Smoking

I first smoked when I was in the second grade. No, really. My family was living overseas and I fell in with a crowd of older kids who got their kicks pinching cigarettes from folks who'd left them with their belongings at poolside while they swam a few laps. So, my "gang" would lift a few cigarettes here and there, and then we'd all run off into the bushes to smoke. I don't remember too much about the actual "smoking" itself, but I was accepted by the "big" kids, so I remember being content. When we got back to the US, there was no pool, no "cool" big kids, and no one pinching cigarettes for me so, in a non-smoking household, I had no reason, and no opportunity, to keep up the habit.

I didn't pick up a cigarette again for another twelve years. Then, in college, I hooked up with a girl who smoked, and she found it relaxing and calming, so I tried it again (college being a semi-stressful time, especially around exam time). And she was right -- the act of smoking, and the nicotine, was relaxing and calming. Lighting a cigarette, by itself, was a ritualistic event. Then, the slow inhale of smoke, and the slight nicotine buzz you got, had a calming effect.

At the time, though, I was also playing basketball. Smoking and basketball does not mix (imagine that). All that smoke tends to clog up the lungs, and basketball was far more important to me, so I stopped after a few months. Cold turkey. No problem. I just stopped, and didn't pick up another cigarette for almost a decade.

Law school brought the cigarettes home again. Stressed out and anxious during my first year (which took place after I'd worked in the "real world" for a few years), I remembered the calming effect of the cigs, so went back to them, to help get me through the first few months of being a 1L (first year law student). But basketball saved me again; I hooked up with a bunch of basketball players during that first year and, three times a week, we all had a 3 hour block of time between classes, so we'd play pick-up games for a couple hours, to relieve stress and escape from the rigors of class. That, plus my running (I was doing about four miles a day on non-basketball days), kept me from letting the cigarettes take over. So I stopped smoking again, cold turkey, for a few more years.

I picked them up again in 1993, during the first year of my now soon-to-be-ending marriage. Again, stress and anxiety brought them into my life, and again working out and athletics (mostly running) chased them out.

2007 brought the return of the cigarettes. The recent loss of my dad, the demise of the marriage, the sickness and ultimate passing of my mom (and several other personal things going on that I have yet to chronicle) brought stress back into my life by the boatload. Enter the Camel (my brand of choice). I started up again in November 2007, and have yet to put them down. I'm only smoking about a half-pack (usually less) each day, but they certainly do help me handle the stress. It's something about the nicotine, and it's something about the act of lighting up, and sitting still, and not doing anything else but focusing on the cigarette, that slows life down, and calms me down. And, unfortunately for me, I don't have basketball right now, and I'm so tired of running (after many, many years of doing it) that I don't have the athletic counter that always seemed to intervene on my behalf.

Of course I know that smoking's not healthy. But it certainly is enjoyable, at least to me, and at least for now. Plus, smoking is cool, right? That's what it says here, isn't it?

And here, too, right?

And here are six reasons why I should keep smoking.

And what about the cool image that smoking projects?






I know I should quit. But this is actually the first time that I haven't really wanted to, and haven't really had the incentive to do so. There's still too much stress, I still look forward to the little peace that a cigarette break can bring, and I do enjoy my cigarette and coffee on those mornings when I actually have time for them.

But I will quit. I'm actually starting to miss basketball again, and I'm actually starting to miss my running again. I'm not smoking enough to stop me from doing either one of these things, but I know that I'll do them better without tobacco. So I will quit. I should. Just not quite yet.

The Bad Year . . . Or Two

So I've mentioned in various places that I lost a lot of time from keeping up with both this blog, and my self-imposed duties at my Ask A Lawyer blog. As I sort of explained in May 2007, I lost my dad in November 2006. He and my mom were married for 47 years, and, as you might expect, she did not handle his passing very well.

There was a year there, from about March 2007 to about January 2008 where she really needed a lot of hand-holding and guidance and I, being the oldest (and geographically the closest) was the obvious choice to do the guiding and hand-holding (well, at least the bulk of it.) Well, she took ill in March 2008, and began a slow spiral downward, physically, mentally, and emotionally. I'm pretty sure she just gave up on life; she just didn't want to go on without my dad. She died on 8/8/08.

In this same time frame, my wife and I split, in November 2007. My choice, for various reasons. So, during the same time I'm holding my mother's hand through life, I'm divvying up property with my wife, and, at the same time, trying to make this . . . . transitional family unit, for lack of a better term, as pain-free as possible for my kids. (My soon-to-be-ex and I have actually been very successful in that regard because, if nothing else, we both put the kids first.)

So anyway, there, in three paragraphs, is the nutshell version of where I've been and what I've been doing.

Yeah, I know. You want to details. Well, I'm not so good on details. I guess if you've read this far, you probably want to know more, but I'm not so good at "opening up," which is probably a bad thing when running a blog like this. I mean, this generation (listen to me, sounding like my old man) is all about openness, and having no secrets, and sharing feelings, and blah-de-blah. Yeah, well, I'm not so good at that. Snarky reviews. Sure. Sarcastic observations. Check. Analytical essays. That I can do. Opening up in an on-line diary? Not so much.

But, who knows? Maybe in time, I'll feel compelled to provide more detail. Let's see what happens.

What's the opposite of gouging?

I've talked about gas prices a few times, most notably here. That's back when gas jumped a ridiculous 60 cents between morning and night, for no apparent reason. Back then, in September 2005, $3.57 a gallon was not unheard of. Last summer, in June and July 2008, it was even worse. I paid more than $4.00 a gallon at some points.

Now, look:



I actually paid $1.54 for regular today. That's almost 66% less than I paid 5 months ago, and just goes to prove how artificial the oil prices are, how manipulative the oil companies are, and how gullible the people are. The "powers that be" blame the drop on the recession. Okay, except, what other product has dropped it's retail price 66% in the past five months? Can I get a 32 inch LCD HDTV anywhere for $200 today? Nope. Is my Quik Chek coffee costing me only 37 cents a cup now? Nope. Is my grocery bill two-thirds what it was last summer? Nope. Only gas.

Prices for barrels of oil are WAY down. The average price of a gallon of gas dropped 22 cents in the past two weeks, and has dropped over two dollars and forty-five cents in the past five months. That just proves it's all fake. Whether it's OPEC, or the oil companies, or speculators, or what have you -- the prices were always artificially inflated and kept that way.

What I'm hoping now is that all those speculators who were buying oil futures last summer, who kept prices at artificially high levels, and did so expecting a huge profit because of the rising oil prices, are taking the financial beating they deserve. Those prices hurt so many people, and changed so many things. Airlines increased fares, and added "baggage charges," supposedly to offset their increased fuel costs. Groceries cost more because trucking things around cost more. But have those prices come down? Nope.

I blame them all. Oil companies, speculators, and OPEC producers all rakes in their millions (or at least attempted to do so) at the expense of you and me. They all deserve what they get.

The Usurpation of Country Music

Another rant, this time on behalf and in defense of my beloved country music.

Yes, I am a country music fan. My tastes don’t extend quite back to Patsy Cline, or early Johnny Cash, or Mel Tillis or George Jones. I’m more of a “new country” kind of guy. I liked Garth Brooks in his day; I like Alan Jackson, George Strait, Reba McIntire, and I’m a huge fan of Gretchen Wilson, Toby Keith, and Kenny Chesney. Martina McBride and Brooks & Dunn, and Sugarland also make regular appearances on my playlists.

But lately, there has been an influx of singers into the country world that really bothers me. Jewel is not a country singer. Ashley Simpson (*hack-phooey!*) is not a country singer. John Mellencamp (who I actually enjoy) is not a country singer. The Eagles is not a country band. Darius Rucker (the former lead singer of Hootie and the Blowfish) is not a country singer. But they’re all putting out country-sounding records now, and it really bothers me.

I know what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it, but it still bothers me. They all want to sell records, and there is no “adult contemporary” market anymore, not like there was in the 70s, 80s and early 90s. But there is a “country” market that is alive and well, and these folks are just trying to find a place to sell their records. So they “cross-over” into country. But, for me, country has a certain meaning, and a certain sound, and a certain history, that these posers don’t really have any connection to, and never will.

Gretchen, Toby, Kenny, Alan, George, Reba — they all have real roots in and a legitimate connection to country music. When any one of them sings a song about drinking, or heartbreak, or happiness, or family, or love, or humor, you can feel and hear the connection to “country.” But putting a fiddle or a Dobro guitar into a song doesn’t make you a country singer, doesn’t make your song a country song, and doesn’t give you any country credibility.

And I hate to see outlets like CMT on television, and satellite radio, wasting valuable air time on non-country acts, simply because they have a recognizable name, at the expense of legitimate country acts that could benefit from the exposure they might get if I didn’t have to waste time watching Jewel videos and listening to Ashley Simpson songs. It stinks, and I don’t like it.