'Non-Smoking Prohibited': My 2008 in review
I almost typed ‘2009’, such is the haste with which I desire to kiss this year goodbye. It’s been so monumental and confronting and horrible . . . I want to believe it’s just the ‘twenty’ thing and not a hideous taster for the years to come. As I turned twenty on Saturday, I’m now allowed to refer subjectively to this ‘twenty’ thing, though the thing generally has been year-long and observable in all known victims of this terrible age group.
Everybody smokes this year; everybody trained their newly adult fingers to roll a manageable rollie. Not me of course. I tried a romantic cigarette-sharing gesture on a hill at sunset with a smoker-boy I’ve tried to write out of the history books, and in what must have been a wrathful manifestation of God’s will, I wound up coughing the shit out of my lungs for an hour. It was unbelievably embarrassing. Especially because I’ve been making that same gesture (super rarely) since I was maybe twelve and I just never got the hang of it. More importantly still, I just can’t explain to people without hating myself when a joint comes around that hell, though I’d love to, I physically CAN’T SMOKE it; I just can’t damn well smoke it without risking an awful lungy display and the THC wastefully dematerialising.
And so it was that in 2008, all the attributes I used to naively overvalue in people seemed to became pretty irrelevant socially compared with the ability of a given individual to: withstand being outdoors in dodgy weather (because they’re smoking), strike up conversation with almost anyone (because everyone concerned is smoking), pick up almost anyone they want (because of their common interest in smoking), and generally veil their insecurities much more effectively than non-smokers because they can just stand outside in the dodgy weather in between chatter looking relatively stable, breathing in and out like that, as if it’s enough in life just to go breathing in plants.
Everybody went through break-ups in 2008. I went through two. It’s the worst shit ever. I don’t know how anyone goes through several. I don’t know how anyone deals with their incredibly corrosive effect on the soul. That’s scientific. I can feel it. I can feel my soul right now and it’s completely swimming in acid and it has these awful rusted edges that are melting into the acid gradually but perceptibly like polar ice caps into the oceans. A tarot card reader told me I feel ‘eroded’, which is bang-on. And no matter what great experiences I have from day to day, it’s there, and it causes reflux and, and, this curious tear duct problem! So doctor, doctor, I don’t want your cough medicine or your skin grafts, doctor, please! My heart is broken, and if you are a real doctor, if you are a witch(doctor), please can you just bring him back???
I miss my first and only love every day. I can’t move on from him. I don’t understand yet how to do that when I still believe in it. As in, I love him powerfully and I believe in my love for him. Not to would be like ceasing to believe in a God that you believe in instrinsically. But it is such a very finite business. I really don’t want to be twenty and tormented, but I don’t know how not to believe in it. I want to comparmentalise everything within me in such a way that love and longing and memories aren’t tied up with my everyday sense organs but that I’m able to access those things when I need then and can use them creatively. It’s not an option anymore to call and scream “I love you powerfully and believe in my love for you!!! rwooooooooooooarrr” Not again. Every time I do something similar I’m set back for months!! So I’m playing a very one-sided tactical game that involves many grace periods and handicrafts and miracle mascaras. It’s slow. It’s like chess against a bored baby pooing in his nappy and not taking much in. That baby is so fucking useless and bored but you so love it’s ruddy, shitty little body and the abyss behind its eyes.
I can’t go on writing this. Later I might explain more of the twenty thing.
Everybody smokes this year; everybody trained their newly adult fingers to roll a manageable rollie. Not me of course. I tried a romantic cigarette-sharing gesture on a hill at sunset with a smoker-boy I’ve tried to write out of the history books, and in what must have been a wrathful manifestation of God’s will, I wound up coughing the shit out of my lungs for an hour. It was unbelievably embarrassing. Especially because I’ve been making that same gesture (super rarely) since I was maybe twelve and I just never got the hang of it. More importantly still, I just can’t explain to people without hating myself when a joint comes around that hell, though I’d love to, I physically CAN’T SMOKE it; I just can’t damn well smoke it without risking an awful lungy display and the THC wastefully dematerialising.
And so it was that in 2008, all the attributes I used to naively overvalue in people seemed to became pretty irrelevant socially compared with the ability of a given individual to: withstand being outdoors in dodgy weather (because they’re smoking), strike up conversation with almost anyone (because everyone concerned is smoking), pick up almost anyone they want (because of their common interest in smoking), and generally veil their insecurities much more effectively than non-smokers because they can just stand outside in the dodgy weather in between chatter looking relatively stable, breathing in and out like that, as if it’s enough in life just to go breathing in plants.
Everybody went through break-ups in 2008. I went through two. It’s the worst shit ever. I don’t know how anyone goes through several. I don’t know how anyone deals with their incredibly corrosive effect on the soul. That’s scientific. I can feel it. I can feel my soul right now and it’s completely swimming in acid and it has these awful rusted edges that are melting into the acid gradually but perceptibly like polar ice caps into the oceans. A tarot card reader told me I feel ‘eroded’, which is bang-on. And no matter what great experiences I have from day to day, it’s there, and it causes reflux and, and, this curious tear duct problem! So doctor, doctor, I don’t want your cough medicine or your skin grafts, doctor, please! My heart is broken, and if you are a real doctor, if you are a witch(doctor), please can you just bring him back???
I miss my first and only love every day. I can’t move on from him. I don’t understand yet how to do that when I still believe in it. As in, I love him powerfully and I believe in my love for him. Not to would be like ceasing to believe in a God that you believe in instrinsically. But it is such a very finite business. I really don’t want to be twenty and tormented, but I don’t know how not to believe in it. I want to comparmentalise everything within me in such a way that love and longing and memories aren’t tied up with my everyday sense organs but that I’m able to access those things when I need then and can use them creatively. It’s not an option anymore to call and scream “I love you powerfully and believe in my love for you!!! rwooooooooooooarrr” Not again. Every time I do something similar I’m set back for months!! So I’m playing a very one-sided tactical game that involves many grace periods and handicrafts and miracle mascaras. It’s slow. It’s like chess against a bored baby pooing in his nappy and not taking much in. That baby is so fucking useless and bored but you so love it’s ruddy, shitty little body and the abyss behind its eyes.
I can’t go on writing this. Later I might explain more of the twenty thing.