set for the weekend

The title of this blog could just as well be Why I Can't Stop... drinking, gambling, shopping, fucking, eating, working, medicating, doing crank—whatever the obsession might be. Addiction is kind of generic. So last weekend, four of my friends—two with class A addictive personalities like mine, two without, decided that I needed to be saved from myself. They are actually afraid that I have pneumonia or cancer or emphysema or something on account of this truly awful cough that I've had for a couple of months. Also, they think I'm an alcoholic.
An intervention was scheduled.
Unfortunately for them, I knew about their plans in advance, and so I arrived prepared (above). I mean, I was prepared to concede smoking (I'm not an idiot and in fact, I had stopped in advance) but an addict has to have something. Their various suggested crutches—AA meetings, hypnosis, vegan diet, retreat in India—didn't do it for me. Any other notions?
Why I can't stop smoking: I have this jones.

go fish

There's a smell in the kitchen. Not like chicken.
We have sniffed.
We have investigated.
We have scrubbed:
the garbage cans
the lids of the garbage cans
the refrigerator shelves
the things on the refrigerator shelves
the underneath of the refrigerator (as far as we could reach)
the floor
the toaster oven
the microwave
the dishwasher
And still--peeuw.
It's not like this hasn't happened before. And eventually—ohmigod no wonder!—we figured out what it was.
We will this time too.
Meanwhile, why I can't stop smoking: It smells better than whatever that is.

crash pad

"She was lying on the floor in the hall naked in front of the fan," my roommate reported. "I moved her to my bed."
Later that day, I found someone asleep in my bed.
This morning, there seem to be two people in the other bedroom. And there's a strange man on the couch.
What is it with this place?
I'm leaving town.
Reason I can't stop smoking today: There's always someone sleeping around here.

five o'clock shadow

glasses of grapefruit juice: 2
cups of coffee: 3
crossword puzzles: 1/2
bananas: 1/2
lunches with friends: 2
beers: 6
full moons: 1
cigarettes: 4
Reason I can't stop smoking: I might lose this cough altogether

spitting out seeds

This is a watermelon. It was cut, like most of our clothing, in China. A lot of our tacky hotel art is painted there too, along with those oil paintings of our children copied from photographs (if any of you have these, excuse me while I hurl). But make no mistake, there's a lot of good art coming out of China as well: When you have a country of 1.3 billion people, you got the tallest, the shortest, the smartest, the dumbest and the most talented humans on Earth.
They also smoke a lot (probably it's those dumb ones), which is about the only good news for the home team.
cups of coffee today: 2
bananas: 1/2
cigarettes: 1/2
Reason I can't quit: I can't even cut me a slice of watermelon.

macho woman

"I don't get why we are having this war in Iraq anyway," said a friend who doesn't read the newspapers much. I tried to explain about uranium and oil and Saddam Hussein and Karl Rove and George Bush. She wasn't really getting it. No big surprise, I don't really get it either. "Women should be running the country," she said.
"Men," I said."If they can't fuck it, they want to shoot it."
Why I can't quit just now: What about Condoleezza Rice?

addiction report

Crossword puzzles: 1 (Sunday)
Cups of coffee: 2
Beers: 0
Glasses of grapefruit juice: 0
Cigarettes: 1
Why I can't stop smoking: I'm afraid I might be allergic to cigarettes

readership appeal

photograph by Chris Garrison

In a shameless appeal for readers, I present this as the reason for both why I should stop smoking and why I can't.

substance abuse

OK, stay up drinking with your friends until 11:00. Get up at 5:00, drive for three hours, drop your truck at the shop, find out it will cost $3000 to get it to pass inspection, stall out borrowed truck, arrive at beach house 10:30, clean disgusting barbeque grill, weed garden, pay non-English-speaking cleaners, blog. That's as far as I've gotten.
Cups of coffee: 1
Bananas: 1/2
Crossword puzzles: 1
Newspapers: 1
Beers: 3
Cigarettes: 6
Why I can't stop smoking: So many miles, so little time.

evolution of the species—or not

What's odd about these guys?
Right.
They have hair.
Men in New York don't have hair anymore. Sometimes they have hat, but no hair. Shaven pates, crew cuts—that's the look.
Come to think of it, women mostly don't have pubic hair anymore, either. Shaven pussies, landing strips.
What's up with that? We're mammals, right? We trying to lose our connection to the animal world? No wonder people can't find mates or have decent sex with them if they do.
No of cups of coffee so far today: 1
No. of bananas so far today: 1/2
No. of cigarettes so far today: 1
Why I can't stop: Humans are animals.

yeah you

You guys know what lurkers are? Lurkers are people who read a blog but don't comment. It's sort of like snooping. Blogs are intended to be an interactive form. You don't have to write a treatise, just a couple of words. Sometimes those words are "You suck!" Sometimes they are more complimentary. Sometimes they are self-promoting. Whatever. I know you're out there, and I know where you live. Get with the freaking program. You read, you comment. Dig?
Why I can't stop: My friends are superannuated, antediluvian luddites

over there

Alas, poor Europe. We can sit around here and scratch our asses and sympathise and pontificate, but in fact Americans are very complacent. 9/11 seems a long time ago and 7/7 a long way away. In Europe, however, people have been living with bombs bursting in air for quite a while now. They have large, angry Muslim populations and are a lot closer to the action in the Middle East than we are. They know it's never really going to be over.
We, on the other hand, all secretly believe that we've seen the worst of it, that it won't happen here.
"Excuse me, sir, would you mind holding this package for me?"
Kablam.
That feeling of security will be gone in a puff of smoke.
Reason I can't stop smoking: Damn Yanks.

mi corazon

This is Donna, with Alberto. Although she's a nonsmoker, she doesn't mind if he smokes—it's the least of his bad habits—and besides they're in Madrid, where puffing away is more acceptable than it is in Nueva York.
She thinks smoking is sexy. Something about the inhale, exhale of the breath, the pursed lips, the swirling veil of smoke. Of course, our Donna thinks everything is sexy—not least Alberto.
Reason I can't stop smoking altogether: It's too sexy.

got no culture

Why does everyone who comes to stay with me want me to see Art? And I don't mean Art at the delicatessen. I mean MOMA, the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, Soho, Chelsea and last winter that premier artspace of all, Central Park. And they want me to go with. I mean, don't they think that I would go to museums (or Broadway shows, or the opera, or the ballet, or the symphony, or Shakespeare in the park) if I wanted to? I live here, after all. I could go any time. But they try to haul me along, and sometimes I go, if only to spend time with my friends. It can backfire, like the time one visitor and I caused a scene by ridiculing some Joseph Cornell boxes. Or like this last time at MOMA's Lee Friedlander show, when I went into a paroxysm of coughing in the hushed gallery. I'm sure my friends wished they'd left me at home. ("Philistine. Never saw her before in my life.") But at least it wasn't a concert.
Let me bum a smoke from you.
Reason I can't stop: Only pearls should be cultured.

smoking streets

New York smells in the summer. It smells like the garbage from the MacDonald's, the wastewater from the drains, the exhaust from the buses, the dogs, the people. It is a noxious miasma. I don't know why people here don't wear those white gauze masks like they do in Asia, where actually the smell is much nicer with the smoke of cooking fires and the scent of flowers balancing that of open sewers. In New York, I'd rather smell the cigarette smoke that hangs above nearly every corner than the gutters. Especially since I'm not smoking at the moment. Inhale. Exhale.
Reason to have a virtual cigarette: It beats the odiferous reality

about face

One reason I can't stop smoking is this stupid blog. How would I face my public?

not cool

"We will not turn a blind eye to serious and flagrant disregard of federal law," said a DEA agent. He wasn't kidding. No sooner did the Supreme Court say that federal law overruled California law permitting the use and distribution of medical marijuana, then the DEA jumped into action, along with the IRS and the Secret Service, to search medical marijuana dispenseries, growing sites and people's houses. They hauled off plants, made quite a few arrests and indicted a doctor and her husband from—no kidding—Cool, Calif., for dealing.
Way to go men, nail those sicko potheads. Not like the country has any other problems that could use a little manpower. Like, let's say, the thousands of meth labs in red states. Or the foundering economy and moribund society that created them. It's just a baby step after all from smoking marijuana when you have cancer to gay marriage, and you've got to draw the line somewhere. This is America. In pain? Have a nice slice of apple pie and sleep it off.
Why I can't stop today: Soon smoking anything will be illegal.

hooks

I can't stop smoking because I am a freaking addict, is why.

I am addicted to cigarettes.
I am addicted to booze.
I am addicted to grapefruit juice.
I am addicted to the New York Times crossword puzzle.
I am addicted to Klondike York ice cream bars.
I am addicted to routine.

I am not addicted to gambling.
I am not addicted to television.
I am not addicted to chocolate.
I could easily be addicted to cocaine, crank and probably any number of other illegal substances, but I am not.

Reason I can't stop smoking: I have to choose my addictions carefully

never done

The realization dawned slowly: I had invited the real estate agent who rents my beach house to dinner.
Why did I do that? It would amount to a beginning-of-season inspection, and the place was a wreck. I have exactly one week from today to get it into pristine shape. Correction: It had to be in shape by dinnertime. Fuck me.
Fortunately, I have two world champion cleaners as houseguests. Unfortunately, one of them is addicted to tennis and was at the bar watching Wimbledon all day. That left one, and me, a world champion slob.
I ran around the house stuffing stuff into closets (from which it will have to be unstuffed and dealt with soon), hanging shades and tidying up shelves, while my friend slaved over toilet bowls and dust. A half hour before the guest was due, the vacuum was still running. And then it was done.
Pass me that pack.
Why I can't stop: It will be dirty again by next week.

other people's shit

"I have never seen so much stuff in my life as your daughter moved in here," the elevator man said to me. "But I know where she got it from."
I have become infamous in my building for the amount of stuff I lug in and out of a fairly small two-bedroom apartment. The car door I used as a table for a while created probably the most amusement, since it turned out to be a door one of the elevator men had junked.
Yesterday it was a broken coffee table, the results of shopping expeditions to Bed, Bath and Beyond and Zabars, and assorted luggage. A small load, all in all, until I later picked up eight sliding screens and fourteen bags of groceries I didn't want to pay for on the island. (Note: I stood in the Island Grocery staring at a box of grapefruit juice priced at $10 for about five minutes once before deciding that I just couldn't.)
However, on the drive up, I received several phone calls from a friend.
"Could you stop at Marshall's and pick up a rug I have put on hold and bring it over?" A little later: "Could you also pick up a cheap bed pillow for me?" And later: "I really need a short heavy-duty extension cord for the microwave. Would you mind?"
Mind, me?
Turned out the rug was an eight-by-twelve footer that weighed about 500 pounds. I had to put my passenger in the back seat of the compact car and hang the rug out the front window. I also had to pay for it.
Then I had to unload it into a crate at the ferry. By myself.
Why I can't stop smoking today: Now the rug is rulled up under my feet.