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"You know, I always thought it would be hard to quit smoking," I remarked to my mother, out of nowhere. We were in the minivan on our way home from Chapters, where I had just picked up a Korean phrasebook and she had chosen a tiny tome about training dogs, with a stupid-looking Oriental beast pimped out to the nines on the cover. To her credit, she usually receives the surprising tidbits I feed her about my life away from home with an an attitude of quiet grace.

"Do you mean just mah-rah-juana, or do you mean cigarettes? Do you smoke cigarettes?" I love the way she says marijuana - so stately, so very posh and refined. She learned that I was a pothead when I accidentally showed her a movie taken during the FR!NGE afterparty a couple years ago. In one memorable scene, Chad is holding a wooden Gandalf pipe stuffed with mah-rah-juana, looks blearily at the camera and announces in a stately wizard voice: "Oh Frodo, you pack the finest bowls of pipe-weed in aaaall the Shire." She thought this was hilarious and told me she wished she had done "things like that" when she was younger. I was proud that her reaction was more intrigue than accusation, and from that point onwards I decided it was cool to be honest with her about my illicit hobbies.

I take great relish in releasing little secrets about my outside life to my family, since I see them so rarely, and I figured that if I could share my private quitting victory with anyone, it would be mom. See, I never smoke while I'm at home in Vancouver and for some crazy reason, I never get any kind of addiction pangs or even very many cravings when I'm here. The whole smoking schtick just kinda melts off me the second I deboard the plane. Back in Ontario was another matter ("Wait 'til the first snowfall! I said I'll quit when there's ONE INCH OF SNOW. That's more like a centimetre." *puff puff*), but in Vancouver I never even consider bringing cigarettes with me and sneaking off to light up. I just ... don't. It's weird.

I explained this to my mom. "You're very lucky," she told me. "Most smokers have horrible withdrawal and often end up raping their families in uncontrollable bouts of nicotine-rage." Uh... yes. She said something like that - perhaps without the family-raping bit. I like to spice up her dialogue from time to time. Anyways, honest, real discussion with her felt nice, as it always does, and we bandied opinions about the nature of addiction all the way home as she steered the van through the ever-vicious Vancouver traffic.

I think that I'm enjoying my family more than ever before.

Posted by Chris at 04:01 AM >> Commentations (3)