It seemed like a good idea at the time...

File this under self-directed psychotherapy
My father, bless his well-intentioned heart, quit smoking 40 years ago and worked tirelessly in his own bizarre way to make sure that each one of his three boys never so much as set cigarette to lips.
And despite his greatest efforts, he failed spectacularly.
More of a non-verbal communicator in those days, my father was, and still is, the ultimate scrapbooker — long before the practice became the feminized modern equivalent of quilting.
It was around the time my older brothers were reaching early adolescence and I, a mere child of eight, when my father produced his masterwork. The green binder appeared one day amongst the bathroom reading materials as though it had always been there.
He had titled it 'Beating The Odds' — a sobering patchwork of clipped articles detailing the dangers and evils of tobacco use uncovered in his tireless research.
But the old man wasn't so deluded to believe his boys would take an interest in such obvious fear-mongering without good reason.
He made a decision then that I think held ramifications on our family to this very day.
He descended upon his prized stack of vintage Playboy magazines with a pair of scissors, illustrating 'Beating The Odds' with a minimum of three naked chicks per page.
I can still recite lines of anti-smoking text from that book, though I haven't seen it since I was 15.
The powerful combination of boobies and the smoking taboo ran wild in my pre-pubescent psyche forming an intoxicating association between sex and nicotine. My father had unwittingly sexualized tobacco in ways marketers could only dream of getting away with.
My brothers and I now laughingly refer to the book as 'Beating The OFF'.
We all ended up smoking, one still does.
I can hardly see a pair of boobies these days without patting my pockets for my gum.

WTF? the e-cigarette...

I've heard these things are flying off the shelves at over $200 a pop. Yikes.
They don't really interest me personally. I don't want anything in my lungs now that I got 'em back.
I can only imagine how they would enrage the bylaw people as they seem to operate without any sort of combustion, or odour and people would likely try to use them freely — their chance to stick it to the man.
I would think that one of the tacit objectives of banishing smokers outdoors (at least here in Canada) is the 'out of sight, out of mind' element, which the e-cigarette would most certainly screw up.
I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear about this interesting new nicotine delivery system.

No tips, tricks or carrot sticks...

I've decided to take this blog on as a matter of personal interest.
I'm not a doctor, public health professional, or one of those militant anti-smoking youth group kids. To be honest, I'm a photographer and newspaper reporter who quit smoking cigarettes three years ago, though I maintain my addiction by spending about $60 a month on nicotine gum. More of a harm reduction strategy.
It's delicious! And my teeth have never been whiter.
I think a lot about nicotine. It's a substance that I, and I suspect many of you, have deeply divided feelings about.
In some ways it is my friend and constant companion. In other ways it has killed my loved ones, taken friends and enslaved me in ways I am too afraid to face. The intricacies of this irrational relationship, I think, bears examination.
Here I stand, like Golem and his ring of power — his 'precious'. Hopelessly devoted and wondering how I got here in the first place.
I won't preach to you. It never did me any good, it's lame and would be misguided coming from a clown like me.
I can only offer what I hope is an entertaining, detached view of the nicotine and 'quitter culture'.
Let's hope it's addictive.