Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em

I am a smoker.

I don't really feel the need to apologize for this. In fact, I would like an apology from every person who has gone out of their way to let me know what an asshole I am for personally ruining all of the air. Especially the ones that, regardless of my attempts to contort out of their path, make an effort to walk as close to me as possible while fake coughing and sending hate bullets into my face with their eyes. 

Even so, being a smoker is not something I am necessarily thrilled about.

I fondly look back on the days when I claimed I was just a social smoker and it was true. That ship has sailed so far that I can't remember the last time I actually said that.

I find myself waffling about the whole to quit or not to quit thing. I want to quit. Obviously it isn't that easy. What I really want is to get in a time machine and never start smoking in the first place. Then my present self would have no idea of the euphoria she was missing out on. Science should work on making that happen.

I also don't want to become one of those evangelical Former Smokers. I see this bit of the world split into four major groups:

1. Non-Smokers
2. People Who Smoke and Feel Guilty
3. People Who Smoke and Truly Don't Give a Fuck
4. People Who Have Quit Smoking.  

I find that a lot of people in that last category believe that, because they have quit smoking, they are better than the poor chumps shelling out money to feed an addiction that, to many people, is more abhorrent than clubbing baby seals. They are so much better that, if they spit on us from their pedestals, their spittle of condescension would likely freeze in the atmosphere and kill us from the velocity accrued on the long, long journey down.
I don't want to become one of those people.

But I certainly fall into the People Who Smoke and Feel Guilty category. I don't think I'm cool because I smoke. I don't think it makes me edgy or sexy or whatever people think people who smoke think about themselves. I just feel bad about it and kind of embarrassed that I thought I was somehow immune to getting addicted. Most of my guilt is actually fear because I have a morbidly unhealthy relationship with the idea of mortality. I occasionally dip my toe in the Gotta Die of Something pool and run away screaming.

Obviously the best part of this film.

But there is some true guilt.

Some of the actual guilt is financial. Some family history. Some is just the recognition that what I am doing is pretty stupid. At the same time, I have been a smoker for almost four years now, and it feels almost like a piece of my identity. My irrational brain almost believes that if I quit smoking I will have no sense of humor and no friends. This is, hopefully, not true. My personality is not built on a platform of Marlboro Lights. I was who I am before I started. There is no reason I won't be the same me, only crankier, when I quit.


It is always scary to talk to people who have quit smoking and claim to miss it every second of every day of their lives. Lord knows I don't need that kind of nagging distraction. But those are the good people. The people who admit that they miss it. As the second most addictive chemical substance out there, I think anybody who claims to miss nothing about being a smoker is a liar and trying to make me feel bad about myself because I haven't had a cigarette in 20 minutes and I already miss it.

So I guess all I am trying to say is I'd like to quit smoking and I'd like to miss it.

Things I Believe Are True That Totally Aren't

I am a master excuses-maker. I can convince myself of nearly anything and then use it as a totally legitimate reason to do or not do things. This talent occasionally lets me flap my little wings in the face of obviously adverse circumstances. Like, when the world says stuff like, "Hey, kid, nobody ever gets to be a professional actor, and you have all this stuff working against you," my brain says stuff back like, "Hey world, I'm going to kick you in your teeth." 

It has worked in my favor at least once.

But more often than not, my penchant for excuses-making just hinders my productivity. For example, right now I am like, "I have this fairly mediocre idea about making excuses and if I don't write about it now I will probably forget that blogs or words like 'excuses' exist so, I'm just not going to take a shower even though I have to go to work in 40 minutes because this is VERY IMPORTANT."

See how that got away from me?

There are a couple of things that I know are not true but I have allowed to take root in my brain and serve as reasons why I can't be a functioning adult human.

1. My house has anti-clean magical powers.

Some people might say the house is never clean because we are lazy. We have a lot of animals running around. We moved in almost a year ago and never succeeded in fully unpacking. But sometimes we DO clean and it is really nice and smells good for about 45 minutes and then we leave for 8 minutes and it's like the cleaning process never happened. I'm not sure how or why this occurs, but I have to believe the house is possessed by something really evil and that no matter how hard we try to keep it clean it will just morph back into an episode of Hoarders while we aren't looking.

Conclusion: Never Clean Again.

2. If I never do laundry, my clothes will better fit in my room.

Piggy-backing on the theme set by #1, I have a really hard time making myself do laundry on a regular basis despite the fact that our apartment is so small that the washing machine is never more than 20 feet from where I'm standing. I rationalize this by telling myself that if all of my clothes were clean at the same time, I wouldn't be able to fit them in my room (which actually might be true). A normal person's solution would be to go through the clothes, wash them, and donate a large portion to Goodwill. Obviously I am not wearing them and they are not special to me if they have been sitting in a hamper, or on the guest bed, or on the bathroom floor for more than three months.

Instead, I stash laundry all over the house without an ounce of stealth or even logical planning.

Conclusion: I might be a terrible roommate.

3. Eating Taco Bell once a day, but nothing else, is the same as being on a diet. 

Somewhere in the recesses of my brain is an infomercial or a movie or a documentary where somebody puts a single M&M on a giant plate and places it next to a 6 course meal and says, "You can have this... or ALL OF THIS for the same amount of calories."


Is that a thing? Did I dream this infomercial? I don't think I did.

Is that wedge of lemon supposed to make foreground plate the winner?

Anyway, I am in no way a certified nutritionist, but I am also not a moron. I know how metabolisms work. I also know how bad Taco Bell is for you. But in my brain I can convince myself that surely a single meal at Taco Bell cannot equal the ideal daily caloric intake for an adult. Therefore, if I am consuming under the maximum daily calories, it is the same thing as being on a diet.

Conclusion: Taco Bell is the best and the worst thing man has created.

4. I can still function like I did in college. 

I graduated from college in 2009. During my college years I could drink a lot, not sleep for days, and live on a diet made up of two major food groups: fried stuff and cheese. Often together. I was footloose and fancy free and just a boatload of self-destructive fun.

I keep dancing on my own.

Aside from developing mentally and emotionally at an average and inevitable rate, I don't feel like I have changed much since college. My mind believes that my body can still tolerate that level of abuse.

Good morning, Starshine.

It can't.

I have come kind of close to accepting that I can no longer pull all-nighters. (There is a big gray area between accepting and simply blacking out after too many hours of not sleeping). The partying aspect is more difficult. I try so hard to rationalize the fact that it now takes me several days to fully recover from three glasses of wine, when I used to be able to drink half a bottle of tequila and cart-wheel to my morning classes the next day. Maybe it's because all I had to eat today was three tacos. Maybe it's because I only got 6 hours of sleep instead of the 8 I need to be functional. Maybe I was dehydrated from all that manual labor I did earlier (never).

Whatever the reason, the hangover I have today could not possibly, in any way have anything to do with the drinking I did yesterday. It also has nothing to do with the fact that college was five years ago and bodies do not function in their mid twenties the way they do in their late teens.

Conclusion: I am an old person.

5. Doing stuff I don't want to do is not acceptable. 

I used to have a problem getting guilt-tripped into doing an awful lot of stuff I didn't want to do. In recent years, I have over-overcome that problem by flat out refusing to do anything that I feel even slightly adverse to. I believe that if I don't want to do it, it is a waste of my time. Why should I go and potentially be miserable when I could be spending quality time doing nothing by myself at home?

I invent lots of reasons why doing things I don't want to do is a bad idea. I can invent hypothetical scenarios that could easily become HBO docudramas. Rather than just saying no to things and then letting it go, I have to rationalize why going would have been the worst possible decision for me. I work myself into an anxious, emotional frenzy - tears happen sometimes - thinking of all the ways things could go wrong and all the reasons staying home is a better option.

But really, it's probably because I didn't feel like putting on pants.

Usually, when I get dragged into doing what I don't want to do, I end up enjoying myself. Occasionally, I am so mad that I've been forced to leave my comfort zone, there is no chance of enjoying anything. And that's kind of sad.

Conclusion:

Everybody has to do stuff they don't want to do. It's part of life. There is a big difference between making a big decision going against what your gut tells you is right and trying something new and a little bit scary. If I keep making up all of these reasons why I can't do anything then nothing is ever going to happen - good or bad. If I keep justifying bad habits, they will become character. I don't want to be a character of bad habits who lives like Grey Gardens and never takes a risk. There's too much life out there and too much me-ness to keep in a box lidded with should have, could have, would have, but didn't...

And that's why excuses have got to get out of my closet. 

"You'll Meet Things That Scare You Right Out Of Your Pants"

Hey there blog-o-sphere. It has been years. You look great.

A lot has happened. Here's a quick catch up:

1. I graduated twice. Two master's degrees. But like, a year ago. Nailed it.
2. I worked as a for-real-real actor for 4 seconds (6 months) and it was the greatest.
3. ...that's about it.

School sure was a journey. I know the original intent of this blog was to chronicle said journey, but I kind of dropped the ball on that. But luckily, what is far more interesting than my whirlwind through academia and thusfar brief stint in the professional world of theatre, is the time I now spend with Roku, various kinds of cheese, and my feelings.

So, here we go. Take two. Life after school.

What the fuck do I do now?

Right now, I am working as a barista in a small coffee shop in Virginia. I work often and earn little and my sense of self worth is squashed daily under the big, stinky foot of the rude consumer. But, it is often hilarious in a let's make jokes about how awful humanity is kind of way. More to come on that.

To be candid, I am flailing a bit (a lot) right now. All of my structure vanished in a matter of seconds and now, with endless possibility laying before me - all I have to do now is pay taxes and die, bitches -  I find myself unable to move in any direction. Essentially, if my life was a book, it would be the scary middle pages I always skipped in "Oh, The Places You'll Go!"

You know the ones:

That is one phallic gate, am I right guys?

I am restarting this blog to jump start myself. And to figure some things out. And to find my joy again. I hope some people want to come along for the literary-web-ride, but if not that's okay too. Either way, I will hold myself accountable for at least two blog posts a week. No less. No excuses.

Welcome back, Kotter. This is about to get real world real.