Pleasantly morbid.

I have come to a decision. I am going to quit smoking 100%.

Its true that I really only smoke when I'm drinking, however there is something about smoking in a group environment that I find so cliche. And I don't want to be apart of it any longer. I love the idea of a pencil thin, despondent, woman, smoking in secret. An excellent illustration would be Gwyneth Paltrow's character, Margot, in the Royal Tenenbaums. A solemn blond, unhappy with her life, hiding from her family. A lone smoker expresses romanticism and turmoil, while smoking in public only cries out for a need for acceptance. And i do not need to be accepted by anyone, thank you very much.
Maybe I will take to holing up in a bathroom chain smoking. My feet will soak in a lavender infused, warm bath in the sink while I blow smoke at my own reflection in the mirror. I would eat apple blossoms and marigolds all the while, letting their loose petals fall from my mouth into the lavender waters at my feet. It sounds quiet to be a secret smoker, left alone with your thoughts and the simple sounds of ones environment. Only surrounded by your own intentions.
And when the lung cancer sets in you won't be shamed by others opinions or watch them shake their head in shame as they mutter their 'I told you so.' Rather, for a secret smoker it would be a fluke. A genetic botch job. You could embrace the destiny that you brought upon yourself with open arms. For you knew that time would run thin. Maybe you were even waiting patiently for the day to arrive? Fingers laced together, hands sitting pointedly on your lap. You would go to your doctor appointments and do their suggested treatments, accept condolences with an arms length of gratitude, and maybe even join a cancer fundraiser. And then you would go home, lock the bathroom door, and pull a drag through the hole in your throat.

If this isn't self absorbed I don't know what is.

What determines a persons success...money? Power? Happiness? Is success something that you have to dig out of the bottom of a designer bag? As a person in their mid-twenties I feel that I have reached what I like to call my mid-twenties crisis. Mid-life crisis is so 1992 driving a red sports car. Come on, its the year 2000 now, the youth of the past thirty years have been overstimulated and hopped up on anti-depressants, we're a bit more anxious to get this life over with than our elders where. See, most people in their mid-twenties are starting careers, getting married and having babies, or both. I am in the middle of my college career, have a shitty ass job, have no love in my life, and there is no way in hell that I'm about to give birth. So where do people like myself fit into this mold? I can honestly say that I have no idea what I want to do or where I'm headed. I did. At one point. But those ideas have been washed away with time and I am left stranded on a rock amid rapids trying not to topple over. I know many people feel this way I am not the only one, I should really just quit whining. But when I try to hype myself up to start a better, more fulfilling, productive life something like this happens:

First let me introduce you to my nemesis Kirk B Bernard

If you are from the West Coast you may recognize Mr Bernard from his daytime television advertisements for his law services between Jerry Springer and The Maury Show. Kirk B Bernard and myself do not like one another, its our mutual understanding. I think hes extremely weird, rude, and cannot interact socially in a respectable manner and....well I'm not sure why he doesn't like me and its irrelevant anyhow. A few days ago he walked up to me while I was working, put a walking stick on the counter between us and asked me, "Do you like my stick."
"That is a vary nice stick," I replied cordially.
"Do you know what its for?"
"Your shoulder," I state, knowing full well that he had been complaining about his shoulder the past few days.
"Yeah, how did you know that?" He asks, shocked that I knew of his ailment.
"I'm a genius."
"Then why are you working behind a desk?"
With this statement I wished I could have come up with a witty retort however I am not that clever in a pinch. All I could come up with was, "Because I'm trying to make myself suicidal."

Now is it so hard to understand why I have lost my lust for life? One can handle being beaten down so many times.

During my senior year of high school I was your average eighteen year old kid. I drank too much booze and passed out, took all the hallucinogens that I could get my paws on, and smoked the pot like it was going out of style. However while my peers were experimenting with methamphetamines and other narcotics I said, "No thanks guys."

And took another hit from my bong, inevitably taking seven more hits from the bong and spilling bong water all over the place. What can I say, I get excessive with the hand gestures when I'm speaking.

During this time in my life I was In such a rebellious state that I even went so far as to defaced school property and tore out the above picture from one of my textbooks. I was a firm believer that narcotics were wrong, this belief instilled by good parenting and the harsh lessons of life, and as my life lesson ensued I learned time and time again that, in truth, crack is wack. People that I had once called friends turned to lives of theft and attempted suicides. Some clawed their way back to the land of the living and the others fell deeper into zombic states of existence.

In my youth I thought that it would be simple to keep the no good drug addicts out of my life but as I become older, thus wiser, I learn that it is impossible to do so. Im-freaking-possible. Simply, because there are too many of them.

Example: I walk outside on Monday morning to shake out the bathroom rug while doing my day off cleaning. I take two steps onto the deck, the cool wood under my bare feet, give the rug a shake, turn around, and turn the doorknob firmly.....but wait, it doesn't give. It doesn't FREAKING GIVE. I'm locked out! In my pajamas! And no shoes! So I walk around the house surveying my options, all windows seemed to be locked and/or painted shut, so I had nothin'. I came to the conclusion that I had to call a locksmith....but how? My phone was locked inside? I returned to the deck, my feet now covered in dirt, and I wait for about 20 minutes for someone to walk by. Now its just my luck that on Mondays at around 10 am there are very few people walking around my neighborhood, everyone is at work....except for crackheads. I see two gentleman walking down the sidewalk in my direction and I hesitate, for they are too far away for me to determine if, in fact, they are crackheads. I take the risk and call out to catch their attention. That is when I notice their staggering gate, however there was no turning back, so I inquire if they possibly had a cell phone that I could use to call a lock smith. One of the guys pulls his phone from his pocket so I descend from my porch, to the curbside and waited while he tried to get his phone to turn on. After what seemed like five minutes of watching him fiddle with the phone while his friend flipped a crack rock around his mouth with his tongue, I thanked them for their time however I could wait for someone else who had a phone. But they insist they could be of service, for the gentleman with the phone use to break into houses for a living. Oh yea! What luck for me! I have found two heroic crackheads to break into my residence. Sweet! As much as I wanted to take advantage of this great opportunity I was hesitant. But was else was I to do? So I faced them with my arms crossed over my chest, eyes narrowed, biting the inside of my cheek and asked, "All right, how you gonna get in?"

Phone guy smiles, enters my yard, and eyes the windows. He then walks up to one gives the frame a shake and up it goes.

"Wow," I say, gazing up at the window in awe, "Just like that hu? Well thanks a lot."

As I was looking up I realized my head was tilted back pretty far. So far, in fact, that I knew they were going to have to lift me into the window. I shuddered. God, please, don't let this be so. I glanced over at them and their expressions gave away that they knew as well. So I closed my eyes and said, "Alright, lets do this, lift me up."

And they do. They both do. I scrambled in with all my might but there was no avoiding their crack hands on my legs and waist. Finally I got inside, went to my purse, and grabbed twenty bucks. I flung the door that had locked me out open as hard as I possibly could in retaliation. Facing phone guy and crack mouth with one hand on my hip, the other pointing at them with the twenty dollar bill between my fingers I said, "Look you did a nice thing for me so I'm gonna do a nice thing for you. But lets keep this legit and don't fuck with me alright."

They agreed as crack mouth snatched the money from my fingers. I went back inside overcome with half relief, half disgust and took a really, really long shower.