paper monsters girl smoking girl holding gun

Paper monsters girl smoking girl holding gun windows#

If I had no one to talk to at an event, I walked into the open arms of the smokers, an unspoken pact of acceptance among us. I worked hard all day, but my nights resembled a more intellectual version of college with Latin legal terms dropped into conversation where Greek fraternity letters used to be. I feared I’d feel alone, but smoking came through for me, separating the tolerables from the intolerables and pointing me toward my new friends. I went to law school in Connecticut where sorority sisters didn’t blend well with the constitutional law crowd. If I had no one to talk to, I walked into the open arms of the smokers, an unspoken pact of acceptance among us.įor the next 15 years my “social smoking” rules stayed the same but little else did. But never mind those details I was a “social smoker” now. I was still a full-time smoker from dusk until dawn, and when I wanted one during the day, I splashed some vodka in my orange juice and sparked one up with breakfast. In reality, it wasn’t, because I drank seven nights a week. At face value it was my smartest collegiate decision. I quit smoking, but with a loophole: if alcohol was in my blood, I had an unlimited smoking pass. Sometime between parties on fraternity row I made a seemingly sensible change. I danced around the bar like a fool, cigarette in hand- Look at me, look at me!-a cookie-cutter college girl trying to look the part, yet grateful for a taste of home. I smoked as I changed everything about myself, all but the smoking-because ’Cuse party girls smoked and thank God I got that right. I smoked as I bought tight black pants and pledged a sorority. So I smoked as I cut off my curls and got highlights in a strip mall.

Gone was the confidence I acquired with my Marlboro miles. I had a perm and flannel shirts like a farmer. I gazed with wonderment at the girls in my dorm, all dressed in tight black outfits, all sporting frosted highlights blown out like Rachel on Friends.

There I was a menthol cigarette in a box of Marlboros, out of place and surrounded by a trendier brand. I thrived socially as a born-again smoker until I left for Syracuse University. I went from star athlete to star smoker, and it was bliss. I dated him for four whole weeks, the best yet in my 16 years. With him I lit the fresh tip of one off the cherry of another, back to back to back. “Your new name is ‘Chain,’” said the cutest boy, Dana Jay, as he flashed me a collusive grin while leaning against his Fiero. I transformed from silent lurker into goddess of cool, Joan Didion in front of her white corvette. When the really cute boys came and I lost my voice, I lit up and waved my little magic wand. Exchanging secondhand smoke was mandatory but words were optional, and awkward silences weren’t so awkward with inhaling and exhaling to focus on. Conversation flowed now, and when it didn’t, it was fine. Cute boys stopped by in old sports cars and on motorcycles. I made friends easier now, and the group grew and changed. If we were rebelling against something, I didn’t even know it. We didn’t wear black nail polish or nose rings we weren’t those smokers. Smoking was the main event, but our communal pile of cigarette butts created something much bigger than the sum of its parts.

Paper monsters girl smoking girl holding gun windows#

It was also before I hoarded change and desperation in a bucket, before I needed cigarettes always and everywhere and had no time for smart shopping.įrom Jay’s we drove to the boat launch, a big empty lot where we parked side by side, windows down, elbows out, cigarettes fused to our hands. That was before I switched to Marlboros, a more popular brand, even though the menthol taste of Newports blended nicely with my Aquafresh. In the beginning we drove to Jay’s Tobacco Road after school to save 30¢ a pack on Newport Lights. And that, it turned out, was even more addictive than the drug. With each drag I breathed in confidence and breathed out a fog concealing all that plagued me. When I smoked my first cigarette in the woods behind a house party, I found salvation. If boys were around I was practically mute, my only contribution a loud, uncute laugh at my funnier friends’ jokes. I was out of focus, the girl in the background. I had never been a cool girl with a Look at me! persona. Soon I was hooked, and not just on the nicotine. I started at 16 because Jen and Muffy did it, because my humdrum town suppressed my IQ, because smoking occupied my gangly, unmanicured hands.