Ashtrays

 The most useful thing I got from a hookup was a pair of Ralph Lauren socks. They’re the perfect pair of socks. White, so they go with the multitude of sneakers that I have. They’re soft since they’re well worn. I got the socks in a trade. He walked home from an after hours in the rain and needed a fresh pair for the train ride back to Jersey. He was terrible in bed, very selfish, so I figured there’s no sense sending him home with a perfectly good pair of socks he doesn’t want anymore. I’ll take them, because when you’re hooking up with strangers at 25 I’ll take what I can get.

Of course I’ve gotten more interesting things from boyfriends than socks, because there’s more intimacy there, but not by much. I got a weighted blanket I use every night that’s in that terrible mental illness gray color all weighted blankets seem to have. It isn’t cute or sexy, but neither is having night sweats. The weighted blanket is cooling, so that eliminates one problem of mine. I got a massage gun. Great for my scoliosis ridden back. I got to take care of a pair of cats for a while since my boyfriend was in a sober living house at the time. I got a cat feeder out of that. I got a vacuum, too, but that was more for him than it was for me because he didn’t like the vacuum I already had. I’m into the practicality of these men. I myself am more into aesthetically pleasing things when it comes to splurging on myself. My house is filled with small trinkets I just couldn’t pass up. It drives every boyfriend I’ve had insane. “Do you really need this absurdly large martini glass to hold your jewelry in?” “What’s with all the tea cups?” I collect things, obviously. Those things appeal to my artistic sensibilities. Dating men who aren’t artistic or creative is an insane thing to do! They see nothing poetic or philosophical in anything. They pay no mind to beauty. Oh well. There’s a reason they’re gone. I’ll be delighted if one day I bring a man over and he compliments my apartment instead of asking for some socks. 

With all my pretty things around the house the ones I’m most fond of are my ashtrays. 

I don’t smoke inside, but only because my building manager would evict me if I did. One of my neighbors smokes an insane amount of weed. My hallway constantly reeks of bud. It legit smells like they have an entire grow house going on down there! They’ve got some high quality shit. My super thought I was the one smoking, so she was always giving me a talking to and sending me emails saying this is a smoke free building and if I don’t cool it I’m gonna get the boot for violating my lease agreement. WTF! I don’t even smoke weed. It sends me into a state of psychosis. I start hearing voices telling me nasty things like I’d be better off dead. It’s really horrifying! But cigarettes are where it’s at for me, so now if I want a cigarette I don’t even smoke anywhere near my building. I wait until I’m in front of a Target by my work or something stupid like that. That way my clothes will only slightly smell like cigarettes by the time I get home. Despite this inability to enjoy an American Spirit on the comfort of my couch, I have ashtrays everywhere. I like their aesthetic. I read an article somewhere saying cigarettes are very hip these days with the younger set. Megsuperstarprincess (Instagram icon) says her favorite kind of parties are the ones where you can smoke inside. She smokes those Hestia cigarettes that only those in the know were smoking for a while so the brand could generate some hype, but I’m pretty sure you can get them online now. I also like smoking. I fucking love smoking, actually. I’ll smoke whenever! But not wherever. Not anymore at least. I’m a little more conscious than I used to be of those who don’t like smoking. 

I keep ashtrays around the house not because I need them, but because they remind me of times when I really should have been using an ashtray, but wasn’t. I used to smoke a lot of weed, like a fuck ton of weed, before the psychosis started. I was high from sunrise to whenever I went to sleep. My friend and I smoked all the time together. Weed was a constant. And we smoked t-bowls, which is weed mixed with tobacco. I also was smoking cigarettes, too, because of course I was. We were living in this shit apartment in Corvallis, Oregon, so we always smoked inside because no one cared. Well, maybe they did, but we didn’t care and that’s what mattered at the time. I was ashing my cigarettes all over the place. That entire apartment was an ashtray! We constantly burned candles and incense but I’m sure the place always smelled like a cigar bar and a dispensary. We really needed a fucking ashtray. So I have tons now more for the memory than anything else. 

I have an ashtray from the Hustler store in Vegas, which is attached to a strip club that I’ve always been too nervous to go into. It seems really big, so I might get lost, and I already know all those women are so fucking gorgeous I might faint if one of them even gave me a hug. I have another ashtray from a cute little store in Brooklyn that I wanted to work at but couldn’t get hired because I wasn’t up to date on my COVID vaccines. That ashtray has the high priestess tarot card on it. Super witchy vibes. Very much reminiscent of my upbringing when my mom would take my sister and I to full moon parties. I have a few ashtrays that I made using resin. I would also give those ones out as gifts because I was so obsessed with resin at the time I was making so many little things that I couldn’t fit them all around the house without looking like a deranged person. 

Smoking stuff and all the accoutrements that come with a proper smoking habit is kind of a vibe, as much as I hate to say, because I don’t wish a nicotine habit on anyone. But I need something to offset the dull “I suffer from severe depression” vibe given off by the weighted blanket. So colorful ashtrays from all over the place do the trick. 

Mostly, I like ashtrays because they remind me of things I could never do when I was dating someone. Most guys I’ve been with think cigarettes are super gross. They all said they’d never date someone who’s a smoker. So I vaped instead. Some things I’m just not ready to give up. And if I bought any more ashtrays they’d get on my ass about having too much useless shit. Have they ever stopped to consider maybe THEY’RE the useless shit? I love my socks and my blanket and my massage gun and all the other stuff I’ve gotten in exchange for being a super fun girl to be around, because it’s nice to be reminded of all the times I tried to love someone and all the times I’ve been loved, but I like my teacups, ashtrays, and my extra large martini glasses more. Because they’re mine. They remind me of who I really am. They remind me life is better with me in it. This is an important thing to be reminded of because of my tendency to lean towards suicidal ideation. I’ll never forget about the Ralph Lauren socks, though. It says something about someone when the most interesting thing they can give you is a fucking pair of wet socks.