I tear the gold cellophane tail from the outer package, flip open the carton, untuck the first Marlboro Light and, while I fiddle with a match, my lips embrace the burnished filter. And then I inhale. The first bits of tobacco tick, tick, tick as the flame consumes them, until an ember crowns.
And as I watch and listen at the party, the cigarette perched between my index and middle fingers, I lift my chin to meet the cigarette and inhale. And exhale. Lift. Inhale. Exhale.
For me, smoking was about posing like a dancer slipping from tendu to plie to releve. I think I was more addicted to the choreography than the nicotine.
Which is why I don’t understand vaping. A smoker hugs the e-cigarette in his fist, obscuring it as if embarrassed by his e-pen’s knobby ugliness or by his intimacy with what looks like a computer flash drive. Where’s the artfulness, the glamour?
Maybe grace is in the shopping for and loading of e-juice. Maybe it’s in the flavors. Maybe it’s just the straightforward lure of nicotine.
And as I watch and listen at the party, the cigarette perched between my index and middle fingers, I lift my chin to meet the cigarette and inhale. And exhale. Lift. Inhale. Exhale.
For me, smoking was about posing like a dancer slipping from tendu to plie to releve. I think I was more addicted to the choreography than the nicotine.
Which is why I don’t understand vaping. A smoker hugs the e-cigarette in his fist, obscuring it as if embarrassed by his e-pen’s knobby ugliness or by his intimacy with what looks like a computer flash drive. Where’s the artfulness, the glamour?
Maybe grace is in the shopping for and loading of e-juice. Maybe it’s in the flavors. Maybe it’s just the straightforward lure of nicotine.
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