Monkey on Ya Back

This faded old photo to the left is me trying to smoke on the last day of camp the summer I was 14. People were packing, and later, after the weepy rituals of Candlelight Ceremony and Good Night Circle, the friskier kids would climb onto the cabin roof and gorge themselves on contraband sweets obtained by “sneaking out,” darting down the road ducking behind trees and bushes to get to the corner store.

This was the only time I ever tried tobacco.

(I've cropped the picture to spare people the sight of a child coughing her lungs out.)

Since I seemed to be focusing on health topics here lately let’s round out the week with some observations on smoking from a site called Medicine.net. here I learned all over again that smoking:

• Stains your fingers
• Puckers your mouth
• Squints up your eyes
• Puts vertical Clint Eastwood-style line in your cheek (ha ha same cheeks!)
• And makes your skin inelastic

The funny thing is, in time all this happens to non-smokers too. I work so much with dyes and woodstains my fingers are always pigmented strangely and I have to tell you all of these other conditions are fast becoming mine as well.

To see pictures of all  of them just click on the colored hyperlinks above. Have a look, then ask yourself if  you wouldn’t just as soon stick with your more harmless obsessions like tweezing your moles and watching dumb TV.

(because it's tough to have just one :-))

and because it's not this easy to quit