Some kind of habit.

I took a pack of cigarettes out to store with me today when I started to feel a bit lonely. I bought a bottle of Heineken and waited on the corner as a street vendor cooked me some chicken wings. Earlier this week I had ordered a pile of crayfish cooked in a way that reminded me of southeast Asia. Chinese food really does start to open up once you get past Canton.

Anyway, I bought this pack back in March on a drunken walk home from a club. I flipped a cigarette upside down and put it back in to save it for luck, as Sam had taught me, since the Marlboros reminded me of him. It's still there and it comforts me that I haven't had to use it since then.

See, I'm not really a smoker. Perhaps for this reason, the act of smoking brings up a lot of vivid memories. The smell reminds me of lonely summers in Berkeley. I had really bad luck in my love life during the summers. To be honest the semesters only got slightly better. I was reminded of my crushes on Brian and Antony, who so easily dismissed me... and then also of the beginning of my relationship with Arthur.

I used cigarettes to comfort me in my loneliest of times. They didn't actually do anything, but I'd always smoke with someone who I considered to be equally messed up. It became ritual... sitting on the windowsill overlooking Haste, standing out near the bushes just barely acknowledging people walking up to the party overhead... Smoking for me and certain friends was the formal acknowledgment that we were damaged.

Misery loves company and I guess we did really love each other, but for me it's kind of weird to not have those people around anymore, and it's even stranger that I haven't found them here. Where are all the cynics? The jaded lovers? The disenfranchised would-be revolutionaries? My friends here are either happy or focused... what the fuck is up with that? I want someone here who I can call in the middle of the night and cry to, but I don't need to cry right now.

I'm sad that the sadness is gone for some reason. What a strange kid I've turned into. The cigarette has a little bit less than half left over, but I flick it onto the floor anyway and smother it with my chewed up sandal. Smoking is bad for you.