Marlboro Man HNT

"It was a d*rk and st*rmy night..." (I don't want that to show up on searches...). I was hunched over my laptop on Saturday night, getting a little frustrated with HTML and templates, etc., when I looked up at the TV. I wasn't watching it...it was a nice, dull distraction, keeping the melodies from two long rehearsals from playing over and over in my head. I don't know what the movie was, but it was an older one in black and white. The scene that I saw was of a crusty novelist hunched over his typewriter, pecking out word after word, with only the pause to return the carriage (for those of you who have never used a real manual typewriter before, you have no idea how automatic that becomes when you hear "the bell"!). In the dark. Unshaven face, disheveled hair. With a glass of sour mash by his hand, and a cigarette dangling from his lip. And cheesy music. An inspiration was born!

So I went out that night and did something for the very first time in my life--I bought a pack of cigarettes. Marlboros (ah, what a lasting effect those old Marlboro Man ads have...). I wanted to recreate this same scene, but modernize it a bit. Couldn't do the hair, and I spaced out the booze, but I was still hunched over my laptop! I lit up, and started taking pictures...

That's what my initial HNT inspiration was. What it really came to was this...how do smokers do this??? I am not going to go into an anti-smoking rant here. We're all old enough that it's not going to make any difference. Either you do and know you shouldn't, or you don't, and can't imagine ever starting. I spent $4.55 on a pack of cigarettes. I "smoked" two of them ("I didn't inhale," he said in his best Clinton-esque voice). My apartment smelled for two days. I showered before going to bed, and my fingers still smelled the next morning. I found cigarette ashes on my keyboard and around the general area. Smoke burned my eyes. I had a nasty case of dragon breath all night. I'm not sure, but I think I was a little woozy the next day. There was not a single pleasant thing associated with the entire experience.

I grew up with half of the family smoking. Both my grandfathers smoked (but it's not what caused their deaths). I seem to remember my mother's mom smoking too, but only when I was pretty young. Dad smoked cigarettes until an unexplained (to us) switch to a pipe (mmm....Borkum Riff....) when I was in junior high. Second hand smoke never really has bothered me. However...to my parents--my eternal gratitude for striking me with the fear of God if they were to ever catch me lighting one up!

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"A person is disposed to an act of choice by an angel in two ways. Sometimes, a man's understanding is enlightened by an angel to know what is good, but it is not instructed as to the reason why. But sometimes he is instructed by angelic illumination, both that this act is good and as to the reason why it is good."

~St. Thomas Aquinas

This angel will be revealed late Thursday afternoon!
If you didn't already figure it out...this angelic MG is Angel, from "Secret Desires"! Stop by and say hi!

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"...the Other HNT" is NSFW, but still worth a look! Be sure to leave some comment loving for your fellow HNTers!

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More symphony stuff coming up from now through the weekend. Of course, the weather gods took note of that and I got to load the equipment truck in the snow and the wind. It'll be cold and windy during all of my loading/unloading. And I never found my keys...