Lydia’s Blog

I’m probably going to get drunk tonight. I figure I’ll do that to parrot CNN’s semi-tacky decision to webcast its original footage from September 11, 2001. You see, on that fateful day, I sat around my Pittsburgh apartment with two fabulous homos, one coach/accompanist and one playwright, playing “we’re under attack” drinking games. My TV only got NBC at the time, so we watched that channel, and whenever they aired their stock footage of “gleeful Arab woman dancing in the street”, we’d drink a shot. Unfortunately, they showed this clip at least once every ten minutes. After knocking back two bottles of Jose Cuervo, one of JD, a bottle of Ouzo (a present from Donny Zara, bless him) and half a jug of Arbor Mist…we began a heated argument against and in favor of driving out to the Flight 93 crash site and offering the rescue workers and investigators conciliatory handjobs. The “against” faction won in the end, and we decided to call it a day. I woke with my face caked to my pillow with my own vomit on the morning of September 12.

As you might possibly ascertain, I’m not very passionate or political about 9/11, or its legacy. This is not the case for some other people in my life. My mother, for instance, is a comprehensively researched conspiracy theorist.For about two hours a few days ago, she filibustered (solitarily, to be sure, to an invisible congress) about the unbelievable luck the hijackers (if there were any, of course) had to score a “perfect” day (cloudless, no wind) on September 11. The words “coincidence” and “luck” have been erased from her working vocabulary. We celebrated the big “5” by watching “Loose Change”, the movement’s leading documentary. (Let it never be said that I don’t love my mother).

A good friend of mine from grad school lost two uncles that day, both worked in the South Tower. I’m pretty sure that words like “unmanned drones” and ideas like “steel will only melt at temperatures exceeding those of the plane crashes by 1000 degrees Fahrenheit” are among those of which he’s appreciate hearing less that “it’s time for your prostate exam, please bend over and relax”.

On radio and TV programs today, I had to endure the remembrances of an entire series on imbeciles, on which very nearly NO ONE had experienced any direct or personal loss from 9/11. (I don’t live in the New Yorky part of Connecticut, you see).

Nauseating platitudes like:

“Nine-eleven was our generation’s call to duty.”

“On that day, a piece of America’s heart collapsed with those buildings.”

“That awful day made America better and safer, in the long run.”

Let me tell you about the legacy of 9/11…it’s fucked me in the dumper just about every time I’ve flown internationally (about 25 times) in the last five years. It’s made Europeans cynical toward and Middle Eastern/Northern African/West Asians scornful of me in my country of residence.

But at the heart of it, let’s face it. The three thousand plus that died that day (and their families) have been turned into political bargaining chips. For the dicks on the conspiratorial left. For the total assholes on the ranting, flag-waving right.

That’s awful. The widows and widowers don’t need that. Nor do the orphans.

Rather than sweeping the events of September 11, 2001 under the rug for 364 days of the year, then whipping out our “sentimental and contemplative” side just in time for the speeches and breast-rending orgies…

Fucking do something. If you’re against what the “legacy of 9/11” has become…educate yourself about alternative theories, write your congressperson, join a march, choose a candidate in the upcoming election who reflects your view and put in some serious hours to support him/her.

Or if you venerate the “legacy of 9/11”, get in the game. Lobby for adequate health care for all those first responders and volunteer construction workers (from all over the U.S.) who have been suffering chronic and debilitating respiratory symptoms due to inhaling asbestos, concrete and glass at ground zero (the Heroes, come on, you remember them…). Donate your time and money to the numerous charities that have been founded to support 9/11 orphans. Become active in the task forces and lobbying organizations that are still struggling to guide rebuilding efforts in lower Manhattan.

If you REALLY love the militant angle of the “legacy of 9/11”, figure out who from your community is currently serving his/her duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Write them. Send them care packages of the local treats native to your town or city. Bake casseroles for their families. Devote time and money to organizations that donate supplementary equipment to U.S. troops on duty. You support those fucking troops. Live the goddamned ribbon, for the love of Jesus….

But DON’T just scratch your ample ass for a year until that one day comes—where you decide to call into a radio talk show and yammer on about how much 9/11 affected you.

Therefore as I did that day, I do once again….raising a glass and fully owning my complete and total apathy…

…and wanting to deliver a swift roundhouse to my fellow apoloticos who on this day refuse to walk this lazy walk…

And why, we ask ourselves, has the Kittensnake only produced two posts within the last month?

Well. She’s definitely got excuses. Don’t even bother to ask what they are.

Anyway, stay posted. September 14th is the official “go” date for the “way-to-go-on-getting-your-bloated-alcohol-saturated-ass-back-to-the-fatherland-but-not-even-a-city-worth-mentioning-but-thank-god-’cuz-at-least-there-your-candy-ass-is-so-isolated-and-sad-that-all-you-have-to-do-there-is-feel-sorry-for-yerself-n-write” re-kickoff of the Kittensnake blog.

Stay tuned.

Somewhere around Darien on my ride back into the city from New Haven today, a mother and two boys got on the train. The mother had that shade of status blond that basically advertises that she has the loot to get her roots done every two weeks so thank you very much and fuck you peasants.

Somewhere around Greenwich, this mother became unhappy with something her boys were doing, and proceeded to shrilly scold them for the remaining forty minutes of the trip. The train car was very full, and grew progressively quieter as the other passengers shushed each other in order to get a load of his nasty spectacle.

Austin. Austin. AUSTIN. CUT IT OUT. AUSTIN. JESUS. JESUS CHRIST. WHAT PART OF CUT IT OUT DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND. AUSTIN. STOP THAT. AND YOU…TANNER…TANNER YOU CUT THAT OUT. JESUS CHRIST WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU BOYS TONIGHT. AUSTIN. TANNER. JESUS. CUT IT OUT.

STOP IT.

AUSTIN.

CUT IT OUT.

TANNER.

JESUS CHRIST.

See, here’s my theory. Firsties, when you shriek at a child in that manner for even two minutes (let alone forty) and it enacts no change in behavior, you’re already sunk as a parent. Assuming your children really are just total dicks, however, there are certain stick and carrots, threats and tricks you could possibly employ to spare your fellow commuters visions of suicide.

Grabbing the offending object, for instance. Take it away and don’t give it back. Take away TV priveleges. Offer ice cream. And if all else fails, promise an apocalyptic beating if they don’t immediately desist. And then actually grab that belt or hairbrush, roll up your sleeves and get busy, if necessary (preferably in your own home).

Somehow, however, I suspect such tactics are becoming as obsolete as card catalogs and aging gracefully. Not because they’ve gone out of fashion, but because they’re simply too simple for the enlightened modern child.

Squeezed into the bitch seat between me (I had the window) and his mother, was an overweight boy of about eleven. The two boarded at Bridgeport. While the mother clicked away at her BlackBerry, the boy stared forward, soundless, into the space in front of him. His gaze broke periodically only to look down at the iPod in his doughy palms. His only movement was to lift one sausage-like finger to the touchpad every so often, to adjust whatever music it was that trickled through his noise-erasing headphones.

I spent some time contemplating whether or not to lean over and bite this boy in the face. You know. See if he’d react.

Really though, as much as I believe there’s a special place in Hell for both of these mothers, I’m not sure what a parent can do. At this point, “go to your room” can’t be any threat at all, as long as there’s a cell phone, DSL connection, iPod, or other such standard issue “toys” present. “Leave your room” could possibly connote a parental declaration of war, however.

And the young are startlingly adept at modern psychological warfare. Siddown, mama…

An irate teenage daughter can do much more that write angsty hate poetry about her mother these days, you see–she can turn on her webcam and flash her taut teenage groobies for an entire army of paying perverts. Now that’s payback. Who needs an allowance when you can have subscribers.

Were we such assholes? Were our parents such assholes?

Let’s hope so. Or else we’re all kind of fucked.

Everybody from Stephen Colbert to William Shatner is using it, and by it, I mean the post-sexual colloquialism: The Reach Around. Talk shows, magazine articles, websites, you name it—America is obsessed. What was once a mere show of bedroom courtesy has mushroomed into a cultural phenomenon, etymologically speaking.

The newness of this trend in street parlance has lead to unfortunate cases of misuse. Allow me to attempt to illuminate the eloquent and correct uses of the term.

Following classic offerings like “dick-slapped” and “tea bagging”, “The Reach Around” finds its roots in the context of homosexual intimacy. During penetrative anal sex in what is currently referred to as “doggie-style”, the fucker kindly obliges his partner by reaching around the buttocks and pelvis to manually stimulate the fuckee (rather than remaining upright). Technically, this could also apply to heterosexual intercourse (anal or otherwise) and even, with the help of certain cylindrical requisites, to lesbian sex. Thus, The Reach Around becomes non-sexuality-specific, although its origins lie in gaydom.

The theory is as follows: sure, your face is being forced into a pillow, where only the growing lack of oxygen begins to block out visions of yourself unable to control your own bowel movements for the rest of your life, owing to the enormous cock that’s sawing your ass in half like a Thanksgiving turkey…

…but hey, at least you get a handjob out of it.

In this sense, a Reach Around can be considered a little bonus that slightly sweetens an unpleasant situation. It’s sort of like the lollipops children get at the end of a dentists’ visit. (Although it might possibly be considered in questionable taste to use the phrase in reference to children. But I digress…)

For example: Say a man ends up getting into a car accident, totally crushing the front end of his late model Volkswagen, the air-conditioning of which, oddly, had never worked. He takes the car in to be fixed, which takes forever and costs him a fortune. After picking-up the rebuilt car, the man discovers that, without charging him for the service, the auto shop fixed his air conditioning.

“…heh…” he chuckles to himself. “…that’s a tidy little reach around…”

The Reach Around is peculiarly class specific. Once can give or receive (figurative) reach arounds from members of one’s own class or the one or two classes below. It would be extremely difficult to find a situation in which giving a reach around to or receiving one from either a boss or a cleaning lady would be at all appropriate (or even possible).

The use of Reach Around is generally positive; regardless of the stinkiness of the pot said reach around seems to be sweetening.

Several days ago, I heard a man use “Reach Around” completely incorrectly. He had just finished screaming into his phone to a tech support worker (though owing to his Bluetooth pickup, it looked like a spastic schizophrenic fit). After hanging up, he shouted (at no one in particular) “that bitch TOTALLY just gave me the reach around!”

Um. No sir, she didn’t. The run around has virtually no relation to the reach around, although one could theoretically enjoy the latter with some irony whilst suffering the former.

I suspect this gentleman misunderstood the origins of the term, mistaking a classic reach around for an UDP (unwelcome digital penetration). Perhaps this could occur, in theory, during heterosexual missionary sex…the female partner “reaching around” for the pinky hook. Still, when one really considers this situation, this would only really be fully possible with an exceedingly tall woman (or petite man). Additionally, it must be argued that with a little astroglide (or popper if totally necessary), many heterosexual men would consider a little backdoor tickle far sweeter than a twenty-minute long argument with the Comcast lady.

Please beware of such wildly erroneous uses of this figure of speech. Think “little bonus” or “buttercream frosting on a shit cake”, and you’ll probably be okay.

So dear readers, conduct your vocabulary expansion exercises at your own risk, still above all, have fun and be creative.

And take heart; even in our darkest hours, that Reach Around might be just around the next corner.

NOTE: For all you loyal readers who aren’t just here by accident as a result of googling bareback interracial group sex, sorry for the long dry spell. I’ve been away from the ‘puter and well, more or less in Hawaii. This next bit of idiocy is a week old, from the day I flew out…

As I waited in the A line for a Southwest flight to Burbank today, valiantly trying to ignore the strangling constraints of new liquid-free baggage restrictions and a puzzling resurgence of hardcore Golden Girls pastel as an acceptable color palate for individuals above the age of eighteen months, I witnessed an unexpected reunion. A tanned, bubbly, drugstore-perfume-scented family left our plane, running into a similar-looking and –smelling family waiting to board on our flight. The two families chatted with each other animatedly for a moment, giving me cause to immediately admire the effectiveness of selective seratonin reuptake inhibitors. Upon moving on, the matron of the newly arrived family squeezed the arm of her about-to-take-off counterpart, loudly bidding her farewell with the following phrase:

“Have a blessed time.”

A blessed time? That used to be the sort of saying you could only hear from the old ladies sitting on the benches in front of Fort Tryon Park, passing out copies of the Watchtower. A blessed time? It’s the sort of thing the parishioners at St. Barnabas used to say to our flaming professional choristers on loan from Oberlin, who’d respond by squeezing one of the perpetrator’s sagging buttcheeks, responding “I could show you a blessed time”, just to shake things up.

I should also mention that the two possible destinations for my flight was Las Vegas and Los Angeles, two places where I believe most people, save rabid Mormons, would prefer to remain relatively unblessed, if not totally absent from any form of godly radar for a few days.

After standing, stunned, for a few moments after the offending phrase was spoken, it dawned on me that the nearly-unbearable, well-meaning-yet-sassy, cuteness of middle-class American parlance would easily condone the use of syntactical abortions like “Have a blessed time.” I felt sickened, but decided to put down my NYTimes magazine to more fully absorb this near-religious-seeming quest set forth by middle America to sound, well, sort of retarded.

Man in a wheelchair, about sixty. Going to Vegas with wife/girlfriend and another couple. Used the phrase “Don’t go there” at least six times while describing a recent altercation with his auto mechanic. Other overheard favorites during the preboard wait includied such gems as:

“We were, like, good to go.” (Fat suburban spinster, in what appeared to be attempted flirtation with a gentleman passenger.)

“She needs to learn to hear with her heart.” (Teenaged boy, genus: emo. Talking to vigorously nodding compatriot of identical classification)

“I’m really a people person.” (From a tall, doughy, businessman in an unforgiveable shirt, justifying his recent blowup at the check-in desk to a short, sweet-faced lady behind him in line, who really didn’t seem to understand English.)

“Talk to the hand…” (spoken by an early teenage girt to her similarly-aged sister—followed by) “Snap” (contributed admiringly by their middle aged mother.)

Sometimes, it’s true, I do find European demureness to be infuriating and cold, but at least most Europeans don’t feel that what they want to say, however inane, inappropriate or unnecessary deserves to be transmitted at all times, loudly—and certainly not with the aid of nauseating ghetto-girl-on-Ricki-Lake-ca.-1992 samples. Sometimes you just want to tell these smug, round, pastel-clad twats to just sit the fuck down, read a few books (without pictures) about the lives and experiences of people outside of their own digital-cable and Target frame-of-reference, and not utter another peep until they come up with something more useful to say than “Have a blessed time.”

My American cell phone has lain dead for the last ten months. Somehow the charger got lost.

A couple of days ago, I bought a replacement cord and managed to turn on the phone. Seven new messages.

Four of the seven were from the Aveda salon in SoHo, where I’ve lent my services as a guinea pig for stylists-in-training in the past.

A fifth was in spanish, from what sounds like an elderly man. A wrong number, most likely.

Two were from an events company. During some event I’d attended last summer, I’d submitted my name for a sweepstakes in which one could win a romantic cruise for two to the Bahamas (departing Fort Lauterdale).

Well. I won. I won the romantic cruise to the Bahamas. If they’d only left one message, I’d think it was a hoax orchestrated to sell me magazine subscriptions or something…but the second, much more somber message was almost like a sick challenge:

"Ms. Steier, we’re a bit confused because our records show you haven’t called to claim the romantic cruise you won during out grand prize drawing. Please call us at your earliest convenience."

I was too far away. I missed the call. I lost the romantic cruise.

It’s too late already, you see.

The day after I arrived back in the U.S., I went to a family wedding.

Once again, to my grandparents’ unwavering chagrin, a Steier jewess married a goy. This fact didn’t seem to hinder any number of pastel-swaddled middle-aged to old jews from hauling their arthritic selves out onto the dance floor to get nasty with “Baby got back” and “My Lumps” and most disturbingly “Lick my pussy and my crack”.

That DJ was a total ass. Still, I dug his sense of irony. Sort of.

My brother Ted got shitfaced. He was in good company. At one point, I saw him chatting up a beautiful young asian woman, apparently quite successfully. She was the only non-caucasian at the wedding, and was also the proud owner, as my brother said, of huge groobies. Next thing I knew, Ted was catapulting past me back in the direction of the bar.

I blocked him, “Ted, stop…you were doing so well….what’s up?”

He turned toward me with wide eyes devoid of any levity “That piece just told me that this September she’ll be a senior…IN HIGH SCHOOL!”

I let him pass.

My family put on a good show that day. Cavalierly referring to each other’s arrest records, mortifying their children, inadvertently (I hope) exposing themselves, stumbling, gossiping, griping, air-kissing…the works.

Still, I couldn’t ignore the fact that although I was enjoying the proceedings, the best I could do was observe, never participate. Something enormous was missing, some part of me or my personality that connects me to these people…these people who I’ve seen humiliating themselves and each other for nearly thirty years.

I tried to tell myself that it’s just the distance…or maybe jet lag. Still, somewhere deep inside, I know I’ve lost something. And no amount of vain, idle contemplation will bring it back.

Le Chaim.

I must preface the following by saying that I have many very good male friends, only one of which is not a total homosexual (in that he did experiment in college, I figure that gives him at least a tiny fraction).

That said, I present to you one of my favorite post-modern etymological phenomena: the abstractly derogatory adjective, gay.

Remember the school bus when you were say, seven (ca. 1985)? The fifth and sixth graders called anything and everything “gay”.

“I can’t come to your birthday party on Saturday because my Mom grounded me. She’s so gay.”

“Oh my god, she’s totally gay.”

Or:

“Nice K-mart Eastlands, Lydia, is your family too gay to shop at the mall?”

Or even, in the peculiar case of a girl talking to her popular female cohorts:

“Dirty David asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend at recess today, during the kickball game. Could he even be any gayer?”

Well, yes, he could…as I would later find out. The men that would later come into my life tended to invite me to feel their freshly shaved perinea, ask me to buy them medicated enemas on my late-night trips to CVS (where I would typically just buy candy), and show me videos of themselves sucking huge cocks taken on their mobile phones earlier that day. I won’t even get into all of the tit-making and corset tugging I’ve been party to. Proof positive that little kickball David could indeed be way, way gayer.

At some point, after my brother and I adopted “gay” into our childish vocabularies (“mom, this casserole tastes gay”), my dad sat us down to explain that gay meant a man that liked other men, like cousin Jackie. This of course only led to Ted and I wanting to marry our respective best friends at the time.

When I was at college, the idea of gay meaning just homosexual was also threatened. It simply wasn’t exact enough. There were queers, twinks, womyn, daddys, bois, tops, bottoms, switch-hitters, femmes, bi-now-gay-laters—and an entire host of subdivisions clarified only by different colors of bandanas tucked into the back pockets of jeans.

Thus knowing that the word gay in its homosexual context was either too broad for our ultra-specifically compartmentalized times, or simply anachronistic, I managed to circumvent most of my guilt in bringing back an element of school bus “gay”.

Gay, of course, means happy or joyful, in its original form. The use of “gay” as a post-modern flavoring particle retains an element of this. Although difficult to define, something can basically be labeled “gay” when it tried to accomplish something positive, a purpose or end-effect, and fails in a rather silly manner.

For instance, I saw an opera a couple of nights ago. It opened with the entire chorus in modern dress (stovepipe hip-huggers, Freitag bags and all). Every few seconds a bright light would flash and they would all cower in various positions of mortal fear, owing to the brewing attacks facing the Venetian armada. As one could imagine, this very clear, deliberate attempt at bracing drama failed in the silliest of manners. I remember thinking to myself “Wow, this is pretty gay.” As the opera wore on, such failures ceased to be silly, and began offending my status as a human being with an IQ over seventy. Thus, the production was not “gay”, per se (cumulatively), rather, a total aesthetic abortion.

If a hard core, Wall Street businesswoman were to try to spice up her St. John’s suit with a rockabilly two-cherry brooch, it could also qualify, under the loose guidelines stated above, as “gay”. There was an obvious, even commendable attempt made…yet silliness was the end result.

“Gayness”, in this sense, rears its head relatively often in the ultra self-conscious world of avant-garde art and performance. “Yeah, I get what they were trying to do, but it really just came out pretty gay.”

I do actually use this term regularly, and apologize to any that might be offended by this fact. It has rubbed off on several people in my closest circle, including one of my best, actually gay male friends, Ralf.

“So, how are rehearsals for Le Coq d’Or going?

“Hmmm. It’s going to be pretty gay.”

And you know what, I went to the premiere, and it WAS! Postmodern re-re-re-assigned adjective correctly used. Way to go, Ralf!

When I was driving down to Stuttgart a few weeks ago, Tommy commented as we’d been stuck for forty-five minutes: “Fuck, this traffic is totally gay.”

NO! The traffic was shitty and fucking lame as shit, due to the scorching temperature…but it was in no way gay, as it didn’t try to accomplish anything positive, constitutionally. Incorrect use of re-re-re-assigned adjective.

“Gay” in the post-modern disassociative sense is a comment on failed whimsy, or a measure of ill-considered juxtaposition. Use it at your leisure, but I warn you, make sure you’re certain of the word’s appropriateness in the context of any given situation and moreover…

…make sure you carefully vet the company in which you choose to embark on your own little etymological experiment.

So this might be a silly question to ask of the dozen people that loyally read this drivel in order to procrastinate at work…

But it was recently suggested to me that I try to submit some of my writing to…I don’t know…people that disseminate what other people write. I was instantly flattered by the inference that other people (outside of the golden dozen) might want to read this crap…and also troubled…

Here’s the thing, I don’t actually write about anything, at least anything that strays too far from my narcissism and easily-annoyable nature. How could I name a category? Jaded expatriate non-fiction? That would make me rich, you betcha.

I’m not marketable. That’s always been my problem. Still, I put the APB out there…

Do you all have any ideas as to where I should send my stuff, contests, open-minded agents or publishers etc….should I ever stop giggling about the idea and decide to do it?

Thanks. Y’all are swell.

Thank you for NOT smoking…seriously?

I smoke cigarettes. I am also aware that there is a satire out in cinemas in the U.S. at the moment that tackles the subject pretty thoroughly. Still, please consider the fact that this film won’t make it to Germany for several months yet…and so what I’m writing has little or no connection to the film.

Smoking for me started much in the way that it does for most people. A bad kid on a middle-school sponsored camping trip brings along a pack of Camel wides and the first puff is taken. One encounters cigarettes relatively often thereafter.

In fact smoking in high school is just about the most generic form of rebellion available. It’s like the international adolescent signal for “I hate my parents”. At Conard High School between 1992 and 1996, the music/drama geeks (which would have to have been my qualification) smoked to say “fuck the jocks”. The white supremacists, sluts, goths, loners, scary Puerto Rican girls, angry dykes, hippie outdoorsy guys, chicks that thought they were lesbians because they dug on Drew Barrymore, suburban gangsters, and even the popular kids all basically smoked to say “fuck you” to one another.

After high school, I went to a prominent music conservatory to study voice…and anathema, one might think, to smoking. Well, as per the pattern, I smoked to say “fuck singing”.

My smoking began in earnest in the summer of 1998, between my sophomore and junior years. It was my first job as an assistant director, at an impressively mediocre summer program. I wanted to drive a wedge between my persona as a singer and my newfound role as omnipresent cynic. This, I decided, could be accomplished by training myself to smoke an entire pack of cigarettes a day. The brand was Benson and Hedges Ultra Lights (in the box, just like my Olivier had preferred). At first it was really hard. I could do eight or nine a day in the beginning. By the time I left the program, fat, brokenhearted from my first big l*v* and none the better for my experience with the program…I had managed to reach my goal.

My insane Korean housemates my junior year were pros at playing bad girls, and then switching effortlessly into perfect princesses. (As evidenced by the seamless switch-in of Hello Kitty trinkets for boy-band posters, bribed Korean pals for skeezy townie boyfriends and strange fish products for western groceries within our apartment upon the arrival of any sort of parent). I learned from them how to continue smoking while manufacturing the appearance of a dutiful voice major.

At grad school, I was able to smoke in earnest. Outdoors. In my apartment. At restaurants. In front of people, without fear they’d rat on me. It was a drama conservatory, and I was in very good company. People routinely gave and received cartons as gifts.

Berlin, from the second I got there, and certainly from the dawn of tobacco imports, has always been a smoker’s paradise. You can smoke in airports, malls, hospital waiting rooms, universities, and most importantly, opera houses. Smoking, as far as I could tell, was part and parcel of adult human interaction in Europe. It’s not something your mom does in the basement in winter with all of the windows open, after she thinks the kids are asleep. It’s just the way it is.

I’m not you’re typical smoker in any case. I have absolutely no taste for cigarettes whatsoever until late afternoon or so, when I can begin smoking at regular intervals. I can go days without, not feeling like disemboweling colleagues. Mine is not an addictive personality, rather a compulsive one (if you’ve ever seen me around a bag of beef jerky, you’ll know exactly what I mean).

It’s just nice. Certain combinations are especially lovely. Alcohol and cigarettes. Social gatherings, particularly lame ones, and cigarettes. A moment alone on a balcony late at night and cigarettes. Writing and cigarettes. The one standard I don’t go for is coffee and cigarettes—it makes me poop.

One of my absolute favorite combinations is end of a long day of rehearsal and cigarettes.

Today I had to sprint from my afternoon rehearsal in some sultry jungle outside of Stuttgart to a meeting at the opera’s chamber theater. No time for the post-cigarette.

I got to the theater and begged the first person I saw, a production manager, where I could dodge out for a quick one.

“I haven’t had one yet today…” I said, breathlessly.

“Well then, just don’t.” he said. I looked at him like I was crazy and made some abstract begging gestures while whimpering.

He rolled his eyes and led me to a dock door. It was raining. I immediately stepped out and lit my ultra-ultra-barely-even-a-qualifiable-cigarette-it’s-so-light stoge and inhaled deeply.

The production manager clucked disapprovingly. Only seconds later, he was joined by a lighting technician and a props master who, like some overly-moralistic trifecta, began to lecture me about smoking.

There I stood in the rain, listening to these three men standing dry in the doorway. One said, “you know, I wouldn’t want to kiss an ashtray.” I used every bit of self control I have not to inform him that the ashtray under scrutiny wouldn’t want to kiss him, either.

You know, I will quit someday—and when I do, it won’t be the gum and patches fiasco it is for some people. Of this I’m sure. Until that day, however, I will simply puff away as I write my stupid little stories. With impunity, thank you very much.