Talk about a smoke screen

Next weekend it will be a year since I quit smoking, it is also the date of my time of being pretty sick and yes they are tied together. I had been dwelling on the whole sick thing here for a bit till yesterday. On Tuesday I had lunch with a good friend and he pointed out that moving on was the best option. On Wed I discovered a guy I knew from my former work had passed away. He died of cancer less then a year after retiring. Yesterday I recieved an email from a friend in LA who just retired last year as well.He has mellanoma, it has progressed to his lungs and tumors in his brain. I am done whining now.

Now about not writing. It seems when I quit smoking, I also quit writing. Well at least to any great measure. The whole ritual about writing for me is the room, my office at home, a cup of something...in the AM coffee, at night OJ and something and of course a cigarette. I didn't really need to be smoking it; in truth most cigs just burnt to the filter in one of the many ashtrays on my desk, it just had to be there. In testimony to the amount of writing I once did, my office is the only room left that I can still smell a trace of smoke.

So now I move on as a non-smoking writer.

RIP Laverne and God's speed in your recovery Jim.