Dead In a Year (Fuck You Magi)
I quit smoking today.
I started the winding down yesterday, after Jennifer got back from Japan, with a payload of Paipo, the little flavored pipe the Japanese had invented to help pregnant women stop smoking. I discovered Paipo at the tail end of my first real Trip to the Ash Ra Tempel, dangling out of MZA's mouth as we stumbled down Constitution Avenue after seeing "Pulse! A Stomp Odyssey" on Imax, eating mindfucking magic mushrooms the whole time.
Apparently, as fad-crazy as Japan is, Paipo had quickly fallen out of favor, and now only a few convenience stores carried it. But every time I wanted to grab a cigarette, I just affixed the image of Mario, with the Paipo dangling out of his lips, and drew on mine, and I was okay, and the urge passed.
We went to CVS last night, the ghetto CVS, the one where I felt compelled to remove my headband that said "I Passed The Exam!" in Japanese, to buy nicotine patches. I spent the last forty bucks in my bank account on Habit-Controlling patches.
I put in the CD that came with the patches and within four minutes of hearing the soothing, droning voice talking about EVERY SINGLE SMOKING TRIGGER I HAVE wanted to have a cigarette possibly more than anything in life or death. I quickly realized that avoidance would be key.
But.
This morning, in the middle of our newly clean floor, I saw a cigarette, a full cigarette. Split at the end, to be sure, probably stale as could possibly be, but intact, and smokeable.
I resisted the urge to smoke it immediately. I knew that part of what's hard is pushing off that first cig of the day. But I also knew that I had to protect this treasure, this little last gift of smokeable nicotine, for the end of my first day without cigarettes, just to, you know, be okay. Not that it'd shake my conviction to quit, but god, it was just there, in the middle of the clean floor, waiting for me. So I placed it just out of sight, just out of reach, on the table where all my CD's now stood in roughshod piles.
Jennifer and I bickered about practically everything, and maybe have been since she got home from Japan. I dunno. I didn't get to go. I didn't really want to hear about it, I dunno why. Because I wasn't there. And it sucked and was boring here. And the dogs were stressed out.
When we got home, I decided that I wanted to enjoy that one last cigarette. I'd actually been okay, even walking past my workmates smoking, or the Korean dude from the computer store next door, but I was really looking forward to my shabby little tobacco charge, my little Camel, the last one.
I was wearing a mask that Jennifer had bought me in Japan, pretending I was a costumed crusader in a Daniel Clowes comic. I looked fucking ridiculous, and contemplated never removing it until I'd been defeated.
I went to the table, and couldn't find it. I saw Jennifer's little bento boxes on the table, where I'd cleared room to eat, and started asking her where it was. Yelling at her, more like, because she was tired and jet-lagged and asleep. And where was my motherfucking cigarette.
"I only smoked my cigarette!" she yelled at me.
"I know it's gotta be around here somewhere, motherfucker," I yelled.
"Why don't you just go buy a pack of cigarettes?"
"I DON'T WANT A PACK OF CIGARETTES. I JUST WANTED THAT LAST FUCKING ONE. JUST ONE," I screamed. "IT'S GOTTA BE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE!"
And I started throwing the enormous piles of CD's off the table, onto the floor. I no longer gave a fuck if I found it or not. It was gone and there wasn't even a light on in the room. I just threw piles and piles and piles of shit to the floor, shit I hadn't even seen in years, that had been in the back of that table. Just throwing a giant, motherfucking, shitfit.
The floor was covered, knee-deep, in CD's. Miso spilled all over my "God and Hair: The Yahowa 13 Box Set" that is apparently precious to other people. It looked like fucking vomit.
Jennifer grabbed her computer and left the house before I even knew she was gone.
I contemplated smoking a butt from the ashtray, but headed to the door to see if she maybe hadn't left. Her car was gone.
I looked down and saw a package had arrived for me. A Rorschach shirt, my favorite, from Watchmen, the one I always wanted, the crazed black-or-white authoritarian, Rorschach.
The rain pissed down, waves and waves of it. Reuben and Meiko watched me, freaked out and stressed out and trying to act cute to try and somehow appease me.
I sat down on the bed, and Reuben curled around me, put his head in my lap, like a luck dragon.He looked up at me to make sure I was okay.
I opened the box, and pulled out two bags.
In one was my Rorschach shirt.
In the other, for no reason I could discern, one of those inflatable pillows you wear around your neck on plane flights, and... two Cuban Montecristos.
"What the fuck," I muttered.
I ran to the kitchen, dug around in the drawer, pulled out matches, lit this gigantic tree of a cigar, and inhaled, and inhaled, and inhaled, til I wanted to fucking throw up, til I was coughing to the point of syncope with every inhale, coughing til I saw tiny glowing aphids swarming in front of my eyes. It was possibly the best cigar I'd ever had in my entire life. I wondered, idly, if this was how Cuban cigars got their reputation as the best.
And I smoked, and I smoked, on the porch, and waited for Jen to come home, and I smoked some more, and the rain pissed down, like the forty days and forty nights, rain so thick it looked fake, and I smoked, and it thundered, and I smoked, and I coughed, and I smoked, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited.
I started the winding down yesterday, after Jennifer got back from Japan, with a payload of Paipo, the little flavored pipe the Japanese had invented to help pregnant women stop smoking. I discovered Paipo at the tail end of my first real Trip to the Ash Ra Tempel, dangling out of MZA's mouth as we stumbled down Constitution Avenue after seeing "Pulse! A Stomp Odyssey" on Imax, eating mindfucking magic mushrooms the whole time.
Apparently, as fad-crazy as Japan is, Paipo had quickly fallen out of favor, and now only a few convenience stores carried it. But every time I wanted to grab a cigarette, I just affixed the image of Mario, with the Paipo dangling out of his lips, and drew on mine, and I was okay, and the urge passed.
We went to CVS last night, the ghetto CVS, the one where I felt compelled to remove my headband that said "I Passed The Exam!" in Japanese, to buy nicotine patches. I spent the last forty bucks in my bank account on Habit-Controlling patches.
I put in the CD that came with the patches and within four minutes of hearing the soothing, droning voice talking about EVERY SINGLE SMOKING TRIGGER I HAVE wanted to have a cigarette possibly more than anything in life or death. I quickly realized that avoidance would be key.
But.
This morning, in the middle of our newly clean floor, I saw a cigarette, a full cigarette. Split at the end, to be sure, probably stale as could possibly be, but intact, and smokeable.
I resisted the urge to smoke it immediately. I knew that part of what's hard is pushing off that first cig of the day. But I also knew that I had to protect this treasure, this little last gift of smokeable nicotine, for the end of my first day without cigarettes, just to, you know, be okay. Not that it'd shake my conviction to quit, but god, it was just there, in the middle of the clean floor, waiting for me. So I placed it just out of sight, just out of reach, on the table where all my CD's now stood in roughshod piles.
Jennifer and I bickered about practically everything, and maybe have been since she got home from Japan. I dunno. I didn't get to go. I didn't really want to hear about it, I dunno why. Because I wasn't there. And it sucked and was boring here. And the dogs were stressed out.
When we got home, I decided that I wanted to enjoy that one last cigarette. I'd actually been okay, even walking past my workmates smoking, or the Korean dude from the computer store next door, but I was really looking forward to my shabby little tobacco charge, my little Camel, the last one.
I was wearing a mask that Jennifer had bought me in Japan, pretending I was a costumed crusader in a Daniel Clowes comic. I looked fucking ridiculous, and contemplated never removing it until I'd been defeated.
I went to the table, and couldn't find it. I saw Jennifer's little bento boxes on the table, where I'd cleared room to eat, and started asking her where it was. Yelling at her, more like, because she was tired and jet-lagged and asleep. And where was my motherfucking cigarette.
"I only smoked my cigarette!" she yelled at me.
"I know it's gotta be around here somewhere, motherfucker," I yelled.
"Why don't you just go buy a pack of cigarettes?"
"I DON'T WANT A PACK OF CIGARETTES. I JUST WANTED THAT LAST FUCKING ONE. JUST ONE," I screamed. "IT'S GOTTA BE AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE!"
And I started throwing the enormous piles of CD's off the table, onto the floor. I no longer gave a fuck if I found it or not. It was gone and there wasn't even a light on in the room. I just threw piles and piles and piles of shit to the floor, shit I hadn't even seen in years, that had been in the back of that table. Just throwing a giant, motherfucking, shitfit.
The floor was covered, knee-deep, in CD's. Miso spilled all over my "God and Hair: The Yahowa 13 Box Set" that is apparently precious to other people. It looked like fucking vomit.
Jennifer grabbed her computer and left the house before I even knew she was gone.
I contemplated smoking a butt from the ashtray, but headed to the door to see if she maybe hadn't left. Her car was gone.
I looked down and saw a package had arrived for me. A Rorschach shirt, my favorite, from Watchmen, the one I always wanted, the crazed black-or-white authoritarian, Rorschach.
The rain pissed down, waves and waves of it. Reuben and Meiko watched me, freaked out and stressed out and trying to act cute to try and somehow appease me.
I sat down on the bed, and Reuben curled around me, put his head in my lap, like a luck dragon.He looked up at me to make sure I was okay.
I opened the box, and pulled out two bags.
In one was my Rorschach shirt.
In the other, for no reason I could discern, one of those inflatable pillows you wear around your neck on plane flights, and... two Cuban Montecristos.
"What the fuck," I muttered.
I ran to the kitchen, dug around in the drawer, pulled out matches, lit this gigantic tree of a cigar, and inhaled, and inhaled, and inhaled, til I wanted to fucking throw up, til I was coughing to the point of syncope with every inhale, coughing til I saw tiny glowing aphids swarming in front of my eyes. It was possibly the best cigar I'd ever had in my entire life. I wondered, idly, if this was how Cuban cigars got their reputation as the best.
And I smoked, and I smoked, on the porch, and waited for Jen to come home, and I smoked some more, and the rain pissed down, like the forty days and forty nights, rain so thick it looked fake, and I smoked, and it thundered, and I smoked, and I coughed, and I smoked, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited.