I smoke way too much.

Since taking up residency in the fairer part of New York, which I now affectionately refer to as 'Strong Island', I've been smoking something more than a pack a day. It's fucking awful. Everyone in my family smokes and they feel it's almost a sin not to when cartons can be purchased for such a low price at the local Hess station.

Help me.

When I was in the hospital, my good friend Corrine came to visit me. She's incredibly proactive about "air rights" and hates cigarette smoke. She's been using her passive- aggressive jedi mind trick powers to try and get me to quit for years. I remember waking up, three days into my stay at St. Vincents and Corrine and my Aunt and Uncle were there. The conversation volleyed between general "How ya' feelin?" and "when do you get out of here?"

Suddenly it dawned on me. I was aware that thanks to being so heavily meidcated on morphine, and justifying such intense pain (as ya do when your appendix bursts) that I had gone three whole days without a cigarette. Meaning, that I didn't have to endure any of the nasty nicotine withdrawl symptoms that come from quitting smoking. Maybe there was a chance I could finally quit. Maybe, this was God's way of giving me an easy out, or direct path to finally relinquinshing myself of a God awful bad habit which has plagued me since I was fourteen.

I engaged Corrine with my eureka moment, like a young catholic girl exclaiming to her parishoner about visions of the Virgin Mary coming to her in a dream.

"That's kind of rad, huh Corrine? Maybe I can keep this up. I'm gonna be on drugs for a little while- maybe this is my way out?!"

My Uncle, a retired Fire Captain, quickly interjected and dispelled any myth that I had to use drugs to quit smoking.

"Oh don't worry about that! You'll be back to smoking in no time. Back in the '80's my ladder got called to that big fire under Grand Central. I was hospitalized for three days for smoke inhalation and I smoked in the hospital. [laughs] I mean, heh, yeah, I got yelled at by the nurse cause you're not supposed to do that. And back in those days, they had those big oxygen tanks in the room with you... it's not like today where the oxygen valves are lined safely from an outsource in the wall. I would sit in the bathroom with my Oxygen mask- those tubes they stick up your nose, attached to that big tank and smoke out the window... And I used to smoke unfiltered Lucky's back then... and then the nurse came in and yelled at me 'What are you doing! You're a firefighter! Dont' you know that tank could blow up the whole hospital!'... ha, heh, yeah you can smoke when you get out of the hospital."

Corrine sat quietly and pet the cover of a magazine, smiling coyly under the long hair that overed her face. If were anyone else other than my family, I know she would have talked back or started rambling off facts about the corrosive effects of tar or whatever...

Two days later on the drive to Long Island, my Uncle offered me a Marlboro in the car. I passed out almost immediately. I woke up the next day, with a crazy vicadin hangover, hunching as I creeped downstairs to the kitchen. My Aunt sat the kitchen table exhaling her second hand Tarreyton 100 and said:

"Hey ya Rory! How ya feel ta-day?... I got you a carton of Parliaments. You smoke Parliaments right?"

"Yeah..."

"Oh good. Cause I got ya a carton. Let me know if there's anything else we can do to make you feel better okay?"

"Okay. Thanks Aunt Suzie."

"Do you drink wine?"

"I can't drink on these anti-biotics."

"Do ya want some cawffee? Tawm'll make ya some cawffee."

I hadn't had a real cup of coffee, rather caffinated real brew coffee made outside a medical facility in well over a week.

"Yes please."

After my first sip, without even putting the mug down, I tore into the carton of Parliaments.

fuck it.