pittsburgh, pa

Why I can't stop: Need I elaborate?

i hate school

Have I mentioned this? I hate bureaucracy and bells for class and getting sent to the office and the goodie girls and the jock boys and homework and tests and grades and papers and all the rest of it. Why did I take a job that's just like being in school? In fact, my job right now requires that I be actually in school.
And yet—and yet—I learned a few things today. I guess that's why I keep doing this job. I keep finding out new stuff.
Why I can't stop: I'm never going to freaking graduate.

i'm a bad dog

the motel room

rock on, darwin

So I'm out here in Missouri, right? Beating my head against the wall to try to do a story that nobody wants me to do, because they're afraid of losing their jobs. They're high school science teachers, struggling with "intelligent design" and evolution. School superintendants won't call me back, principals won't call me back, science chairs won't call me back, biology teachers won't call me back, and I'm sitting on my ass in the Ramada contemplating a six-hour drive to God's Nowhere Plus where I might be able to find someone who will talk to me.
Then I get the word: The magazine that sent me out here has been sold. To Bobby Guccione Jr., famous for a dad who started Penthouse and for himself starting Spin magazine. Check it out, dudes and dudettes: He thinks science is a lot like rock 'n' roll. Science has, Bobby Jr. says, "a bunch of people with strong egos and God complexes. That sounds like rock 'n' roll to me."
Is my editor playing lead guitar now?
Why I can't stop: I'm on the marimbas. Naked.

i don't like worms

fluids of life

smokin pa

photograph by oceangurl

news junkie

I'm telling you, it was as much as I could do to keep the wheel from turning south as I crossed the Mississippi River. I passed the National Guard convoys headed, belatedly, down to the disaster zone. I was listening, goddess help me, to NPR for perhaps the first time in my life. I was thinking about my cousin Glenn and her family, safe but exiled from their home in Covington, La. I was wondering if my friend Jed, city editor of the Times Picayune, who, when last heard from in Baton Rouge was headed for his home in the French Quarter, had gotten through the cordons and rather hoping he hadn't—unless he had a hard hat and a gun. I was wishing that I had not quit my job at People. The last time I wished that so hard was on 9/11, right after I quit. Big things are happening, and there's nothing I can write about it.
Why I can't stop: I'm sitting on my ass in the Ozarks and, at the moment, I don't give a flying fuck about evolution.

black in lung and craw

Well, it's gonna be rough. Headed into smoking territory U.S.A, where the bars have authentic atmosphere and a pack is less than three bucks. After a month I am so longing to smoke, I can't even believe it. It's tougher than it was at the beginning. Somebody told me my cells are recycling or something. Never heard of it. But the gut is definitely clamoring for just one hit.
Why I can't stop smoking: The flesh is weak.
And the spirit isn't all that willing either.

it's so glamorous

photograph by Christopher Garrison

back to school

"But think of it this way: at least you don't have to go to school!" Citichild is complaining about going to work, but at least they pay you to go. This is the first fall she doesn't have to go back to school.
Every September I am so thankful that I don't have to go ever again. With that touch of crispness in the air last week, I was just starting to get down on my knees to praise the Great Spaghetti Monster from Outer Space who Designed Us All with fervent gratitude when I realized—shit, I do have to go back to school this year. A week from tomorrow, in fact. Why did I take on a story that requires principals, text books, teachers' dirty looks and that awful green hall color? What an idiot. I think the GSM made some fairly grave errors in designing my brain.
Why I can't stop: I hate school.

you're going too fast

OK, I cut the cop off on Route 1. So, OK, he wrote me out a ticket for $75. This is understandable. But just a couple days before, I got a ticket written at 6:44 ayem for a missing mirror. While I was parked. I found the mirror under the truck. Frankly, having watched the traffic police go down the street writing ticket after ticket for the past week, I'm pretty suspicious. Did the cops take the mirror out themselves?
Why I can't stop: It's the end o' the month quotas.

elvis lives

It was very sad. He went off into the woods one night and never returned. Despite what you may have heard, he was not into drugs or young girls' white panties. He liked his chow, true enough. And in his later years, you could see it. He liked elaborate costumes—bejeweled capes and so on. He didn't really like to be alone. Except at the very end. When he left us to howl alone.
Why I can't stop smoking: The King is dead. Maybe.


Anyone who wishes to buy Elvie a virtual plot or memorial, check out DEPARTED PETS

oral fixation

It has been almost a month since my intervention, and I am here to tell you that the obsessions themselves may change, but obsessive behavior does not. I would require a personality transplant. I have not smoked a single cigarette of any kind including vegetable, clove and marijuana.
The cough is gone.
I have put on 10 pounds.
I have replaced cigarettes with beer, ice cream, Goldfish crackers, beer, carrots, celery, beer, Chinese food, pizza, beer, blueberries, almonds, beer. You get the drift. I'm also picking my lips, playing on the computer, taking pictures and chewing on toothpicks, all of which have the advantage of being calorie-free. I am not doing quite so many crossword puzzles, as my attention span is compromised.
Why I can't stop smoking: I'm not sure life is worth living any more.

cigarette break in paris

photograph by Donna Ferrato

ladies don't smoke

"Speaking of girdles, I am having a little trouble with my left hip and thinking that wearing those girdle panties again might help support it, but don't have access to a source." The e mail from Mom in Mexico contained this broad hint. Why were we speaking of girdles? Well, it's part of a "dialogue" about gender identity. I mentioned girdles, because on one memorable birthday, Mom sent me a cosmetic bag and a girdle as gifts. You would think that having known me for 40 some years she would have given up trying to mold me into her notion of a feminine figure, but no. You would think that sending me on a shopping expedition might be something she'd know better than to try after all these years, too. My husband did all my shopping for 20 years, for crying out loud.
Why I can't stop smoking: I am in deep denial about my womanhood.

thai sticks

courtesy of the Cigarettes from Around the World Collection (Thailand)

the x factor

"It's a surprise."
Strikes dread into the heart, eh? There was a recent study demonstrating that women who had something sprung on them—even something happy—often had a kind of heart arrest. Not quite a heart attack, but close. Predictability is control, control is safety, safety is, well, a kind of happiness, content. Illusory, too. But many of us take it where we can get it.
Surprise! I'm getting married!
Surprise! You've won the lottery!
Surprise! Your kid just died in Afghanistan.
Surprise! There's a bomb on the subway.
Surprise! I love you.
Why I can't stop: I'm going to a surprise party right now.

bad kitty

photograph courtesy of the Weir Farm Trust

the smoke standard

I like to know what time it is, kinda sorta. (The Rolex, friends, has recently been recalibrated, but though I just got it back last week, I have already been able to ascertain that it is still losing about five minutes a week. It looks very shiny and nice, however, and I have to remember that I have always thought of the Rolex as jewelry.) I wear a watch all the time. In the shower. All night (some of my lovers have failed to appreciate this feature of my personality).
I check the time often, but I don't really register what the watch says. I just want to know that I could know if it mattered what time it is. A sort of tic. It's kind of like punctuation, which I'm also fond of. Or smoking. A way to demarcate time from one moment to the next.
Why I can't stop smoking: A cigarette is a form of measurement.

whistling in the graveyard

Here's to you, Josh. Sorry we didn't have any marijuana to smoke in your memory. All we had was beer and tears. We love you.
Why I can't stop: We're not dead yet.

all or nothing?

photograph by Donna Ferrato

The one hand says "todo," all; the other says "nada," nothing.
Eenie meenie minie moe.
Why I can't stop: I don't want to choose.

why

My friend died today. He was too young to die. His twin babies are like nine months old.
I was walking on the street looking at all these old people thinking: "Why are you not dead instead of my friend?" That's pretty evil, but the thought does arise. Why him? Why not me—or you, or you? Or better yet, you, you asshole, you know who you are.
He had stopped smoking.
He had stopped drinking.
He had learned to love.
He praised god, even if he didn't totally believe.
Why we can't stop: We love him.

10 days later

So far today:
Cups of coffee: 1
Glasses of ice coffee: 2
Crossword puzzles: 1
Newspapers: 1/2 (well, it's Sunday)
Bananas: 1/2
Bowls of congee: 1
Diet Pepsi: 0
Beer: 0
Cigarettes: 0
Grapefruit juice: 0
Klondike bars: 0

Pounds put on in 10 days of not smoking: 8

exhibit a

"Double Happiness" Taiwan
On loan from the Cigarettes from Around the World collection.

reality bites

"But reality can be boring," said the 60-year-old writer.
"I love reality," said her sculptor son. "Reality is great!"
"Are we really having a conversation about whether we like reality or not before eight o'clock in the morning?" asked their younger hostess.
"Yeah", I said. "You're meant to have these discussions after about ten. Ten at night."
"After a few beers, you mean," said the young hostess.
And along with a haze of cigarette smoke. It's been a week now since I've had a puff.
Why I can't stop smoking: You can wax philisophical.

be here now

Not to be unduly grim, guys, but the prognosis is death. For all of us. We can cut down the risk factors—the cigarettes, the booze, the eating too much, the riding the subway in New York City, the not getting enough exercise, the not wearing seatbelts, the not wearing sunscreen, the not pounding fruits and vegetables. You know all the stuff.
Still, there's a death waiting for each of us. I have a few friends staring at theirs right now. Please, enjoy your life. Think, create, love, cry, talk, try, indulge, work, spend, do, read, feel, laugh.
Why I can't stop smoking (even though I have): I don't believe in heaven.

nonsmoking establishment

addiction update

Postintervention report:

cups of coffee: 1
bananas:1
grapefruit juice: 0
crossword puzzles: 0
diet pepsis: 2
york-klondike ice creams: 1
bottles of fake beer: 1
bottles of real beer: 1
cigarettes: 0

And in other news,
calories: 6 million

set for the weekend

The title of this blog could just as well be Why I Can't Stop... drinking, gambling, shopping, fucking, eating, working, medicating, doing crank—whatever the obsession might be. Addiction is kind of generic. So last weekend, four of my friends—two with class A addictive personalities like mine, two without, decided that I needed to be saved from myself. They are actually afraid that I have pneumonia or cancer or emphysema or something on account of this truly awful cough that I've had for a couple of months. Also, they think I'm an alcoholic.
An intervention was scheduled.
Unfortunately for them, I knew about their plans in advance, and so I arrived prepared (above). I mean, I was prepared to concede smoking (I'm not an idiot and in fact, I had stopped in advance) but an addict has to have something. Their various suggested crutches—AA meetings, hypnosis, vegan diet, retreat in India—didn't do it for me. Any other notions?
Why I can't stop smoking: I have this jones.

go fish

There's a smell in the kitchen. Not like chicken.
We have sniffed.
We have investigated.
We have scrubbed:
the garbage cans
the lids of the garbage cans
the refrigerator shelves
the things on the refrigerator shelves
the underneath of the refrigerator (as far as we could reach)
the floor
the toaster oven
the microwave
the dishwasher
And still--peeuw.
It's not like this hasn't happened before. And eventually—ohmigod no wonder!—we figured out what it was.
We will this time too.
Meanwhile, why I can't stop smoking: It smells better than whatever that is.

crash pad

"She was lying on the floor in the hall naked in front of the fan," my roommate reported. "I moved her to my bed."
Later that day, I found someone asleep in my bed.
This morning, there seem to be two people in the other bedroom. And there's a strange man on the couch.
What is it with this place?
I'm leaving town.
Reason I can't stop smoking today: There's always someone sleeping around here.

five o'clock shadow

glasses of grapefruit juice: 2
cups of coffee: 3
crossword puzzles: 1/2
bananas: 1/2
lunches with friends: 2
beers: 6
full moons: 1
cigarettes: 4
Reason I can't stop smoking: I might lose this cough altogether

spitting out seeds

This is a watermelon. It was cut, like most of our clothing, in China. A lot of our tacky hotel art is painted there too, along with those oil paintings of our children copied from photographs (if any of you have these, excuse me while I hurl). But make no mistake, there's a lot of good art coming out of China as well: When you have a country of 1.3 billion people, you got the tallest, the shortest, the smartest, the dumbest and the most talented humans on Earth.
They also smoke a lot (probably it's those dumb ones), which is about the only good news for the home team.
cups of coffee today: 2
bananas: 1/2
cigarettes: 1/2
Reason I can't quit: I can't even cut me a slice of watermelon.

macho woman

"I don't get why we are having this war in Iraq anyway," said a friend who doesn't read the newspapers much. I tried to explain about uranium and oil and Saddam Hussein and Karl Rove and George Bush. She wasn't really getting it. No big surprise, I don't really get it either. "Women should be running the country," she said.
"Men," I said."If they can't fuck it, they want to shoot it."
Why I can't quit just now: What about Condoleezza Rice?

addiction report

Crossword puzzles: 1 (Sunday)
Cups of coffee: 2
Beers: 0
Glasses of grapefruit juice: 0
Cigarettes: 1
Why I can't stop smoking: I'm afraid I might be allergic to cigarettes

readership appeal

photograph by Chris Garrison

In a shameless appeal for readers, I present this as the reason for both why I should stop smoking and why I can't.

substance abuse

OK, stay up drinking with your friends until 11:00. Get up at 5:00, drive for three hours, drop your truck at the shop, find out it will cost $3000 to get it to pass inspection, stall out borrowed truck, arrive at beach house 10:30, clean disgusting barbeque grill, weed garden, pay non-English-speaking cleaners, blog. That's as far as I've gotten.
Cups of coffee: 1
Bananas: 1/2
Crossword puzzles: 1
Newspapers: 1
Beers: 3
Cigarettes: 6
Why I can't stop smoking: So many miles, so little time.

evolution of the species—or not

What's odd about these guys?
Right.
They have hair.
Men in New York don't have hair anymore. Sometimes they have hat, but no hair. Shaven pates, crew cuts—that's the look.
Come to think of it, women mostly don't have pubic hair anymore, either. Shaven pussies, landing strips.
What's up with that? We're mammals, right? We trying to lose our connection to the animal world? No wonder people can't find mates or have decent sex with them if they do.
No of cups of coffee so far today: 1
No. of bananas so far today: 1/2
No. of cigarettes so far today: 1
Why I can't stop: Humans are animals.

yeah you

You guys know what lurkers are? Lurkers are people who read a blog but don't comment. It's sort of like snooping. Blogs are intended to be an interactive form. You don't have to write a treatise, just a couple of words. Sometimes those words are "You suck!" Sometimes they are more complimentary. Sometimes they are self-promoting. Whatever. I know you're out there, and I know where you live. Get with the freaking program. You read, you comment. Dig?
Why I can't stop: My friends are superannuated, antediluvian luddites

over there

Alas, poor Europe. We can sit around here and scratch our asses and sympathise and pontificate, but in fact Americans are very complacent. 9/11 seems a long time ago and 7/7 a long way away. In Europe, however, people have been living with bombs bursting in air for quite a while now. They have large, angry Muslim populations and are a lot closer to the action in the Middle East than we are. They know it's never really going to be over.
We, on the other hand, all secretly believe that we've seen the worst of it, that it won't happen here.
"Excuse me, sir, would you mind holding this package for me?"
Kablam.
That feeling of security will be gone in a puff of smoke.
Reason I can't stop smoking: Damn Yanks.

mi corazon

This is Donna, with Alberto. Although she's a nonsmoker, she doesn't mind if he smokes—it's the least of his bad habits—and besides they're in Madrid, where puffing away is more acceptable than it is in Nueva York.
She thinks smoking is sexy. Something about the inhale, exhale of the breath, the pursed lips, the swirling veil of smoke. Of course, our Donna thinks everything is sexy—not least Alberto.
Reason I can't stop smoking altogether: It's too sexy.

got no culture

Why does everyone who comes to stay with me want me to see Art? And I don't mean Art at the delicatessen. I mean MOMA, the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, Soho, Chelsea and last winter that premier artspace of all, Central Park. And they want me to go with. I mean, don't they think that I would go to museums (or Broadway shows, or the opera, or the ballet, or the symphony, or Shakespeare in the park) if I wanted to? I live here, after all. I could go any time. But they try to haul me along, and sometimes I go, if only to spend time with my friends. It can backfire, like the time one visitor and I caused a scene by ridiculing some Joseph Cornell boxes. Or like this last time at MOMA's Lee Friedlander show, when I went into a paroxysm of coughing in the hushed gallery. I'm sure my friends wished they'd left me at home. ("Philistine. Never saw her before in my life.") But at least it wasn't a concert.
Let me bum a smoke from you.
Reason I can't stop: Only pearls should be cultured.

smoking streets

New York smells in the summer. It smells like the garbage from the MacDonald's, the wastewater from the drains, the exhaust from the buses, the dogs, the people. It is a noxious miasma. I don't know why people here don't wear those white gauze masks like they do in Asia, where actually the smell is much nicer with the smoke of cooking fires and the scent of flowers balancing that of open sewers. In New York, I'd rather smell the cigarette smoke that hangs above nearly every corner than the gutters. Especially since I'm not smoking at the moment. Inhale. Exhale.
Reason to have a virtual cigarette: It beats the odiferous reality

about face

One reason I can't stop smoking is this stupid blog. How would I face my public?

not cool

"We will not turn a blind eye to serious and flagrant disregard of federal law," said a DEA agent. He wasn't kidding. No sooner did the Supreme Court say that federal law overruled California law permitting the use and distribution of medical marijuana, then the DEA jumped into action, along with the IRS and the Secret Service, to search medical marijuana dispenseries, growing sites and people's houses. They hauled off plants, made quite a few arrests and indicted a doctor and her husband from—no kidding—Cool, Calif., for dealing.
Way to go men, nail those sicko potheads. Not like the country has any other problems that could use a little manpower. Like, let's say, the thousands of meth labs in red states. Or the foundering economy and moribund society that created them. It's just a baby step after all from smoking marijuana when you have cancer to gay marriage, and you've got to draw the line somewhere. This is America. In pain? Have a nice slice of apple pie and sleep it off.
Why I can't stop today: Soon smoking anything will be illegal.

hooks

I can't stop smoking because I am a freaking addict, is why.

I am addicted to cigarettes.
I am addicted to booze.
I am addicted to grapefruit juice.
I am addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzle.
I am addicted to Klondike York ice cream bars.
I am addicted to routine.

I am not addicted to gambling.
I am not addicted to television.
I am not addicted to chocolate.
I could easily be addicted to cocaine, crank and probably any number of other illegal substances, but I am not.

Reason I can't stop smoking: I have to choose my addictions carefully

never done

The realization dawned slowly: I had invited the real estate agent who rents my beach house to dinner.
Why did I do that? It would amount to a beginning-of-season inspection, and the place was a wreck. I have exactly one week from today to get it into pristine shape. Correction: It had to be in shape by dinnertime. Fuck me.
Fortunately, I have two world champion cleaners as houseguests. Unfortunately, one of them is addicted to tennis and was at the bar watching Wimbledon all day. That left one, and me, a world champion slob.
I ran around the house stuffing stuff into closets (from which it will have to be unstuffed and dealt with soon), hanging shades and tidying up shelves, while my friend slaved over toilet bowls and dust. A half hour before the guest was due, the vacuum was still running. And then it was done.
Pass me that pack.
Why I can't stop: It will be dirty again by next week.

other people's shit

"I have never seen so much stuff in my life as your daughter moved in here," the elevator man said to me. "But I know where she got it from."
I have become infamous in my building for the amount of stuff I lug in and out of a fairly small two-bedroom apartment. The car door I used as a table for a while created probably the most amusement, since it turned out to be a door one of the elevator men had junked.
Yesterday it was a broken coffee table, the results of shopping expeditions to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Zabars, and assorted luggage. A small load, all in all, until I later picked up eight sliding screens and fourteen bags of groceries I didn't want to pay for on the island. (Note: I stood in the Island Grocery staring at a box of grapefruit juice priced at $10 for about five minutes once before deciding that I just couldn't.)
However, on the drive up, I received several phone calls from a friend.
"Could you stop at Marshall's and pick up a rug I have put on hold and bring it over?" A little later: "Could you also pick up a cheap bed pillow for me?" And later: "I really need a short heavy-duty extension cord for the microwave. Would you mind?"
Mind, me?
Turned out the rug was an eight-by-twelve footer that weighed about 500 pounds. I had to put my passenger in the back seat of the compact car and hang the rug out the front window. I also had to pay for it.
Then I had to unload it into a crate at the ferry. By myself.
Why I can't stop smoking today: Now the rug is rulled up under my feet.

solidarity

Any international gathering of artists used to consist of knots of conversation in various languages surrounded by wreaths of smoke. In New York City, that is still the case, although much of the action perforce takes place outside on the street rather than at the actual event. American tobacco companies have so successfully marketed their wares abroad that many of our brothers and sisters from Europe and Asia still think it's cool to smoke.
Reason I can't stop today: The battle against xenophobia

have another hit

photograph by Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

the new roommate

I have a new roommate. She is a recent college graduate with an entry-level job at a law firm. She was kicked out by her previous roommate, and so she wants to know what the rules are here.
"Am I allowed to sit on your couch and even lean back on it?"
Yes.
"Do I have to pay for food I don't eat?"
No.
"Do I have to ask permission to have my friends over?"
No, but warning would be nice so that I can put on clothing.
In addition, I have a few other rules.

Eating
Do not discuss every meal. If you are cooking, and you feel like it, cook for everyone present if it is at a mealtime that most of the world would consider normal. Unless that meal is breakfast, in which case cook for me at your peril. I have a banana and coffee (and a cigarette) for breakfast and, yes, I'm sure I don't want a delicious tofu omelette.
Which brings me to the next rule: never drink the last half cup of milk that I am saving for my coffee in the morning.
Sleeping
Do not wake me up in the middle of the night (the mosquito "crisis" comes to mind) unless you want me to call an ambulence.
Please do not have your friends call on the house phone after 11:00 at night—that is when my friends call—or before nine in the morning.
Fortunately, I am pretty deaf, so it's hard to disturb me. I will try not to disturb you, but I have a tendency to prowl in the middle of the night, so keep your door shut.
Socializing
Kindly inform me if you are entertaining, particularly overnight, as I will you.
Conversely, if you are going to be out very late or overnight, please let me know, as I will you.
Do not allow the font of words to bubble forth from your lips without ceasing when I have friends over. Allow them a moment of the silence many people require to get a word in edgewise. Do not expect me to talk with your friends unless I feel like it.
Chores
Clean up after yourself, keeping in mind that I particularly dislike finding gradoo in the kitchen in the morning, particularly on the table where I will be having my coffee if there is any milk left.
General: Do not ask me every day, or preferably ever, about the outfit you are wearing.

Note: These rules may change at any time at my discretion since I am paying the rent.

Why I can't stop today: The prodigal daughter

my worst nightmare

“Hey, great to see you back. Are you still in your same office? Wait til I tell you about what happened to [person I’d never heard of].”
Ohmifuckinggawd, what a nightmare. I dreamed that I was back working for the magazine at Time Inc.
I got on at the wrong elevator bank.
I didn’t have a security pass.
I couldn’t remember anyone’s name.
They were all still there.
And, worst of all, I was late for lunch with Ed.
I woke up breathing heavily with my heart pounding in my bed on an island far from Midtown with the blue ocean outside.
I didn’t even make coffee before having a cigarette.
Reason not to quit today: It was just a dream.

copacetic

Everything is perfect. There is no reason on earth I need to smoke today.
Reason I can't stop smoking: None—yet.

got a lite?

son of a beach

"This is Randy from the insurance company. Please give me a call to set up an inspection of your property."
Uh oh.
It appears that, what with houses sliding down bluffs and burning up in forest fires and blowing down in hurricanes, insurance companies are rethinking their policies.
I live on an island, in a flood zone, on a barrier beach. I think I'm about to get some bad news.
Quick, light a cigarette.
Reason not to stop smoking today: life's a beach.

the gift horse

My mother brought me a set of two coasters from Ireland with (supposedly) the family coat of arms on it. According to what it says on the back of the package, the family motto is Lamh ladir an uachdar, which is translated as "The strong hand uppermost." You're telling me. Right underneath that it reads: "heat resistant, wipe clean, do not immerse in water." Guess the blood lines haven't bred completely true.
Coasters? To keep the furniture I mostly acquire at the dump from getting beer bottle rings on it? I'll never forget the time she gave me a makeup case and a girdle. You want to buy me a present, try a pack and a six-pack.
Why I can't stop today: gifts

the relative explosion

"Ohmigod, I haven't seen you in a thousand years!"
"I can't believe it!"
"Nice to meet you."
All my relatives, meeting one another.
OK, not all of them, but a lot. Around the table yesterday were:
My ex sister-in-law and her husband (my ex-husband's ex best friend) and their kid (my kid's cousin)
My ex brother-in-law (and current next door neighbor) and his kid (my kid's cousin)
His ex (and one of my best friends as well as my ex sister-in-law's ex friend)
My mother
My brother, his wife and kid (now friends with my ex-brother-in-law's kid as well as his ex's kid)
Are you following this?
Me neither.
Suffice it to say that I have relatives coming out my ears, and there are always more of them, with plenty of internecine rivalries.
Reason I can't stop smoking: My other ex sister-in-law and her husband and kid and her daughter and her husband and kid arrive today.

all my children

Photograph by Douglas Brian Gasner (my ex-and-always husband)

maternal instinct

Reason why I can't quit today, or tomorrow, or the next day: Mom's visiting

he ain't heavy

My brother is a cowboy, as handsome as a Marlboro man, but he smokes unfiltered Camels. I ustato, too, back when I was cool, about a decade ago. I drank my coffee black, too, like my brother. It's sort of open to question who was copying whom, as I'm the older, but he is, as I said, The Cowboy. I still drive stick, but I downgraded to Camel regulars, then Camel lights over the years. Also coffee with milk. And I swear to the goddess my next truck will be automatic. I have so had it with standard transmission in stop-and-go traffic. And, yes—probably not too far in the future if this cough is anything to go by—I'll quit smoking someday. But not today.
Reason not to quit smoking today: My brother arrives tomorrow

eve of destruction

In five years I’ll be 60. In fifteen years I’ll be 75. My skin is looking old, my hair is going white, and my friends are dying. It’s time to clean up my last act. So what do I want to do, what do I want to have done?
OK, the beautiful corpse thing is not happening, and not important anyway. What is? Love, art, movement. But the greatest of these is love.
Who do you love?
These are the four questions:
Who do you get the maddest at?
Who do you tell your troubles to?
Who do you want to wrap your arms around?
Who knows you?
Those are the people you love.
What are you going to do about it? What am I going to do about it?
Reason I can’t stop smoking today: Incipient old fartism

everybody's got a monkey

And then the chimpanzee ripped off her ear.
There had been a string of mishaps with this chimp—the grabbing of the drive-thru Taco Belle employee, the biting and sacking of the photographer with the Hasselblad—but the worst was when my friend got her ear ripped off. I mean really, all but a little flap of skin in the front. I watched, horrified, thinking that the evil monkey had just ripped out an earring, as a trickle of blood coursed down her white eyelet blouse. Then I realized it was too much blood. Ice, the hospital, stitches, shots. No apology, ever, from the chimpanzee owner, a major animal rights type.
"Sammy [the chimp's name] is an adolescent," he told me."He is struggling for primacy over females."
"Doesn't that mean he will be challenging you, as the alpha male?" I asked.
"Oh, no. I am his father. He would never harm me."
Sometime after the ear incident, I get a call from my ear-impaired friend's husband. "Are you sitting down?" he asks.
"Yes," I say. "What's going on?"
"That chimp, Sammy, he bit off his owner's little finger."
I think about that. The owner is a guitar player who needs all his fingers. "I told him Sammy would turn on him," I say.
"He offered his son $20,000 for the last joint of his finger," my friend tells me. "But the son's a guitar player, too. He turned him down."
So do you agree with Daphne Merkin (NYT Sunday) that people are more important than animals, or do you think that all kitties and mice are precious creatures?
Personally, along with Daphne Merkin (Sunday NYT) I'd rather innoculate a million chimps (especially Sammy) with HIV virus than one human.
Reason I can't stop smoking today: Nature red in tooth and claw

sensuous pleasures

“You know how when you see something really beautiful and perfect when you’re a kid, you just want to bite into it, like a new bar of soap?” said one woman.
Yes,” said another. “Or squeeze it really hard. Like a kitten.”
Well, not really. Me, when I see something beautiful and perfect, like a cigarette from a fresh pack (yes, I’ve been known to save half-smoked cigarettes as a gesture of solidarity with my third world brothers and sisters), I just want to burn it. I don’t think this is quite the sort of sensuous appreciation the girls were talking about, though.
Reason not to quit today: I need to get a feel for beauty.

da life

.

photograph by Mark Daniels

sage advice

"Yes, Obi-Wan," my friend said to me, bowing his head.
I turned red. I seldom blush anymore since all those orgies, but I was embarrassed.
I had been caught pontificating.
I lit a cigarette to cover my confusion.
Reason to smoke today: I have to watch out for the dark side

vice squad

"You know, smoking's bad for you."
"I seem to have heard that somewhere."
"You should really quit."
"I know."
"They give, like, mild doses of antidepressives."
Botox, the gym, hypnosis, broccoli—there's a fix for everything, and only too many people who are happy to tell you how misguided you are for not fixing yourself. In grade school we used to call them goodie-goodies. They're the ones who wanted to grow up to be principal. Now they're health evangelicals, eager to rule your world. If there is such a thing as karma, these folks will die of ironic causes, probably colon cancer from being such tight-asses. (I wonder if Christian evangelicals have a higher incidence of brain cancer due to radiation from those halos.)
Reason not to quit today: I'd rather die of being a bad kid.

my life in pictures

It's the curse of my career that I never write for writing's sake, but for photography's sake. Photo captions a specialty. Amanuesis to photographers, that's me. The most important journalistic skill I learned in a long career at (the former) Life magazine was how to stay out of the frame.
It's a lesson I learned so well that I am now privileged to write essays for photographers' books. The latest is one by Chien-Chi Chang, for which I was able to stay out of frames in both Vietnam and Taiwan. Called Double Happiness (an ironic title, trust me), it has just been released by Aperture.
Double Happiness is also the name of a popular brand of cigarettes in Taiwan. I have several packs in my Cigarettes From Around the World collection.
Reason I can't quit: I need something to do while I'm waiting for the click.

addictions without borders

photograph by Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

miss hollywood

“Do you want to take in a flick?”
“No.”
“Say, have you heard about that one with Sean Penn? It’s supposed to be good.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of it. No, I don’t want to see it.”
“And there’s this really cool—“
“Spare me.”
“Say, we could rent the original Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
“I don’t have a TV.”
“You don’t have a TV?”
I don’t have a TV. I don’t go to the movies, either. I walked out of the first movie I ever saw at about age five (Uncle Remus and the Tar Baby—it wasn’t a new release) and the first TV show I ever saw at about age seven, a Shirley Temple Theater version of Rip Van Winkle. I’ve been walking out of movies and TV shows ever since, except for the three-year period in which I reviewed them for People magazine. I wasn’t allowed to walk out then, although I dearly wished to during the screening of the first Amityville Horror. I prefer my words and pictures to keep still.
But here’s the truth: It’s not that I don’t like the medium, it’s that I like it too much. I’m the perfect audience. I suspend disbelief and live everything on the screen, relate to every character (this is particlularly tough with the bad guy). My lips move when they speak, and my feet twitch when they run. It’s exhausting.
Yes, I have control issues. Like I don’t have much self control. Pass me a smoke.
Why I can’t stop today: I’m such a sucker.

branding

What is it with the stickers on fruit? Apples, oranges, bananas—wait til you try to get those suckers off grapes or cherries. You either wreck the fruit or wind up with little labels stuck to your fingers.
Let's think about this: edible dyes? scorched logos? light-sensitive treatments? seeds with scanners? Or how about a checkout person who knows a Fuji from a Gala?
A Camel's brand burns right off, simple but elegant. I think I'll have one now.
Reason for smoking today: research and development

By the way, don't miss out on what the good doctor has to say about smoking and stress.

tribal memory

Why is this night different than all other nights?
On this night, I remember that I am Jewish.
These are the four questions:
Why, on this night, do we eat unleavened bread?
Why, on this night, do we eat bitter herbs?
Why, on this night, do we dip the herbs, twice, in salt water?
Why, on this night, do we eat reclining?
The answers are: oppression, privation, tears and hope.
Or, alternatively: no time to cook, garni, flavor, fine dining.
Journalism also has four questions: Who? What? When? Where?
Answers: The Jews, Slavery, circa 1200 B.C. E., Egypt.
There was nothing to do but flee. Exodus.
Reason to smoke today: We’ve got to get the fuck out of here, quick

burn

photograph by Donna Ferrato

what's for lunch?

A friend of mine says the above phrase is the one I most dread in the English language. She knows me well. Closely followed by, "What's for dinner?"
To raise a child to maturity, one needs to shop for and prepare something like 25,000 meals. That's for one kid. Nowadays, many families eat individually—one meal per kid, another for parents. Calculate that sucker out before you skip the birth control pill.
I had it down pretty well. Breakfast was cereal, prepared by the child before she woke me up to French braid her hair and walk her to school. And dinner I conceded as a necessity—or let my husband prepare it. But lunch! How much work is it to make a sandwich? A child of four can do it—and should.
So now the kid is grown up. Once a week she comes over and asks, "What's for breakfast?" She knows better than to call it lunch, even though the time could be almost considered lunchtime. She doesn't even dare call it brunch. And once a week, I can hack it.
Let me light a cigarette and think about the menu for tomorrow.
Reason I can't quit today: What's for breakfast?

spring fever

I just can't seem to get too riled up right now.
Maybe it was the flu, or Lyme's, or having too much fun on my spring road trip, watching those redbuds and dogwoods go in and out of bloom several times, but when I got back to the big city I went into the valley of the shadow. Shivering and sweating, evil dreaming that I got bit by a rattlesnake or that my baby was dying of disease, unable to sit up or light up for days.
And then it went away, and like magic, it was spring, too. The magnolias are blooming, the shad roe is in, and sidewalk cafes are sprouting everywhere with their laisse faire smoking policies. I met a friend at a cafe, and we sat down and ordered beer.
"I might just have to go across the street and buy a cigar," he said.
"Oh no you don't," I said, drawing a Havana cigar from my pocket. "I brought you one."
The guy at the next table leaned over. "You married the right woman," he said to my friend.
"Oh no he didn't," I said.
Reason for smoking today: Life is sweet.

legislation sucks

They have just passed an open container law in Louisiana—for the first time. Who knows what will happen to the drive-in daiqueri stands that stud the countryside? In Alabama, no car inspection is required. In Missouri, a sizeable percentage of drivers don't even have drivers' licenses, and you can do anything at all on your property, including having a hog wallow, without permissions from 50 federal, state and local agencies. Everywhere, smoking is allowed in restaurants and bars. This is a lawless land, except for where I live.
I have a friend in Missouri who drives a pickup with a Kerry bumper sticker as well as one that reads "Proud to be a Vietnam vet." He doesn't smoke, but he says that anyone on an emergency medical team would be well advised to. Apparently, the cellophane on a cigarette pack is the bond of choice on "a sucking wound." He learned this in the Vietnam war. Take off the plastic, slap it on the opening—and voila—a fix while you stabilize the patient.
Reason for smoking today: It could save lives.

break time

photograph by Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

cookie monster

I had this vision whilst abed in Madison, Georgia. It had been a long day, down from Washington D.C., center of all I revile these days, along the Strom Thurmond Highway through South Carolina in the buckets of rain with frayed windshield wiper blades that made it impossible to see the trucks I was passing. But as I lay on a feather bed in the Confederate graveyard, I knew that I had a mission: To launch another blog for one of my oldest friends, a woman with a sense of humor so insane that to promote her would be my gift to the world.
Well, we did it. Elviscopalian, with the thesis "What Would Elvis Do?" has debuted. But then I screwed it up. I tried to log in on her computer and all the cookies got eaten or crumbled and now she can't post.
There was nothing for it. Fortunately, I had managed to purchase five cartons of Kool Extra Lites and five cartons of Camel Lites (box) at $20.99 per in North Carolina (at a store in which the cashiers were actually smoking—when was the last time you saw that?).
Reason to smoke today: I am such a fucking idiot.

smokin

I'm gone, so out of there (the winter, I mean). Headed south. I'm sure I'll get pissed off about something along the way, and I'll fill you in about it. Meanwhile, let me just say, In Virginia you can still smoke Virginian in a bar. and buy cheap. Put in your orders now. And—see ya bye!

roads not taken

I love maps. All kinds of maps—topgraphical, climate zone, street maps, continental maps. Right now I'm looking at road maps. I'm sick of waiting for spring, and I'm thinking of going to meet it as it works north.
Being goal-oriented, the first thing I plot on a map is the destination. Being sociable, the next thing is is anybody I vaguely know in a broad swath between here and there. Then I estimate travel times, with particular attention to where I might be at 7:00 at night. To my way of thinking, it's rash to drive after 8:00 p.m. if you've been hauling ass all day. You need to pee, you're hungry and your powers of decision-making are sapped. Holiday Inn or Best Western? MacDonald's or Stuckey's. These are tough calls.
I take superhighways, obviously. OK, you learn more about the actual terrain by meandering down back roads, but something about the way you can soar over mountain ranges and down through valleys, sweep across rivers and tear through prairies gives you a better appreciation of the great geography of the land.
Still, the map also charts missed opportunities. Natural Bridge, which I will never pay money to see, likewise Carlsbad Caverns. There's the town where I spent some formative years, and another that has the best biscuits in the whole world. There's the one where I did the story about the white supremicists, and the one where an ex-lover still lives.
Let's look at the route and contemplate the possibilities.
Reason not to stop smoking today: It's a big country, and somebody's gotta drive it.

reach out and touch

"Mom, can you tell me how to do Jacob's Ladder over the phone? I'm going crazy here." Phone clutched to my shoulder, I tied a piece of string into a loop and tried to remember the difference between cat's cradle, witch's broomstick and the few other string figures I once knew how to make. I was able to remember Jacob's Ladder if I did it at top speed without thinking. So I did it over and over to talk her through it. "Drop the thumbs. . . put your forefingers through the triangles."
My daughter also calls me when she has questions about grammar, finances or recipes. And when sick, especially if she's throwing up.
But she never makes the kind of call that some of my friends do, which I call The-Last-Person-I-Spoke-To call. This person calls with a request for advice or help. So you look up the fare to Costa Rica or the 15-year mortgage rate or say "you were right to dump the asshole" (actually, I'm pretty careful not to say that, since you never know whether they're getting back together) and talk them through it.
Then they call the next person.
And the next person.
And they always listen to the last person they talked to. And then they call you back and say, "Well, Betty's daughter says I can get a fare for $230." "Well, Maria says I am crazy to pay 6 percent interest." "Well, Kate thinks any guy who does dishes is worth keeping and that I should get over my jealousy issues." And then, after taking a freaking poll, they want to know what I think. Again.
Put the string around your neck. With your hand in a fist, palm facing you, take your middle finger and extend it.
Reason I can't stop smoking today: phone polls

our crown of thorns

The most pagan of all our holidays is upon us. The fertility festival that, in the northern hemisphere, is the time of planting the seed. Hence the copulating bunnies, the abundant eggs, the vulval flowers. It is the time of the vernal equinox, a time of renewal and resurrection when the sun is risen again.
Bingo.
The Jesus thing.
That guy has a lot to answer for.
I blame Jesus for the fact that my Catholic friends can’t even get naked in the shower without feeling guilty.
I blame Jesus for Mel Gibson and George Bush.
I blame Jesus for the Crusades and World War II and the Ku Klux Klan.
I blame Jesus, most of all, for that blank look people get in their eyes when you ask them to think about something they don’t want to think about.
Like their belief system. Consider Christianity for a second.
Immaculate conception.
Right.
Resurrection from death.
Sure.
Eating flesh and drinking blood.
Okay.
I think I’ll stick with the sex and chocolate. And a cigarette.
Reason for smoking today: Jesus, Mary and Joseph

that's cold

Originally uploaded by big head.

Eskimo kids smoking, 1918

my precious life

I've got an idea, let's keep everybody alive as long as we possibly can. Take me, for instance. When the ticker starts to give out, or the lungs, put me on life support right away, before anything starts to shut down. Don't worry about my quality of life, just extend it by any means possible. After all, my life is precious. And despite the fact that it's my own fault that my organs are facocked, some medical breakthrough may make it possible to regrow them and bring me back. I think that prospect is worth it. Don't you? I mean, your life is precious, too. Every life is precious. We need to stop building nursing homes where you can play cards and go to arts and crafts and sign do-not-resussitate orders and just concentrate on building warehouses where we can keep as many humans alive as possible so that their lives never end. And while we're at it with the end-of-life end, let's also make sure that we cover the beginning-of-life end. We can harvest women's eggs before they're aborted (alas, it may be too late for many of mine) and grow them in artificial wombs so that no precious life is wasted! Wouldn't that be cool? The whole world could be covered with these facilities and the few functioning people left would all have jobs! And what rewarding ones! Like vegetable gardening.
So what the heck, I'll have a puff and go run around in traffic.
Reason for smoking today: Because I'm worth it.

boss lady

Every week there is some new disaster in my cleaning lady's life. The granddaughter who's mouthing off at school. The son whose policewoman wife was beating him. The contractor who's suing her after fucking up her kitchen. The fainting spell that took her to the doctor. The bag of gifts she left in the subway by accident. The doctor again. The contractor again. The legal fees. The doctor.
Is every cleaning lady's life like this? And do all of them share the information with their employers? How did I get the position of confidante and problem solver for a woman I see for a couple of hours a week? I have never met her family nor been to her house.
But of course she knows all about me. Who my family and friends are. What newspapers I read and how often I move the furniture (often). Where I keep my spare change. What my closets look like. And my underwear. And my sheets after visitors.
She knows where I live. And everybody likes feedback from an employer. Never mind that I'm just a person, too, a person who has consistantly refused positions that require managing employees. I know the rules. And so I listen.
She doesn't approve of my smoking, although she's never said so. I think I'll have one now, before she gets here with her litany of misfortunes.
Today's reason: I'm the boss.

nightwork

Sleep can be so exhausting. The body checks all its systems—temperature control, fluids, mechanical systems-and runs through the programming. You're sweating, coughing, twitching, palpitating. And then there's the mind, which seems to need to clean up the hard drive. There'a lot of shit on there. Everything you have ever done or might do or wish you had done is all in there to be run and rerun endlessly in a whirl of psychogarble that's very difficult to sort out (save as, trash) once you wake up. Ah, but then you're cleansed in body and mind, tabula rasa.
Reason to have a cigarette on this new day: I'm beat.

smokin'

photograph by Chien-Chi Chang/Magnum Photos

our president

Gobsmacked is the term I'm looking for, I believe. Yesterday the cops were soliciting my support, today it's Republicans. Is this for real?
A card with my name on it claiming that I'm a platinum member of The President's Club has arrived at my address. The accompanying letter reads, in part, "We must give President George W. Bush the support he needs to do what is right for our country by cutting taxes, modernizing social security and strengthening our military." Wait for it: "I believe your expemplary record of loyalty and patriotism proves you are the caliber of leader President Bush can count on in this impressive struggle.".
Loyalty and patriotism? Leader? The administration's intelligence is as flawed as ever. Who have they been talking to? Not the FBI. And they sure didn't get my name from the IRS—the pitch continues that all I have to do to keep this card (for use at "prestigious events") is pay $1000 to the Republican National Committee. That's like asking a homeless person to pay off the hit-and-run driver who maimed him for life.
Having the name of an irredeemable pacifist-leftie like me on such a mailing list is not identity theft but identity transplant. I suspect that my name may have been provided to the RNC by the same friend who pasted a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker to my rental car—you know who you are. I got him back by surrepticiously affixing a sticker to his bumper that read "Honk If You're Gay."
Buddy, can you spare a cig?
Reason not to quit today: Mailing lists.

getting the irish up

It's St. Patricks Day, and for some reason my mind turns to the most recent call I got from the Policeman's Benevolent Association when I was either eating or sleeping. The calls go like this:
"Good morning, ma'am, I'm calling you today" blah blah "know you want to support" blah blah "bulletproof vests" blah blah "the Force" blah blah "so can I at least put you down for?"
On my end the conversation goes: "No." "No." No." "No." "No." This is a technique I learned when I found myself switched to MCI (yay, WorldCom!) for saying "Yes, but," one time.
There is never time for me to say, "I hate cops. Policeman's Benevolant Association? My associations with policemen are all malevolent. Maybe it's all the acid I took and there's something wrong with my DNA now that makes me hate cops. Yeah, I know that now that I'm full-fledged fat-cat member of society you're supposed to be on my side. And yeah, one of my best friends used to be a cop. And yeah I'm fucking Irish for that matter, but it just doesn't make any difference. I don't want the sticker that keeps me from getting speeding tickets. I'm never giving you any money. I HATE COPS. Get it?"
Happy St. Patty's Day. Crack me open a Clausthauler. Strike a match.
Reason not to stop smoking today: Fucking pigs.

negative attitude

photograph by Sam Scholes

country media

The Michael Jackson thing finally put me over the edge: I am boycotting the New York Post. Mind you, I do love gossip. I mean, once upon a time I was the movie editor at People. And one of my fondest memories is being in the middle of god knows where and hearing that Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley (guess she's not being called as a witness) were married. That was too wonderful to be true. And yet it was true!
And I reckon that's the problem. I used to read the Post for the same reason that I used to like country music, partly as a goof, and partly to keep in touch with what my brothers and sisters of America were thinking about. But as country music with its drinkin' and cheatin' and numbin' litany of misfortunes began to seem more and more true to life and less and less amusing, I went off it.
Same with the Post. It probably started with Bush's reelection. Then there was the Scott thing, the Martha thing. Even Wierd but True started seeming not that weird and all too true. The headlines started to suck. And I could get the horoscope on the web without ever having to look at the rest of the depressing reality of what America is today.
In fact, what I have in common with my countryfolk right now is mostly the president and the addictions we share. Not enough for solidarity.
Reason not to stop smoking today: Michael Fucking Jackson

for god's sake

In the dream I was attending sabbath services at a synagogue with my husband. When I woke, I wondered why, since I'm neither married to him any more nor Jewish. It was probably prompted by a story I read of a women who converted from Judaism to evangelical Christianity and embraced chastity for two years (with, she coyly admits, a couple of slips) until she married and could have good Christian sex.
Well hallelujah for her. Chastity is no fucking problem at all if you're single, female and over 40, let me tell you. That's particulary unfair since it is at this age that most women become raving sex maniacs. Two years? Wow. I have been chaste for longer stretches (ok, a couple of slips) with zero Christian conscience and absolutely no challenge to my willpower (which we know to be weak, see blog title).
Jesus, pass me a cigarette.
Reason for smoking today: Chastity for god's sake.

nasty habits

I was under the impression that if parents smoked, their rebellious children seldom did. Or vice-versa in my case. It was a comforting impression, since when I had a kid I wouldn't/couldn't stop anyway. So my kid spent most of her childhood crumbling my cigarettes, throwing them out the window, showing me autopsy pictures of lungs and all the other stuff that they were teaching them in school.
One night I had a dream that my daughter was smoking. When I told her this, she said, "Mothers always know." Alas. She quits over and over, but she smokes, along with indulging in all the other bad habits she's learned from me over the years such as drinking, taking drugs, going to orgies and marrying starving artists. There are a few ahead of her (and fortunately behind me) that she hasn't taken up yet. I throw up my hands. She's grown, and I've already won the role model of the year award.
Reason I can't stop smoking today: It's too late

speaker phones

Today is the anniversary of the first phone call. There are now some 531 million telephone numbers in the U.S. You got your pagers, your cellphones, your land lines, your FAXes, your beepers, your Palm Pilots. And you got your speaker phones.
Today I spent half an hour on the phone to England. I was holding my phone to my ear, and She was wandering around the room listening to my stupid questions broadcast at volume. Maybe even smoking a cigarette (though, since She's a geneticist, I doubt it) while I held the phone clutched to my shoulder in the way that invariably gives me an ache and tried to scribble down what she was saying in my notebook. The combo of speaker phone and pommy accent with a liberal spritz of scientific jargon didn't help. In fact, I don't dare look at my notes, because they are full of tridots. . .
We know who had the power position in this call, right?
Reason I can't stop today: Mr. Bell

ungrateful readers

So far I have made 12 cents on this blog. That's because you people don't click on the ads. Maybe you don't want to stop smoking. Maybe you don't smoke. I can deal with that, although I won't be trotting right over to the bank to deposit a check for pennies. However, there's another issue. I know that about a hundred people check into this site every day. I know who many of you are. The check-in obviates the necessity for me to repeat myself a zillion times about what I've been up to. But I still have to relay the "he said/she said" parts because you all are sending me e-mails or phoning rather than writing in. Are you just checking in to make sure that you do or don't appear? How about some fucking feedback here?
Why I can't stop smoking today: I'm just blowing smoke.

magazine issues

I don't know if you've noticed, but general interest publications are pretty much over. The Economist is the only one I read with any regularity, and I'm not alone. Niche magazines are what's happening. This is unfortunate for me, because I've never been a niche journalist—I like doing a little bit of everything. Reality bites, though, so I bit the bullet and did whatever niche I had the knick-knacks to fill. Lately, it's been science. So I have these two story contracts for a science mag only to find out yesterday that the magazine is on the block.
Not a good sign. I have finished and billed one story; I am setting up the second; I have been paid for neither. "Don't worry, the editor tells me, the company stands behind you."
The last time the company was supposed to stand behind me it was for a story for a magazine that folded. The company did not stand behind me. Nor the photographer I was working with. Nor the story subjects who gave me their time.
(Inhale)
Reason I can't stop smoking today: The check is in the mail.

puffmama

Just hang onto it. I'm too traumatized at the moment to do anything but smoke, but I'll do the reveal one of these times before too long.
Why I can't stop smoking today: Sorry, too busy inhaling to write.

those darn editors

Have you heard the one about a writer and an editor standing on the bank of a river with the sunset reflecting off the crystal torrent? The editor (a man, naturally) unzips his fly and pisses into the pristine waters. The writer (probably also a man or this incident would likely never have occurred in this enlightened age) looks at him in disbelief and says, "What the hell are you doing?" The editor turns to the writer smugly and says, "Making it better."
So yesterday I saw the editor on my latest story. I was prepared for the above, but what actually happened was worse: He hadn't even read the story I handed in a few weeks ago. I jammed to report it, jammed to do it, jammed to collect the reasearch, jammed to send in the bill—hey, the expenses are already on my credit card—and he hasn't even bothered to read it. Well piss on that.
I think there's one left in the pack.
Today's reason to smoke: editors

price point

The great smoke-out has gotten pretty serious. Rhode Island just went smoke free, as did all the pubs in Ireland. But where it really hurts is that the inhabitants of New York City who, until a month ago, were happily avoiding the seven-bucks-a-pack prices by ordering off the Internet are now finding that loophole plugged. Some have even been assessed for back taxes on their purchases (okay, a few of those were likely black-marketing). The Seneca tribe apparently continues to fight the good fight, but one friend of mine has gone so far as to order his four cartons shipped to Connecticut then (illegally) ferried into town by a friend.
Me, I glory in the high price. I walk to the newsstand, buy my papers and a pack and plonk down my ten bucks feeling like one of those fat-cat cartoon characters who lights up a stogie with a hundred-dollar bill.
Reason to smoke today: It makes me feel rich.