterday. I guess you could say the suits got the ball rolling over me the day before (Wednesday, April 29, 2009) or at least that was when they officially sent me THE EMAIL. The message on THE EMAIL was short and bittersweet. The subject matter at the top read Updated: Personnel, whatever the hell that meant. The location was room 6C4—next-door to my old stomping ground when I first started working for my new Queen Bee. The original meeting date was scheduled for noon the next day (Thursday, April 30, 2009). The required attendees were me, Queen Bee, her minion Deputy Director (DD) and the New Kid-on-the-block who worked for Queen Bee’s boss, known as Big Boss. Rounding the panel of inquisitors, also known as suits, was a quasi-personnel representative. I considered her half-assed because she never worked a day in our Human Resources Division. She wasn’t familiar with employment rules and regulations. She also reported to Big Boss, but her assignment now was to take meeting notes. Later, the meeting was changed to 3:30 pm because the incompetent suits had scheduled two separate “personnel updates” for […]
Sep 04

DISPOSABLE EMPLOYEES: Wednesday, April 29, 2009

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I was listening to an old song by Don Henley as I drove along the FDR heading home from work. The main song chorus goes something like this: Kick ‘em when they’re up. Kick ‘em when they’re down. Kick ‘em all around. And I thought, Hey, Don, you took the words right out of my mouth. That’s exactly how I feel every time I go to work now. When did I become a disposable employee? When did I become somebody you could blow your nose on and then cast away like a used tissue? A worker that you could squeeze and squeeze like that last drop in a packet of ketchup until there was no energy or spirit left—just an empty shell to dump in a corner trash can until it retired. When I first started working for Queen Bee, the work was a challenge. I love being challenged and so I loved coming to work. Why was it challenging? I was a writer who wasn’t confident in her skill set yet. Oh, I knew that I could write. My master’s degree from Baruch College declared that much as did the framed certificates hanging on my office wall. But the […]
Aug 24

Why I wrote: ARE YOU THE ONE LOVE FOR ME?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I wanted to write about a super confident personality. I met a few folks like this in various jobs over the years but I’d never taken the time to examine how to deal with them. They could be so annoying, time-consuming and energy draining so I usually went the other way to avoid dealing with them. Now, I was curious. I asked myself the following questions. How do you handle an overconfident, arrogant person who won’t leave you alone? You turn this way and there she is. You turn that way and she’s still there. You try insulting her but mean words just seem to roll off her back like she’s coated in Teflon. You try ignoring her but she just gets in your face even more. You want to resort to violence but your job as an educator won’t allow that. You wouldn’t feel comfort doing something physical because you aren’t a violent person. What do you do? You could call the police but that could be embarrassing to you and your career. You could escort her out but you suspect that she’ll just wait for you outside in the school’s parking lot or on the street like a […]
Aug 21

GB

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Something very unusual is happening in my life right now and I’m not sure what to think. I should backup a minute and tell you a little bit about myself or rather my status in life. I’m a new grandmother. There I said it … the word grandmother. My grandkid calls me GB, which is shorthand for Grammy B. I always thought if I was one, I’d be the coolest grandma alive. I’d drink a little wine; smoke one of those skinny cigars and give free advice about anything from love and marriage to raising kind children. In my mind, I’d have just right the figure to wear the latest clothes. I’d know all the words to the latest blues, hip-hop or pop songs and be able to dance to them too. I don’t know why I thought about that last part. I’m clumsy, left-footed and I’m tone deaf too. So anyway when my kid turned 25, I thought. I’m going have me grandbaby while I’m still young enough to get on the floor and play with him or her. Alas that was not be. My kid’s twenty-five quickly turned into thirty and thirty to thirty-five then to forty. Oops. […]
Aug 14

DRUGS ANYONE

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I put off writing this one for some time because I didn’t want to write about the subject matter while I was angry. This time I couldn’t stop myself. I just watched NY1 a local Time Warner/Spectrum cable channel that I really like a lot because it keeps me tuned into what’s going on around the city. The channel mentioned a new drug treatment program starting in Staten Island soon. The program sponsored in part by the Staten Island DA’s office and arranges for treatment programs for substance abuse addicts rather than prison sentences. Apparently the other part of the program, the punitive side, prosecutes the sellers of illegal drugs. I have nothing against going after folks who commit certain crimes. Heaven knows in my job as a NYC property manager during the crack/cocaine epidemic of the late seventies, eighties and nineties, I’ve met a number of folks who were either users or sellers. Sometimes, they engaged in both activities. I wonder how the Staten Island program will deal with cases like this? As for me, I think the sentencing should match the crime. In the case of many first time sellers and buyer (users), the crime didn’t justify the […]
Aug 07

100 YEARS OLD. She’s a century.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I don’t normally do five essays in a month. I also don’t dedicate any of them to somebody’s birthday either. This month, I decided to change what I normally do and make an exception. My mother turns 100 years old on the second week of this month. She doesn’t do Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook Instagram or Snapchat so she’ll never read this tribute. I thought I should do something special online for her, sort of a permanent digital record that she existed on this earth for the last 100 years. I read somewhere that the number of folks over 100 isn’t so rare nowadays and the number of centenarians is actually increasing. Try as I might, I can’t imagine what she’s seen during her lifetime. I know she missed WWI but lived through the depression. She spoke about how she and my aunt sold bread and cookies from a wagon. My stepfather lost a janitor job during the depression but tried to make up for it by setting a home bakery because he loved to bake. My mother said she got to practice subtraction and addition as she and her sister sold bread and rolls my step-grandfather baked. She watched her […]
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