Welcome Back, Smoker

OK, I know this is supposed be about ugliness, poor planning and general urban craziness in Belltown, but like so many blogs, it ends up featuring its author as a main character in certain vignettes. I am admittedly not the best subject for this, as my life is not as I want it. Sure, blogs feature miserable people all the time complaining about their pathetic lives. Perhaps on some level they enjoy their misery. I do not. I don't like feeling that my one-quarter Slavic soul is filled with stale vinegar and olive pits.

I think that everything went terribly wrong in January. That's when it began at least. That's the month I quit smoking. I had been a gleeful, defiant smoker since my mid-twenties. Only in the last few years did I start to feel like it was killing me. Having smoked so long that I didn't remember what it was like not smoking, I began craving the smokeless life. That was also a great impediment to becoming a non-smoker; it was like creeping into unknown territory and I always felt that I could easily retreat back into the realm of smoke. After many attempts, I managed to quit in January. I haven't touched a cigarette in nearly six months. Sure, I smell better but since then things have been just dire. I won't go into detail, but life has truly sucked. It might be time for me to fall off the wagon.

Except for feeling like I was dying, smoking treated me right. I was never sick and my teeth didn't turn brown. And I was a lot happier. Of course, my girlfriend at the time believed that I'd quit, so I snuck around stealing smokes whenever I could, but that was part of the excitement. I've always felt like smoking was my friend. Over the years, that friendship has gotten a lot more expensive, but what price would you put on a life that didn't suck? It's becoming clearer that smoking is probably the answer. There will be the following drawbacks which will involve the following solutions:

1. Bars and restaurants will shun me.

That's OK, because I won't be able to afford to go out in the first place, what with all the money I'm spending on cigarettes.

2. I'll feel like crap when I hit the elliptical machine at the gym.

You know, the gym is generally not the place to feel good about anything.

3. I'll get hit up by five people every block for smokes.

I'll tell them that the cigarette is not mine and that I'm only keeping it for a friend.

4. I could have a heart attack and die.

You talk about dying alone like it was a bad thing.

5. I'll wheeze.

Wheezing is how cockroaches attract mates. Maybe humans operate the same way.

6. Smoking makes me sweat.

Everything makes me sweat. Yeah, I'm just that charming.

7. Smoking is generally disgusting.

Not when you use this adorable frog ashtray:


OK, I think I've managed to convince myself. I only need to not forget to buy a pack of smokes. That has been a problem these last nearly six months. I would have stayed a smoker if I'd only remembered to buy cigarettes. I did not.

So now that I've charted out my path to happiness, I vow never to mention my recent anguish again. Cigarettes will fix everything. Besides, my troubles have nothing to do with Belltown's hideousness, so all the more reason not to bring them up.

Even though I haven't smoked yet, it feels good to be a smoker again!