Schizo: A Memoir

Doot Dadoot Dadoo...(freewrite)

I remember that guy! He'd roll in and give us the letter for the day, a word and then roll out. I miss Sesame Street....the old one. The new one is nice but the old one holds memories. Memories of me and my sister playing school and us taking turns being the teacher but for some reason whenever she was the teacher I always had to write "I will not..." sentences and I was always in trouble. I even had to sit in the corner or at my spot at the table with my head down until she was satisfied. A total abuse of power. You think it ended when we were kids...hell no. As the younger sibling she has abused her rights as the good child too...she was supposed to learn from my mistakes but it seems she likes learning the hard way.

I suggest, she denies and says no thanks will find out on her own and then I have to listen to the complaints afterwards ...the "I should have..." is always inevitable. Hey we're adults now and as much as I want to make her stand in the corner for her transgressions against adulthood, I can't. We all learn at different speeds in different ways.

For instance, I learned the valuable lesson of common sense and keep learning it through my many failures. Recently, around Christmas (the day after) I fell ill. It was not pleasant but the thing that brought it about was sheer stupidity on my part. I decided to leave the house on a cold day right after I'd had a shower. I was in a rush and was still a bit damp...pores open and all and I noticed that I had started to develop a cough and became hoarse. It wasn't until I nearly coughed up a lung that I realized my error. Silly me thought it was from smoking. That could have had a part in it too as I stopped smoking when I got sick to help my lungs heal (from bronchitis) and noticed that the coughs were way worse than a smoker's cough. I would become winded from doing so and then feel the onset of dizziness thereafter.

So for three weeks I was smoke free. I breached that nice run today with a cigarette from my cousin. It was terrible. I really shouldn't have but I had been wanting one sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad! I dreamt of smoking and enjoying it. The reality was that today – that hint of a cough returned and that dizzy feeling kicked my ass. So I still need to quit or at least let my lungs heal thoroughly. I really want to quit.

It is said that no one who smokes likes smoking.

We do it because of stress, addiction, peer pressure, boredom, friendlessness or/ and the most unique excuse I have ever heard is that we have to have something in our mouths and something to do with our hands.

I crochet and eat chocolate....haven't lately but that takes care of that.

So why do we do it?

I think with me in the beginning it was because I was trying to impress a member of the opposite sex. Now cigarettes weren't the first thing I smoked. As a matter of fact, I didn't start with cigarettes until about two years ago. When I decided to smoke I jumped in head first with cigars. Real cigars...gourmet ones, smuggled ones, hand wrapped in the Philippines, Brazil, Cuba and other foreign places...the ones that make you hack up your entire existence if you inhale too deep. Those!

So...there was a guy I met when I worked at the Lambert International Airport a million years ago. It was a time of ease. I could go to the airport on my off days with my friends and eat at the restaurants inside, hang out in the arcade that was there and harass other co-workers. A time long before the TSA and beefed up security restrictions that we have now. Now, if you aren't flying in or out, working there or picking someone up, you can't be there. A million years ago, when TWA was a thing I could just go hang out to see what celebrities showed up...and I did. I have a few autographs of notable people...all of whom are either dead or past their prime. They were awesome at the time.