Yum, tobacco.
Okay, so, I've been smoking cigarettes for quite some time, with the full knowledge that it is bad for me, a filthy habit, an addiction yada yada yada -- all that stuff is not the point of this post. The point of this post is for me to reiterate, once again, just how much I love smoking and to show off a new purchase/obsession that I am most pleased about. Ex-smokers might want to stop reading now, because I swear to god, I'm this close to writing an epic poem about how much I love smoking.
I love the whole process of having a cigarette. The way it tastes, the way I have an easy-to-explain reason to duck out of social situations, the moment of relaxation it gives me even when everything else sucks. I love reading books, or writing papers, or just wasting time with a cigarette. I like finding different sorts of good tasting tobacco, and having some of my more talented friends roll me one of theirs. I like making new friends over the camaraderie of finding a dry place that's ten feet from any door in a wet Portland winter, of bumming cigarettes and bumming them out, of the karma that means you'll always find a kind soul with a lighter outside an airport after a ten hour flight. I love tobacco shops, and the way it smells, and how smoke looks on a clear day. I like the way a new pack feels, all stiff and unyielding, and I love my cigarette case, with its picture of a scantily clad Mr. David Bowie on the front.
All that being said, I think I have a new favorite way to consume that most perfect plant in Mother Nature's bounty, and that is via a pipe. I will admit that I was influenced by Sherlock Holmes in my desire to start smoking pipes again, but I have had a cheapass corncob for a while and prior to that, I had a cheap briar which I stepped on and broke in half. But yesterday, I got a check in the mail and decided I was going to give myself a belated Christmas present, and went out and bought the most beautiful little pipe and several blends of delicious tobacco.
There is something really singular about the process of smoking a pipe. There is a methodical element to the ritual of packing and tamping and lighting that really appeals to me, and it is an even better way to unwind than a series of cigarettes. I will, by no means, shift entirely to smoking pipes -- I am loyal to the bone to my delightful cancer sticks-- but I think that my chill out tobacco of choice will now be consumed slowly, in puffs that make everything smell good and fill the air with blueish smoke.
And after that embarressing, and to most of you both completely incomprehensible and vaguely immoral (in that way that our culture insists upon us that we have somehow failed if a compatriot behaves in a way unhealthy to them, much less, god forbid, takes pleasure in whatever activity is unhealthy) babble, I really need to show off pictures, if only for my own childish glee:
(You also get to see my pretty purple skirt. Isn't that a lovely color?)
In addition, I just placed bids on several clay pipes on ebay, because I've heard they very cleanly relay the flavor of the tobacco. I'm hoping I win one that is very simple, but has a beautiful flower motif. Regardless, yum pipe tobacco.
And since I've been talking about Freud lately, and in a post that is dedicated to my oral fixation, I thought I'd sign off with a great quote from the man himself (who smoked 20 cigars a day, and therefore DEFINITELY HAD ME BEAT on the addiction front):
"[cigars have] served me for precisely fifty years as protection and a weapon in the combat of life...I owe to the cigar a great intensification of my capacity to work and a facilitation of my self-control"
I got that from this fascinating article, which is all about Freud's love-affair with the cigar. Apparently he referred to them as arbeitsmittel, "work stuff," a play on lebensmittel, which was food, or literally, "life stuff."
(This, by the way, is not me encouraging you to smoke. I have no beef with people who don't smoke, unless they are one of this sort of non-smoker Or this sort. God, I love Bill Hicks. It's also not cheap anymore. But I digress.)
I love the whole process of having a cigarette. The way it tastes, the way I have an easy-to-explain reason to duck out of social situations, the moment of relaxation it gives me even when everything else sucks. I love reading books, or writing papers, or just wasting time with a cigarette. I like finding different sorts of good tasting tobacco, and having some of my more talented friends roll me one of theirs. I like making new friends over the camaraderie of finding a dry place that's ten feet from any door in a wet Portland winter, of bumming cigarettes and bumming them out, of the karma that means you'll always find a kind soul with a lighter outside an airport after a ten hour flight. I love tobacco shops, and the way it smells, and how smoke looks on a clear day. I like the way a new pack feels, all stiff and unyielding, and I love my cigarette case, with its picture of a scantily clad Mr. David Bowie on the front.
All that being said, I think I have a new favorite way to consume that most perfect plant in Mother Nature's bounty, and that is via a pipe. I will admit that I was influenced by Sherlock Holmes in my desire to start smoking pipes again, but I have had a cheapass corncob for a while and prior to that, I had a cheap briar which I stepped on and broke in half. But yesterday, I got a check in the mail and decided I was going to give myself a belated Christmas present, and went out and bought the most beautiful little pipe and several blends of delicious tobacco.
There is something really singular about the process of smoking a pipe. There is a methodical element to the ritual of packing and tamping and lighting that really appeals to me, and it is an even better way to unwind than a series of cigarettes. I will, by no means, shift entirely to smoking pipes -- I am loyal to the bone to my delightful cancer sticks-- but I think that my chill out tobacco of choice will now be consumed slowly, in puffs that make everything smell good and fill the air with blueish smoke.
And after that embarressing, and to most of you both completely incomprehensible and vaguely immoral (in that way that our culture insists upon us that we have somehow failed if a compatriot behaves in a way unhealthy to them, much less, god forbid, takes pleasure in whatever activity is unhealthy) babble, I really need to show off pictures, if only for my own childish glee:
(You also get to see my pretty purple skirt. Isn't that a lovely color?)
In addition, I just placed bids on several clay pipes on ebay, because I've heard they very cleanly relay the flavor of the tobacco. I'm hoping I win one that is very simple, but has a beautiful flower motif. Regardless, yum pipe tobacco.
And since I've been talking about Freud lately, and in a post that is dedicated to my oral fixation, I thought I'd sign off with a great quote from the man himself (who smoked 20 cigars a day, and therefore DEFINITELY HAD ME BEAT on the addiction front):
"[cigars have] served me for precisely fifty years as protection and a weapon in the combat of life...I owe to the cigar a great intensification of my capacity to work and a facilitation of my self-control"
I got that from this fascinating article, which is all about Freud's love-affair with the cigar. Apparently he referred to them as arbeitsmittel, "work stuff," a play on lebensmittel, which was food, or literally, "life stuff."
(This, by the way, is not me encouraging you to smoke. I have no beef with people who don't smoke, unless they are one of this sort of non-smoker Or this sort. God, I love Bill Hicks. It's also not cheap anymore. But I digress.)