Fine Filtered Friends

Back from my Scandanavian Tour.... actually I have become just another lazy casuality to the blogging world. Anyway, after being on prescribed narcotics for a few days now I have determined to come back with some shitty blog posts. It is amazing the thoughts that travel through the mind at 1 in the morning while on a percoset spree.

Anywho... back to the task at hand, fine filtered friends - or what you may call cigarettes. There was I time there wasn't a cigarette I would not bum of a random chick at a bar. I felt it my duty to keep the populace safe from their addiction, while feeding my own drunken tendencies. That all stopped nearly two and half years ago when I gave up the social habit of cigarettes. I was never a pack-a-day man, but I did enjoy nicotine when drunk or otherwise. After rugby games, at parties, drunk in a bar at 2 in the morning, these were my times to puff. Looking back on the affairs I always regretted smoking the next day. A few times (every Pig Roast and at CPA's bachelor) party I smoked myself to an inaudible mute mode, unable to communicate with what you humans call sound. I really related with Helen Keller on those days (too soon?).

The past is just that... and I am thankful I got away from the habit. Though from time to time I really do miss pulling out a cigarette and smoking away. This is not the coughing, lung-cancer cigarette. This is the Don Draper, the cool, the social, and - presently - the taboo cigarette product that I crave. Just like Mr. Cool himself (Barack Obama) is a secret smoker, I wish I could enter back into the fold. Sometimes a cigarette just makes sense. There is the "holy fuck" cigarette - reserved for those crucial life/death moments and life-altering moments (think engagement/ divorce/ baby). There is the F U smoke, which usually comes after a fight with a girlfriend or SO. Some may put the post-coital cigarette in here, I won't only because it is hard to smoke when passed out. And, finally, there is the cool cigarette (think Humphrey Bogart)... yes this smoke exudes an attitude more than it does a cloud of smoke. It helps to aid conversation, sometimes for effect, sometimes creating that dramatic pause as you light up. Yes this is the cigarette I miss the most, the one I always wanted before I became a slobbering, drunken mess. They say the brain becomes wired to smoking and I can understand this when I think of the Cool Cigarette (not Kool Cigarettes... I have some standards!). I always thought the cigarette work like some talisman while working a crowd. I like to be in social situations, love to tell stories and make mirth (I never get to use that word); and I always felt the Cool Cigarette is what made it so.

Now I don't know... I am still the same person as I always was (whether smoking back then or not). Still, I do miss having that little filtered prop in my hand, and I miss the taste of a good cigarette (Dunhill comes to mind). I guess I should look forward to the good news - in a few months will be three years since ingesting nicotine via a cigarette (I reserve the right to a cigar once in a while) and that is supposed to be a good threshold for seeing benefits from quiting. I do encourage people to quit, if only the temptation in me is lessened since I wouldn't be able to bum a butt.

alright for you smokers out there, enjoy the next one, for you non-smokers the tax just went up... feel good about that.