Writer's Block: Smoked Out

[fajrdrako]

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Pity them, but keep my distance. They smell terrible, and probably don't even know it.

I can imagine how awful addiction must be.

Comments

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

The hospital complex where I exercise is smoke-free since last summer, so people have to go across the street (off hospital property) to smoke. I often see patients sitting across the street, sometimes in wheelchairs with their IV bags hanging from the rolling stands they had to bring with them. It has to suck to need something *that* much. (But yeah. I keep my distance, too. I am cursed with a nose like a hound.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've been going to hospital more often than usual to see my doctor about my ankle, and I always notice the crowd of smokers in their plastic chairs about 50 feet in front of the hospital. At least they're nicely segregated - with their wheelchairs and their IV drips and their coats on over their hospital gowns.

The worst case I noticed was once when I was overnight in the emergency ward. I was sharing a room with a young man who had fallen down stairs and was paralyzed from the neck down - he couldn't move or feel a thing, but he could talk and move his head. But he spent most of the night begging the nurse to give him a cigarette. I suppose it was the addiction talking, but I felt so sad for him. He ought to have had other priorities.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Total agreement. I HATE having to walk through a veil of smoke to get in or out of a building where there are a group of smokers by the door.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

I have to run the gauntlet of the huddled masses to get to my office. I always rant in my head at them (but never out loud):

DUDES. I took a shower. I'm wearing expensive perfume. And now I smell like YOU. DO NOT WANT.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

and I happen to be over sensitive to the smell of many perfumes...

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Me too. I often have to make my students leave the classroom and wash, or not come back for the day.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

I feel that way about the stinky soap and detergent aisle at the supermarket. Hold my breath, dash in, grab soap, dash out, release breath.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

I have similar problems with entering some department stores; the perfume counter is right in the entryway. Gag, choke ... or hold my breath and run past that area to where I want to go. :-(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Shoppers Drug Mart makes a point of putting the perfumes by the entryway. I often lurk till I can go in through the exit door. Subversiveness works!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Good for you!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I am too, though I think I have more tolerance for perfumes than for nictoine. I always have to hold my breath going past the perfume department of drugstores... And sometimes I find myself randomly sneezing in public because someone with perfume has gone by.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The smell sticks with you, too. I used to work with a woman who chain-smoked. My husband (and later, my girlfriend) could always tell when she'd been in the office because of the way my hair smelled, hours later.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They do it so often, too.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

They know it in theory, but they can't smell it. I smoked on and off (mostly on) for three and a half years until I quit for good in February, and I didn't really know how it had smelled until after I'd been quit for long enough that my nose adjusted to the smell not being around all the time. Now when I smell cigarette smoke, I think it's gross, and all the more so because I'm aware of the smell in a way I wasn't before I smoked.

Oh, and addiction totally sucks. I didn't even like smoking very much and it still took a nasty round of what I think was bronchitis to finally get me to quit for good. And it's been over nine months and I still dream about smoking occasionally. I'm not having any problem keeping clear of it, though. I like being able to do things like walk up a hill without my heart feeling like it's going to explode, and I like knowing that when I put on perfume, that's all I smell like.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They know it in theory, but they can't smell it.

Yes. They are totally oblivious. It is gross, but it's impossible to perceive while you're a smoker. Even people who don't smoke very much. It gets into their system... And if you should kiss them, their mouths taste ghastly. (Shudder.)

I'm glad you were able to stop. Congratulations! I know it's difficult, but I can't think of anything bad about stopping - you waste less money, you taste and smell better, and you're healthier. It's all good.

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I hate hate hate having to walk through a crowd of smokers that are always clustered around every open door or behind someone puffing a cancer stick and oblivious to the stench and foul air that he/she is creating. However, it's a lot better than when I started work back in the ...umpty million years ago. There it was perfectly OK to smoke at work and when I asked a worker sitting across from me to at least not blow smoke in my direction, he lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my face. AND continued to do so for the rest of the time that I was employed there as well as empty his ash tray on my desk.
SO - when smokers complain about how they are made to suffer, I have absolutely no sympathy. I grew up in a generation when smokers ruled and the stench and inconsiderate behavior was utterly gross.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

when I asked a worker sitting across from me to at least not blow smoke in my direction, he lit a cigarette and blew smoke in my face.

Yuck! What a charmer. Sometimes smokers have no conscience. Really, I think because it doesn't smell bad to them, they don't know what other people are talking about.

I grew up in a generation when smokers ruled and the stench and inconsiderate behavior was utterly gross.

I agree. And I accepted it because I had no choice.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I got to smoking when I was depressed. That is, I was smoking before that, but I wasn't addicted. As you noticed, being the non-smoker around smokers is no fun so at parties I smoked along with everyone else. I did not smoke when I was alone or with non-smokers and I didn't feel the need for it.

And then I got depressed. And I only felt overwhelming nothingness dragging me down. And I took up smoking. And the only things apart from the darkness of despair where tiny little point of light everytime a hit of nicotine made it into my bloodstream (well you inhale the smoke and the moment you draw the smoke in you feel a little relief, for like less than a second). And that tiny bit of relief was so worth it.
So yeah, I understand the need for cigarettes perfectly. I am lucky that I quit after the depression lessened. I associated it no longer with fun and parties but with misery. I found quitting easy, I decided and did. But I guess it makes a difference how long and when you started and how sensitive you are to addiction.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

I am very thankful I never took up the habit. But I have had friends who were (and are) smokers still ... till their lives get shortened by cancer. :-(

Depression is never easy to deal with. I have gone through it myself and known others who were coping with it. I dealt with it in other ways ... such as my punny sense of humour (which seems just as repellent to some). :-/

Others have dealt with smokers in other ways ... such as wearing a badge reading Mobile non-smoking area.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have friends who smoke and the funny thing is, they aren't the same ones who have (or have had) cancer. Odd how that works.

I dealt with it in other ways ... such as my punny sense of humour (which seems just as repellent to some). :-/

Yeah. Just hearing your puns depresses me.

Mobile non-smoking area.

I like it!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I can imagine that smoking would go with depression. I'm glad you were able to stop!

When I was sixteen or so I once took a puff of a cigarette, coughed, and wondered by anyone would ever smoke voluntarily. I never did again. No appeal to it at all.

I think I had a lucky escape there.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

I was just having that discussion with someone the other day!

We have the smoking ban thing here - depending on what part of the city I am in - and my mood *and* the time of day - I

Pass on by feeling threatened.
Pass on by wondering why I the hell I have to *walk in the road* to do it?
Pity them. As a past smoker (I gave up, literally, decades ago now) the smoking areas in pubs worked just fine and I hate the state telling *me* what I can and can't do.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My father used to smoke a lot and when I think back, I wonder at how easily I tolerated the smell all those years. I never thought about it much - it was just what he did. Lots of people smoked, especially men. I didn't like it but it never occurred to me to complain, or to think I had a right to clean air. It was just the way things were.

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

My father smoked; I don't remember him ever smelling of stale cigarette smoke ever. Freshly opened packets or freshly lit cigarettes? Yes.
And I will admit that I am, sometimes, taken back *years* if I come across a stray smoker who has just lit up and lurk behind them and *inhale*.

I don't know if that makes me weird or not BUT I do know I managed to incorporate that nostalgia into a ficlet, once upon a time...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I do know I managed to incorporate that nostalgia into a ficlet, once upon a time...

Was it Torchwood? What was it called?

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

No. It was a very glancing mention in a previous fandom and concerned a character who gets been beaten up so badly in the course of duty (he's a policeman) that he's unconscious. I was trying to get that "your whole life flashes in front of your eyes" thing going on so it is - at best - grammatically unsound but you are more than welcome to have a look at it if you like. Or not as the case may be :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Cool.

I'd like to read it. Care to send me the URL?

[mad-jaks.livejournal.com]

Sure or a .doc Have to go out now will do it as soon as I get back :D

UH OH Jack's looking at me over his mug - does he know I just booked tivkets to see John in May ???

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Sure or a .doc Have to go out now will do it as soon as I get back :D

Thanks!

Jack's looking at me over his mug - does he know I just booked tivkets to see John in May ???

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack swoon.

Can I die of envy now or later?

The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith, Part 1

[raissad.livejournal.com]

Watch it here (http://www.veoh.com/videos/v16663216DNEbqNe5?rank=0&order=mr&c=sarahjaneadv) to help with the writer's block.

Re: The Temptation Of Sarah Jane Smith, Part 1

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Surprisingly not many smokers at my library (don't know why), maybe three that I've seen outside smoking? And you have to stand so far away from the entrance. I forget the number of feet.

I now have a smoking neighbor. I'm not pleased. I hope he moves out by summer or I will be complaining about his smoking outside on his porch. Really, if you're not willing to smoke inside your own place, it's obviously not a pleasant thing.

I have been around smokers at parties and at bars, and it doesn't bother me there because I expect it. I wouldn't complain if it went away though.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

A smoking neighbour. Yo have my sympathies. A friend of mine had to move out of her apartment because the people next door smoked marijuana all the time and smelled up the hallway.

I'm happy to say that I don't have any smelly neighbours at all.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Well the good thing is we don't have a shared hallway, we're all individual entrances, but I think my concern is in the summer, when I have all my windows open, if he pops out on his porch to smoke, it drifts up to my windows and hence into my apt. That is the concern.

I should know more when warm weather comes again.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I hope it turns out to be all right.

My apartment is right by the front doors of the building, and sometimes, rarely, if someone is smoking outside the doors, I can smell it. But usually not.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping he's receptive if it does become a problem. If he knows it bothers me, it would be 'neighborly' if he would not smoke where it drifts off into my apt. But we shall see if he is or isn't... boo. haha.