[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by Marcus on June 13, 2009, 6:38 pm
I’m afraid that an insane workload since the first of the year has kept me off of this board and others far more than I would have liked. Things have eased-up a bit, and now that I have reacquainted myself with M G F, I thought I’d drop in over here for a moment. Before I get to a recent observation and musing, I’ll recount a recent occurrence in my office. A couple of weeks ago some sort of respiratory virus went around campus. It hit people hard and fast, settling in their lungs like concrete for several days and then breaking up just as quickly. The only difference between smokers and non-smokers seemed to be how long it took for the congestion to clear after it started breaking-up. Well, it hit my office, including the resident vocal anti, but did not hit my assistant, graduate assistants/interns, or me. All of us are smokers. Ms. Pink Lungs was miserable and I really felt sorry for her. Here she was, a model of healthy living, a veritable missionary for pulmonary health, hacking her lungs out and gasping for air. After one wracking bout, my assistant asked if she was okay. Pink Lungs nodded her head and said she was. “I don’t get it. You guys smoke like chimneys, so why hasn’t this crap attacked you, too?” My assistant handed her a tissue and smiled. “It must be the protective coating of tar.”
I digress before I’ve even gotten started. Forgive me.
I have mentioned my assistant before, but for those who don’t remember her, she is a 30 year old dedicated smoker of 1.5 – 2 packs of Camel Filters until R.J. Reynolds changed them and she switched to Marlboro Reds. She is also my good right arm and we work together more as co-workers than director and assistant. For this post I’ll call her Kim. Part of the workload out from under which I am emerging involved producing a massive report that had to be submitted by 1 June. As the project came to a close, it became clear that the only way my assistant and I were going to be able to complete it was to take everything to my and M G F’s place and hole ourselves up for the weekend, and that’s what we did. It was three days fueled by cigarettes, coffee, and pizza. I felt like I was in college again. Last night, M G F and I had Kim over for a celebratory dinner. As we reflected on the final effort, my assistant made some comment about how much we had both smoked and decided we should call the report the “Black Lung Document” “I think I made up for all the damage I didn’t do when I tried to quit smoking last year.”
Also with us was a good friend whom I met when she was a freshman and applied for a work study job in my office. I’ll call her Lindsey. She was 21 at the time, having taken a couple of years off to work and save money. I remember hurrying to return to my office in time to make my appointment with her. As I approached the building, I saw an unfamiliar young woman near the front door smoking a cigarette. I asked if she was Lindsey and she said yes, and asked if I was me. When I said yes, she started to put out her cigarette and I told her she didn’t need to as I pulled my pack from my coat pocket. I hired her on the spot. She and M G F and I became friends and have stayed in touch throughout her academic career: Bachelors’ degree, Masters, and finally, Law School. So the dinner was also to celebrate her graduation. She is also 30 years old and still smokes.
Both Lindsey and Kim tried to quit smoking at some point over the last 12 months: Lindsey, shortly before starting her final year of Law School; Kim, in late summer. Both of them succeeded in quitting for at least six weeks, and I think Kim lasted longer. In the end, though, both of them took it up again. As the four of us sat and talked last night, and enjoyed more wine than we should have, the subject of smoking came up. I asked both of them why they had decided to try quitting in the first place. Both of them said that even though they had cited health and rising prices, it had really been peer pressure. Lindsey mentioned that out of her graduating class she was one of only a small handful of smokers, and that most of her friends have quit smoking over the last three or four years. Kim made the same observation about her circle of friends. It occurred to me that part of the enjoyment they, and M G F and I, derive from continuing to smoke is the defiance aspect of it. It seems a little different, though, than it once did. Now, we are defying society’s expectation that we want to quit smoking, or that now that we are, in the case of the young women, in our thirties, or in the case of M G F and me, nearly forty, we would, of course quit smoking “Before it’s too late.” Lindsey made the observation that part of the reason she enjoys smoking and doesn’t plan to quit is that many people have expressed the assumption that she would quit when she finished her studies. Kim reported the same experience regarding her thirtieth birthday.
I have always believed that defiance is a strong motivator and source of pleasure for smokers, but I think I have a slightly keener appreciation of it now.
Thoughts?
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