[261] Screed City

[261]

08/30/2023 Wednesday. Kitchen Microwave. Queens House. Brooklyn/Queens, New York.

Well, I went from having my thumb up my ass for nearly a month to suddenly I can't do jack-all because I am so busy. Can't the universe calm down for just a second? Why is it always like this? I mean, I know I cause most of it, but it's not because I don't plan well. I plan perfect, it's just that I can't catch a break. Woe betide, indeed.

What can you do? Somebody has to pay for the second rental and all of my dental bills, lord knows it won't be Professor Curly. She spends all of her money on pony tails and chartered jets. She calls it Hawken' for some reason. Like hawking a loogie, but in Hollywood? I don't know. Either way she is out in Colorado now, doing movie things with movie people and I'm here in Brooklyn fighting rats and lantern flies.

Things are good though. The weather is decent and none of the roads have cratered and I can go for a walk if I have time and I moderating my body and taking steps towards a better tomorrow. Although it turns out I am a total fucking moron, if anyone is surprised. Not only that, but in a truly ironic fashion. I mean, it has been messing with my head and I have some thoughts but I don't know how to sugar-coat my idiocy, so I will just lay it out. I quit smoking, right? Like how long ago, I don't know. A year, more? I never really smoked that much to begin with, so it wasn't that hard. Not only that but as somebody that has heard the phrase "You shouldn't smoke, it is bad for you" exactly one million times, in my mind, smoking, the act of smoking, smoking cigarettes, is what is bad for you. The tar, the smoke, the whatever, million horrible chemicals. I mean, it's gross. It's a gross habit that is satisfying for about three seconds before it becomes gross again. My point, because nobody wants a lecture on why smoking stinks, but my point is that at my worst I maybe smoked four or five cigarettes a day. And that was like 15 years ago when I had no desire to quit. This last time before I quit I was smoking one cigarette a day. And then one day, I just stopped. Still with me? But here is the thing. I like nicotine. The effect is has on my brain is nice. It's a stimulant. Unlike coffee, which just prevents sleepiness from going into your brain, nicotine actually wakes you up. But at what cost? And everyone knows the lungs are your most delicate organ and nobody should be doing chewing tobacco unless you want your jaw to rot off, so I thought there was nothing I could do about my enjoyment of nicotine and my desire to not smoke.

But guess what? We live in a magical world now. There is a very easy way to get nicotine without smoking or without doing a chaw. At first it was just nicotine gum, but then they invented this thing that is a little pouch that you hold in your mouth like a Bandit, which is a chaw in a sack, but without all the bad tobacco stuff. Pure nicotine, in a sense, nothing is pure, but you know what I mean, yeah? Well, I won't bore you with the details, but I figured out why my gums have been acting like assholes. Go back to the phrase "You shouldn't smoke, it is bad for you." No shit, Sherlock. But you wanna tell me why instead of giving me one of those things like "It's bad luck to walk under a ladder"? I mean, I feel hornswoggled. I don't do chaws because they are grosser than smoking and they destroy your mouth. Like lacerate it. Like chew through it like acid. Same with smoking, you can feel it destroying your body. But these magical sacks of nicotine? Nothing. They do nothing to you. Or so I thought. I mean, I know that they were not good for me, but they had to be better than smoking, right? If it was a choice between doing a few pouches a night when I was tickling the ivories, versus a cigarette or two, you would think a magic pouch would be better, right? Well, you would be wrong, so fucking wrong that my psyche has been destroyed and I am living in a new world, because you see, all of you "You shouldn't smoke, it is very bad for you" people out there need to realize when you are saying these words all it is doing is making jerks like me, who like to blame everyone else for their problems, think that smoking and chawing are what is bad, anything else is just curbing the lust and eventually making a landing strip for total abstinence. But here is the irony. I should have just kept smoking. What happens with nicotine is that it restricts blood flow to places in your body like your mouth and your fucking GUMS. I went from smoking one cigarette a day to doing as much nicotine as would come from 10 cigarettes a day. More than I ever fucking smoked. And why would I do such a thing? Because "You shouldn't smoke, it is really bad for you."

I am not saying it is anyone else's fault but my own, I am like the whatever, the guy in charge of my body and stuff, but this idea that I needed to fact check two decades of people not minding their own fucking business because one day I would do a switcheroo that would cause way more damage than if I did nothing and now I am navigating something that was essentially an unforced error? That I am now racing against time because I took shoddy advice from jerks repeating things to me that they heard on the subway or something? Yes, okay, everyone knows smoking is bad for you, but so is nicotine. No one ever in the history of ever has said "Careful of chewing nicotine gum because it has nicotine." Right? But maybe they should. Maybe the ends don't actually justify the means.

I mean, here is my problem, the entire problem that has destroyed my psyche about this, [And Jess, you were right when you said this would give me fodder the other day outside Rel's because this subject it very fucking bleak,] but this is the thing; I know when I am destroying my body. I can feel it, I make choices, I choose to, or I choose not to, but never in my 45 years on this planet had I thought I was doing a better thing than what I was doing, but only making things worse. Even when there was visual evidence I thought for sure I was doing the right thing. It's not like I have been drinking diet Coke instead of regular Coke thinking I was circumventing the system. Because that is a thing I also do. But I don't think drinking a diet Coke is like doing 100 sit-ups while drinking a Coke is like eating a cheese cake. I know I shouldn't be drinking either. AND the same goes for the magic pouches and smokes. I know I shouldn't do either, I KNOW IT. lt’s just nobody even slightly, kind of, maybe shrugging whispered that nicotine, the drug that I rather enjoy, will destroy you and take you down from the inside.

IT'S ALL THE OTHER STUFF. Nicotine is fine. I thought. Nicotine really cleans the pipes, I thought. Just joking, I didn't think that at all. I knew it was a drug and all drugs have side-effects, but I thought those side-effects were like, I don't know, you call people stupid when they do annoying things and then you feel bad and apologize. Or your hair gets a little greasy sometimes. I mean, compared to "You shouldn't smoke, it is really bad for you" meaning:

"YOU ARE DYING RIGHT NOW IN FRONT OF ME YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF YOU DIRTY RACIST CUNT."

But there is nothing I can do about anything now. My entire life of moderation to the degree that I am aging slowly, but pleasantly, has now exploded in my mouth, like Ron Jeremy got out of jail and snuck something through my mail slot, and I didn't know what it was until it was too late, if you catch my drift. I don't know what is going to happen. And that is what I mean. When I was talking about things affecting me, about the choices I make. I am not a total bone-brain but I guess I am. It has been like I have been looking at the ditch lights on a train coming my way and thinking "Well, isn't that pretty? I should take a closer look."

Anyway, I am an idiot. Ironically even. I have an appointment with a periodontist in a couple weeks. I got my appointment at 2:30p. I mean, I don't know why any dentist would have appointments at 2:30, considering how many dads there are in the world. You know, but to go back to the ladder and not walking under it, the reason that is a superstition is because you shouldn't walk under a ladder because somebody is probably working on it and they are going to drop something on you. "IT IS FOR YOUR OWN GOOD." See how that feels? It sucks. And maybe one day you too will be in my position, unironically living your life and then one day you will walk under a ladder and look up and BLAMMO, you get doinked and it won't be so ironic anymore. I mean, there is no recourse, but still.

[Insert Shane MacGowan Photo]

[Insert Summer In Siam]