Let me level with you, dear reader. I'm struggling rather dramatically with quitting smoking. I'm struggling for at least two reasons: because I've always been a moderate smoker and because I'm a romantic. The former is a struggle because I don't have an obsessive personality. I meander along with various interests and habits and vices and never burrow down to the limit. The latter, tied into my associative memory and flights of fancy, dispose me to some genuinely positive memories. Like smoking for the first time with high-school buddies, smoking in the car on road trips, camping, winter... the list goes on. But there are a tonne of negative associations as well. Like point blank 80% of cigarettes I've smoked have been lackluster experiences. The noxious fumes and lingering smell. The (albeit marginal) dependance. And the definite, in my view, shortening of natural life. I'm crossing over into a new phase of my life and I'm determined to make the right choices. But I'm only a man and my to-date inability to quit has me really grasping. I feel guilt, weakness, and defensiveness. I write this not to carve out a special place for myself in the smoking sphere, because basically I think what I'm feeling is fairly universal. In fact I write it for that reason and, because, I think writing about it will help with the mental gymnastics I alluded to. ¶ In any case, I am still committed to finishing up with cigarettes. I'll do this by re-formulating my romanticism into the fictional world. I'll write about characters that smoke, for sure, and I'll continue to draw cigarettes in my portraits. But what I won't do is actually light up. ¶ I don't regret starting. It was part of my young adult life. It inspired me, it kept me in check, and it was fucking fun. But the best-before date on that personal chapter has long since past and it's time to move on. It's called the law of diminishing marginal returns. ¶ Pauline and I drove over to Poor John's last night to hang up some art. John did most of the work. We're doing a double-show there for the month of March. I've got Clint Eastwood Lit as well as three King size prints hanging (Depp, Kubrick, and Hitchcock) and Pauline has three of her oils on the wall, including her most recent effort which took about two years to complete. She even worked on it when we went to Sundridge this past summer. Poor John's is located at 1610 Queen St. West and is worth a visit anyway. ¶ It's March, compadres! Dave Chappelle's Block Party. St. Patrick's. Siteway Select. Siteway Sirens. Let's hear it for rolling with the punches, in general.

Labels: Clear, Vague

¶ 12:15 PM
<< Home