The tobacco company, Peter Jackson's, should really hire me as a PR guy. I'm passionate about the product. Much to the chagrin of my neighbours, I rarely if ever smoke outside. I want to enjoy a PJ comfortably and leisurely, inhaling and exhaling luxurious plumes sitting at my computer. A smoker has an inherent mystique, it's undeniably cool in some way thanks to all the cool people who smoke. There is an ancient seductive art to the way a red lipped woman purses her lips and slowly, with lithe fingers, takes a hit, cocks her head and blows a jet stream out into the atmosphere. Can you spell hot? All these anti-smoking groups are teetotaling tittie sucking fools. Look back a generation or two: Were the 1950's-80's not a magnanimous, smoker friendlyepoch in the 20th century? Smoking on airplanes, in malls, in offices. Smokers' freedoms weren't eroded like they are nowadays. Shit, back then you could make out with your girlfriend, a smoke dangling precariously from your lips.
Smoking indoors is best primarily because there's no wind. The cigarette burns symetrically and I'm overcome with a placid calmness, mesmerized by the hot glow of the cigarette, burning down proportionate to the drags, followed by the soothing feeling of a silky mouthful of smoke streaming through my nostrils. What can I say? It's my yoga.
What it takes to get a modern man through the day (The Morning Regiment [TMR]):
Loratadine...10mgs (allergies.)
Cigarettes...limit of 5 until 5pm.
Coffee...2 cups max.
20mgs of Adderall (not my prescription, never done it before; just experimenting.)
10mgs of Cipralex (anti-depressant, my prescription.)
And to keep the train moving through the evening (The Evening Regiment [TER])...
Cigarettes...5-6.
Beer...3-4 pints.
Finally to top it off...the never ending Glory of God.
I sat down with a pencil tucked behind my ear, drowning in spools of calculator paper with clusters of scribbled out equations, and added it all up:
This cacophany of substances coarses through my blood and I'm facilely transported to the next truck stop on the highway of life where there are decisions to be made and things to get done. Or so I'm told.
I'm thinking of getting a cat. I love cats. I'm a total cat guy. I'm into lazy, snuggly, furry things that require little attention. I have somehow, despite all my pure evil and hatred of the world, still evolved to be overrun by their cuteness. It is a perfect relationship: with minimal effort cats are sustained and happy and gracious with their love, and in return I get an inter-species friend. But I'm having trouble pulling the trigger. I'd take great care of it, of that much I'm sure, but the following through is difficult. I just know that I'll pick a kitten based on it's cuteness, the ahh-shucks factor, and then I'll find out after a week or two of co-habitating, once she's alone with me and her true personality swims to the surface, she's, in fact, possessed by the devil, hissing and biting me, or is mildly Autistic and hard to read. Well, I'm sure the thing will be okay. My only hope is the animal doesn't mind cigarette smoke.
"I'll take a smoking cat, please," I proudly declare to the Humane Society person at the desk.
Hey you there, wagging your finger--I had a cat once before. Damn thing inhaled my mother's Du Maurier Milds and my father's Rothman's and occassionally my Du Maurier lights for nineteen years. She probably couldn't run a marathon, but most cats can't. Cigarette smoke isn't really that cruel when you read all the other horrific shit cats, and animals in general, are put through by their owners: physical abuse, neglect, et al. Oh, how I loved my little Ruffy! I would wake up on Sunday afternoon's and wearily stride down the stairs in my boxers to find and pet my kitty. She was always in one of five places, and eventually I'd find her, behind the couch or under a living room table. The longer it took to find her, the nicer our snug-fest would be. I laid down and placed my head on the fluffy lump of her body; not the full weight, that would be too much, of course. I strained my neck and my head was free to snuggle into the white cottony bliss of her belly fur. In this position I could hear Ruffy's inner workings, swampy gurgling's and bubbling's, a factory of organs at work. My cat would purr quietly, regally, a look of satisfaction across her face but eventually Ruffy would grow tired of my face in her fur, hiss and/or swat at me. She was a princess, no doubt. The kind of cat who wouldn't let you touch her paws or rub her belly. If you were a stranger or infrequent guest at my house forget about petting Ruffy! She was no whore! Absolutely not! She was like that skinny golden haired popular girl in high school you could only dream of getting.
Once Ruffy and myself happened to catch each other while she was about to drop anchor in her litter box, which was like a nice little shit-house complete with roof and all. She looked me right in the eyes as if to say, "you can watch me, but only this once." There was no question--from that day on I would always decidedly walk on, gaze fixed forward (not that I didn't do that before).
I have a new show idea: Next on A&E: Cat Hoarders. The sad thing is you'd watch it.
I must admit, somewhere deep inside me, the scientist/experimenter part, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to give a cat some of my Cipralex, or some coffee, or some meth. Now, don't get all righteous on me, all you animal lovers for I am one of you. Even if you're a raging addict, there is some kind of simple pleasure to be taken in denying another sentient being the possibility of addiction. My cat will not become a totally out-of-control, dentally ravaged half-tard meth-head, for I can still control it's intake. I'm the judge and jury. It's rehab for you, Tweaks!
Ahh...me and my cat, lost in a narco-fog, but if we're lost in a fog, we're lost in a fog together. I've already named her: Blixa. I can see her now prancing around my apartment, lithe and goddess-like, but simultaneously I feel sorry for the poor thing. For there is only me to keep it entertained. Me to help it through a tough day, me to be a shoulder to cry on. I don't really need that kind of pressure in my life. I'd always have to be on. I can't be expending all my precious social energy on non-humans. Plus, it can't be that great of a life living with me--can it?
It must be a female cat. That is imperative! There's no way I'm waking up and cuddling with a male anything. My nightmare is lying there in bed about to wake up, lost in that twilight period before clarity reels my sleepy head in, and I'm thinking about that hot chick at the LCBO giving me a slow, sensual blowjob, taking her time with it, cupping the balls and everything, and then it feels a little rougher and rougher, like sandpaper, "Ohh...Allison...I like it rough," and just when I'm about to reach the point of no return, I look down and there's Ernie licking the head of my penis. Ain't gonna happen to me, pal.
This has nothing to do with anything (I jump around a bit, you'll get used to it). While driving home today from the bookstore, a young light skinned black girl, maybe mulatto, in her cute little jeep, was trying to make a left from a little side street onto Bloor and her stupid jeep was jutting into the road so that myself and the motorists behind me had to slow down. We have a green light and she's forcing us all to come to a screeching halt while she tries to bypass our double lane into a clogged up eastbound lane. I try to switch to the left lane to avoid the front end of her jeep but the cars just keep a comin'. I'm forced to idle and will now miss the light.
My car's spedometer swung down from sixty to zero and my pyschometer went from zero to sixty all in the matter of a few seconds.
I resort to motioning with my hands to back up a little. I do this condescendingly, like you would to a petulant child, or a half tard. When she looks at me confused, like I don't know how to drive, or live my life by her rules, I yell out, "
And if she couldn't hear me, I made sure to enunciate each syllable, like an enraged Michael Buffer. She looked at me, shocked, unable to fire off a retort of any kind, only a blank stare of incomprehension at the aggressiveness of man, at how wholly putrifying their violent response to provocation is. Indeed, I feel ashamed at what I'm capable of, of what men in general do to the Aphrodites of the earth. I'm so sorry to all the women...mom in particular. This isn't the way I really treat women. It's really not. But she did eventually put the jeep in reverse so I could pass by, whether out of fear or pity or what, the jury's still out.
No matter what it takes to get a modern man through the day, the day invariably gets through with itself. The planet rotates around the sun through space, endlessly blathering about on it's axis, while I whirl through cyberspace, but I could still never commit suicide. My idea of committing suicide is taking an extra anti-depressant pill and waiting to see what happens. Two, three, four pills? Are you kidding me! I'd be waaaay too fucked up. The way to do it, apparently, is to commit suicide like Joe Bodelai--the comedy writer who killed himself recently. A little older and washed up, living out in L.A., he may never have even made it in the Toronto Star, or his death merely reduced to a simple blurb, but he left an intriguing bullet-point suicide note on his blog, detailing the things he was proud of in his life and things he regretted. It was actually quite touching and funny, with the whole macabre angle (this is a suicide note) adding another juicy layer of intrigue. He was Alcoholic. No surprise there. He really did it. Killed himself by drinking Gatorade and anti-freeze. Gatorade and anti-freeze? In our darker moments I'm sure we've all thought of ordering a double G&A from the bar-keep, no doubt, but efffawhh, what's the minute after you chug that down like? Any potential last moments of regret are swiftly rendered obselete by the poison in the belly (why did he choose anti-freeze in particular?).
Any day now, we'll see a commercial from Gatorade, and instead of the requisite scenes of men behaving athletically, a bunch of ball players dribbling on the court, or hockey players doing some slappers and then gulping down a refreshing mouthful of
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