Every day in every way

Here’s a sad and funny story. You know what got me to finally stop smoking? (I mean, other than taking a very strong dose of a prescription drug that had an off-label use for smoking cessation.) Yellow teeth. I was about to start a graduate program in public health, and I had accidentally quit smoking the year before due to my medication’s side effects. And I was glad to have stopped, though every day that I didn’t buy cigarettes was a conscious choice.

But the quitting came at a fortunate moment; I was about to get married, and I didn’t want to be the blushing young bride smoking Camels after the ceremony. I was immune to most anti-smoking propaganda. There was even a billboard at the end of my block in Los Angeles, near UCLA, where the number of smoking related deaths per year was tallied in huge electronic digits. The number would change as I sat in my car and waited for the light to turn green. Instead it was some random public service announcement that appealed to women’s vanity, citing yellow teeth and wrinkled skin, that made me take notice that I had been smoking for over a decade.

Pursuing a masters degree in public health, I might seem like one of these ubiquitous Californians my age and younger, who have never touched tobacco and don’t have a caffeine or alcohol habit. But my grad program consisted of plenty of physicians (mostly international students) and health nuts like myself, who crusaded for the health of the population and yet smoked. And even I wasn’t a true non-smoker. Rather, I was what’s known as a “chipper,” someone who has a cigarette or two on a regular basis but isn’t a fully committed smoker. Any time I’d have a drink or hang out with friends who smoked, I would bum cigarettes.

A year or so into my studies I had to make a slideshow about lung cancer, and I included a number of historical anti-smoking PSAs and posters. I included posters of a solemn Brooke Shields equating smoking with death, images of the Grim Reaper, and all sorts of material that should have had me and my fellow wavering smokers scared straight. My presentation was preaching to the choir of other health professionals, certainly convincing no one. I was just trying to hit all of the high points as I explained out how big an addiction smoking cigarettes really is. But as I collected images for the Powerpoint slides, it was the pictures of yellow teeth and Skeletor-like enhanced photos of wrinkly smokers that got to me. My research work towards a doctorate stalled and stopped, but I remained a non-smoker. And thankfully, every year that passes makes smoking like acid-washed Guess jeans or some silly hairstyle that I tried on in high school — totally passé and not me anymore.

And now for another sad and funny story. You know what made me lose most of my “baby weight?” (Which was actually the freshman 15, plus another 15. Plus another 15.) I bought a new watch, my gift to myself for taking a good but demanding job about five years ago. The watch was a pretty, sporty European thing, and I had agonized about buying it. So I finally sprang for it, ordering it through the mail. When it arrived, I was horrified to find that it didn’t exactly fit my wrist. I knew that I could have segments added, but I would be damned it that was how I was going to wear my dream watch. So I started the multiyear process towards losing the weight. I’ve still got some pounds to go, but the watch fits and is actually loose.

If not for vanity, I don’t know how I would lose my vices.