i feel like a cigarette. not literally, that would be silly. i tell myself i`m not addicted and yet when thta thick and disgusting smoke passes through my throat into the no doubt yellowed recesses of my lungs i feel a little more at ease in my skin. fo me to be smoking is even more stupid than for the rest of my nicotine-stained ilk, for two reasons: one, i didn`t start until i was 25, and two, because my grandmother at 88 lost a leg due to damaged arteries caused by smoking for 62 years. i`m not a brave smoker - with almost every puff i fret and whinnie about the potentially fatal diseases i may be bringing upon myself, and after every nite out i check tongue and mouth for any little signs of mouth cancer - see? i mean how stupid can i be? imagine losing your jaw to cancer caused by smoking! imagine having such a phobia and then still doing it. i`m that masochistic that i`ve even done some research into jaw cancer - did you know (think you should get used to that phrase, it may pop up a lot this week) that if you are unfortunate to have jaw cancer, but you catch it early on, what the docs do is take out your jaw, deep-freeze it, to kill the cancers, and then put it back in. quite what the unlucky patient looks like when he`s had his jaw removed and is awaiting its reinsertion does not bear thinking about. and if the cancer is really bad, then what they do is remove your own cancer-mangled mandible, find a pair of similar sized chops from a recently bared skeleton, and stick it back into your own now overly-slackened cakehole. so basically, if all goes well, you`d be masticating your tv dinnner with dead man`s bones. lovely.
but my neurosis has it`s heroes. notably any movie star i see smoking - the logic goes like this- `well, if [insert famous person`s name] smokes then it can`t be that bad`. yes, stupid. and another favourite is john berger, not a movie star but a great free-thinker and a very wise man, who once said that "A cigarette", inhale deeply please, "is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared you are both in that parenthesis. It`s like a proscenium arch for a dialogue." unescapably the logic of an addict, and a great excuse to spark up...
and so, first post over, i`m off for a hand-rolled stick of joy.
"Never chain your dogs together with sausages. One must accustom one's self to be bored." john berger.
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