sorcyress: xkcd panel with a single character alone at the computer and the text "Some nights, typing *hug* just doesn't cut it." (xkcd hug)
Katarina Whimsy ([personal profile] sorcyress) wrote2008-06-21 12:36 am

A moment with a match

Smoking is a horrible terrible thing. But there's still that media-based level of glamour to it, that undercurrent of mystique. Perhaps that's why I find myself wanting a cigarette as I sit alone on my floor, though I detest the very concept.

My newfound habit of carrying a box of matches with me in my pocket seems to hold the solution --I strike one (just one) and let it burn for a moment, savouring the flame. And then, I blow it out, and close my eyes, and smell the deep earthly smell of real smoke, untainted by chemicals or nicotine.

I don't feel better, necessarily, but that moment of flame based escape was enough. I feel stable.

~Sor
MOOP!

[identity profile] zaphod-groupie.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 05:00 am (UTC)(link)
I smoke a pipe, hobbit style. Not often, but maybe once a monthish. Pipe tobacco lacks all the nasty chemicals of cigarettes with the added bonus of smelling AMAZING. My Irish Cream tobacco is like an orgasm in your nose. If you happen to like green dreams, its amazing to mix in.

Smoking cigs is, I agree, nasty. Smoking other things, very moderately, isnt really bad. Esepcially outdoors, at night, once you learn to blow smoke rings. I'll admit to smoking the occasional cig, but only when I'm OMGWTFBBQ stressed. Like, so stressed I JUST NEED TO INHALE SMOKE AND GESTURE WILDLY WITH SOMETHING OMG. This happens, on average, twice a year. It usually involves pacing and/or swingsets.

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Smoking a pipe is pretty rad. There's an old fashioned tobacco store near my school, with dozens and dozens of different kinds of tobacco --I love going in there since it smells wonderful.

I like the whole gesturing wildly with something aspect of cigarettes. Maybe I just need incense to wave around or something.

Also, yay swingsets!

~Sor

[identity profile] jannyblue.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 12:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I will not resist the urge to suggest cloves...

Be warned, you will smell like a goth-chick if you smoke these.

You don't have to inhale deeply (and you probably shouldn't) just puff.

It leaves a sweet taste on your lips when you're done, too.

It is habit-forming, though, especially if you're trying to be goth like I was in college. I suspect there may be some actual tobacco in them.

[identity profile] harena.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
i knew someone who smoked those years & years & years ago and i found the secondhand smoke from them more noxious than other smoke (and i hated that sort as well, even when i was a 2.5'er a day myself. My body trying to tell me something? Dunno.). Maybe it was just that i was in a totally non-ventilated area and couldn't escape but that was my experience with the things.

[identity profile] muzikmaker21.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Un/fortunately, Kat and I live in a state where cloves are illegal, and you can't buy them *anywhere* unless you cross lines into Virginia or order them online.

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Really? I totally did not know that. Why?

~Sor

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Meh, I'm not a huge fan of the whole clove thing. A couple of the arty kids at my school smoke them, and they tend to be a little too cloying for me.

~Sor

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, uh, yeah. Duh.

~Sor

[identity profile] myarbor.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 04:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I don't understand it, but when I was 23, living in a highly stressful situation on the other side of the world, surrounded by and living with only people who smoked, I frequently found myself dying for a cigarette to relieve the stress. (Fortunately, my brain overrode the idea.) It seemed to have nothing to do with the media, and everything to do stress and the need to focus it somewhere.

I wish *I* had thought of the matchbook thingy -- that *strikes* me as a great substitute.

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Maybe that's it, that general idea of focusing stress somewhere *else*

Hahaha, pun. Well done.

~Sor

[identity profile] mommyrex.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 06:29 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, the sulfury smell of match smoke does suggest that there may be some chemicals in there that you'd be better off without ... but I agree that whiffing the occasional (and carefully extinguished) match is probably a safer habit than sucking down the occasional (at first) deathstick.

[identity profile] kdsorceress.livejournal.com 2008-06-21 11:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Heh. You have a point.

I don't take a big wiff or nothing, I just don't immediately wave the smoke away either. I let it dissapate on it's own.

I never set a match down anywhere, including in the trash, until it's been run under water. I am a good girl scout!

~Sor