Kids Today

As I pass month number three without sweet sweet cigarettes, I am saddened by what appears to be an alarming trend among our youth: abstinence. Twice in recent weeks, I have had occasion to visit my alma mater, and both times I have been confronted by wholly empty street corners. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

At first glance, I thought it was an issue of convenience. In this post-9/11 world (a phrase I abhor and would like to point out that I am currently using with a mocking tone), security at the tony private school where I matriculated has been beefed up in a manner I can only describe as Orwellian. The children have little badges, like you and your friends do for your actual potential target office buildings, which they must swipe every time they enter and leave the building. I don't know what the school does with the information about one's comings and goings, but I imagine it does let your teachers and perhaps parents know when you cut trigonometry. Something Alison F. and I never did.

Well, my parents were of the laid-back variety when it came to nicotine consumption, so knowing that I went out of the building between most periods to grab a smoke, would have only concerned them insofar as my health was concerned and would not have enjoined them to mete out punishments, but many of my friends had the kinds of parents that considered smoking a grounding offense. So, today's children of creepy parents would be wary of leaving the building every fifty minutes for fear their parents would catch on.

That was my first theory on the absence of teenage smokers in the vicinity of school.

But I went back this morning, at a time of day I remember being very popular for smoking, and I saw not a one. Not one lurking on the corner, not one in front of the bagel joint. No teenage smokers whatsoever.

And, forgive me, but it made me kind of sad. Yes, I know smoking is bad mmkay, but it also is a rite of passage for many teens. It's the first rebellion and, given how pretty much all of my high school smoking buddies have now quit, a rebellion that peters out given time and public outcry. Yes, there were the "I will never smoke" kids, but they were rarer than the "sure, I'll have one every now and again on the weekend" kids. I'm not concerned that kids aren't rebelling any longer, but I do have a sneaking suspicion that their rebellions might be riskier than smoking.

Oh, god, anti-smokers, shut up already. I know smoking is the most dangerous thing that ever was invented in the history of the world and harder to give up than heroin (lies, damn lies, and (tinkered with) statistics!). But you simply have to work really really hard to die from smoking the first time you light a cigarette. Similarly, overdosing on cigarettes is difficult. You have to really make a commitment. Kind of like overdosing on water: it's possible, but you've got to want it! Smoking might be a hard habit to break, but I think from both a health and culture perspective, I'd rather have a smoker for a kid than a tweaker.

Also, at an affluent school, there is always a tendency towards cocaine use. While this might be unavoidable, at least if your kid is a smoker, the chances are he will use that drug during the day and save the coke for the weekends. For all its real and perceived ills, smoking is a drug habit that you can do casually, throughout the day, with no diminution of one's faculties - your kid might be a smoker, but he'll still be able to use his brain in AP history.

So children, embrace smoking in a kind of retro nod to cool. Cigarettes make great props, lend you an air of sophistication, promote social bonding, and give you an excuse to take a walk every once in a while. They have their shortcomings, but you'll probably give it up sooner rather than later and, as I remember so fondly from my own mandatory health class senior year and now quote as gospel: if you give them up by the time you're 35, your lungs will go back to normal in a couple of years!

A Post in Three Parts

I.
The phone rings at 9:00pm. From our position on the couch I am closer to the nearest handset. As I get up I remember that I've spoken to both of my parents within the past three hours and that devoted partner's sister was spoken to the evening before meaning, "my bet's on your mom." I was wrong. It was his dad.

Now devoted partner's father and I have had our ups and downs, but for the past two or so years we've been in an ups phase. Still, and with no malice, whenever he's on the phone there's something strange. Like he still can't believe that telephonic technology works. He is always calling from in transit - and much like my father believes that other people really really want to talk to you while you're driving your car and cursing at traffic - and always seems a little confused that, after dialing our number, a person picks up on the other end.

So his mild discombobulation is normal. Last night, however, there was a fever pitched-ness about it: he was, obviously, calling from a moving vehicle, but the scenario he described was reminiscent of a Thelma & Louise scene from the cutting room floor. He was in the car with devoted partner's aunt (it was her car); they had wrangled a large rug out of his apartment, stuffed it into the Audi convertible, and were on their way over to give it to us. One might inquire why this was being done in the middle of the night, but I know better than to ask. I myself have a younger brother and I loved this imagery.

Surprisingly, given the slightly bizarre location of our house, they arrived about fifteen minutes later in one piece and yes, with a rug hanging out of the convertible. Devoted partner and dad wrestled it out of the car and into our house while I refreshed Aunty's drink and gave her the grand tour. I could sell neither of them on a slice of nectarine cake, but was able to pass around some freshly picked Honeycrisp apples - my role as hostess preserved.

Now we need another rug pad.

II.
Yesterday morning I stopped off at my parent's apartment to pick up some black cherry tomatoes my mother had kindly purchased for me at the market. As I was getting ready to leave, I calculated the number of blocks to work and realized it was the perfect number for a leisurely morning cigarette.

And then I remembered I'm not smoking.

I think New York smokers all calculate distance by number of cigarettes needed. For example: my best friend's house was 2 cigarettes away from mine - 11 blocks. From my house to school was 1 - and what a good 1 it was; our old apartment to the subway wasn't long enough for even one cigarette which never seemed ton stop devoted partner (and which always perplexed/vexed me) - and while our old apartment to my old job was also a little short for a full cigarette, given how I didn't want to rush to my desk, I didn't mind spending the extra minute or so outside finishing my cigarette.

I mention this because even though I have not had a pack of cigarettes within grasping distance in over a month, the habit is still in there. In fact, I think one of the reasons the quitting has been so easy for me is that I think of myself on vacation from smoking rather than on permanent holiday. This has the potential to be very dangerous - mostly because I already catch myself thinking that I could become one of those rare birds for whom a cigarette every once in a while is an easily accomplishable thing; the kind of person who, when out for the evening sipping bourbon obviously also smokes a quarter or a half pack, but then doesn't smoke again for a month. I can almost see myself as that person. But, I'm not going to test that theory quite yet.

I may have mentioned that built into my quitting plan was the escape plan: smoking is permitted on international vacation. If you've ever been a smoker, and you've ever been to Europe, you'll know that this makes lots of sense (even now as those damn Europeans are smoking less). Still, walking across Paris from south to north without a cigarette in your mouth seems somehow wrong. This was a fairly easy caveat to squeeze in, mostly because I knew there was probably not going to be international travel for at least six months (the islands don't count - no one had her enjoyment of the tropics diminished by a lack of cigarettes). So I gave myself an opportunity to outlast the craving. If six-twelve months from now I still think I'd want a cigarette while driving from the Geneva airport to Dijon, I guess I'll see what happens; but I simultaneously allow for the possibility that I'll become one of those horrid ex-smokers who wrinkles her nose at the smell of smoke. If I can last 6-12 months, I can try a cigarette and rely on my sheer force of will, that same force that made quitting a breeze, to prevent a slide back to habitual smoking.

That's the theory, anyway.

III.

It strikes me that I could, from time to time, encourage you to cook. I liked this cake I made Sunday. It was easy. It needed only a little tweaking. I think some of you should make this cake because making cake is good for the soul.

Nectarine (or any fruit, really) Cake
adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2009

• flour........................125 grams
  
• baking powder........10 grams
  
• salt..........................good pinch
  
• butter.....................115 grams
  
• eggs.............................2 whole
  
• sugar #1.................170 grams
  
• sugar #2...................20 grams
  
• vanilla extract............5 grams
  
• almond extract...........2 grams
  
• fruit...............................to taste
  

Combine dry ingredients. Beat butter and sugar #1 until light and fluffy; add eggs one at a time; add extracts; add dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Slice/segment/ensmallenate fruit. Pour batter into greased springform pan (9") and spread evenly; stud with ensmallenated fruit (next time I make this I will be pushing fruit under the surface of the batter as well as piling it on top); sprinkle sugar #2 on top. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.

Some ideas I've been toying with:

Use pears and add some star anise;
Use figs and add some chopped pistachios;
Add vanilla bean;
Add candied almonds.

Play around with it, the recipe is a cinch!

According to the Internet

This could have gone one of two ways:

I'm an idiot, how could I even contemplate quitting smoking during my move? That's like adding insult to injury. The stress of getting everything done, not leaving priceless heirlooms to the mercy of the neighborhood children who were ready to break down my door and scavenge the second our car pulled out added to the stress of not smoking? Definitely an idiot move right there.

This is friggin' brilliant! I'm a genius. I'm going to be so consumed by the whole moving thing I'm not going to even notice the not smoking thing. Sure there will be times a cigarette would be nice, but I'll just be too busy to have the kinds of cravings that, in other circumstances, would lead me to violence against others.

Turns out I chose wisely. According to the internet, the nicotine is out of my system now (or at least out of my bloodstream). Would it be nice to be smoking while I type this? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Am I gonna? Nah. This was way easier than I expected. I've been smoking for real, for true, for sixteen years. That's buying my own packs and smoking them throughout the day smoking, not I'll have one with a beer and sometimes on the weekend smoking. And while I would certainly rather be having a cigarette than not, I am frankly amazed by how not traumatic quitting has been.

I have some theories, none of which has ever held water with others, but since this is my corner of the internet I can expound on them at will. I think the physical habit was always more important to me than the chemical one. I remember thinking this very early on in my smoking career. I liked the action of smoking; the nicotine was a secondary thing. This manifested itself in my not freaking out over long periods of time when I couldn't have a cigarette. Yes, when the plane landed I was right in line with the other addicts, but it was the action of lighting the cigarette and bringing it to my mouth that I was looking forward to, the feel of it in my hand, and not necessarily the nicotine. Call bullshit at will.

I also experienced the ill-effects of smoking less strongly than the people around me. Devoted partner would frequently cough and hack as smokers do, whereas the only time I ever noticed anything was when coming off a cold; it would take another day or two longer than normal to get over it. But I didn't wake up in the morning with phlegm, I found it no more difficult to run up stairs than I normally do (when we did that thing in science class that the Apollo astronauts had to do with blowing through the tube to keep the ping pong ball suspended, I failed spectacularly; I had no lung capacity before I started smoking; and as for the out of shape thing, well, one major life change or two at a time).

Last year when I interned in the kitchens and was afraid to take a break to pee, much less to smoke, I routinely went 10+ hours, four days a week without a cigarette, and I neither attacked my chefs with knives, nor collapsed crying in the corner. I'm not saying I plan to take up heroin, but since everyone says quitting smoking is harder than quitting heroin...

So is this bragging? It is and I'm sorry for that. But for all my bravado, I'm actually surprised that the past 6 days have gone as they have. The house is making it's way towards livability, and I'm not smoking - neither of those things has been true in my life for quite some time. I know I finagled a caveat into my quitting, that I could smoke on vacation, but I know it would be foolish to smoke during my next vacation, whenever that may be, as I should let non-smoking me get used to things for at least a year before tempting fate.

But it is possible I have replaced one addiction with another. Is it normal to go through a box of dishwasher powder in four days?

Must One Pack Egg Noodles?

Admittedly, yesterday was a success. The kitchen is packed. For those of you who know my kitchen, please rest assured that all important goods, the tapioca maltodextrin, the bizarre juice pressers, the 697 spatulae, have found a new home in a labeled box. This means that around 95% of all items in the house that are going into the moving truck have been packed. It also means that the remaining 5% is assorted crap. The boxes are big, the assorted crap, if sorted, too small, by theme, for any box. This is the part of packing, or cleaning, I might add, that I hate - the leftovers.

Adding to this, I learned yesterday that my darling will not be home this evening as I had assumed, but will rather be arriving tomorrow evening, as he is taking the red eye from the west coast tonight and going straight to work. After seething a little, I have decided that all the truly horrible remaining tasks will be assigned to him - I think it's only fair. Whatever lives under our bed? Him. Cleaning our bookshelves? Him. This is only slightly comforting.

It's 8am and I'm having second thoughts about my stoop sale. Do I really want to sit outside in the hopes that someone will want our George Foreman grill for $5? Do I want to find and clean off all the stuff to be sold? Will several hours of my day yield anything more than half a tank of gas money? From a procrastination standpoint, it's terrific - several hours sitting outside instead of locked in the humid apartment discovering more places mice have evacuated their bowels; but from a practical standpoint, perhaps not so much. It's just that some of the remaining chores are, well, so petty.

1. The ginormous plastic tubs of chocolate and sugar should have their casters removed and be duct taped so they will survive the journey.
2. The liquor needs to be boxed.
3. Makeup, unguents, jewelry, knick-knacks must find a home in a box.
4. Some decision must be made about the garbage bags of old clothing.
5. Printer paper, tax documents, computer accouterments, those need packing too.
6. The floor: what's on it? Do I care? Shouldn't I just swoop it all up, put it in a box and worry about it later?
7. We're missing a cordless phone. I don't want to go looking for it.

But the biggest single task ahead is foodstuffs. My shelves are mostly bare - they've been pruned and much has been thrown out i.e. the half cup of rice in an enormous container, spices so old they resemble dust more than aromatics, rancid oils, etc. But now what remains must be either pruned or packed. Will this stuff survive? I have about 1.5 quarts of homemade vanilla extract in mason jars - it has taken over a year to get the flavor concentrated and I'll be pretty upset if they spill. Which spices do I keep? What about noddles? Even if the package is unopened, isn't it better to toss it and spend the buck fifty sometime next week? Does one really need to pack egg noodles? What about a box of kosher salt? Surely my parents, in the age old tradition of bizarre old country customs, will be providing me with new salt when they come for the first time. Also salt costs a dollar. Can't I throw out the salt? These are the questions which are plaguing me and making me consider just one more cup of coffee and 37 more cigarettes.

Oh, and there's the rub.

I'm quitting smoking on Saturday.

See, I left that little pearl for the end. He quit four weeks ago on his last day at the old job. I said I'd follow suit on the first day we slept in our new house. So every cigarette between now and then is bittersweet. I've been smoking for quite some time. I love to smoke. Ask anyone who knows me. I don't actually want to quit. I hold out hope that the news will break tomorrow that they've found a cure for all the ails smokers and they have started to add it to all cigarettes. Yes, yes, I'm going to quit. It is the right thing to do - it just also happens to suck. I weaseled in a caveat to the deal: that I have the option to smoke on vacation, because driving through foreign countries without a cigarette in hand seems somehow barbaric, but who knows if I'll follow through on that. I don't fear a relapse, I'm stubborn as hell, but what fun will the smoking be if it's just for that week? Then there's the weight gain. I've made some downward progress in that department over the past year and I'm not super enthusiastic about yielding it. But that's all nothing compared to the honest truth that I love smoking. I will miss it terribly, and should therefore really spend the day sitting in front of my computer smoking.

Shouldn't I?