deflated.

Amidst the images surfacing from the streets of Milan, this picture caught my eye (from Garance Doré). I quit smoking over 5 months ago. I wouldn't say that I haven't looked back, but I have looked forward, and that's a smoke-free picture.

In 2006 I lived in Madrid, and if ever there was a great place to smoke, it was there. Normally my fellow ex-pats and I were loyal to Camel Blues (ah, how they differed from the Camel Lights of our humble states), but if I managed to find Galoises, I was transported. I was Parisian. I holidayed in Monaco. I had fine-tuned and superior tastes and indulgences. I had secret knowledge! I smoked a brand lots of people couldn't pronounce.

On one of my visits to Paris, with my closest friend who was studying in Florence, I stocked up on the red cartoned cigarettes. So funny now, how i couldn't tell you a taste distinction at all, only that i knew that it was my favorite. And as i would sit outside, talking for hours, taking photographs with my cigarette-free hand, everytime i would glance down i was reminded that i was closer to being naturally there, in Paris, than most visitors, particularly other americaines.

On my last night of that trip, some hommes we had met there noticed me lighting up. "Galoises?" One of them scoffed, in that way somehow women find endearing but in retrospect is actually more mean-spirited and repulsive, "My grandmother smokes those." And he offered me redemption in the form of Marlboro Reds.