Cigarettes are gross. The smoke sticks to your clothes and hair, and it stinks. They’re expensive. When I started smoking I could get a pack for three dollars, and now they’re five dollars and climbing. I guess they’re not exactly good for a person’s health either. I still can’t help loving them. I love cigarettes. They are a dear, dear friend.
During our research excursion in the library yesterday, I came across a book called “The Encyclopedia of Death,” which I had to thumb through. I found a passage about Freud’s “death instinct” which theorizes that humans have an “unconscious desire to return to the inorganic processes of nature.” Smoking was listed among behaviors that fell into that category. It was also mentioned in the section about indirect suicide.
That’s kind of a dark way to view smoking, but then again who knows what’s lurking about in the unconscious mind. I always figured the appeal of smoking to be a simple one. It keeps me busy, gives me something to do with my hands. The quick hit of nicotine is nice and somewhat relaxing, but the physical action of smoking is what draws me in. I love holding a cigarette in my hand, between my fingers, and gently flicking the back end of the filter with my thumb to knock off the ash. I love the way smoke can look on a bright summer day, almost blue in tint as it floats away and dissipates.
Smoking also gives a false sense of having accomplished something, which is nice. It’s like ten little victories a day. It’s also a great way to break up monotonous tasks, or for self-motivation. For instance, I’m thinking to myself at this very moment, “I know this blog is a little weak, and maybe the topic isn’t the best, but it’s all you can think of and the deadline is approaching. Hammer out a few more sentences, and then you can have the first cigarette of the day.”
Another reason I think I come back to smoking (I’ve quit so many times I’ve lost track) are those terrible “The Truth” commercials, with those sassy kids saying sassy things about big tobacco. I’d heard these ads were paid for by the tobacco companies, but their website (ahem, that’s research) has a section in its FAQ about how some of their funding came out of a settlement, but the whole wording is confusing and I’m pretty sure the whole thing is an elaborate plot. Big tobacco knows a certain percentage of the population will be so turned off by the lameness of this advertising campaign that they’ll smoke purely out of spite. Those bastards have thought of everything.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Blog #5
I put off getting a cell phone way longer than most people I know. It seems more like a tether than freedom. Now it’s become part of the pat down routine I do many times a day, often when moving from one place to another. Keys, phone, wallet, in that order. If one of those is missing, I go into a panic.
When out with friends, we coordinate at all times through texts. Constant texting. I was late in that development also, but now it’s another part of the routine. I still have to type every letter out individually. No T9, or whatever it’s called, for me. There’s always that one word it can’t recognize, and I have to switch back and forth anyway, so I’m slow in comparison with a lot of people I know. They send me a text, I monotonously type it out for a few minutes, and they respond within seconds. I still find that amazing.
Often times I’ll be on my way somewhere to meet some people, bar hopping or something else that requires coordination, and I’ll wonder how anyone did anything before cell phones. I know it’s a dumb question, but it’s made things much more casual. Without constant updates on location and status, I’d imagine there’d have to have been more meticulous planning. And breaking plans would have been harder to do without seeming like a dick. You couldn’t send a last minute text saying you’re not going to make it. Maybe I’m over thinking this.
I get made fun of a bit for the cheap phone I have. It seems like everyone has an Iphone, or some equivalent that allows them to browse the internet while we’re out for dinner or drinks. Eight people ignoring each other, staring at their phones, texting others to come join us or writing about what they’re doing on Facebook. I guess there’s no point in face to face conversation anymore, when I can find out all I need to know through a status update.
Anyway, my phone is lame, but I like it. It was free with my contract renewal. I told the lady at the Verizon store I’d take whatever was free, and she looked at me like crazy person. She said something like “You want that phone?” She was probably just trying to goad me into something more expensive for the commission, but I don’t find humiliation to be a good sales incentive. Then she tried to sell me the car charger and Bluetooth ear piece, which I declined. I don’t even have a car.
I liked my old phone better. The battery was messed up after I spilled beer on it, and it couldn’t hold a charge for very long, so when people tried to call or text me and I didn’t feel like responding, I could say my battery was dead. But even then, the smart ones knew that a dead phone goes straight to voicemail instead of ringing a few times first and that really I was ignoring them.
Sometimes I’ll see an old rotary phone on television, hear the violence of the ringing, and it reminds me of when I was younger, in junior high and high school, and a phone call felt new and exciting, like an event (not that we had those kind of phones when I was that age, I’m not that old, although I do remember them as a little kid). Now it happens all the time and at all places. It’s not like I would ever get rid of my cell phone and go back to the ways of yore. Life is a lot easier with them. With that ease and freedom though, something is lost.
I just reread everything I wrote, and realize I sound like an old crank. If Andy Rooney ever dies (he’s got to be what, 109 years old?), maybe I could take his job.
When out with friends, we coordinate at all times through texts. Constant texting. I was late in that development also, but now it’s another part of the routine. I still have to type every letter out individually. No T9, or whatever it’s called, for me. There’s always that one word it can’t recognize, and I have to switch back and forth anyway, so I’m slow in comparison with a lot of people I know. They send me a text, I monotonously type it out for a few minutes, and they respond within seconds. I still find that amazing.
Often times I’ll be on my way somewhere to meet some people, bar hopping or something else that requires coordination, and I’ll wonder how anyone did anything before cell phones. I know it’s a dumb question, but it’s made things much more casual. Without constant updates on location and status, I’d imagine there’d have to have been more meticulous planning. And breaking plans would have been harder to do without seeming like a dick. You couldn’t send a last minute text saying you’re not going to make it. Maybe I’m over thinking this.
I get made fun of a bit for the cheap phone I have. It seems like everyone has an Iphone, or some equivalent that allows them to browse the internet while we’re out for dinner or drinks. Eight people ignoring each other, staring at their phones, texting others to come join us or writing about what they’re doing on Facebook. I guess there’s no point in face to face conversation anymore, when I can find out all I need to know through a status update.
Anyway, my phone is lame, but I like it. It was free with my contract renewal. I told the lady at the Verizon store I’d take whatever was free, and she looked at me like crazy person. She said something like “You want that phone?” She was probably just trying to goad me into something more expensive for the commission, but I don’t find humiliation to be a good sales incentive. Then she tried to sell me the car charger and Bluetooth ear piece, which I declined. I don’t even have a car.
I liked my old phone better. The battery was messed up after I spilled beer on it, and it couldn’t hold a charge for very long, so when people tried to call or text me and I didn’t feel like responding, I could say my battery was dead. But even then, the smart ones knew that a dead phone goes straight to voicemail instead of ringing a few times first and that really I was ignoring them.
Sometimes I’ll see an old rotary phone on television, hear the violence of the ringing, and it reminds me of when I was younger, in junior high and high school, and a phone call felt new and exciting, like an event (not that we had those kind of phones when I was that age, I’m not that old, although I do remember them as a little kid). Now it happens all the time and at all places. It’s not like I would ever get rid of my cell phone and go back to the ways of yore. Life is a lot easier with them. With that ease and freedom though, something is lost.
I just reread everything I wrote, and realize I sound like an old crank. If Andy Rooney ever dies (he’s got to be what, 109 years old?), maybe I could take his job.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Live Strong
When first diagnosed with leukemia after a blood test, my doctor recommended I should read Lance Armstrong’s biography, which seemed harmless enough at the time. I politely nodded and said I’d look into it, but I had no intention of doing so. I’m not too into reading biographies, and I generally avoid anything which appears to be uplifting or inspiring in an obvious way.
When I was in the hospital at OHSU for six weeks undergoing chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, I had a strange reaction to compazine, an anti nausea medication. Instead of helping me keep my meals down, it gave me tremendous anxiety. I took it in pill form for about a week, by the end of which I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t think a medication was the culprit, as being confined to a windowless room in the bowels of a hospital and taking “medicine” to kill off my immune system would seem to be enough to give anyone fits. During this spell, I woke up in the middle of the night once and had no idea where I was. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and had convinced myself I had been in a car accident. I told the nurse about my declining mental state, and she arranged for a doctor who had an interest in helping young adult cancer patients cope to see me. After we met, he gave me a thick, black and yellow binder with the phrase “livestrong” emblazoned across the cover. It didn’t help. It took a direct IV injection of compazine followed by an almost paralytic anxiety attack for the nurses to make the connection. The stay became more tolerable after that.
I eventually was released from the hospital, but still had to go to OHSU nearly every day for careful examination of my blood counts. Some days I had to sit in the transfusion room near the back of the section of the hospital designated “hematological oncology” (which is just fancy talk for blood cancers) for hours. The transfusion room has around thirty reclining chairs, where people with various diseases sit and receive whatever medications or fluids they need intravenously. On any given day there are some seriously sick people there, most of them elderly. You can tell how far along the people are. Some look like any person you might see on the street, others are bald and swollen yet still cheerful and outgoing. Some look like they’re just on this side of dying. I’m fairly certain I fell into each of those categories at one time or another. On the wall where the windows look out across the city, next to the televisions showing some terrible daytime talk show, is a large autographed poster of Lance Armstrong, arms held high as he crosses the finish line on his bicycle. It really pissed me off. For one thing, he raised the bar for cancer survivors. Just getting through it isn’t enough anymore. You have to win the Tour de France afterwards. It was just about the last thing I wanted to see in that moment.
Armstrong is probably an alright guy with good intentions, and it’s not really him that bothers me. Somewhere in that image of him “beating cancer” and regaining his former glory is a rather dark implication. Not long after I was diagnosed, a nurse told me how important is was to be a fighter, which I’ve heard before in regards to illness. It didn’t bother me at the time, but now I can’t help but think what utter bullshit it really is. I never fought anything. I experienced it. It overwhelmed me and consumed my life. I might as well have tried to fight a hurricane. If someone is able to “fight” and “beat” cancer, then a person who dies must be weak or flawed. What generally amounts to a genetic crapshoot becomes the fault of the person for not fighting hard enough.
When I’d sit down across from that giant poster for hours, waiting for the IV drip to finish, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Fuck Lance Armstrong.”
(Side note: this isn’t from a daily observation, but from my experience with illness. I know I’m dipping into that well quite a bit, but what can I say, I’ve got some shit to work out.)
When I was in the hospital at OHSU for six weeks undergoing chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant, I had a strange reaction to compazine, an anti nausea medication. Instead of helping me keep my meals down, it gave me tremendous anxiety. I took it in pill form for about a week, by the end of which I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t think a medication was the culprit, as being confined to a windowless room in the bowels of a hospital and taking “medicine” to kill off my immune system would seem to be enough to give anyone fits. During this spell, I woke up in the middle of the night once and had no idea where I was. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and had convinced myself I had been in a car accident. I told the nurse about my declining mental state, and she arranged for a doctor who had an interest in helping young adult cancer patients cope to see me. After we met, he gave me a thick, black and yellow binder with the phrase “livestrong” emblazoned across the cover. It didn’t help. It took a direct IV injection of compazine followed by an almost paralytic anxiety attack for the nurses to make the connection. The stay became more tolerable after that.
I eventually was released from the hospital, but still had to go to OHSU nearly every day for careful examination of my blood counts. Some days I had to sit in the transfusion room near the back of the section of the hospital designated “hematological oncology” (which is just fancy talk for blood cancers) for hours. The transfusion room has around thirty reclining chairs, where people with various diseases sit and receive whatever medications or fluids they need intravenously. On any given day there are some seriously sick people there, most of them elderly. You can tell how far along the people are. Some look like any person you might see on the street, others are bald and swollen yet still cheerful and outgoing. Some look like they’re just on this side of dying. I’m fairly certain I fell into each of those categories at one time or another. On the wall where the windows look out across the city, next to the televisions showing some terrible daytime talk show, is a large autographed poster of Lance Armstrong, arms held high as he crosses the finish line on his bicycle. It really pissed me off. For one thing, he raised the bar for cancer survivors. Just getting through it isn’t enough anymore. You have to win the Tour de France afterwards. It was just about the last thing I wanted to see in that moment.
Armstrong is probably an alright guy with good intentions, and it’s not really him that bothers me. Somewhere in that image of him “beating cancer” and regaining his former glory is a rather dark implication. Not long after I was diagnosed, a nurse told me how important is was to be a fighter, which I’ve heard before in regards to illness. It didn’t bother me at the time, but now I can’t help but think what utter bullshit it really is. I never fought anything. I experienced it. It overwhelmed me and consumed my life. I might as well have tried to fight a hurricane. If someone is able to “fight” and “beat” cancer, then a person who dies must be weak or flawed. What generally amounts to a genetic crapshoot becomes the fault of the person for not fighting hard enough.
When I’d sit down across from that giant poster for hours, waiting for the IV drip to finish, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Fuck Lance Armstrong.”
(Side note: this isn’t from a daily observation, but from my experience with illness. I know I’m dipping into that well quite a bit, but what can I say, I’ve got some shit to work out.)
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