Thank You For Smoking Overseas

In Afghanistan, by the end, it was almost a pack a day. I cut back in Nairobi - mostly just smoking whenever I drank.  Which was fine, save for the binge drinking.  Trips to the field were something else again; I felt as tho I'd earned as many cigarettes as I wanted to smoke.

Also, I thought - and still think - that it looks quite cool.  Dashing nonchalant roguishly charming humanitarian chic. I loved that feeling of starring in my own particular movie, image and all.  Humanitarian motivations ranked a distant second.

Which, I know, is sad.  So it goes, so it goes.

(Great quote by William Sloane Coffin: "Not to share in the activity and passion of your time is to count as not having lived.  I don't claim virtue. I claim a low level of boredom.")

Anyhows, much on my mind last night, as I walked home from a work event in San Francisco.  I'd had a little to drink, and found myself at a corner store, buying a pack of Marlboro Lights.  Which I almost never do - smoking in California being somewhat less socially acceptable than clubbing baby seals.

I smoked a cigarette, and then gave the rest of the pack to a homeless guy on the street.  So, an eight dollar cigarette.  Which was worth it.  Perhaps because I'm still addicted, or perhaps because it helped me remember what I sometimes miss so much.

[Yours truly taking a perhaps deserved smoke break in Bentiu, South Sudan]