I started smoking at an early age, following the tried and true pattern. A child of smokers will try dirt sticks at one time or another. Due to financial reasons more than health, I quit and was cigarette free for many years. While working on a reality television show, I became reaquainted with my old habit and here I am today, still puffing away. (At least my taste in cigarettes has improved, if that means anything. First Kools, the brand that most of the adults I knew smoked when I was a kid. Then Djarum cloves, the de rigueur choice for the Goth crowd in the clubs I frequented. Now it's Sweet Dreams, an incredibly expensive brand of cigarettes that are made in Belgium. They smell like incense and have a sugary taste.)

When Nevada enacted a statewide partial smoking ban, many folks were upset, moi included. Discrimination! Segregation! Oh the indignity... That was the reaction until I actually learned what the law states. After getting over the giggles (smoking is still allowed in brothels, strip clubs, and private residences) I realized that smoking was ok in bars that don't serve food and in casino areas where minors aren't loitering. Yippee! So I bid hasta to my dawdling underage compadres and lit up in the designated areas. Then came my second revelation...Either a lot of bars and clubs were ignorant of the law, or they were purposely choosing to eliminate smoking on the premises. In Sin City?! One night, huddled within a mesh structure (think Beyond Thunderdome) outside of a punk show that someone had considerately set up as the smoking room, freezing my Docs off, I knew with infinite sadness that nobody loves a smoker. Not only were we being excluded, they were putting us in CAGES.

I moved to Portland last year, and it was magical. After years of living in the desert, I had reached the oasis, and the water was sweet. I got a job at a modeling agency as a booking agent. I was smoking to my heart's content for the most part. Then I got a call at work...a producer looking for models to shoot the new ad campaign for the passage of the smoking ban going into effect on January 1, 2009. Not a partial ban, like in Nevada. This is full out war. The Clean Air Act bans smoking in all enclosed public places, including bars, taverns, and restaurants. Exempt from the ban are tobacconists, cigar bars, and up to 25% of hotel rooms. The Oregon Court of Appeals also ruled that cities and counties may enact smoking bans which are more strict than state law! I had jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

We stand together in the shadowed side streets, the only illumination the brief flare of a match, beyond the required distance of the safely lit entrance. We hang out near the restaurant dumpsters, conversating with the kitchen staff and passing the lighter to anyone in need. We watch the old black and white movies and are amazed to see doctors smoking while consulting with patients. We remember dinner with friends at a favorite restaurant, and sitting at the table for hours afterword, laughing, drinking, and smoking.

We are caught between the nostalgia of what has been, coupled with an innate desire to rebel against the powers that be, and what we know is best. For now I choose to do what I want.