Smoldering and so forth

I was working on a piece about the influential people in my life when I ran across this bit I wrote about my old A.P. English teacher, Joyce Nelson.

"When we were reading The Great Gatsby she made the surprising announcement in class that 'men like women who smolder.'"

Reading that sentence threw me straight back into my senior year in high school and how I started wondering if I were a smolder-er.  And also what smoldering looked like.  And if I weren't a natural born smolder-er if I could take smoldering lessons from a certified instructor.  I recall looking in the mirror and trying to smolder.

But bursting out in laughter instead.