I started smoking when I was seventeen. About a month after my mom passed away, in fact. I told myself that it made me feel closer to her, but the truth was that I didn’t really give a shit. Smoking when you’re seventeen, when you can’t even fathom the life before you, is probably the easiest thing in the world. And, much like my mother, I proved to be a natural smoker. I was up to a pack of Camel Lights a day within two months and I continued this trend for the better part of the next sixteen years.
I have seriously quit four times. By seriously, I mean for three months or more. The first time I accomplished this, I very smugly thought the monkey was off my back. Even through each relapse and new attempt to quit, I continued to think I had mastered the monkey. Yes, this time, I’ve done it. I’ve figured it out.
Last summer, I quit again. It was easier than all the other times, and again I believed I had won. For nine months, I gave up cigarettes with hardly a look back. Willpower, I thought, is just desire. It’s wanting something badly enough. I still think that’s true. But I no longer think of quitting as mastery. On some level, addicts always wrestle with addiction.
And so I have had a relapse. Granted, I’m not smoking a pack a day, or even every day. But I have been smoking and I recognize all of the anxiety and rationalization that has characterized my past failures. The monkey lies to you. You lie to yourself.
My girlfriend, a casual social smoker, believes that my physical impulse to smoke is a distortion. It is all in my head, she says. Why can’t we have a pack of cigarettes in the house and smoke one or two when we feel like it? Why can’t I “feel like it” just once in a great while?
Because I can’t. I either smoke, or I don’t. I can’t open myself up to the possibility of cigarettes without being a dedicated smoker. Perhaps that is all in my head, but far easier than trying to change the way my brain works – with the ridiculous reward of again smoking cigarettes, however casually – is to eliminate the possibility altogether. All or nothing, for me. All or nothing.
Today I rode my bike all day with aching lungs. Today I rode around all day with aching lungs, berating myself, while still acknowledging the little demon whispering, “You have those cigarettes at home….” And after I locked up my bike and took off my helmet, I sat by the window of our apartment and I fucking smoked one.
Then I poured water over that pack and threw it away. All or nothing. All or nothing. Ok, monkey. Let’s try this again.
June 19, 2012
July 22, 2011
Blocking the writer
The following is an excerpt of a conversation I have with myself almost every day.
This is one of those times you should be writing.
But I don’t even know where to begin!
It doesn’t matter. You’ve had this idea for days. Just start anywhere.
The character’s not developed yet. She’s boring.
And she always will be if you don’t write her down.
Borrrrinng.
Do it.
No.
Look, it’s raining. The house is relatively clean. You’re not reading anything right now. Just write a sentence.
One sentence is pointless.
Ok, write a paragraph.
I’m busy.
No, you’re not. You’re bored.
I have real work to do.
But you’re not doing it. You’re not even going to do it.
Yes, I am. And I have to beat the Bejeweled high score.
Wouldn’t you rather write this story?
You would think so, but no.
Why not?
Because it’s not defined. And it’s pointless. I have this beautifully vague thing in my head and words will just mess it up.
You don’t want to share that story?
Not really.
Why not?
Sharing stories feels like sitting in my underwear.
So, why do you spend so much time thinking about it?
Because I want to be a writer.
You are a writer.
I want to be one that people respect.
You want to be a writer who people respect, but you won’t write anything because if they read it, they might not like it, thus no respect, thus no writing. Does that seem silly to you?
No, I think it makes perfect sense.
Why not write for yourself, then?
What’s the point in that?
To sort shit out. You’re doing it right now.
I hate you.
What?
You’re the same voice that tells me I suck when I get more than five pages of anything. You’re a sadistic asshole.
No, actually. That’s you.
Um, no it’s not. I think I know the difference.
Suit yourself.
Fuck you.
.
This is one of those times you should be writing.
But I don’t even know where to begin!
It doesn’t matter. You’ve had this idea for days. Just start anywhere.
The character’s not developed yet. She’s boring.
And she always will be if you don’t write her down.
Borrrrinng.
Do it.
No.
Look, it’s raining. The house is relatively clean. You’re not reading anything right now. Just write a sentence.
One sentence is pointless.
Ok, write a paragraph.
I’m busy.
No, you’re not. You’re bored.
I have real work to do.
But you’re not doing it. You’re not even going to do it.
Yes, I am. And I have to beat the Bejeweled high score.
Wouldn’t you rather write this story?
You would think so, but no.
Why not?
Because it’s not defined. And it’s pointless. I have this beautifully vague thing in my head and words will just mess it up.
You don’t want to share that story?
Not really.
Why not?
Sharing stories feels like sitting in my underwear.
So, why do you spend so much time thinking about it?
Because I want to be a writer.
You are a writer.
I want to be one that people respect.
You want to be a writer who people respect, but you won’t write anything because if they read it, they might not like it, thus no respect, thus no writing. Does that seem silly to you?
No, I think it makes perfect sense.
Why not write for yourself, then?
What’s the point in that?
To sort shit out. You’re doing it right now.
I hate you.
What?
You’re the same voice that tells me I suck when I get more than five pages of anything. You’re a sadistic asshole.
No, actually. That’s you.
Um, no it’s not. I think I know the difference.
Suit yourself.
Fuck you.
.
June 29, 2011
The glory days of urine-dusted birthdays
So, two things are happening tomorrow: I am going to the Roskilde Festival and, somewhere around the time that Frisk Frugt is hitting the Gloria stage, I will be 34.
Is it crazy that I feel entirely too old for the former, and far too young for the latter? Anyway, so PJ Harvey's stopping by for my birthday. I bet you can't say that about your 34th.
This is a crazy big festival, people. It's like the mother of European music festivals. People die here. People are conceived here. Hell, I'm pretty sure that more than a few people have been born here. (Cool fact: the festival was created forty years ago by two geeky Danish high school students and, get this: since 1972, all of the profits are donated to charity. Yeah, serious.)
Now, normally, Roskilde is the sedate little sister city to Copenhagen, with about three percent of the population. And that's saying something. Dude, I’ve been there many times; it’s about as happening as Mayberry. They still have houses with thatched roofs. There's a fjord. And a Viking boat museum logically placed on the fjord. (In defense, though, their magnificent cathedral holds the bones of every Danish monarch back to Harold Bluetooth. Yeah, that’s where that comes from.)
But for one week every summer, this town gets inundated with hippies and backpackers and all sorts of unclean and possibly deranged tent-dwellers... I'm told that the Roskilde Music Festival is an absolute rite of passage for Danes. We'd put it off for a few years, but sure as hell, no one was going to let us escape the spectacle.
So, but that's just the thing. It's a motherfucking SPECTACLE, y'all. I'm talking 80,000 people and port-a-potties. I'm talking weirdos (European weirdos!) from every strange counter-culture enclave you can imagine. We'll be floating on this putrid wave of debauchery for three days in a tent you would buy at the corner drug store.
People, I'm a little bit terrified. Actually, I have a lot of anxiety about this whole business. I don't have a car. I don't have a private shower. What if I get sick? What if it's too hot? Too wet? Too crowded?
Oddly (so I've been told by the forty-somethings in my office who go every year), it's not chaos. And maybe that shouldn't surprise me. The Scandinavian ability to control oneself is not, as I first assumed, the product of inhibition. No, it's actually something much deeper than that. It's a sense of decency that comes from a society that treats people as adults and expects the same in return. Remember that one really cool teacher in high school who let you assert yourself, your identity, your manic teenaged opinions so long as you did it with respect? Do you remember how calm that class was? How supportive?
That's Denmark. That, I'm told, is the Rosklide Festival. They call this phenomenon the "orange feeling." I don't know why, but basically it has to do with not just the hippie mindset of "live and let live," but reflects something more dynamic. A personal responsibility. And a sense of trust in the system.
That's like the antithesis of counter-culture, right? But the interesting thing about Scandinavians, and Danes in particular, is that – just like the kids in that high school class – they kind of figured out how to assert themselves without fucking up everyone's good time. See, being an asshole is not hygge. And hygge is the highest Danish good. Even at a urine-soaked rock festival.
The move to Denmark has easily been the most cathartic of my life. Before I left the States, I was getting panic attacks in Home Depot. I was talking myself down in traffic jams. And it's not what you think. It's not because life is "simpler" here. It's not because I now ride my bike to work and have only three brands of toothpaste to choose from.
On a hot, crowded bus, a ten-story stairwell or a nine-hour flight, there’s nowhere to run. And in any strange country, support comes where you can find it. Sure, I'm older, I'm more centered – you might argue those things – but here's the fact of me, what I’ve learned about myself – the worrier, the superstitious fool: my comfort zone is entirely variable. It's a spoiled space of my own definition.
So bring on the Roskilde Festival. Bring on 34. Bring on the chaos and the urine dust and the hippies and all the cold showers with strangers. Bring the intensity of 80,000 bodies, all of them seeking that one righteous thing: hygge.
That’s my favorite word, by the way. A prize for someone who managed to snatch some sanity back from the face of the Chaos Monster. Dancing my ass off in the middle-of-nowhere-Denmark, up urine creek without a flushable toilet, I guess we’ll see. I guess we’ll see if joy isn’t something I can have anywhere.
Is it crazy that I feel entirely too old for the former, and far too young for the latter? Anyway, so PJ Harvey's stopping by for my birthday. I bet you can't say that about your 34th.
This is a crazy big festival, people. It's like the mother of European music festivals. People die here. People are conceived here. Hell, I'm pretty sure that more than a few people have been born here. (Cool fact: the festival was created forty years ago by two geeky Danish high school students and, get this: since 1972, all of the profits are donated to charity. Yeah, serious.)
Now, normally, Roskilde is the sedate little sister city to Copenhagen, with about three percent of the population. And that's saying something. Dude, I’ve been there many times; it’s about as happening as Mayberry. They still have houses with thatched roofs. There's a fjord. And a Viking boat museum logically placed on the fjord. (In defense, though, their magnificent cathedral holds the bones of every Danish monarch back to Harold Bluetooth. Yeah, that’s where that comes from.)
But for one week every summer, this town gets inundated with hippies and backpackers and all sorts of unclean and possibly deranged tent-dwellers... I'm told that the Roskilde Music Festival is an absolute rite of passage for Danes. We'd put it off for a few years, but sure as hell, no one was going to let us escape the spectacle.
So, but that's just the thing. It's a motherfucking SPECTACLE, y'all. I'm talking 80,000 people and port-a-potties. I'm talking weirdos (European weirdos!) from every strange counter-culture enclave you can imagine. We'll be floating on this putrid wave of debauchery for three days in a tent you would buy at the corner drug store.
People, I'm a little bit terrified. Actually, I have a lot of anxiety about this whole business. I don't have a car. I don't have a private shower. What if I get sick? What if it's too hot? Too wet? Too crowded?
Oddly (so I've been told by the forty-somethings in my office who go every year), it's not chaos. And maybe that shouldn't surprise me. The Scandinavian ability to control oneself is not, as I first assumed, the product of inhibition. No, it's actually something much deeper than that. It's a sense of decency that comes from a society that treats people as adults and expects the same in return. Remember that one really cool teacher in high school who let you assert yourself, your identity, your manic teenaged opinions so long as you did it with respect? Do you remember how calm that class was? How supportive?
That's Denmark. That, I'm told, is the Rosklide Festival. They call this phenomenon the "orange feeling." I don't know why, but basically it has to do with not just the hippie mindset of "live and let live," but reflects something more dynamic. A personal responsibility. And a sense of trust in the system.
That's like the antithesis of counter-culture, right? But the interesting thing about Scandinavians, and Danes in particular, is that – just like the kids in that high school class – they kind of figured out how to assert themselves without fucking up everyone's good time. See, being an asshole is not hygge. And hygge is the highest Danish good. Even at a urine-soaked rock festival.
The move to Denmark has easily been the most cathartic of my life. Before I left the States, I was getting panic attacks in Home Depot. I was talking myself down in traffic jams. And it's not what you think. It's not because life is "simpler" here. It's not because I now ride my bike to work and have only three brands of toothpaste to choose from.
On a hot, crowded bus, a ten-story stairwell or a nine-hour flight, there’s nowhere to run. And in any strange country, support comes where you can find it. Sure, I'm older, I'm more centered – you might argue those things – but here's the fact of me, what I’ve learned about myself – the worrier, the superstitious fool: my comfort zone is entirely variable. It's a spoiled space of my own definition.
So bring on the Roskilde Festival. Bring on 34. Bring on the chaos and the urine dust and the hippies and all the cold showers with strangers. Bring the intensity of 80,000 bodies, all of them seeking that one righteous thing: hygge.
That’s my favorite word, by the way. A prize for someone who managed to snatch some sanity back from the face of the Chaos Monster. Dancing my ass off in the middle-of-nowhere-Denmark, up urine creek without a flushable toilet, I guess we’ll see. I guess we’ll see if joy isn’t something I can have anywhere.
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