What? You’ve Got the President on Line One? For Me?

The end of another work week, and what have we learned?

Me? I’ve learned that if you continue to fling yourself out of bed when the alarm goes off you’re going to get what you deserve. Eventually, though, you will arrive at Friday, the day where the light at the end of the tunnel is at its brightest.

Another precious weekend has arrived. I wonder what will happen?

Welcome to Fridays, ladies and gentlemen, the day I seek the advice of my iPod, known universally as the Knower of All Things Knowable. Set to “shuffle”, the tunes played on my morning’s commute are, in some way, connected to what we can expect over the weekend.

It’s true!

Let’s listen:

Senor Blues by Taj Mahal
Helter Skelter by The Beatles
Kick Drum Heart by The Avett Brothers *
You Cheated Me by Martha Wainwright
In the Bamboo Grove by The Bamboos
Let’s Dance by David Bowie

Ah! Love, chaos, broken hearts, and sexual ambiguity. Heeeeey! Wait a minute,now! That sounds like last weekend.

Oh, and I’ve something to confess: since last weekend, I’ve been concentrating on forgetting to smoke.

Have you ever seen me quit smoking? I am, as the old joke goes, so good at it that I do it all the time.

I’ve been thinking about this, my lack of commitment in the “I quit” arena and my woeful inability to remember for more than a couple months at a time that I don’t want to smoke any more.

And I think I’ve got it figured out: It’s the lack of fanfare accompanying the decision to quit. It’s too short lived.

I mean, think of it. You might get a word of encouragement from your mother, maybe a coworker notices. But am I alone here in thinking there could be more hoopla?

There’s so little of that: hoopla.

I can hear you shaking your head from here and I know! I know. The health benefits!

In yoga the other day, I held on to an “om” far longer than usual.

I cough less.

I’m quite certain that, going forward, my fingers have markedly less chance of smelling like an ashtray.

I have a couple extra bucks.

These are all good things.

But it’s hard, isn’t it? Those cigarettes were mine, they were my little friends: twenty cool slim white friends. With orange heads. That I lit on fire and pulled through my lungs.

Still. It was at one time possible, particularly if there was a Happy Hour going on, that you and I would have had a conversation wherein I earnestly told you that the best pack of cigarettes to have was one that was three-quarters of a way full: a couple are gone, sure, but now they’re easier to pull out of the pack, and anyway, there’s plenty left. Plenty enough to share.

And now?

Now we’ll never have that conversation. And I am saddened.

All because I have to keep forgetting to smoke.