Hopelessly Devoted

Sometimes I wish I was one of those people who only smoke when they have a drink, or when they hang out with their bad influence friend. There was a girl I knew in high school, I'm pretty sure to this very day her mother never knew she smoked, but she puffed a pack or more every weekend for years. Sadly, I'm just not that kind of girl. My DNA dictated I was destined to be the bad influence friend. 

It's OK, bad influence DNA also comes with gravity defying titties. 

Depending on your calculations, it took me 18 months or 30 years to quit. If I am being honest, the attempts before January of 2018 shouldn't be counted. I started smoking in 8th grade, in the beginning it was only on rare occasions. By 9th grade my Texas boyfriend was making fun of me for wasting the cigarettes I smoked because I didn't inhale. On the timeline that brought me here another boy taught me how to inhale during an extended visit back home. He is certain that he didn't. I am more inclined to believe in shifting timelines than to imagine either of us might be mistaken. 

I can't claim I didn't know smoking was bad for you when I started. Boomers can sincerely claim they didn't, but every pack I've ever bought came with a surgeon general's warning. Yul Brynner's, my first bald crush, postmortem PSA aired the same year I sparked up the first time. I absolutely knew, even at 12 and 13, that smoking smells disgusting, that it was a waste of money, and that it caused lung cancer. At 12 and 13 all of my friends smoked, so we all smelled gross together. At 12 and 13 I didn't have many bills, but I had a job. Besides, I assumed I'd be really wealthy when I was an adult. And at 12 and 13 I knew there would be a cure for lung cancer long before it was a concern for me. 

Every 12-year-old is naive, but I may have been especially so.  

At the drive-in when Sandy said, Tell me about it stud, 6-year-old me knew, first chance I got, that was the who I was going to be. 

Took it, and I was. 

I am.  

Motivation is a weird concept for me. I don't tend to have a lot of it, but I don't seem to need a lot of it either. Things just work out for me. On the rare occasion I find something challenging, I just turn my attention to something that isn't. Fuck it, the world is full of so many cool things, why waste time on the difficult ones? A dozen times I had reasons to quit, and I tried. I went an hour, sometimes several hours, a couple times I went most of a day not having a cigarette. Then I got uncomfortable, annoyed, cranky and said why am I doing this to myself? I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, and I'll have wasted these hours being uncomfortable that I could have been enjoying myself and a smoke. And that was that, I had tried. 

Then Fate was like, hey remember that one boy? How would you like a chance to impress him now? 

Oh, remember how cool he was in 1991? You won't believe this, that wasn't his peak. 

Whatcha got? What exactly are you doing that might wow him?  

It really is so embarrassing, but that's where I found my motivation. I wanted to impress a boy I felt like I had failed to impress when I was a teenager. 

I invite you to peruse my follows, it is not often that I fail to make an impression.  

Does it matter what sparked it, tobacco is a sacred offering. 

It took 18 months, January of 2018 through August of 2019. In the rearview I see it all as one attempt, the one and only successful attempt. It took months to master day 2, and I'd take a few days off from trying after I caved. It seems like it jumped. Once I could get through 2 days, a week became my breaking point. I'd be so proud of myself for making it so far that I'd feel justified having a little secret treat. I'd rationalize that maybe I can be one of those girls who just smokes occasionally. Nope, definitely not and there I'd be back at the beginning. Each time I'd remind myself with consent berating, if you hadn't fucked up, you'd be past this part forever. You choose this discomfort. You know nowl exactly how frustrating it is. You knew that you are going to feel like you are going insane and here we are having to go through it again. But I did, over and over again until I pushed through that too. 

I made it through my mother's services without slipping, that seems proof enough that I'll be an ex-smoker forever now. But still sometimes I wish I was the kind of person who could just indulge occasionally. 

Two Thousand

You know you can comment, I don't bite. 
Well, I don't bite strangers. 
Have we met? 
Perhaps you should introduce yourself.
I'm so hungry. 

Indulge me, I don't know how to be subtle. To be honest it is more that I do not believe that subtle would ever serve me better than being direct. It is just not a skill I feel called to master. 

It's a thing I have said for decades. One of two actually, that I don't do subtle and I don't do tragic. Of course I have known tragedy, I am a woman in my 50s. What I mean to imply is I will not indulge tragic. You won't find me on my deathbed crying about the love I lost.

Or the opportunity I missed. 

Or the trip I didn't take. 

Or the risk I passed on.

Someone, a client, gave me the strangest compliment recently. It was a video call, a one-off stranger. Only a stranger could have said this to me. He had commented on various parts of me, said that my eyes are hypnotizing, my hair looked so soft, my feet are perfect, then a couple more of a more provocative nature. Nothing weird there, forgive my conceit, I have heard those observations many, many times. The strange thing that he said was, "Your parents must have been so in love when they made you, you're just so beautiful in every way." 

Correct me if I am wrong, remember I don't vanilla either, causing someone to think of their parents' love and the circumstance of their own conception is an unusual way to flame the spark, isn't it? Odd by any standard I think, but doubly so if you knew me. Because if you know me then you know my parents were divorced. It's typically among the first things I share about myself, that my parents divorced before my second birthday. I have never seen them kiss, hold hands, or smile at one another. 

First time I had any inkling that my mother liked my father was when she cried for him in her confusion in the days before she passed. Although, to be honest, I did always suspect my father loved my mother. Her high school picture among his modest possessions when he passed in 2016 confirmed my suspicions.  

What a terrible tragic stupid waste.   

It did take me out of the moment of my call for a moment, but I am a professional.  I am certain my client was satisfied with our time together. And here I am, weeks later still replaying.

My parents in love. Not just in casually in love, but so in love, passionately in love, deeply in love so as to create someone like me. I really do understand how vain I must sound. Do you have any idea how much confidence one must possess to tell a stranger my intro sessions are 2hrs, and my tribute is _____? Well, it's going up again on the first, no need to be tacky and state it here. My confidence is a crucial element to the work I do, and my clients affirm, constantly, the value of my work. 

Could they have really been in love? 

Count back forty weeks from November 24th. If you were born during the Thanksgiving break, you were conceived the weekend of Valentine's day. In February of 1972 my dad was stationed in Virginia. My mom would drive down from Massachusetts if she had the weekend off to see him.  I've made that trip myself so many times. Fourteen hours from Holbrook to Virginia Beach, how in love would you need to be to make that trip, alone, in the beater you drove when you were 20, in February? 

I have fallen so in love with this idea. 

 

There Ain't No Danger We Can Go Too Far

We start believing now that we can be who we are

I feel like Mr. Gibb must have written a different original chorus. There's depth in the lyrics, but the chorus is so cringe. I bet there was a different original word, and then maybe the Brother Gibb was approached with a lucrative offer and he reworked a piece he already had penned. 

Grease can't possibly be The Word. 

We take the pressure and we throw away conventionality belongs to yesterday. 

I feel strongly that grease lacks groove or meaning. 

Kink would fit, by the way. Just a suggestion. 

Did you catch my recent visits with Your Kinky Friend, Nicholas?

Ms. Cassidy Cream - 10.2024 w/ Nicholas Tanek - Your Kinky Friends

YKF SUNDAYS 11.3.2024 w/ Ms. Cassidy Cream & Neci Archer - "Locktober to Nylon November" - Your Kinky Friends

I believe I've been on the show seven times, and we always have so much fun. 

I love catching up with Nicholas. He is always so welcoming, and yes so flattering. The show is authentic and accessible.  There are so many voices, so many flavors within our community, and the vibe reflected in YKF is one of my favorites. It feels a lot like Twizted Acres at the peak. It feels like there is space here for anyone. Come on in, the water is fine. Claim your space and be your most real self in it. 

Of course, if your most real self is an asshole, we'll tear you apart. 

There's going to be more by the way. Tune-in Sundays at 8p, November's theme is going to be nylons. I didn't know that this week, perhaps for the show on the 10th I'll dress accordingly. 

He has another show coming up too. I'm not yet cool enough to be on it. It's an Author's Circle. Published kink authors only. 

I want an invite to that show.