Agnes Electronic Picaresque

As what follows will be distinctly biographical, I thought I would begin on an abstract note. The time contained in a blog is extraordinarily contingent, in part because it appears to have such a transparent structure. I leave out very significant parts of my life here; there are things which happen which are germane, which would probably be interesting to the reader, and which I do not write about. There is also a lot of boring things I leave out, best for everybody. Sometimes things aren't in the correct order. Sometimes things are heightened. If my readers are writers I am sure this will seem to be something of a non-observation, but it is something that has always irritated me in biographies: the narrative arc that inscribes itself onto an (unwilling?) life. Ouisa Kittredge would insist that our lives are more than just a collection of anecdotes, but I'm not so sure.

Last night I smoked. I had had a long day of doing things like look for papers. Are the papers in my bag? No, but there are some bills and a bank statement in there which need to be filed, and there is also an extra handout from class which hasn't been hole-punched and put into a binder. Are the papers in my desk drawer? No, but there are a bunch of receipts in there which need to be flattened out and organized roughly by size and then filed into the Receipts folder in my file drawer—not forgetting to tear off the little coupons at the bottom of the IKEA receipts which are as good as free money and which can go toward the purchase of the handsoap which is one of the things that I need to get next time I go there and which I made a note of on my shopping list on my iphone.

So there was that. Then we had our usual, tedious, departmental meeting at which we were scolded. This was on top of the lecture (part of a series) put on by our Dean, a well-known figure in the art world who does not have a graduate degree. That in itself is no bad thing, but every time he addresses us MFA candidates, everyone gets the feeling that we are being chastised. Not nice. Maybe a nun would be happy with this compounded emotional moment, but I was not. Then we have a critique that runs overtime. In between the meeting and the crit I had somehow managed to make an appointment to have a studio visit with a painter in between the crit and the movie screening series which I am organizing. (As an aside, I feel like all of this paints an inaccurate picture of me as someone who is ambitious and full of action. I want to be clear that it is the no-smoking talking here.)

I go to the painting building, and suddenly everything is really relaxed. My friend is hanging out in the common area chatting with some of the new kids, and we introduce ourselves and joke around. Eventually we wander over to her studio and chat some more and decide we need to have a drink. I tell her I've quit smoking. She says that it is “way too hard to quit in grad school.” And I think to myself—you know, woman, you're right, and as we walk to the bar I bum one. It's an ultra-light. I think I might like it, but I'm not quite sure. We have a beer and then I run off to the liquor store to get a six pack for the screening and then jog across the street to buy a pack of real cigarettes for myself. This I like. It makes me feel like I don't have to be nervous around other people if I can be drinking and thinking about cigarettes and also smoking them.

After the screening (Juliet of the Spirits and Maxi Cohen's Anger,) we are having a discussion with one of the faculty members who stays over on Wednesday nights, and all I can think of is when can I leave to have a cigarette, and how I will need to go out and buy more cigarettes because I had handed so may of them out already. Madeleine calls, and I use this as an excuse to leave. I head out to buy cigarettes, and Madeleine says, “I thought you were going to tell me you were going to the gas station.” To which I replied: I am going to the gas station. Madeleine: very disappointed. Conversation ends diffidently (on my part). Madeleine calls an hour later to say that she doesn't want to pressure me, and that perhaps my friend was right after all: perhaps it is too difficult to quit in grad school. I was happy with this call. All's well that ends well etc., etc.

I felt rather differently about the whole thing this morning. What I did not feel was bad. This is very unusual for me: one of the things that I tell myself to help me through cravings is that later I am always glad when I don't smoke. More immediately are the niggling feelings of guilt and disgust that follow a “fall”. What I realized this time, however, was that most of the times when I start smoking again, I do it for no better reason than that I'm bored. This seems like a big thing to know, esepecially because it is such a small thing that mostly goes completely under my radar. I can't remember ever saying to myself: I am bored now. I think I usually classify it as “restlessness,” but it is clearly not the same thing. I'm not quite sure why it is that smoking itself doesn't get boring—maybe it's because it so effectively turns off my awareness.

Anyhow, I've decided to continue the quit, and I have some new projects. First, I need to develop a more intimate connection with my own boredom. Second, I need to figure out some way to get some kind of repose from my non-smoking-induced mania. And finally, I need to work on understanding that smoking does not help me in social situations; I feel anxious in social situations and that anxiety is independent of smoking which only distracts me from the anxiety.

I said that this post was going to be very biographical, and it has been. I am annoyed that my part of this blog is the “recovering from substance abuse” part—a part that I loathe. It is a narrative that absolutely everybody already knows, and there are only three predetermined outcomes: substance is overcome enabling new-found joy in living, substance is not overcome thus despair, substance continues to exert an on-again, off-again pull dragging out the cycle of triumph, stolidity, indulgence and ashen regret. Oh how one wishes one could be above it!