Sometimes when I'm lying in bed in the morning I pretend there is someone there with me, wrapped up against me.  I'm wondering if I can remember what it feels like, and I wonder if I'll ever have it again.  It's not the sex, though, it's the sense of other,  intimately.

I used to smoke.  I loved smoking.  I wasn't a blind smoker, a habitual smoker, or even a heavily addicted smoker.  I didn't smoke while doing other things, while driving or walking; it was ritualistic and devoted, and if there was a cigarette to be had everything else stopped, time and life suspended, and it was all about that pure and perfect break, moment.

I rolled my own cigarettes, for years, all of it part of the ritual.  Carefully crafted, good tobacco, I knew exactly how to pack them, and when I smoked them they were entirely appreciated. 

I realized recently that I miss 'smoking culture.'   It may be selective memory, but it seemed the best times were had with cigarettes: the late nights, the long conversations, sitting around and kicking the shit, talking about everything.  We just wanted to keep talking, we just wanted to not go to bed, because it was so good.

Everything was interesting and everything was possible, but mostly it was just a completely pleasant way to spend the evening.  When I lie in bed in the morning and wonder about other, it's not the sex I miss but that intimacy you get after talking to someone all night about everything...and nothing at all.

Sure, I get offers to hang out with people, but they always want to do something, be productive, make the most of the day.  That's cool, that's their fun, but I just don't really want to be part of the Von Trapp family. 

Maybe I'm being negative, or closed.  It seemed I once knew people who understood the art of living, it seemed so prevalent I never thought of it as anything but normal - to go over someone's house and do nothing and make really good coffee or open a bottle of something and wreck your lungs and look for something in the refrigerator to eat - (talk about creativity); confessions and truths in the disappearing night, rarefied and dark and silent.  Never wanting to go to bed, never wanting it to end.  Now people go to Starbucks.

Today's self-portrait.