“remember, if you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast.”

i am not a smoker (nor have i even been), but there are three specific scenarios in which i find myself craving a cigarette.

1) when i'm more than just slightly buzzed and hanging out in and around detroit. preferably it should be cooler or slightly brisk outside (great, so the stale smell of smoke can linger on me), and it can occur at any of the following locations: the elbow room, the blind pig, the old miami, cadieux cafe, the magic stick, and/or brett's old kitchen in ferndale. i repeat, those are the only locations in which there have been just the right ingredients: good friends (smokers), cool air, a specific element of trash that one can only find in detroit, and (in past years) the addition of a couple of sparks (RIP). i repeat, i do not condone smoking, but there are some moments in which the slow burn and decay of one's lungs is just too hard to pass up.

2) lying in bed with a book, preferably after sex. okay, i think i gravitate towards this scenario because there is that bit of cinematic quality attached (à la "breathless", "annie hall", 99.9% of film noir...minus the reading, of course). for the record, i've only done this once. i was eighteen and somewhat of an asshole (more so than i am now, believe it or not). the guy i was dating at the time was equally as pompous, so of course it seemed like a good idea. to be honest, the scenario didn't play out as well as i'd hoped, for all i can remember now is blankly staring at his copy of "the tao of pooh" and wondering if i'll ever have an apartment with a claw foot bathtub.

3) wandering around the village in the rain (i guess this could apply to paris too, but i've only been to paris once so it's far less likely to occur). this is how i felt today, and i cannot describe what the motivation is. the wet factor? the grittiness that already exists in new york, so it only seems natural that we all should be smoking and tossing the buts all over our city's sidewalks? or the simple fact that i'm walking alone and would appear less vulnerable with a cigarette in hard? i do not know. now, i've never actually done this (truth: i've also never bought a pack of cigarettes for myself), but maybe one day it will happen. or maybe it won't. actually, i think that by writing this down i may have just kicked any urge that i had to make this scenario come to fruition. good for me.