"There can be only one..."

Woohoo. I won the smoking contest. I am presently the only person among my group of friends who still smokes. Alex kicked the habit a year ago. Augie quit last month. Aaron and Jon are now done thanks to New Year's resolutions. That leaves me, the Connor Macleod of smokers. I now have the distinction of being the only asshole from our group to suffocate a room with the residuals from a quick smoke. Seriously though, I commend them all. It ain't easy.

Of course, I know smoking is very, very bad for me. I'm starting to feel the ill effects: super exhaustion in the morning, circulatory problems. I vowed last autumn to start scaling back from a pack a day to half that. I wanted to work my way down from twenty to ten to five and then maybe to just a couple when drinking. That plan lasted all of one week. But as the world becomes less smoker friendly and my friends hang up their Bics, I guess the writing's on the wall -- I have to move to Canada.