2001-05-01 - 12:53 a.m.

I just spent an evening hanging out with this cool chick Deanna and a host of her friends - all born and bred English-speaking Canadians. Deanna was kind enough to pick me up in her car ( I only live 7 blocks away from her) and we went back to her place. As we're walking out the door I asked her if she wanted me to bring my scotch. She said not to bother. In the car I asked her if she wanted us to stop and I'd buy beer, but she said that we wouldn't be drinking tonight.

A group of young people in their twenties getting together for an evening at a house with NO DRINKING? ? Sure enough, noone had a drink or even mentioned drinking the whole night! Are these Canadians weird or what?

That's when I realized. This is their happy non-alcoholic world that's normal for them and I'm the weirdo. I may in fact be the one with the problem - i may be an alcoholic (ahh but I can't be an alcoholic, alcoholics go to meetings!) I'm definitely a "lush". I'm one of those people who likes to have a little wine with her meals, and have a cocktail after dinner. On a nice afternoon I like to relax with a beer. I don't get drunk every day, but I do like to drink. I plan social occasions around drinks. It would never occur to me in a million years to invite people to my house and not drink.

Also, these Canadians didn't smoke. Deanna used to smoke but she's quit. So there was no smoking in the house and I went on the patio to smoke by myself. 10 people were at her house but I was the only smoker. When I went out to have my cigarette they joked me abot being an "addict"

This evening was the first time since I left Atlanta that I have seriously missed it. I missed the smoking-drinking-intensity of Atlanta.You can smoke in every home and bar in Atlanta. Everybody smokes in Atlanta. Everybody drinks in Atlanta. Bars are everywhere and they're the hang-outs.

I realized that if I were in Atlanta right at the same moment, i would be sitting with my girls Leslie, Chrissy, Yun, Larissa and Barbara and we'd be in Leslie and Chrissy's place and we'd all be chain smoking. Yun never buys her own cigarettes but she'd bum smokes off me. Leslie would smoke a pack of Camel Reds and then have to drive drunk at 5 in the morning to the ghetto gas station to get more. Chrissy would put out each of her cigarettes half-way through and leave giant butts in the ashtray. We'd be drinking Corona if we were feeling rich that week and drinking cheap-ass beer if we were poor. But there'd be beer. Hell yes, there'd be beer.

The conversation at the Canadian household was either on the entertainment industry (movies, tv, games) or on politics. I have to give it up to these Canadian types, they are very political and everyone at Deanna's had an opinion about something, and they all knew their political party's stance on the Salmon fishing industry and they all knew the name of the US's vice-president and had an opinion on US foriegn policy. Deanna and Mike had just returned from protesting the FTAA in Quebec so we had lots of insightful political conversation. But it was all so mental . . .

My girls and I would be dishing about art, or fashion, or our friends, or our life plans, or our goals, or the dreams we had last night, or old times, or our childhoods or whatever . . . but it was so easy to hang with them and there was more feeling. And more cigarettes. And more alcohol.

I know I won't smoke cigarettes forever. I've only been smoking a year and I know that technically its a form of self-abuse. When I get through this therapy and get my shit resolved I will likely naturally want to quit. I don't want to end up with yellow teeth and black lungs.

But there is something meaningful to me in a smoke break. There is a social bond. There is this sense that your life is short so fuck it, lets talk lets talk lets talk now! Lets get it on, lets light another one, lets have another drink, let's keep talking, let's get up and go, lets take a drive and ash out the window, let's laugh and share secrets, lets keep going, let the party go where it will, I want to hear you I want to know you I want to talk I want to listen I want to dream I want to get drunker i want to punctuate my sentences with this flame, this light, this moment shared between us over this cigarette

These Canadians don't seem to understand that. And so I miss my girls who do.

I talked to Larissa on the phone earlier today and it meant so much to me. We were having a talk about Ryan and our past and it got emotional for both of us and Larissa told me she was sorry for hurting me. She's told me sorry before and I appreciated it and she didn't need to say it again, and of course I recognize how much we've changed since then and how much time has past - but she said it again anyway - and just hearing it again was such a blessing, healing and peeling off another layer of resentment i didn't know was there. She also told me she saw how Ryan treated me (bad). It felt so good to be really seen and known and trusted by her. This is what real friendship/sisterhood is all about and I feel so glad to know that she lives out there somewhere down the coast of the same ocean and that we're going to know each other for our whole lives. You just can't find a friend like that growing on a tree. Or if they do, those trees don't seem to grow up here in Canada.