I have been a marlboro man, I have been a new moon · 7:50pm Apr 28th, 2014
The air is not hot. Rather, the moisture is lukewarm, a sea that is both thick and omnipresent, stretching out in all directions from the cloud that bore it here and will take it hence if God's willin'. I hate this kind of weather like I hate few other things. Cold and wet can be managed with a fire or a heater and a bit of good company (female or not). Extreme heat is the Southern man's speciality--why do you think we love sweet tea and lemonade and porches with swings? Heat is fought off with the right mixture of activity and indolence. But it is the lukewarm humidity that grates. It's just hot enough to make neither extreme refreshing enough, and so you suffer on and on and on until night comes with the sweet release of cold.
I say this to say that it is the kind of weather that makes me want a cigarette.
Every kind of weather warrants cigarettes. Even the extreme summer heat. 90 degrees? I want one. I would very much like one. Give. Now.
When people borrow from me, I always say the same phrase. "Everyone you smoke is one I don't," I intone with a smile or a sigh and pass along my ill-spent money. Marlboro black menthols, the kind with the green and black together that have the bold flavor, 100's of course, well packed by myself and smoked in chains. The taste of menthol reminds me I'm alive.
The problem is, so do a lot of other things. Things that don't leave my lungs struggling. I cough a lot these days. Sometimes I can't sing. Sometimes I can't even talk without coughing. My voice is rougher. I am irritable without my fix. My car smells like an ash tray, and so does my favorite jacket and my hat. The sickly menthol clings to the threads of my clothes and burrows into my skin. It nests in my hair like an absurd bird, mocking the hours that crawl past while I do not smoke.
My pipe smoking is genial. It is about community and peace. It is not the problem and I am adamant in my perusal. Cigarettes are communal, but not genial. For me they are the commonality of backstreet lots and alleyways, hunched over a lighter to block out howling winds, a walking through deserted 2 AM streets pounding out the dreams of a face and a body I can't forget, the way that your throat burns and cools all at once, the bitter rejection of the storm as it pours. I have stood leaning against splintering wooden poles and smoked cigars under the rim of my hat. I have hid dozens of little green and black boxes. I have had so many long nights.
I have smoked to stave off the feeling of madness. I have smoked to overcome grief. I have smoked for pleasure. I have smoked for calm. I have smoked with tears running down my red face, lungs begging for air. I have smoked in the streets and on the sidewalks, in rooms and on porches. I have smoked in cars and leaning against arches. I have smoked to feel drunker and smoked to feel more sober.
Clutching a little box, the world feels an ounce less dark, a mile shorter, an iota less terrible. The majestic world. The burning world. I am awake.
I'm trying to quit.
I don't really want to.
A pipe is a ritual, a cigar is a treat, and a cigarette is a habit. All vices, but all comforting in their own ways.
2057418 bless you
Every man has his vice. There are better ways to deal with life. And there are much worse ways. To each his own, I say.
I support your vision.
I have a personal distaste for cigarettes. A lot of it is probably more for myself than others. But an uncle who passed away due to it is a big one. My other uncle and my father used to chain smoke but were able to quit, my dad in no part thanks to his kids telling him that they still wanted a father in later life, and my other surviving uncle due to a triple bypass in which smoking contributed.
My dad never regretted it. Many, many years later, he never regretted quitting.
As a child, I remember a time. It was an afternoon on a weekend, and I was maybe 7 or 8, and we were at a kennel to see the dogs. My dad always loved the dogs. As usual for him, he had a cigarette in his hand, and I, not having noticed, came up to him and tried to hold his, as a child was wont to do at that age.
I still have the scar.
Cigarettes aren't the healthiest of things, and they can do a lot more damage than just what they do to your lungs. They can kill a heart in both senses of the meaning.
I implore you to listen to the side of you which wants to stop, as hard as it is, out of the benefit of personal sanctity.
Sometimes it is better to look for an easy way to get off it than going cold turkey. Vapes have helped my dad, and they have been valuable to me actually wanting to quit. Take a look into them.
2057500 Damn, bro. Imagining you as a kid, and that happening... damn. Ow. I know I would feel terrible.
S'for the best man, I have seen how damaging a life of smoking can do first hand, the person in question had been smoking since 14 and by the end of it, at 50, couldn't laugh without going into hiddeous coughing fits, ruined his voice somewhat and made him ceaselessly paranoid about odd feelings in his lungs, these days he is cynical to whether he will even reach 60.
Thankfully he decided to quit, although not before relapsing once years earlier, his house smelled better during that period, and now does so again.
Many would give you a story, a story filed with hurt or joy. A story with the ultimate goal of putting someone off smoking. I could do this, I have no end of sad stories real and lies. I won't though, instead all I offer is a normaly meaningless platitude but in this case I do truly mean it. Good luck.
I quit smoking recently because of its effect on my physical fitness. Honestly, if it wasn't for my insanely high standards and career goals, I most likely wouldn't have. And I think I'd be happier for it.
2058088 go back to Nebraska
We all have to take our opiates for life.
But we shouldn't have to take life for our opiates.
That little chiasmus is how I've chalked up my grandmother's (bless her heart) reason for quitting at the tender age of 67. After smoking for fifty years or so, I doubt it will be terribly preventative for her, but by then it was more a matter of personal ideology than anything else, stemming from the loss of her husband from the same source.
Now, while I doubt you're in a Mrs. Dubose-esque position here, I feel like you're tapping into a similar well of thought. I've seen it work, which rightly means you can too.
Godspeed, Cyne.
2059059 I convinced an online community into thinking I was French for four years, I had a great time and they never figured it out,.
2063525 OUI
Hint: when/if you'll want to quit smoking, always carry a bag of sunflower seeds with you and eat them when you want to smoke.