Smile, Asshole, I'mma Make You Famous...
You know, here I was, tooling along on my fourth tobacco-free day. I've got a head fulla information here. Check this out, you know that the FDA is looking at possibly upping the amount of nicotene in cigarettes and the prices keep getting jacked up? I wonder if that's not another conspiracy to rake in a few dollars more off of some creature comforts.
I'm off here, back on track. Ok, so Saturday, I quit. You got all the earful of need-to-know there. Monday, the test. I smoke more at work than I do at home. In fact, my smoking is a nonsmoker's nightmare at work. Not just that but I'm friggin' militant there. New policy restricted us further and we face further restriction in 2009. Nice huh? Know why? The Louisiana Clean Air Act. No shit, folks. Now, as I pass those petrochemical plants belching more and more of their industrial exhaust in the air that can give me all manner of illnesses, I can take great comfort in knowing my lungs probably won't get cancer. Oh fuckin joy! The Safety Nazis have marched on yet again. Congratulations you fuckers. Suck it up, that's right, fuckin go for it! Pack us into smaller and smaller places. Anyway, back onto the subject matter at hand. Ok so Monday comes and goes and you know what? One urge. Just one. Lasted about maybe a second. The rest of the night came and went with me starting a horror story in longhand on a notepad. Ah, those precious notepads! I'm forever leaving quotes from different philosophers, artists, musicians, comedians, me, or wherever a profound statement pops up in my head that fits my mood. Most of the inmates avoid me when I leave quotes from Marilyn Manson, Friedrich Nietzsche or Bill Hicks. They know I'm in a pretty nihilistic mood then and they know that I'm like a machine out of an Orwell novel then. Why? Boredom! What the hell else am I going to do? I'm going to get nosy as all shit. I lack inspiration in that time, I'm bored to tears and not a goddamn one of them wants to be my sparring partner. Victim of my own success, I've made them all believe that I'm not quite all there. Happens when you sit at a desk, singing "Fish Don't Stink" in Howie Mandel's Bobby voice or you take a look at the biggest one, point at him in all of your blazing fury and say through gritted teeth, "Falco rules...got that?"
It's hard to imitate a civilized "human" in a madhouse.
So that's the extent of my Monday night leading into Tuesday morning. I'd ripped savagely into the TV room, searching it. Same with the bathroom. I don't know what the hell I hoped I'd find but I passed an hour doing it.
Tuesday night started pretty much like any other except I ended up going on an emergency hospital trip. Normally, I switch out with my partner on taking smoke breaks. It's times like that that I wish I still smoked. I had no clue how boring a hospital trip in the ER was until that one. I had a couple urges hit me. Nothing gum couldn't handle. Yeah, that patch was working nicely. Not bad for getting them at WalMart. Normally, I'm spending over $60 in smokes every couple of weeks, give or take. A two-week supply, however, only costs a little over $40 for the name brand shit. The trip was over in a few hours and it got me out of the dorm. By 3:30am, I arrive on the compound again. I was quite relieved after being cramped in the back of that van. No lie, that's tight quarters back there. I'm glad I'm not a claustrophobe or that trip would have been pure hell on earth for me. Problem, I still haven't eaten and I'm ready to take to the air to drop in on someone. I could have eaten the population of this town as an appetizer and my plan on really fucking with the denizens of that dorm I'd been working by bringing my favorite spicy wings had been foiled. Hey, they've been getting unruly in there and I don't become an overt tyrant. I have other methods. If I have to suffer headaches, they get to suffer with me. I'm a fair kinda guy, yanno. Anyway, the shit starts stacking up immediately. Mail that hadn't been rerouted had been handed off to me and it was a huge stack. Some of it, hadn't even been run up against the roster in the computer yet. Goddamn.
I had to relieve the Lieutenant, get this mail straight, fend off a phone that wouldn't quit ringing, ensure a trip had all arrangements ready and somehow manage to eat something in the meantime...all within the span of an hour. Imagine my stress level suddenly skyrocketing like a nuclear missile shot straight from Hell on a collision course for Heaven and not even Strategic Defense Initiative gets sufficient warning to kill it. It all happened so fast, I heard my willpower scream, "FUCK IT! ABANDON SHIP!"
I thought that my saving grace was that no one on Unit 1 smoked....wrong. I found one and caved. Yep, five full days after quitting, I bummed one and tore the patch off, a voice in my head screamed, "Keep Honking, Asshole, I'm Reloading, Goddammit!"
Now, the cigarette finished, I'm calm again. Now, I feel like I've just tried to keep a rising sea level from drowning New Orleans, thereby turning it into the next Atlantis. I'm worn slap out and, at that point, I could give a shit about anything but going home, looking at midget porn, jerking off, and falling asleep to Star Wars Episode VI: Return of The Jedi. Oh yeah, I'm having a great fuckin' day and Jenna Jameson's menthol vagina never tasted so good. Then, that numbshit realization sank in. I caved. Aw Fuck...I caved. I buckled under the pressure.
I'm pissed off again. I officially hate myself. I am Damien's Raging Bile Duct.
I go the rest of the night without a word to anyone that isn't necessary. If I don't have to talk, I just don't. My jokes are flat at best and thankfully, through my flat affect, they still manage a laugh.
First person I called was Misty after I got off of work.
"I fucked up," I told her. She's been trying to quit too but she's having a harder time at it than I am.
"Oh no, what happened?" she asked.
Now, as I'm recalling the events that have unfolded I hear that dumbfuck, "Oh how the mighty have fallen" quote from one of those Mr. Behold-I-Stand-At-The-Door-And-Knock Ministers that goes on for days. And that is exactly how I felt...fallen. Feels like those intense nightmares I have like something out of Nietzsche's quote:
"Do you know the terror of he who sleeps? To the very toes he is terrified for the ground gives way beneath him and the dream begins."
Of course that's always followed by Freddy Krueger's "Welcome to prime time, bitch!" quote if you're a Nightmare on Elm Street fan such as I.
So I feel like I'd flown too high, my wings melted and, like Icarus, I plummeted to a demise that was my own and impacted the ground...hard. Then, it gets worse, I realize that the events weren't quite as bad then. I could have overcome that. I could have done better but that addict personality within me spoke and took the form of Pusher in my head saying, "Hey, D, come on...everyone will understand. I understand. The world will understand. Hey, you're stressed out right? You think those morons can work with you but they want to pass the buck. Go on, have one, you can quit tomorrow. I mean, it is just one after all? What harm can it do?"
Pusher's a low motherfucker.
That's when I get home. Now you'd think that by the time I'd gotten home, everything would cool out and I'd be a little better right? I'm beat, I'm tired and I'm ready to vomit at the thought of what I'd just done. That's when I find out I've got three new blog comments on MySpace from people telling me how proud they are and congrats this and hang in there that...ohhh.
That's when I hear Garbage's lead vocalist Shirley Manson sing, "Let me tell ya about my new obsession...I'm ridin' high upon a deep depression...I'm only happy when it rains."
I vented my frustrations on a few deserving morons on message boards. Not because it really meant anything toward my defense but now, I just wanted someone to abuse and since I really don't like these assholes, I found perfect Fuck You Cannon targets. I soon retired to my couch and, true to form...I fell asleep watching Return of The Jedi.
I awoke at 3pm. I just wanted to die. My disappointment in myself was heavy. I did the only thing I knew to do. Pack the bag, it's gym time.
I ran for about 6 minutes on the treadmill, hit the elliptical for another 6 and then put myself through a torturous series of weights that I haven't done in so long. Back about a year or two ago, lifing of that nature would have been pretty easy but now, they burned like mad. I was too furious at myself to really give a damn about anything else. I heard that overbearing intangible parent figure in my head saying, "Well if you hadn't started smoking and started doing this a little more regularly, you wouldn't have this problem, would you?"
Now keep in mind that I've thrown everything out. Lighters...even my zippos, boxes, coupons for more smokes and even all but two ashtrays (one for sentimental value and one for my change)...anything and everything that is a constant reminder, I've thrown out. I don't have a need or a want for them. They had to go. The whole routine has changed. And I still have that goddamned voice in my skull berating me. No thanks, I do a good enough job of abusing myself.
Anyway, after I'm just finally too pooped to do any more lifting, it's go back to the locker room, ditch the shoes and hit the dojo. B.O.B. got the crap kicked out of him again. I took another run through my Accelerated Battlefield Combatives DVDs learning how to fall properly and how to take out an opponent while being the one on the ground. Pretty gnarly shit. The heavy bag took abuse of a bareknuckled variety but that damned facefirst fall of mine needs work. I practically beat the hell out of myself doing that shit. Didn't know it until I hit the shower, slapped the new patch on, changed and came home. I felt a little better...but I know I'll wish I were dead in the morning. I'll probably feel every nerve ending scream in lactic acid protest at the thought of movement.
It's like punching a brick wall or a garbage can. You know it's going to hurt but you have to do it or you'll go insane. I'm still in a bit of a funk about it but not as much as what I was. Chances are, I'll wake up tomorrow about 20 pounds in muscle heavier but what a price to pay, no?
There really isn't a happy ending to this. There's not even really an ending.
The Legacy Continues...
