"Cigarettes," or "Back in my Early Twenties"

I'm in an over-priced hotel on the Tex-Mex border for a "business trip." I ate some crappy Tex-Mex border food tonight. Then I walked to HEBplus! to get staple fruits and yogurt for the week. It was 96 degrees and I was sweaty.
Xanga sent me an email saying they missed me. Of course we all like to know we're loved and missed, so I went on my old site and read up on 'me.' I wrote this silly little bit long, long ago and I enjoyed re-reading it for humor (it's quite laughable. Notice my stretching and grasping at depth and maturity...oh, we are yet children) and history's sake. Please, enjoy it too.


It's cold. This cigarette doesn't really warm me. [Maybe when it gets closer to the filter] "Camel Light- Turkish Domestic Blend" --an attempt at glamour when the whole concept is anything but glamorous. Why did I ever even start smoking?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "smoker," not a-pack-a-day-er or anything. I'm too health conscious for that. But not so health conscious that I don't smoke occasionally. I'm pretty sure it started as an attempt to be cooler than I was. We do a lot of things with the motive of trying to be cooler than we are. I mean we Americans. I can't speak to other cultures, although I do think the phenomenon is probably worldwide- or at least among developed nations. Maybe?

It was because of a crush I'm pretty sure. The smoking, that is. He was very attractive, and cooler than about everyone I had known so far in my days of youth group and concert choir. -ha ha. Anyway, the guy was impressed [with the smoking] and we became friends. But he turned out to be not nearly as cool as he looked. I hate that. It's a whole lot easier to seem cool than to actually be cool and this can be very deceiving. And he was. It took me two years to realize just how much his looks and apparent cool didn't correspond to his actual [un]cool.


If you're looking to find a cool person [and I don't mean in order to hang out with cool people to make you appear cooler- those of you trying to boost your cool-by-association status] but if you're really wanting to be friends with someone cool, I recommend searching for someone very unassuming looking. You sort of have to go the opposite direction- going up to get down and vice versa. Plainness could be a good indicator. Expensive clothes and an awesome haircut are not.

I know two truly cool people and neither one of them give a shit about looking cool according to the standards of their peers. And they are some of the only cool people I know. And they are pretty damn cool. And they both smoke.


So I guess the moral of the story is only smoke if you're really trying to be unhealthy, but only try to be unhealthy if you're not trying to be cool. Then you'll really be cool.




I'm glad we grow up and change -some faster and some slower than others. Sometimes we need a reminder of previously learned but forgotten truths. I [too]often find, in the middle of some life lesson, that I can recall going through this stuff before...'hmm, maybe I should pay attention this time' ... I am glad we grow up and change. And I am glad for the 'me' that I was (the silly little girl who thought she was clever, trying to be a woman-- a child whom I quite often still reflect) when I wrote these few paragraphs of paltry prating.


Here's a modified moral of the story: I think I'll join the bandwagon and quit smoking.

Shalom