March 22, 2011
Tess Lynch wrote: I quit smoking cigarettes.  Yes, again. What are the best things about quitting smoking? You know. Smelling smells. Health. Not feeling guilty when you’re standing outside a restaurant pulling on a P Funk and a toddler saunters by and coughs. That’s all real swell.  What are the worst things about quitting smoking? Oh, could it be that aliens invade your brain and eat all the smarts out of it in the night? Is it that you have to buy knitting needles just so that your hands have something to do? A pen won’t work. It’s not like your mind is producing any thoughts to write down with your pen. There are no doodles in this mental desert. Even pot is less fun. Everyone knows the best time to smoke a cigarette is after you’ve gotten stoned on a Sunday and you walk down to the coffee shop to get an iced latte and a guava cheese slice and read the paper. Everybody knows that’s when you want a cigarette the most. Of course, you also want a cigarette when there’s a rain storm on a Tuesday and you lean against a wet wall under an awning, all alone, for a seven minute break; and then there’s the long drive cigarette and the after-dinner cigarette and the morning coffee cigarette and the glass of whiskey cigarette, the post-coital cliché and the about-to-board-a-plane and the in-line-at-the-bar and the intimate conversation on the balcony. What was the best cigarette you ever had? A trillion images flip through what’s left of the generator inside your head: smoking in England after eating a chip buddy sandwich, smoking in a convertible on the way to Malibu, all nighter cigarettes, Science Library cigarettes. Now you’re weeping over tobacco rolled into a tube and ignited with a plastic butane holder. How could you love something that’s just paper and plants and really doesn’t do much of anything other than make you feel more like yourself? Is it because you feel like you’re cheating death when you’re a smoker? Maybe that’s the worst part of quitting: acknowledging that there is no cheating, and that everyone loses; you don’t want to lose knowing that you threw the game. You’re so afraid someone will make you do yoga. You’re afraid that this means you’ll have to go on a diet. You have all your tax documents for the past five years. Your dentist brings up periodontal surgery and you buy a Sonicare. You search desperately for something else to do while you walk, while you sit, while you make too many expressions listening to someone talk because it feels so bizarre to just exist with no activity, like being in a completely silent room and waiting for a key in the lock. Historically, these feelings become easier to manage as more time passes between me and my last smoke. Historically, I eventually realize that enough coffee produces similar mentally-stimulating effects. But records show that the first month after I quit smoking — every time I quit smoking — is spent shaking my fist at the heavens and watching an endless loop of the 7300 cigarettes a year I smoked set to an Explosions in the Sky album, full of amplified and irrational swells of feeling. Please excuse my absence during this time, the blue weeks. I’m just waiting for the aliens to return my brain, all tuned up and ready to go and hopefully not very different. And like I said, it’s really nice to be able to smell so acutely during night-blooming jasmine season. And I mean that sincerely.

Tess Lynch wrote:

I quit smoking cigarettes. 

Yes, again.

What are the best things about quitting smoking? You know. Smelling smells. Health. Not feeling guilty when you’re standing outside a restaurant pulling on a P Funk and a toddler saunters by and coughs. That’s all real swell. 

What are the worst things about quitting smoking? Oh, could it be that aliens invade your brain and eat all the smarts out of it in the night? Is it that you have to buy knitting needles just so that your hands have something to do? A pen won’t work. It’s not like your mind is producing any thoughts to write down with your pen. There are no doodles in this mental desert. Even pot is less fun. Everyone knows the best time to smoke a cigarette is after you’ve gotten stoned on a Sunday and you walk down to the coffee shop to get an iced latte and a guava cheese slice and read the paper. Everybody knows that’s when you want a cigarette the most. Of course, you also want a cigarette when there’s a rain storm on a Tuesday and you lean against a wet wall under an awning, all alone, for a seven minute break; and then there’s the long drive cigarette and the after-dinner cigarette and the morning coffee cigarette and the glass of whiskey cigarette, the post-coital cliché and the about-to-board-a-plane and the in-line-at-the-bar and the intimate conversation on the balcony. What was the best cigarette you ever had? A trillion images flip through what’s left of the generator inside your head: smoking in England after eating a chip buddy sandwich, smoking in a convertible on the way to Malibu, all nighter cigarettes, Science Library cigarettes. Now you’re weeping over tobacco rolled into a tube and ignited with a plastic butane holder. How could you love something that’s just paper and plants and really doesn’t do much of anything other than make you feel more like yourself? Is it because you feel like you’re cheating death when you’re a smoker? Maybe that’s the worst part of quitting: acknowledging that there is no cheating, and that everyone loses; you don’t want to lose knowing that you threw the game.

You’re so afraid someone will make you do yoga. You’re afraid that this means you’ll have to go on a diet. You have all your tax documents for the past five years. Your dentist brings up periodontal surgery and you buy a Sonicare. You search desperately for something else to do while you walk, while you sit, while you make too many expressions listening to someone talk because it feels so bizarre to just exist with no activity, like being in a completely silent room and waiting for a key in the lock. Historically, these feelings become easier to manage as more time passes between me and my last smoke. Historically, I eventually realize that enough coffee produces similar mentally-stimulating effects. But records show that the first month after I quit smoking — every time I quit smoking — is spent shaking my fist at the heavens and watching an endless loop of the 7300 cigarettes a year I smoked set to an Explosions in the Sky album, full of amplified and irrational swells of feeling. Please excuse my absence during this time, the blue weeks. I’m just waiting for the aliens to return my brain, all tuned up and ready to go and hopefully not very different.

And like I said, it’s really nice to be able to smell so acutely during night-blooming jasmine season. And I mean that sincerely.



10:41pm  |   URL: http://choiresicha.com/post/4036967398/tess-lynch-wrote-i-quit-smoking-cigarettes
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    parliament sooo bad.
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    written well enough...least i’ll know what
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    Greatest commentary...have EVER heard.
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