Up in Smoke

Hookahs don't count. Apparently. 2009

I have never been a smoker. (Which of course explains the photo I chose to use for the Brutalism header...)

I don't feel morally superior about this fact...I am a non-smoker for purely practical reasons: health, cost, not wanting to get those lines around my mouth that make me look a lot older, and the fact that I like taking work breaks in a barren, exposed area in front of my office building reserved for the non-smoking employees, while the smokers get benches, overhangs to protect from the elements and a selection of delightful hors d'oeuvres featuring seasonal ingredients presented to them by uniformed butlers.

Faye Dunaway/Barfly impression. Mid-90s. This was either in
Cleveland, OH or Rochester, NY. But of course.

And that that is why it was so surprising that while cleaning out my home office recently, I found so many pictures of me pretending to smoke cigarettes and actually smoking cigars.

So for your viewing enjoyment...I present to you a pictorial history of my bad decisions -- both the smoking and the sartorial choices.

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Thanks to DC Blogs for linking to my post today. It's always the posts of which I'm proudest...

A work going-away party, circa 1998. I was
probably fired for that sweater. Justifiably.



One of my first vacations with my now-husband, Key West, FL, 1996.
(That's called setting a man trap, ladies.)




With my college boyfriend. Mid-90s. (He was wearing a mini skirt so he was totally asking for it...)



Smoking a cigar in the back yard while wearing a t-shirt that says "I have issues" on the front.
(As if the blue-contacts-for-purely-cosmetic-reasons and cigar smoking did not give that away.)

2001-ish.





At a poetry reading with Jack Kerouac. Mid-50s.

In a cheesy limo on the way to see cheesetastic Richard Cheese at the 9:30 Club in DC. 2009.