Thursday, June 21, 2007

Insane

Warning: Capnolagnia content follows

The last blog on my to-read list this morning consisted of an angry protest about sitting down in the park and having two Women proceed to sit next to this person and light up cigarettes.

Oh, the blogger was mad, mad, mad! How dare they, how come this always happens? She wrote, and Her readers concurred and commiserated.

What a strange world we live in. She curses what I crave. She experiences, and hates, what I long for, and never obtain.

I'm a reasonably well-traveled, non-threatening looking guy. Yet it's been at least a decade or more since any Woman ever sat down near me and lit up a cigarette -- it just doesn't happen. I go every possible place they do with the exception of bars, not being a drinker.

Dear Blogger, I'd trade with You, if only it were possible. We'd both be thrilled.

Only twice in my life do I remember such a blissful moment -- and both were prematurely interrupted. I was a teenager signing up for the military in a Seattle office building, about 1989. I sat down on a bench in the lobby and a lovely brunette sat beside me and took out a cigarette.

My mother had driven me to the place and, being unaware of my odd desire -- She certainly wouldn't have approved anyway -- chose that moment to return from the restroom or wherever She was in the building and take us home.

A few years later, another brunette, dressed in lovely white, sat Herself beside me at the ferry terminal. Again, scarce had Her cigarette left its pack when my grandfather appeared, for I had called to let him know of my arrival and need for a ride home.

Doubt he would have understood if I had said, "Uh, Gramps, can you wait about five minutes until I indulge this absolute moment of ecstasy and the Lady here finishes Her cigarette?"

So, cursing myself by all the epithets I could muster for having made the phone call when I did -- why hadn't I waited just a few damn minutes? -- I followed him to his car and out of the Garden of Eden with the Forbidden Fruit utterly untasted.

So unfair. Life is so very unfair.

9 comments:

heartinsanfrancisco said...

I think that you are a weird duck who writes beautifully.

Are you a former smoker suffering withdrawal? Or did you perhaps have a fixation on Lauren Bacall as a child, sensuously drawing on her cigarette before purring,

"Just whistle if you want anything. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? Just put your lips together and bloooooow."

Personally, I despise cigarettes and the smoke that wafts my way from them. Cigars are even worse. They are an obscenity and should be outlawed completely.

I would clearly not be suffused with ecstasy if two women were to join me on my park bench puffing like chimneys.

There now, you have the whole unvarnished truth about me. Can we still be friends?

Eastcoastdweller said...

Ah, Adena, You tease, You tease...

HISF: I have never been a smoker in my life. Just a capnolagniac since childhood, a rare and harmless disorder.

I won't go into the long explanations that some people have tried to put forth as to why a Woman smoking should absolutely set a certain percentage of men on fire. It's illogical, absurd, stupid even, I know. But perhaps less bizzare than infantilism or getting excited over balloons being inflated.

Of course, we can still be friends -- none of my non-Internet friends even know about this silly little aspect of me. I have friends who smoke and friends who despise smoking but we all get along fine.

Anonymous said...

Szia!
Ildinkónál olvastam a kommentjied!És nagyon jól tudsz magyarul! És örülök, ha tetszik ildinkóm blogja, mindkettő! :)
Jah, pétráá voltam, akit említ a főzős blogján, a bolondos pétráá...:)
Tetszika blogod, olvasni fogom!
És tök jó, h kilinkelted ildinkómat!
Puszi és szép napot!
pétráá Pécsről

Eastcoastdweller said...

Szia, Petraa!

Koszonom szepen amit irtad! Van neked blogod is?

Pecs-ben voltam 1992 evven. Jo kis varos, de melege van nagyon a nyarban!

Dawn said...

We can make plans, I'll smoke next to you...

Eastcoastdweller said...

That's a beautiful invitation. And anyone who loves dogs rocks too, in my world.

Dawn said...

Yeah, I rock. :) But you liking my dogs says you rock too. :)

Anonymous said...

http://www.lumendipity.com/smoke/

Eastcoastdweller said...

Leslie, that site is beautiful!! Not necessarily anything to do with capnolagnia, just the mysterious allure of swirling smoke captured by a talented artist.

Thanks for the link!

People, you have to check it out!