Mid-Semester Slump Averted

Nothing quite beats the feeling of sitting cramped with two awesome friends on a couch, "doing homework", and singing along to "Shot to the Heart" by Bon Jovi. And we know we probably sound like a drunken cat toying with its catnip-stuffed toy. Yes. Twice the intoxication.

Ok. We can't be that bad. That bad . . .

We don't really get anything done. I don't anyway: this is why I am writing this blog post rather than coming up with summaries of the English Reform Act of 1832 and the Chartist Act of whenever. Both are due tomorrow morning. Instead, I think the plan is that we're going to suddenly get the munchies and go schmoke by the tracks. Tobacco, that is. In pipes. Cuz we badass like that. Uh-huh.

And every single part of those last two sentences hurt my insides. I am so not gangsta, and overtime I try to be, it is just wrong. 

My friends save my life, all the time. If it had not been for them, today would have been summed up by me sequestered in my room or a nearby study room, eating snacks and burning my eyes with sinfully short episodes How I Met Your Mother. They're short enough that clicking next episode does not inspire as much as guilt as if they had been Doctor Who episodes––though don't make me a saint on watching those on end either. This semester has his the mid-semester slump, and I've begun to just give up on my assignments (interestingly enough, the aforesaid summaries are the easiest and most enjoyable, and I say *gag with a spoon* to the others) and fail for the year. Of course, this is what I say today, but in a few hours, I will slog out of it and push out some B.S.'ed paper. And then more sitcom to bore away the hours without having to think about how my life is falling into insignificance until––

––my amazing friends pull me out and take me to Taco Bell. Things, other than a deficit of loose change in my purse (funny thing: most of my dimes do not work in the snack machine. I think I will have to pass these buggers off at the coffee shop now) and going blind from the computer light, have been accomplished!

So, a big hurrah! to my friends! Without them today would have been a waste. :3

Woman Pipe Smoking

I have often wondered at the stigma against women smoking pipes, and now more than ever do I have to consider it since I have started. Smoking––it has this grandfatherly, English appeal to it. It brings back subtle universal memories, of generals and gentlemen, of explorers and philosophers, of quiet nights by a hearth fire. Pipes carry an entire world in each puff.

I flip the lighter and pull in drafts of the tobacco, and my mind wanders. I'm using a friend's pipe at this moment, since I do not have my own yet; I need one. There is a great feeling of release in a pipe. The stars grow brighter, the air smells sweeter, and the conversation (for smoking alone is a bother) more intimate. This semester has been crazy––an odd crazy, like there is something wrong with the world, and you cannot quite put your finger on it––and I need a break somehow. Some might say I'm using an external substance to cope, but––what of it? The means are there, use them.

But women smoking? Tsk, tsk. You think of grandfathers when you say the world pipe. Not grandmothers. I cannot say, "Oh, get over it, you prudes," to whomever may object. I have to say that to myself first. My family is traditional, and a disagreement with women pipe smoking (or cigarette smoking, or cigar, or hookah, or anyone smoking anything, despite the sex) has been slipped into my cereal with the raisins. I don't know if the thought was implied or present. It just exists. So, before I make a grand habit of this new hobby, at least before I start on the street corners on a parade day, I have to stand and stare in the mirror with a pipe in my mouth and come to terms. Of course, if you google images of "women pipe smoking", the search engine pulls up sultry pictures of sexy, bad ass women smoking and winking. I smoke. I don't usually wink. Not in that way, anyway. Traditional family, remember?

I am no rebel. I just want a way to relax, to think, to philosophize. As my writing teacher (he also smokes) said one day, "You must choose your vices." I choose pipe smoking. If I'm going to be eccentric without trying, I might as well direct it a bit.

This is an interesting article. I'm ignoring the part that will reveal itself in an obvious way: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123509294170728733.html.