The New Way to Smoke

"I hate the way you use my language.", me-circa 1998, to an old girlfriend.



I have an old friend that used to take on the smoking habits of the people she enjoyed being near.

One person smoked Benson&Hedges, and always twirled the ends between her fingertips as she nodded/said something concerning Culinary class, nodded/said something funny about her brother from up north. It wasn't long before you would find my friend twirling her cigarette between her fingers(oh, these B&N's were on sale), nodding/asking questions about English class, nodding/accusing me up making up the word "appease".

Then along came Pasley, forgive the spelling. Pasley had a knack of letting her Canadian Player's hang out of her mouth as she drove, spoke, changed a flat tire, etc. I once watched her closely to see if she was in fact inhaling, and yes, as the smoke poured from one side of her mouth in even amounts, on count with her breath, I knew she wasn't faking. A chain smoker, she lived with a Player hanging out of her mouth. I began to sort of validate this pattern in my mind, as I watched my friend bum a Player from the girl, and smile after the first drag-"I like these. I may pick up a pack." Before long, my friend would be driving along with me, fiddling with her face in the mirror at red lights, with a Player hanging from her lips.

I knew this girl began to like me when the day she picked up a pack of Dunhill's, which was my choice brand at the time. I was quite certain that she did not, not until after one night of mere waxing and dreaming alongside each other outside near the tennis courts of NSU. The following day, with her (on sale) Dunhill's in hand, she caught up with me as I headed for a remedial life lesson of some sort, Peltier Hall.

With my cigarette between my teeth, as I smoke in such a dirty way, I'm so unapologetic for it, you see-I turned to see her light her own cigarette with her head tilted, biting on the tip as she lit, letting her cheeks sink in as she took in the flavor like she's hasn't had a cigarette in 24 hours-I watched her mimic me, I watched and enjoyed how obviously good I am at smoking, and I was so completely flattered by witnessing this.

This memory was provoked by a simple association of watching a table of four people that had some romantic association to each other in many ways, I watched the funny patterns of how we mimic and absorb the traits of those we love and like. I have often wondered who I would have been if I had never sexed this one or fondled that one, spent that week with her or that eleven week wtf with him.....what did I take? A love for a particular author, a funny noise when I'm giggling in the sack, a great kissing technique, an approach to tickling, a sensative spot, a beautiful line, in a nutshell- "new way to smoke"?

What's so good or bad about absorbing the qualities of some one we love? Is it wrong to drink a particular beer based on what some one you idolize has deemed delectable? No, I don't think so. I think it's exactly what's supposed to happen. Gorilla marketing experts would agree, but that's not my point.

Is love but a balance of idoltry and absorbtion? Is that okay, to keep blending and taking and giving the things we love? Do we have to keep examining why it is that we love them? Is that, bottom line, one of the hardest problems with this thing we call love. The loss of our individual findings and meanings, the merger creating all together new entities, the finding and being things as one?

Erich From says:(taken from Personality Theories)

As human beings, we are aware of our separateness from each other, and seek to overcome it. From calls this our need for relatedness, and views it as love in the broadest sense. Love, he says, "is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self." (p 37 of The Sane Society). It allows us the transcend our separateness without denying us our uniqueness.

I gave her Tom Robbins. I took Thelonious from Him. Who cares, its still a part of me, yes? Am I less original, lazier for not finding these gifts on my own? Is my hard work at finding the good music and the best wine compromised or disqualified if some one runs of with the idea? No! I didn't invent Vonnegut, so speak of him freely. Go and lie and say that you found Gogol Bordello on your own, does it really matter? We are animals based in information, in the information era of our time. I am me, times all the things I believe in you.

It's beautiful, the way we fuck eachother up. What a funny animal we are. I don't understand why doctors only work on humans, but Vets have to work on everything else. We aren't much different. We simply would like to think we are, on a very fundemental level.

Just like week, as my fingers began to meander around the soft cul de sac of a lover, I suddenly caught myself in a hot flashing memory of another time, another lover. I remembered the way she played piano along my most inaudible of notes, by simply taking a bit of sheet and using it as a playful, clever aid.

Snapping away from that moment in my mind, I immediately grabbed a bit of sheet and began to play my own tunes upon this moment being designed before me. I watched her body move in ways perhaps mine moved once before.

Had I stolen an idea, or had I-as an imitator-managed to simply keep the idea alive? Would the old lover be flattered if I mentioned this? Would the new lover consider it cheap?

I would like to believe that art is a conglomeration of all those that inspired them, taught them, criticized and nearly broke them. I would like to believe love is a fine example of artistry, and to love effectually, honestly, and sincerely is also a conglomeration of the various things we've learned, accepted, wronged, righted, and created.

Indeed, love is an artform that we are attempting to master. As we find new ways to inhale love, we are simultaneously learning many new ways to exhale it as well.