Barely a Metric for Pressure

The good news is that I’m happy to report that I’ve managed to make the Davidoff Magnum cigarettes I got in Dubai last for almost 10 days. Ignore the fact that I’m still smoking way too much these days, and that I had to intersperse one of the most pristine cigarettes manufactured with crap Swedish Marlboros, likely manufactured in Korea. Davidoff Magnums are heavenly. I dare say, even better than Camel Wides. So I swing, sometimes within the hour from some of the best tobacco one can smoke to some of the worst.

And that is the general mood too. Around February, spring was knocking on the door, we got our first extension and a few big projects were rolling around and I was transitioning into my current role. Then it was July...all of the sudden it seems. The current role has the ups and downs I was warned, and prepared for. I can normally handle such well, with my stoic and annoying abstraction of everything. But now I’m seeing it reflected in my mood day to day.

My usual barometer for my mood is the music I’m listening to. Back in February, I got the Stone Jack Jones album "Bluefolk,” but as good as it was, its bluesy, Armageddon drenched, Appalachian flavored country wasn’t what the jet streams were calling for. Now they are. But my stoicism is still there.

Today at the dinner table while talking about what the lot of the world is talking about, and how it may affect us here, we had trouble recalling the last time there was an incident in Kabul. (For Kabul, it’s been nearly two weeks, though the South, by some measures is getting better (less total killing/fighting reported), and others, getting worse (Taliban took over two small towns).) I’m not sure if that is stoicism, on the part of all four of us sitting at the table, or just simple desensitization, on the part of all four of us sitting at the table. Either way, we quickly started talking about how the chicken that night was particularly good.

So back to the barometer, as the other end of it is that the summer crop of songs is coming out. It looks like it will be a good season. So when I get tired of the foreboding (with odd tinges of hope though...go check out ‘Vivid’) Stone Jack Jones, I’m all about Lily Allen and her new single “Smile.” Via p-fork, I found out about it a few weeks ago. And they put up a full album review, which paints a good picture. Sadly, iTunes only has the above-mentioned single's EP.

So I’m down to only one more pack of Magnums, and I’m probably wearing out 'Smile' and 'Vivid'. Maybe whats going on proximately and distantly will settle down too. Though there seems to be no causation between my smoking habits, the music I listen too and/or life outside Kabul, there may be a correlation.

I’ll have to keep an eye on those barometers.