I have a confession. Monday night, I bought a pack of cigarettes. I decided that lighting up was a worthwhile concession to make to my Id. What I mean to say is that I felt overwhelmed and decided smoking tobacco was an okay way to deal with it. This is an analysis I stand by, considering my behavior in the past two Octobers.
Let’s be real: I like cigarettes. I like the bad romance of leaning against a golden-leafed tree in Library Mall, brooding, and exhaling smoke through my lips. I like the contemplative walks cigarettes enable, because it feels unsatisfying to walk through the botanical garden on University Avenue, thinking at a thousand miles per hour, with nothing physical in my hand to keep me rooted to the present. Gesturing to my imaginary audience is so much less poignant if I don’t have a cigarette in my hand.
However, Tuesday night, sitting in that same botanical garden blowing smoke into the vaguely starlit sky, I realized that only part of me likes cigarettes, similar to how only part of me likes alcohol. The other part of me looks on, deeply concerned, thinking, “Angelica, you only have one body to use for your whole lifetime.”
I think back to sophomore year, when I picked up smoking for the fifth time, saying to myself, “I’m smoking because it’s October, and it’s getting darker every day.” Then, in November, “I’m still smoking because it’s November, and it’s still getting darker every day.”
I lived in Chadbourne at the time, and would dawdle around outside the front door, smoking. These are the circumstances under which I met my super Christian yet very intellectual friend Josh. He would be outside with the cigarette smokers, puffing on a wooden pipe. Thus, in December, I stopped smoking cigarettes and learned how to smoke pipe, with Josh’s help. Fortunately, I never actually bought my own pipe, so, at home over winter break, I was not able to continue the ritual.
Junior year, I managed to only smoke when drunk a couple nights in September and October. Then, I didn’t smoke any cigarettes from November through July. After that, I only had a total of about one cigarette (bumming hits from friends) until this Monday, when I had four all by myself.
For me, smoking cigarettes is an aesthetic experience. This is why I have been known to put on lipstick just prior to lighting up. There is a glamour in exhaling white clouds through a red pout. However, I know that chances are I will become enslaved to the nicotine if I allow smoking to become a habit.
Previously in this article, I alluded to naughty behavior that occurred during past Octobers. Specifically, I was referring to consuming irrational amounts of booze and chasing men like my life depended on it.
The difference between smoking a cigarette and taking a shot of vodka is that cigarettes keep your irrational decision-making inside the context of cigarette smoking. In other words, smoking a cigarette may cause you to have another cigarette, but it will not cause you to decide to proposition a man who you are perfectly aware is incompatible with your true self. Thus, with smoking, it’s just you and the cigarettes, but with alcohol, it’s you, the alcohol, and everyone you know.
Nonetheless, I consider myself a non-smoker, even though I do indulge every once in a while. Everything in moderation. Even (especially) moderation.
Cigarettes are bad (but also cool). Email Angelica at aengel@wisc.edu.
