I wish it didn't have to end this way

I don't know when I first smoked a cigarette but I do remember when I jumped from bumming cigarettes off of other people (because that doesn't really count as smoking, right?) to actually buying my own pack. And then packs. Lots of them. That was last spring.

I blame my current smoking habit on three things: 1) Fletcher parties, 2) the damn UN and its cigarette vending machines and 3) Mad Men (who saw Betty smoking pink cigarettes a few weeks ago? AMAZING!). And yeah, I guess my complete lack of self-control could also be to blame. Maybe.

So this all bring me to last night. After downing a few glasses of wine and partaking in the makeshift graduate school club we had going in the basement, nothing sounded better than a cigarette. I found my way to the porch, chatted up a friend, and lit up. A first-year student came up to introduce himself and here's where things really went downhill. I talk with my hands and this, in combination with the aforementioned wine and a total lack of coordination, led to complete disaster when it was my turn to chime in. I raised my lit cigarette and did a quick demonstration of what the dance floor downstairs looked like. And then I dropped my cigarette onto my other arm. And then while trying to get the burning cigarette off of my arm, I picked up said burning cigarette by the lit end.

Jesus. Thankfully, Trader Joe's wine has some kind of wonderful numbing effect so I could hardly feel the burn at the time. I'm left with a couple of bright red spots on my arm and hand, but I'm sure those will go away eventually or at least serve as a great way to make conversation in a bar. What won't go away, however, is the shame in knowing that some first-year student will forever remember me as the girl who dropped a lit cigarette on herself. Damn it.

I also took last night's experience as a sign that I'm just not meant for smoking. While I feel absolutely no gulit in knocking back endless Diet Cokes, I feel pretty bad when I smoke. I even go so far as to take the cigarette out of my mouth and cover it with my hand when I walk past small children. Plus, I'm starting to sound like a man. I figure that the stars are just not aligned for me and my beloved Parliaments, so it's time to let them go. And now begins day one of my breakup with cigarettes.