A virtual toast to Barbara Holland

Barbara Holland, a writer who extolled the pleasures of drinking, smoking, cursing and other bad behavior, died September 7.

I'll have to admit that I haven't read any of her books, and in fact had not heard of her until seeing her obit in the New York Times, yesterday. In reading about her and her work though, that will most definitely change - she was my kind of woman.

There is one book, in particular, that is now on my must read list: They Went Whistling-Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades. In it, she writes about women in history who carved out their own niche through the toughest of times - from those we all know about like Joan of Arc and Mother Jones to lesser known bad-asses like explorer Mary Kingsley, and Grace O'Malley, pirate extrordinaire.

Ms Holland was best known for shunning the healthy lifestyle that many of us embrace (or try to embrace) today, and writing about the virtues of drinking Scotch, smoking cigarettes, and worrying more about having fun rather than having a good cholesterol count. In this Washington Post article, she says that although it might be good to want to be healthy, "I was getting sick and tired of being lectured by dear friends with their little bottles of water and their regular visits to the gym. All of a sudden, we've got this voluntary prohibition that has to do with health and fitness. I'm not really in favor of health and fitness." Thus, she wrote The Joy of Drinking.

Although heavy drinking and smoking might be bad ideas, there is something glamorous and fun in other people doing it a'la F. Scott Fitzgerald's characters, or Mad Men. Barbara Holland celebrated a way of life that is largely gone, for better or worse. There are still some places where cocktails, smokey rooms and profanity-laced-yet-gentile conversation take place, but as Ms Holland said, they're being replaced with "broccoli, exercise and Starbucks."

Here is a toast to her - may she be floating on a lily-fucking-white cloud with a nice gin martini and the finest tobacco heaven can offer.