Ports in a Storm....Snowpocalypes 2015

I woke up this morning and took a walk through the neighborhood to see what effects last night's snowfall had on the city, it made the city more beautiful......

Last night the predictions were dire, comparisons made to superstorm Sandy, I watched "Inside Llewyn Davis" and went to bed. When I got up this morning I thought about what I had done during Sandy, a couple of years ago, I went out for a walk around 8 PM shortly after it had passed. I passed by a local gay bar "Urge" where there was a handwritten sign taped to the door saying "WE ARE OPEN!! 2 for 1! So I went in, ordered a drink and fuzztttt!! ....the lights went out, the bartender shouted to the barback "Lock The Door"! and everyone lit up a cigarette.....

   I considered bumming a cigarette, I remembered how much I used to like sitting at a bar smoking a cigarette, feeling my senses numb as I smoked and sipped my cocktail, I used to like that a lot. It had been 7 months since I quit smoking and this would have been a great excuse to light up, but then I would have had that monkey on my back again. I remembered how I hated having to hide from my Friends, family and boyfriend that I was still smoking a couple of years after I had professed to have quit in 2008, it wasn't really until February of 2011 that I had my last cigarette.....I went months without smoking in 2008, 2009 and 2010 but there was always some reason to pick up again.

   I was traveling a lot in 2008, 9 and 10, I went to  Brazil, Hungary and China to visit friends and lovers, where cigarettes were cheap and everyone was smoking, I couldn't resist rubbing the balm of Nicotine on my feelings as these close relationships were changing in ways that I didn't understand and making me uncomfortable.

   I heard a lot about addiction and there's a statement often made that cigarettes  are more addictive than heroin, it's often explained that the reason is that if you're a cigarette smoker you can be lighting up 20 or more times a day like me .....while even the most committed heroin user can only shoot up maybe 5 times a day. So the cigarette smoker is constantly nurturing that addiction.....

   Thank god I didn't bum a cigarette that night, I did enjoy the camaraderie of the bar though. I remembered how during another emergency here in NYC, the blackout of 2003 I also went out for a walk and ended up in a gay bar, "The Bar" on 2nd ave and 2nd street, it was a lot of fun, lit by candlelight and one of the bartenders who lived upstairs had brought down his wind up victrola and was playing 78 rpm records on it....good times!

Funny how I felt the  need to go somewhere safe and known during those emergencies. This time however, I wasn't that concerned....I figured I'd get through this just like I had gotten through all the others. I didn't feel the need to be around people where I could let down my guard as I'm not really feeling so guarded these days.

It's a nice feeling and I thank god for that....