The first time I quit

So even though I had been surrounded by smokers all my life, I started at the beginning of one summer at the ripe and non peer pressured age of 24. He hated cigarette smoke and loved my long hair. Does cutting your nose to spite your face count as peer pressure?

My new short hair helped my marathon running. I started running and smoking at the same time so they’ve to this point gone hand in hand for me. After two years of smoking, I decided to quit. The earlier you quit, the better it is they say. They don’t let you smoke in bars anyway anymore in NYC. It’s how I really started. That extra little buzz. That buzz loses its charm when you are standing outside in 5 degree weather trying to be quiet since the people living atop the bar complain, throw things and are generally nasty at 2 in the morning.

I am venturing out on my first smoke free day.

There was a woman at the Academy Diner, my diner at the corner of my street. We were facing each other in our booths, two early bird customers. She’d been chatting with Nicky, the waitress when I had walked in and smiled at me. She’s white, I’m not and I live in a multi-culti neighborhood where I get collected to be an acquaintance of people like her. 6:30 a.m. and she was one of two customers. I’d never seen her before and granted I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve been awake at 6:30 in the morning, this is my diner and I have never seen her before. She got out her notebook and started to write a little after I had settled down with my journal, book and cup of coffee. I peeked over every once in a while since I felt she was peeking over at me. At one point I was aware of an abstract expression on my face before I reached for a pencil and started scribbling in my book. The only reason I was aware of the look on my face is because I have cultivated it. She had a similar look. We were competing over who was the cooler Brooklynite. I could feel it. I hadn’t slept all night and yes I was on a nicotine low (8 hours and it clears something or the other up) and thus that makes me susceptible to paranoia but I could feel it. She was hyper aware of me. More aware than I was of her since I didn’t really need to be aware of her. I sneaked another glance while trying to catch the eye of Nicky for a refill on my coffee. The way she wrote in her journal on a slant on a new page. The thoughtful expression on her face, not quite mirroring mine…more like the way Roy is to Rushdie. I was winning, of course I was, my skin was darker. I began to feel really good about myself in an obnoxious way. This is what my non-New York friends talked about. This smarmy, holier than thou attitude. Why not? I live, love and laugh in this city.

I had a window, she did not. I looked out the window to be even more thoughtful.

What a mistake.

There are so many fucking smokers in NYC. Fuck you people. I think every third person smokes, though you wouldn’t know that when you are trying to bum a cigarette. At $8 a pack, cigarettes are no longer a way to start a conversation or meet a new person. It is a way to alienate people. You are lucky if you spot a pack with those large European warnings on them. These aren’t the normal surgeon general warnings. Someone got paid to come up with these catchy straightforward slogans. SMOKING KILLS. SMOKERS DIE YOUNG. SMOKING CAUSES CANCER. YOU WILL MOST CERTAINLY DIE A HORRIBLE LONELY DEATH SINCE YOUR BREATH SMELLS AND NO ONE LOVES YOU. I hear there are graphics but I’ve never seen them. Rotting teeth, fucked up babies, emphysema. Cheerful stuff that lays there on a bar as cigarette after cigarette is pulled out. That European pack signals one thing to me. Duty free cigarettes, maybe an accent, a new foreign friend who will tell his friends (smoker with euro pack has to be male) about the cute little Indian girl who smoked his cigarettes, drank his wine, bided her time at a bar in Nolita telling him about life in the big city. I will happily spend an evening entertaining you with stories if you have a never ending supply of Galuoise Blondes.

Three of my smoking neighbors pass by outside my window. They are sweet and I have been collected by them already. A collection amounts to a wave and a smile. They wave with cigarettes in their hands, smiling through the smoke that pours out of their nostrils.

I start chewing on my pencil.