I’m sputtering and gasping for air, dizzy like I’m going to pass out. But if I can just make it a few more steps, I can collapse in safety. Have I reached the summit of Mount Hood or the finish line of a marathon? Hardly. I’ve just barely made it back from the basement to my first floor apartment with an armload of clean clothes. There is something terribly wrong with me and it’s not easy to see: I’m not 400 years old or 400 pounds overweight. What I am is a serious cigarette fiend. Everyday, I smoke and smoke and then smoke some more. Drinking, not drinking, hungover or healthy, at work, at the beach, on the phone, in my car, in the kitchen, in the bathtub, everywhere and anywhere I can. I love my smokes. But I fear the time has come to bid my constant companions of the last ten years adieu.

How can I turn my back on my most beloved of all vices? I know I don’t really mean it, but part of me would rather forsake Sapphire and tonics, than never inhale again. What will become of me if I am forever exiled from flavor country? I’ll be thirty in a few months. If my quitting coincides with that debacle, will I lose all that carefully accumulated cool that I’ve been lardering away in anticipation of my fourth decade? Will I morph into an obsessive stairmastering, Eddie Bauer wearing, Celine Dion loving, whiter than white, plain old vanilla suburbanite non-smoking section sitting loser? I have to admit that I think smokers are just a little cooler than the rest of the pink-lunged populace. At least I think that now. As a kid I certainly didn’t. Smoking was something my mother did, and I didn’t think anything she did was worth copy catting. And I thought my fellow high school freshman, who somehow picked up a two pack a day habit in between eighth and ninth grades looked like a bunch of poseurs when they huddled outside the cafeteria, in a snowstorm, just to get a few drags. When I started smoking, I knew I was doing something stupid. I was nineteen, for chrissakes! I definitely knew better, but I couldn’t help loving the taste of a cigarette after a few bong hits. Nothing “completes” a high like a tasty bit of tobacco. Once I discovered that, I was done for. That evil mary jane had swung her drug gateway wide open, and I charged through.

But I’m not blaming anyone or anything for my filthy, but fantastic, habit. To paraphrase Churchill, I’ve taken more out of smoking than smoking’s ever taken out of me. That’s what scares me most when I think quitting. Will I be giving up anything else, too? Will I be able to write anything more creative than my name and address without the aid of my friend, nicotine? I’m sure my muse is a chain-smoking alcoholic, permanently slumped over a bar somewhere on Mt Olympus. And I don’t think she will be reformed easily. I resolved to not smoke through this sitting and my brain is just slowly stuttering out the words, whereas with the help of half a pack I’d be done by now. It’s absolutely excruciating.

Smoking can be so comforting, too. What am I going to do with myself the next time I have one of those gut-wrenching knock down drag-outs with the love of my moment? For the time being, this is a non-issue, since I currently maintain a nun-like existence, but it’s a real concern for the future. If I can’t retreat to a corner for a smoke-enhanced break at the height of the tension, I may actually have to learn to communicate. It’s unthinkable! And won’t the world be just that more difficult to take when I am forced to smell its every unpleasant nuance in the scents that waft my way. I have long been grateful that cigarettes enable me to ignore all but the most overpowering odors. If I divest myself of that protective layer of smoke-induced mucus, I may feel so dangerously exposed to noxious fumes that I’ll find myself retreating to a sterile, SAFE-like environment, like Julianne Moore. Or at least, I’ll be forced to clean the cat box on a more regular basis. And what will my lungs do with themselves, if they no longer have that fashionable black coating? For years they’ve withstood the blasting of hot, nicotine laden winds that rival the venusian atmosphere in their toxic intensity. Won’t they get terribly bored with just regular old air filtering in and out? I may have to move to downtown Los Angeles in order to provide them with some sort of daily challenge.

So, what’s got me on the slippery slope to patch-dom? Well, the laundry day wheezing is a big part of it. It may be cigarettes’ gentle way of reminding me that I was not made for a life of physical labor, but until I am floated about on a litter and have swooning subjects attending to my every need, I can’t deal with feeling so physically pathetic on a regular basis. Plus, in the last two months, not one, but two of my dear friends, (dear, young, healthy friends, at that) have come down with pneumonia! Now, maybe it’s not caused by smoking, per se, but they both puff and it was definitely a contributing factor. In any case, it wasn’t really their illnesses which made me think twice about my habit, but that I sat and smoked in front of them while visiting at their sickbeds. Now that’s disgusting! I may not quit altogether, but I sure as hell am getting it under control, imposing some limits. Maybe if I only smoke when I drink. Of course, then I’ll be having screwdrivers instead of plain OJ every morning. Maybe if I only smoke right after I have sex. Well, that would be pretty much the same as quitting cold turkey, due to my lack of life. Maybe if I don’t smoke in my house. I’ll never see my cats again. Maybe if I think about it over a cigarette, I’ll figure something out...