You've come a long way, baby.

Sweet baby Jesus, I miss smoking.

I don't miss it like I miss the smooth, muscular legs I used to have when I was 17. I don't miss it like I do the ability to read Seventeen magazine without getting awkward stares from other business travelers. I don't even miss it like I do the innocence I lost in '91, the same one that Mr. Henley so blatantly immortalized without permission that very same year.

I miss it, as my best friend has pointed out, like Jazzy Jeff misses the Fresh Prince. Like Tom Cruise should miss his sanity. Oh, yes. I miss it that much.

It isn't because it's cool. Shit, there are rumors that it isn't even really healthy. But there are times when it seems to a smoker that few things in life are better than slowly devouring a single, full cigarette. After a Taco Bell Burrito Supreme and a large Diet Coke, all I have ever wanted to do is take a sweet puff of a Marlboro Light. I jones Less Than Zero-style for even a bummed Pall Mall after two glasses of wine, whether I be at a favorite local bar or at a bris. When desperate enough, I have hit up 80-year-old men for smokes and even teenagers whose legal eligibility for the act was questionable. My burning desire knows no bounds.

It all started on a Friday night circa 1989 in a lame Pennsylvania skiing lodge. Jason Wiener and I sat thawing at a darkened back table while our other high school friends continued down the icy slopes. He pulled out a pack of Camel Lights. I knew immediately that I wanted one. I feared that I would cough like I had seen the child actors do on ABC after-school specials, but I was quickly a pro. Maybe those suckers only coughed because they mixed smoking with wine coolers, I thought to myself. The wisdom I had at 16.

Before I knew it I was in college and smoking every day. In that former life (the same life in which I hitched a ride home from unknowns driving an unmarked white van by the highway in rural Virginia) I re-smoked what others had left behind, whether it be on the ground or in an ashtray. I have doused myself with Love's Baby Soft at rest stops on rides home from college as to avoid the wrath of conscientious parents. I was even occasionally bumming Menthols - I know, God forgive me - out of sheer desperation.

But unlike my stretch marks, some habits seem to fade. I don't need to smoke like I once did. I can say proudly that I probably only fully indulge every few weeks; to the dismay of my smoking friends, I have avoided purchasing my own pack for months. I don't have cigarettes in the pockets of each of my frequently-used handbags. I hardly ever have an emergency stash. I like it that at age 31, I no longer have to worry that my parents will smell it in my hair when they give me a spontaneous hug.

But most of all, my friends, I consider it a triumph that it has been weeks - nay, months - since I bummed my last Kool.