God I hate nicotine. I wish I understood things: then I could probably make this easier on myself. I'm not going 'cold-turkey' for two reasons. The first is that I hate the phrase 'cold-turkey' because I don't understand where it came from, or what meaning it has. The second is that I would probably end up killing someone; either myself or everyone else in the world. Self-preservation being tantamount to giving up it would seem counterproductive to kill myself, and general enjoyment of some people's company prohibits the mass-slaughter of everyone I know. So that's the end of any possibility of 'cold-turkey'. I'm trying that obscene cut-down rubbish where you slice out a stick-of-fun each and every week. This week I am trying to smoke no more than 9 a day. So far today I have had two, and I have been up over five-hours. That seems fairly good to me so far. But it is the night-time that is so difficult, and I don't understand why. Why is the night so rubbish for everything? When you're ill the evening is always worse than the daytime, and when I'm trying to give things up I enjoy it's always more strenuous of the post-dusk. It's like that bloody annoying semi-cough you get pre-winter: you're fine during the day, but as soon as you slide into the horizontal you rupture and bits of lung come flying out through your teeth - to shatter peacefully against the wall. A beautiful interplay between respiration and death; superimposed against your wall in a mélange of blood and guts. Beige meets intestines. Delightful. Yeah, just like that. Instead of the whole picture of gore, it's an overwhelming and intolerable urge to roll the entire world's supply of tobacco into an A-9 sheet of paper and toke it until your chest gives way under the weight of the chemicals.
I'd love to pretend that my motives were pure, that I was doing this all for myself. Those of you who have some understanding of who I am, however, will have probably guessed that I am not in fact doing this solely for myself. No, I am doing it to make people like my second-dentist go take a running jump. Not that she can jump. She's fat. Conversation:
"Do you smoke?"
"Yes."
"You should give up."
"I know that."
"I used to smoke. It's great to be healthy. You're not doing yourself any favours."
"I used to be fat. It's great being thin: you're fat."
All true until the last line. That's what I wanted to say, because she is. Don't give me some high-and-mighty liturgy on the chronic debilitations of my lifestyle when your own reflects a three-year sojourn through a jelly-bean factory with a giant funnel. I will put down the 'cancer-stick' - which I will get onto - when you put down the fucking fork; you guffawing, wobbly bint. So that's one person whom I will benefit from irritating by being more smug than they are. The other is my mother. She tries her darnedest to be a shoulder to lean on and support, but by God she's rubbish at it. She's not hypocritical like my tooth-inspector, she's just terrible at presenting a false front. She just hates the fact I smoke so much she can't hide the sneer whenever she sees me, nor can she pass up an opportunity to say "good grief you stink". Which is nice. True. But not nice. I'm not sure if this is like Couvade syndrome gone wrong, or whether humans were just programmed to be selfish bastards. I should stop watching House. Instead of a sympathetic delivery, this comes across as some kind of heartless pranging of your effort-strings. Instead of a compassionate and contemporaneous progression, each and every time there is a moving along here it's coupled by some obscene vitriol paraded as concern. Don't dawdle around your point with thinly disguised platitudes: just come out and say "I fucking hate how shit you smell, why are you even alive?" That's basically what you mean by the stupid mock-interest that you show with the repeated use of that awful "you smell" sentence. Stop it. I know. I'm giving up. Tell me I smell better than I used to or something. Grr.
On 'cancer-stick'. Who are you? You pious mother-fucker. You absolutely abhorrent piece of lint. Yeah. You heard me. You're a piece of lint. How you going to deal with that? Oh, stick to clothes? Bitch. I don't like 'cancer-stick' as a phrase, or pronoun - because it's not meant as an adjective - and I don't like it because it's fundamentally pointless. I'm unsure as to the rationale behind people who use it, but I'm fairly sure that whoever they are they will fall into one of these incorrectly assumed categories:
1. People who are trying to be funny.
There's a reason that we say "trying", and it's because it implies that you're giving it a shot and failing woefully. It's not given the same allowances as 'trying to get pregnant', or 'trying to save your dog from a fire': those are all worthwhile things. Apart from saving the dog. And getting pregnant. It's not allowed those same excuses because it's arbitrary and pointless -- stop trying to amuse me by berating me. That doesn't work unless you're smarter than me, better than me, and funnier than me. Based on the fact you use the words 'cancer-stick' I can assume that you are none of the above. If you want to be funny, pick on something that no one else has bothered to do: laugh at my hair, or my chin, or something. Trying to be amusing by pointing out the fact that I smoke is like trying to get a laugh by pointing out that a car has four-wheels. Not funny. If a car has three wheels? Laugh riot. If I was smoking a party-popper? Funny. Smoking a cigarette isn't amusing, nor is it such a crime as to merit repeated haranguing by some self-inflated, self-appointed comedienne. Also, have you ever heard of things becoming boring? Yes. So have I. They're called banalities and you are the fucking champion of them. You should probably kill yourself now, to be honest. I know a lovely little 'jump-off-and-you-die' cliff near here. Try it out.
2. You think that guilt will make me stop.
Well then you've not had an education in meaning or perspective or ability to recognise importance of things. Admit it: you missed the entire semester of life-skills. It's fine: I'm sure you can rustle-up a delightful pot-roast. You seem to be missing the obvious problem with the 'guilt-trip' in that the amount of guilt caused by saying 'cancer-stick' is basically the same as when you pretend you are a lion and jump out at someone you live with. Basically none at all. If you felt the level of guilt that people seem to think you're going to feel, well you'd probably just sit down and rock yourself slowly into death. Or you'd just slit your wrists right there and then. Maybe I'll start carrying a flick-knife with me on the off-chance that someone induces such paroxysms of guilt that I am forced to slice open my own veins simply to escape the trauma. So yes, it doesn't cause me any guilt so that explanation is out. It also causes me less guilt than the fact I am smoking in the first place. Perhaps you should consider replacing the words 'cancer-stick', with the sentence "you are smoking". I think that is much more likely to work. Don't try to be funny about it, I've already demonstrated why that's a one-way ticket to stampy-face town. Actually, this isn't a bad idea at all; because all you're going to need to do for this to work is to appear at least a little bit vested in my attempt, a little bit sincere. That's all.
3. You genuinely think this is going to work.
There are two rather obvious issues with this: it's never going to work, and even if it did I wouldn't thank you for it. That's why I really don't get the use of it; there's no possibility of my thanking you, even if by some renting of the space-time continuum this impossibility becomes a reality and I actually give up because you've been saying that - you think I'd give you the self-satisfied pleasure of admitting that I gave up because of what you've been saying? That would be like ratifying your methods, or agreeing with how you behaved. Chances are that I'd be so enraged by your idiocy that I'd follow you around for weeks on end pointing out your health fuck-ups:
"Oops, crossed a road only looking left there. That's a death-walk."
"You know croissants are basically just butter. That's a coronary-chew."
"Your dog probably has parasites. That's a debilitating-companion."
"You know sex is a great way of contracting disease. I call that the AIDS-thrust."
How would you like that? If I just prowled around behind you with a loud-hailer, vociferously exclaiming to the world all of the health and safety transgressions that you permit your body to endure. Lucky for you I am too much of a decent human being to ever even contemplate doing something like that to a fellow person. You continue your nefarious undermining of my lifestyle, and eventually I will get so bored of you that I'll simply suspend our friendship until further notice. I like bureaucracy. I'd probably fill out a 'friendship annulment' form or something. That's a hard word to spell. Took me æons.
So yes. There are a few reasons that I am giving up, but the most important one I don't really think I'm ready to discuss. The idea is too close to unstable, and too soon from its birth. When it has matured to the point where I feel that it is safe to divulge it, I will do so: I could never keep something as juicy as this from you people forever. It's fairly obvious, actually, to anyone with a brain -- so feel free to try to figure it out and we'll see how you do.
I hope this has been better than my recent dirge, I've been struggling to come up with anything of any substance or length -- ha -- and this should rectify my failings on both counts. And tomorrow - if I remember - I want to discuss why I have decided to adopt my first child, not have it naturally.
--------------------------
Fuck it. I've got 40-minutes until I need to leave for my lecture, and I need to kill this time effectively so my mind doesn't wander to the above habit. Here I will talk about why I want to adopt. I'm not sure why I have such a lecturing tone when I am speaking about things I do/like/want -- it's like I'm giving a sermon or something stupid. I promise it's unintentional. Just like it turns out one of my friend's sister was. Ha. That was fucking hilarious. We can call this part of my lecture 'schadenfreude' - although it has nothing to do with what I'm about to say, it is a great word and it was really funny to laugh at what this person was telling me.
So yes, I've decided that even if I end up marrying a lady (try to figure my sexuality out now...) and wanting to have all-natural kiddywinks, I still want my first one to be adopted. I want it to be adopted from birth, because no one wants a weird half-child - I'm kidding - and I want to be whatever the hell it wants to be. Couldn't care less if it's Chinese, or black, or gay, or insane, or whatever the hell it wants to be. I don't want to go to the home and get the kids lining up like I'm choosing a quarterback or something grotesque and abject; no, I just want to go and see a child I fall in love with instantly and cradle it in my arms and make it all better even though someone has destined it to live without biological parents. Someone who knows me too well thinks that I'm doing this as proof that God doesn't exist. They seem to think that I'd have the commitment to raise a child from birth to adulthood simply to prove that there is no deity, and that even if there was I could do a better job than they could. I love that she thinks so much of my ego, but unless that's a horrendously narcissistic subconscious deciding what I should do with my life, I can assure you that, for once, my motives are pure. Ish. Puerile. Perhaps. Penguin. Sorry.
I think it's because I'm becoming one of those awful charity-types who seems to think that all of life can be fixed by token gestures that only make the individual feel better and don't actually affect anything. It's nice to labour under the delusion that effort produces results; but it's also nice to accept the reality that all selfless purity is driven by selfishness and ego-preservation. That's a nice undermining of humanity right there. I want an adoptive child - as well as having a naturally born one, when I'm crusty and decaying - because I think it's a good thing to do, and I see no reason why you wouldn't want to at least consider this. People say that "having children is the best thing you can do". Few things: no, doing the thing that makes the children is the best thing you can do; and if having children is the best thing you can do, surely adopting a child destined for deprivation is the bestbest thing you can do? I don't want to be better at doing things than you, but if I adopt then my kid is going to be better than yours. Doesn't matter if mine dribbles or shits itself hourly: it's adopted -- better. It's like a robot child. I'm so ahead of the curve. The curve doesn't even know who I am anymore. Poor curve. I need to wrap this up soon.
Yes, so I want to adopt because I think it's genuinely a decent thing to do. From everything that I've read, watched, seen, etc., it seems as though the parents develop love as strong as for a biological child - and thus I see no reason to not do something that's so inherently good and right. I know it's pathetic, emotional, and against pretty much everything I argue for (rationality) - but I don't care. Sometimes it's nice to bow to your emotions and do something just because it makes you, your partner, your soon-to-be-son (yeah, also with adoption you can choose the gender) feel good. That feeling must be unbelievable. Like a near-death experience I guess.
Birth and death: inextricably linked.
Ha. Can you imagine if I always ended things with awful inanities like that? That'd suck, right? That last bit was facetious, the rest was serious. I do want to adopt -- and I want anyone reading this to as well. As long as they'd be fit parents. No kids or drug-dealers or anything like that. But anyone who is contemplating children should consider adoption. Not because it's 'good', or because it 'helps', or that it's anything else: because it's right. I don't mind telling people what to do here because I think it's so awesome :). No more sermons, honest.
No comments:
Post a Comment