There's Something About The Sunshine State; It Just Makes Me Wanna SMOKE

One of the first things I do when I hit the ground in FLA (pronounced eff-ell-ay) is buy a pack of cigarettes. The 7-11 near my sister's house keeps them under the counter - hidden. You have to ask for them. I always think they don't have them, that maybe they've just got the sale packs of Pall Malls ($4.75!) or Marlboro Lights (2fer1!), but I ask anyway and they respond, as do the bodega dudes in New York, "What color?" Yellow, natch.

Maybe the air here is too fresh. My lungs, filled with BQE particulate debris, truck exhaust, and the second hand smoke of some million or so addicts, yearn for the polluted New York City air. I'm like a fish out of murky water. In other words, a fish out of the East River.

Maybe it's habit; all's we ever used to do when I lived here was go to the cafe, sit outside, and smoke. Très bohemian. Of course, it's a different cafe now, and no one else is here. Kyle's married and studying Comp Lit in Buffalo, Jason's married and studying something in Chicago, Mindy is pregnant, Jonny Cafe is god-knows-where. Incidentally, the cafe where I'm now smoking and drinking coffee and typing is called Cafe Bohemia, bestowed upon the 'burg some eight years ago by my buddy Matt Neal, one of the last left standing in this city.

Maybe it's the anxiety of unhomeliness, in this place I used to call home, that calls for a self-destructive puff or twenty. All's I know is, when I'm here, I sure smoke.