Day Thirty-Four

Alright. Perhaps you were assuming I gave up on this project completely as I haven't written a single word in three days. Sorry about that; busy weekend; and quite interesting at that.

I attended an interview day for the Baltimore City Teaching Residency which required me to teach a short five minute lesson. Normally, a stressful day involving a job interview would push me right into a pack of smokes. They would settle me down; functioning as that crutch, that immovable and unchanging constant on which I may rest in an uncomfortable situation. It was always so easy to excuse myself away from other nervous chit-chat with a quick smoke, and with the smokers, we could just enjoy the company with silence and the occasion reference to the weather, now and future.

This time around, such vices were not needed. And, while there is always room for improvement, my biggest fear of crumbling under the weight of expectation without my crutch was itself destroyed. I don't need that shit anymore.

Therefore, I, yesterday, decided to take a puff of a cigarette from one of co-workers on our way in to work. Normally, this kind gentleman smokes those Camel Crushes that make used to make Winstons taste like Dunhills. If you want a menthol, smoke a fucking Newport! However, this morning, my friend handed me a stubbier cigarette and I thought, 'Oh shit. A Red'. Of course, my first puff in Thirty-three days is a Marlboro Red, the king. I stopped at half a tug, and as the smoke slammed my lungs, I wondered if I just inhaled a fucking sledge-hammer; like someone stomping their foot to compact a waste-paper basket. Straight down to the bottom of my tender lungs it hit me, and the illusion was destroyed.

I write this with a certain sense of pride. I didn't steal that cig from my compadre and ravage it as I kept thinking would happen. I didn't even really crave it. I just wanted to know what it was that I was so afraid of; what exactly it was that had made me crazy all that time; what had inspired this entire venture. Frankly, it was a bit of a let down...

Oh yeah...it wasn't a whole cig, so no five bucks. I did specify that before, right?