No Cancering

This is a week I never thought I'd be forced to suffer again. Having taken the path of least physical resistance, and dedicating my life to chain-smoking behind computers, these last seven days of manual labor in preparation for moving the office has been a shock to my delicate biochemical balance of sloth and laziness. Still, what must be done, must be done - come next weekend, my office will have been relocated to a strategically undisclosed location, which I will describe only as being in Newark, New Jersey, and, blessedly, farther away from that bastion of unattractiveness, Princeton.


Alas, I will not be able to smoke in the new facilities, so my first few weeks there will be spent alternately chewing on pen caps and huddling in the corner of my office swallowing hot needles in a cheap attempt to replace the feeling of a morning's first sweet puff of carcinogenic deliciousness. Mother of Christ, I don't know how long I'll be able to hold out. I've smoked three Newports in the first 200 words of this update alone - my lungs are chalky with tar and long-dead alveoli. The constant presence of phlegm in my throat is more soothing than the fattest, blackest breasts cradling my head; nicotine is my muse, and I, its devotee.


I never thought, while abandoning the corporate bore machine and dedicating my life to being a sick fuck, that I would one day find myself unable to kill myself at leisure, one sweet Newport at a time, mere feet away from my own office, but here we are. In a company once consisting of 100% hardcore nicotine addicts, the few and proud have been whittled down. Of thirty people, twenty-two don't smoke, and that, apparently, is enough to warrant a non-smoking policy.


Am I straying from my principles? I don't believe so, no. The national tide is turning against King Tobacco, despite the wondrous joy it has burned into so many of our lives and lungs. Already, a tax paying, God fearing American can't light a smoke in the restaurants and bars of California, New York, and Florida - what state will fall next? The residents of New Jersey, along with the rest of The Real South (Florida doesn't count - it's merely the next-to-last stop on New York's J-train to the Jewish afterlife) probably have a few more years remaining to stake their claims in the big tobacco class action suits, but I fear those days are sharply numbered.


I'm not sure when we, as citizens, lost the privilege to kill ourselves in the manner with which we believe, but it's beginning to wear painfully on me. Sure, Big Tobacco has purposefully deceived the public into becoming nicotine junkies by using highly toxic, addictive chemicals, but so what? McDonald's sells processed yak rectums and god-only-knows what else in their McNuggets, then promotes them as "now [being] made with all white meat!" Yes, white yak rectums dipped in sweet and sour sauce - delish. Fox News sells conservative agendas to fat people in Kansan trailers under the banner of "Fair and Balanced News" - but I wouldn't deny them the right to watch it in a bar if they so choose!


I don't know. Maybe I'm just pissed off about this manual labor, and I'm taking it on the poor, defenseless blog. Sorry about that, buddy - you want a smoke?