I have been drinking so much water since cutting down on
cigarettes that I think I may have also lost a little weight.I’d be glad if I did.I received good advice from a former
smoker.She knew from experience not to
aim for zero from smoking 20-30 cigarettes a day.It did make me feel calmer than I expected to
feel.I stopped being upset with myself
for smoking and instead felt proud of my progress.
I’m still only buying them loose.So far, I’ve gone from 20-30 a day to 5-15 a
day.I feel that if I had a pack in the
house, I’d likely smoke the whole pack.Still
desire it.I don’t feel sure I can
maintain what I’ve achieved so far, but I’m still trying.It’s been 17 days.
A few nights ago, I returned a phone call to one of the many
people to whom I owe a phone call.We
spoke about a number of sad things, yet I felt good talking with her. Her view of me is so much better than my view
of myself these days.We knew each other
from a former job where she was a very caring counselor who really helped
people.I was a popular teacher who
appreciated my students and was appreciated by them.She told me I was an ass-kicker and a warrior.Though I love that vision, I told her I felt
like a depressed lump.Her reaction was,
“Oh NO. Not in my eyes.”I am trying to
borrow her eyes.
She shared how much she loved my writing and wanted me to
continue.That night, I wrote.I hadn’t realized, until later, her impact on
me.
One of the things I have been working on is a collection of my
experiences in adult education where I taught people who were returning to try
to get their high school diploma.That
night I wrote a first draft of the time I had to co-teach with someone who was
very different than I am.
Several nights later, I presented it to a writing workshop
which mainly focuses on poetry but allows the occasional short prose. Since the pandemic, we’ve been doing it
on-line. They had so many ideas and
questions and suggestions.So though I thought
my piece was done, I have things to think about.The workshop folks are so helpful.Their feedback helps me try to make the piece
as good and as clear as I can.
I hope to get back into comedy.I’ll let you know when there are shows I’m doing.I hope it is soon even if we are
masked.I need money and laughter.
Well the past week flew for me. I have been dealing with
health issues. I have also been trying to stop smoking cigarettes. I am not as successful
as I am supposed to be. My doctors are going to be pissed. This is so fucking
hard.
One of the men in the neighborhood told me to put something in
my mouth. Then he laughed.
Why do men think dick is a substitute for cigarettes? One fits
in your mouth comfortably and you inhale. One barely fits in your mouth and you
get lockjaw. How is that the same? If it were, why would any straight woman or
gay man who is sexually active spend so much money on cigarettes when dick is
free?
I had a difficult Mother's Day weekend and an anxiety-filled and aggravating weekend after that. Then on Monday when I was at work and wanted a cigarette, I didn't walk all the way off campus. I guess I was in a "fuck it" head. I went behind some vehicles and smoked my felonious cigarette. While kissing Bloomberg's ass, cigarette smoking became not allowed on campus. So fifty lovely outdoor ashtrays that were used for only a year are stashed under a structure, and butts litter the once beautiful campus. It's like the logic of the MTA deciding the stations will be cleaner if they remove the garbage cans. Now, they said, people will take their garbage with them. Oh yeah. I would bet we will be returning to frequent track fires due to all the garbage tossed there. And we see how well bans cure nicotine addiction on campuses. Offering smoking cessation on different schedules on an on-going basis would do a lot more good. But hey, let's criminalize.
I might be the only offender who puts out the cigarette and takes the butt to the garbage. I am not a fan of a dirty campus. So I smoked and spoke to a friend on my cell phone. When I was done, I carried my cigarette butt with me and was heading back to the building where I work.
A white van pulled up and a campus "safety" officer jumped out and confronted me. Then another vehicle came from another direction, and an officer came out. Then another was on foot behind me.
"Wow. All this for me," I said in a very low-key voice.
I was glad I didn't have any big bag with me, or I might've been given the terrorist treatment.
"Were you smoking?"
"Yes." I opened my hand and showed my conscientiousness by revealing the butt that I didn't leave on the ground.
"Where did you smoke?"
"Off campus," I lied.
"See over there, that's a camera. We saw you smoking over there. You lied to me."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my stack of stuff. As I looked for my ID, he asked in what department I work. I told him and felt bad for my director. What a reputation we may get. A student was caught smoking a joint on campus from our program a couple of months ago, and now a teacher caught for smoking a cigarette. It was the first time I was going to get "written up" whatever that means. It is so weird and fucked up that over 35 years ago when I was a college student there, weed was smoked openly and sold in the cafeteria by a big guy named Julio. $1 a joint. We didn't know how good we had it back then (pre-Reagan, pre-crack, pre-welfare hotels). And I was a very good student. Made the Dean's list some of the time too.
I gave him my card. He copied the info while telling me he had spoken to me three times before. I nodded in agreement. It was the least I could do. I wasn't afraid, so I at least had to be cooperative. I didn't want to make things worse. But this shit is not the law. It is a policy. Picking up your dog's shit is the law, and the signs say so. This is not as up there as picking up shit. This is just a matter of putting up with shit.
Frankly, compared to other shit I'm enduring in my life, this is small shit.
"I need to see some state-issued ID."
"I don't have any."
"You don't have any?"
Mindy, don't say why don't you write me up for that too. Better yet, deport me back to where I come from -- my mom. She smoked too. You can write her up too, post-mortem. Happy freakin' belated Mother's Day. Don't say it, Mindy.
"I don't drive or have a passport, and I tend to have problems for that too."
"Address."
I gave it.
"Apartment number."
Is he planning on visiting? My house is not ready for company. And he wouldn't be any fun. He'd probably write me up for living freely in my own apartment. I gave him the apartment number.
"Date of birth."
I gave it and felt pretty sure I am older than each of them. I wondered if he was feeling ridiculous yet. What a society we live in. His job is to criminalize me. I'm such a danger.
"I've spoken to you three or four times before and you lied to me."
Two felonies right there, and only God knows what else I might have done. I don't wear a bra! I disagree with my government from time to time especially when Republicans are running the circus. I dated outside of my race before it was "politically correct" though I was always within the human race. I speak my mind usually. I say no to men. Sometimes, I even stand up for myself. I believe that's called being a bitch. Oh the list goes on and on. You'd be writing for days, officer.
I didn't say any of that. I just nodded in agreement, the whole time feeling very low-energy. I must have been a public service, giving these three men something to get riled up over in what must be a boring day staring at monitors. My being was absorbed in my situation with my son. Getting busted for breaking a smoking policy just didn't feel like much in comparison.
"You know I'm going to run this and if you're lying..."
"I'm not lying. It's all real." Just don't show up at my place.
"Well I'm going to write you up and charges will be brought against you."
"Are you talking about the actual police department?"
"Yes."
"For smoking a cigarette." My tone was pretty flat, almost like a court reporter reading back what was said, making the ridiculousness more obvious.
The brotherhood chimed in. Two spoke at the same time. "It's against the rule. There are signs all over."
Don't laugh, Mindy. Do not piss them off. I nodded and walked off.
So, here in Mayberry, I might be visited by Andy Taylor. My luck, it will be Barney Fife.
I stood outside my apartment building tonight and looked at the cigarette I was sucking down like a caricature of Denis Leary and whispered, “I love you so much, I hate you.”
In the past eight months I have become an obsessive smoker. I am now up to a little over a pack a day. The FIRST thing I want in the morning, before I drink the water I always keep bedside, before I pee, before I turn on the coffeemaker, I smoke a damn cigarette. Sometimes I smoke THREE before I get up to make the coffee, stopping only to pop my much-needed Adderall and slug some H2O before I light another.
Today I ran out of cigarettes midday, after having purchased a pack last night during my bartending shift. I was fine for a while, busy with work on the computer and making calls. But when my roomie came home, I begged a Cigarillo off her (she works for the company and gives out samples at stores, so she always has a stash.) Then I begged for another, and then a third. I had six dollar bills in my purse, and cigarettes cost about thirteen bucks here in NYC. By 9:56 p.m. I was scavenging my purses and coats and jeans for quarters, finding exactly seven dollars in change in addition to my six dollar bills, and limped off to the corner bodega (I have some weird red swelling on my third left toe, and I did not stub nor break it.) I muttered out loud to the gods “Please, please, don’t be out of fucking cigarettes. I would suck cock for a cigarette right now.” I said this OUT LOUD. I was scanning the sidewalk for “street ciggies” – a habit I picked up last summer in my insomnia-ridden walks around my block. Street ciggies. That means I will pick up a carelessly tossed, half-smoked cigarette, break off the end that goes in the mouth, and fucking SMOKE A CIGARETTE I FOUND ON THE SIDEWALK. Sometimes, I find a whole, untouched cigarette that has fallen out of some drunken kid’s pack. O glorious find, the whole ciggie.
The grungy bodega was out of cigarettes, after experiencing a brief and heartbreaking misunderstanding with the barely-English-speaking Dominican boy behind the counter in which I literally put my hands in prayer and said “Please say you have cigarettes!” and he said “What kind?” and I jubilantly asked for ANYTHING non-menthol. He then said “No cigarettes. No cigarettes.” I wanted to throttle him. He pointed to the next block’s bodega and I hobbled quickly there to find my glorious fix, quietly apologizing to the owner for paying in piles of quarters. I have been smoking Parliament 100’s lately, because they are LONG and last a seeming nanosecond longer than my usual choice of either Camels or Marlboro Lights. I opened the pack like Charlie in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” opening a deliciously decadent Wonka bar – filled with joy and anticipation as well as massive guilt, knowing I should use that precious change for food or laundry or something practical. But sweet Baby Jesus, I wanted that first puff more than I wanted a sandwich or clean undies.
I have smoked three cigarettes while typing this. There are tiny ashes sprinkled on my laptop keyboard. It is thirty degrees and a coming Nor’easter wind is blowing through my perpetually open bedroom window. I am wearing jeans, a hoodie sweatshirt, and fuzzy socks under my duvet cover. The fresh air does not do much to help the fact that everything in my room reeks of cigarette funk. The odor reminds me of my Grandma Gresser’s house, my Uncle Tom’s Volkswagen, my brother’s former apartment – all furniture, sheets, clothes, towels, vinyl seats saturated with nicotine, a smell I hated. I still hate it. It’s in my hair soon after I shower, and I love having sweet-smelling hair. It is on my breath as I whisper in my friend’s ear as I slink in late to a comedy gig. My favorite waiter at the restaurant where I tend bar waves his hand in front of his nose after I take a smoke break, telling me to suck a lemon to take away the stank-breath.
When I was dating a fellow actor on a children’s theater tour, we shared a motel room and I’d beg him to smoke outside, as the smoke would keep me from sleeping. The time I actually bought a pack and smoked several ciggies - to quell my anxiety about attending yet another friend’s wedding reception solo - I had to pull over my rented car to vomit from the nausea that overtook me after three cigarettes smoked on an empty stomach.
I started smoking more often after September 11th, when I was overcome with incapacitating anxiety and insomnia, hearing F-16s droning regularly over the Hudson in the days and weeks after the horror, and I could not go for more than a couple of hours sleep without turning on the news to see if something else terrible might be heading our way. I smoked on the stoop. My favorite news anchor Peter Jennings started smoking again after quitting the habit for nearly twenty years because of the attacks, and then he died a few years later from lung cancer. My Grandma Gresser, a life-long smoker, died of cancer throughout her body. I have seen the gross anti-smoking ads, I know what it does to your body.
My fifty-year old brother and his girlfriend have quit smoking recently. My brother has been smoking since he was about sixteen. I am in awe that he is actually stopping. My father used to smoke Camels unfiltered for years, and then quit cold turkey along with my stepmother. I remember clearly when I was about five years old, my father tossed a Camel from the car window and it flew into the back and landed in the crease of the back seat cushions, where it went unnoticed until my foot, which is habitually tucked under my backside when I sit, suddenly felt very hot. He had to stop the car and hurriedly prevent the whole damn seat from bursting into flames. My dad was the only person on which I actually enjoyed tobacco scent. It mixed with the Clove gum he chewed and his Aramis cologne. As a child I would bury my nose in the brown corduroy sport jacket he regularly kept on a coat stand in his university office, and breathe in his dad-smell, comforting and safe.
I am dating a smoker who has been smoking far longer than my measly few months, and even he looks at me and says,” You just had one. You’re lighting another?” and he refuses to let me smoke more than one while we snuggle together watching a movie on his bed before we turn in for the night. Sometimes I quietly sneak out of bed when he dozes off and grab one to smoke in the next room, like some sort of naughty child, guilty and pleased with myself at the same time, Ha ha, I got away with it.
Jesus Christ, I’m now more than halfway through the pack I just bought.
Yes, it’s been a shitty, uber-stressful, tumultuous year for me, and I use that as an excuse for my new addiction. I tried to stop for a couple days with the aid of electronic cigarettes. My psychiatrist offered me Wellbutrin, which, when I did take it as an antidepressant a few years back, completely eliminated my desire to smoke even casual post-drinking ciggies. But it also gave me migraines and made my hair all thin and flat and I hated the drug. I don’t think the patch would work for me, I love the physical act of smoking: the lighting, the first scent of burning paper, the inhale, the exhale and relief that comes over me.
I am disgusted with myself for the money I spend on packs, the dependence, and the loss of control over my urge to self-destruct. I used to get furious when walking behind a smoker on a beautiful spring day, when I wanted to breathe in the sweet lilacs in bloom, not some crappy-ass tobacco stench. Now I get the dirty looks. Once a dog-owner stopped me from petting his dog, for fear my cigarette smoke would stink up his puppy-fur. I am a pariah. Addict. Idiot.
I am going to quit. Really, I am. But I just watched this Bill Hicks bit and lit another goddamn ciggie. I have just enough left to get me through the morning.
-hmg
p.s. I just HAD to include this video I found. It made me laugh out loud and WANT A DAMN CIGGIE. Watch it:
