Gypsy

I quit smoking three years after your posted this — January 10, 2010. Like you, I did a lot of thinking about my writing while smoking, especially when I hit a stumbling block. Since I had been an outside smoker for years, I could even go out and pace because that was a trigger. I couldn't read anything too complicated for similar reasons. It eventually became so bad that I couldn't write a one paragraph email. Coffee and alcohol were also tied up with my work process and brainstorming process, and, like most smokers, those are two consumables that don't go down well without a cigarette. For twenty years, my writing habits had been interwoven with my artistic process. It sucked, and it took me a long time to get my mojo back, but I'm glad that I quit.

My maternal grandmother was a full-blooded gypsy whose parents immigrated to the United States at the start of the last century. The nice thing agout that is that no one could ever threaten to send me off with the gypsies if I misbehaved. We were the gypsies.

She exudes an erotic beauty that wants to leap through my monitor. I think that this a wonderful piece of work.