I Mean, Why Shouldn’t We All Smoke Cigarettes Again?

This piece made me very nostalgic for my long-gone days smoking Marlboro menthols. I was never proud of the habit, but I did love the interesting chats in the smokers’ area, the chance to step out and collect my thoughts, the small decadence of it. Xochitl Gonzalez clearly feels the same way and, as the world lurches from disaster to disaster, she’s now reflecting on what the point of quitting was in the first place. No, you shouldn’t take up smoking again. Yes, you should read this piece.

In those early years, I was a student at an artsy Brooklyn high school in Midwood. We were “teens” in chronology only — we worked jobs, we went clubbing, we rode the subway at all hours of the night. And generally, in varying degrees, we smoked. The serious smokers were committed. You’d find them out in the school courtyard no matter the weather. Often, they were the benevolent suppliers to those of us who merely flirted with the idea of being serious smokers. Happy, if you joined them outside “for a smoke,” to trade a stick of nicotine for some interesting gossip you might have heard. Sometimes, we even smoked with our teachers. Usually, they were from the English department.