...on camel lights

I haven't smoked a cigarette since Thanksgiving Day, big whoop. Bronchitis overcame the urge to kill myself. And even though I still haven't completely recovered from it, when I have felt like I would enjoy smoke, I have refrained without as much as a whimper from my former card-carrying member of the Black Tar society self. I mean I used to keep the good citizens of Winston-Salem , NC in fine shoes and jackets with the cigarettes I smoked, so doing the old heisman to an urge is saying something.

I went out last night for the first time in a while. Bronchitis and lack of money aside, I work for living and this body can only take so much. I figured a couple of beers and some pool, (which I hadn't played since the days of Ur) would do some good for my tired old bones. Man alive, did I want a cigarette. Not because of how it makes you feel when pull in a nice drag, or the fact that it gives you something to do in between conversations, but more because when I play pool, the cigarette has always been part of the uniform. Having it dangle out of my mouth as I lay my hands in position and look over the table at the next shot, the obligatory drag and exhale before I shoot, resting it on the side of the table in preparation of a difficult shot, making the shot, picking up the smoke and repeating the steps.

Dean Thrilla said to me during our last trip to the mountains that he thought I smoked due to my pyromaniacal tendancies. When camping I am in control of the fire from start to finish, fuck that, I am the fire and the fire is me. He said that in smoking each cigarette I was in a way taming the beast within, not that I was going to go out on an arson binge but It was an interesting theory. Last night sort disproved that a bit. I'm still a pyro, but man, it was just plain weird playing pool without a cigarette. It took a couple of games to shake off the rust of not playing for a while, and another couple to get over the fact that I was playing naked--sans cigarette that is. For a minute I was actually entertaining the thought that the reason I was having a rough start on the table was that I wasn't smoking. Needless to say it was my most difficult test since quitting, but I passed. And by the end of the night I put a hurting on all comers just like the days of old. I still got it.

This morning I awoke to that heavy lung feeling you get when you smoked too many cigarettes the night before, turns out I did smoke--everybody elses cigarettes. Damned smokers. Ain't karma a thing.

mofo