A disastrous rainy start to the day killed momentum on Day 2 of the 2019 Minnesota State Fair and it was a slow slog to sightings respectability as the afternoon progressed. Perhaps the tipping point of the day came in the mid-afternoon at the smoking area east of the grandstand where I came upon a pair of couples in which three of the four were smoking, but only one person in the group interested me, and from afar she seemed to be the only one without a cigarette. But as I got closer, the cute, long-haired mid-20s light brunette did have an unlit Camel Turkish Royal in her hand. I giddily waited with camera in hand hoping to nail a snapshot of her officially bringing it to life. My camera failed me on the light-up pic but I got plenty more quality shots before and after she fired up that really capture her electric IT factor, with her girl-next-door presence and an expressive face that really played to the camera.
The minor downsides were an unfortunate tattoo on her forearm and her outfit, a black T-shirt and black jeans that aren’t nearly as goth as they sound and which she largely pulled off, but which suppressed some of her feminine energy. I lamented the alternative scenario of a hotter day where she was decked out in sexy summer attire more worthy of her. Still, the main event of this sighting or any sighting was the smoking, and I was curious how she’d deliver on that….and she knocked it out of the park. Her drags were very intense, the cigarette puckering into her lips and tilting upward at a 45-degree angle as she drew in the smoke for several seconds, seeming to melt into her drags before releasing a very high-volume exhale that I was continually fortunate enough to be downwind from. She was really living up to the build-up and I got a few great dragging pics…..
Some bratty teenage girl walked by the smokers’ area and seemed to have her eyes locked on my light brunette dressed in black as she loudly muttered to her parents, “Look at all these people killing themselves!” In the case of my light brunette, it was hard to dispute as the way she was dragging from these cigarettes she’d be incurring some serious lung damage at some point. Having a satisfactory haul of pics and sensing her group may have been on to me, I put the camera away and enjoyed the show, her intense drags and messy follow-up exhales repeatedly impressing and repeatedly drifting into my airspace. I watched her smoke till the cigarette’s completion when she walked over to one of the community ashtrays to dispose of her Camel Turkish Royal butt. Even though great sightings were not coming by easily that day, I was lucky in that I got repeat performances from some of the girls with most IT factor, and this girl was a case in point as I definitely hadn’t seen the last of her.
A few hours later, it was going up to 7 p.m. and I was slinking my way toward the information booth area for the ritual meeting with my parents for cookies and brief conversation. Thankfully, along the way, I passed the berm area east of the grandstand and saw a familiar face. The mid-20s brunette who was one of the more impressive finds of the day was back as part of the same duo of couples I’d seen about an hour and a half earlier, and she had another freshly lit cigarette in hand. This would be a high-risk trek as I ventured to the open spot on the berm near her and her group, and an air of familiarity spread across her face as if she remembered me scoping her out from the previous sighting. I nonetheless took my seat and admired her profile in the matching black T-shirt and jeans, her expressive face matching her intense smoking style. I was lucky that she was a little distracted by her phone as it allowed me to sneak a few holding shots sitting there next to her, but I wanted to nail another pic of her indulgent-to-the-point-of-obscenity drags. I could almost feel one of the guys in her group watching me as I readied my phone for the shot, but I nonetheless pulled the trigger and nailed her in two shots wrapping her lips around that Camel Turkish Royal filter as it went vertical at a 45-degree angle in her mouth, easily my best two shots of the day. Looking at them the next day, the guy I feared was eyeballing me as I took the shots really was, and it’s pretty impressive I got out of there without a confrontation, but I didn’t even get out of there immediately….
I slinked the phone into my jeans pocket and kept sitting there, watching her impressive show out of the corner of my eye. And not only was she giving me a feast for my eyes, she was very kind to my nose as well, as virtually all of her extremely generous exhales blew directly into my face just as they had when I saw her smoking the first time. Part of this smoke assault came as a result of the very high volume of smoke that always seemed to spill out of her lungs, but I also wondered if maybe she was directing the smoke toward me knowing I was there watching the show. I stuck around till the end, watching and smelling every drag, but she unfortunately crushed out the cigarette and was preparing it for the nearest garbage can rather than crudely polluting it as I prefer. It was time for me to mosey on out of there and I could feel her eyes follow me as I left. I knew I pushed my luck on this sighting, but the reward was that after two solid acts that were pretty close to farrow-to-finish, highlighted by her expressiveness and indulgent drags, she was my favorite sighting of the day. And you know, she might not be done just yet…..
More than an hour later just after 8 p.m., I decided to make my evening trip through the midway. The previous weekend I had my best journey down the Minnesota State Fair midway in many years, possibly ever. I wasn’t particularly optimistic of a repeat performance as I embarked down the same path the second weekend. And while I didn’t get any new sightings of impressive girls, I did manage a final encore of the day’s top girl. I was at the port-a-johns on the far western side of the midway where I knew there was a designated smoking area. There was but one smoker standing there, but it was the right smoker…the same mid-20s brunette in the matching black T-shirt and pants who’d given me such electric and odorous sightings twice before. This time she appeared to be waiting for the rest of her group to come out of the bathroom. Since I was pretty sure she was on to me earlier in the night, I only walked past her once and then hovered from a distance to watch her show. And I got to see a fair amount, her latest Camel Turkish Royal glowing bright in the evening sky as she dragged from it, continuing to produce ample smoke on her exhales and looking pretty as ever smoking by herself without her friends there. She took a final drag and stood up, and I knew right away she’d be disposing of the butt as she had with her previous two cigarettes, but the way she got rid of this one was colorful. The back of the midway must be one of the lowest-elevated parts of the fairgrounds as it was the only place that still had standing water from the rain earlier. My brunette proceeded to bend down and extinguish her cigarette in the puddle of standing rainwater before continuing toward the community ashtray to formally be done with it.
I walked away with a smile after seeing this, not wanting to further push my luck being spotted by her friends group for whom I was already a little too familiar. But damn if I didn’t have the timing right with this girl, seeing her smoke three different times at three different smoking areas. I still wish I could have seen her on a nicer day where she’d have likely dressed in something sexier than this black T-shirt and jeans combo, but even after the second sighting I figured there was a good chance she’d be the top sighting of the day. After this third sighting, she pretty much assured it.
Mark's Smoke Blog 