On not smoking.....

I used to smoke. Sometimes socially, sometimes like a diner waitress on her second shift. And yes, it has been a long time since then, 5 years at least.

But it's cold and nippy outside and crispy winter weather makes me miss smoking. The winter just makes me twang for the memory of a menthol cigarette resting in my hand. The way the smoke curls around you in the crisp winter air, the stillness of the night as you wait outside a door somewhere.

I miss clove cigarettes and imported cigarettes in colorful papers with their smart, sexy boxes, tissue between the layers. There was something exotic about opening those square boxes, for a moment you're a British swinger secret agent living some other life. Then you close it puff and it's gone.

Crispy winters make me long for part of a younger, freer, less responsible me.