Smoke and Choke

My current classmates actually don't know this, but I am a virgin. Shocked much?

I turn 19 in less than a month and out of all my close friends from high school, I am the only one who has not engaged in sexual contact in any shape or form. Am I nun; of course not. That’s just pure ignorance speaking. I have morals, and I don’t want to make mistakes I will regret. I am not ready and don’t feel the need to be in a relationship with someone who is a ‘sex fiend’. That’s another thing I am staying away from, becoming a “sex demon”, as Jon Heder would mention it.

When the subject of AIDS was brought up in class today, it did not occur to me to ask my friends if they ever thought about getting tested. One of my guy friends has had numerous sexual partners, but he seems so confident and sure of himself that he is ‘clean’.

It’s the same with cigarettes and drugs; I am a virgin. I never lit up a cigarette or ‘smokes a spliff’ as people would call it today. There are a couple of reasons why I chose not to smoke, my health and a personal family-related matter.

Not only is it a dirty habit, but I lost my great-grandfather (not my grandfather, my GREAT-grandfather) because of tobacco. He had a tumor in his lungs, and rather than follow through with an operation procedure my mother kept begging him to do, he asked her to let him be and move on. I cried a lot that month, and I think this is as close of an emotion I can get to Mark Lipton’s feelings on how he lost two of his partners to aids. My deepest condolences to you Mark, I’m sorry you had to live through a traumatic experience in a day where AIDS was not as controlled as it is today.

Blades of Glory. Dir. Josh Gordon and Will Speck. Perf. Will Ferrell, Jon Heder. DVD. Paramount, 2007.