this is vane & boring. don't read it.

I took a week-long hiatus from drinking and smoking.

I was prompted to do so after a horribly long and booze filled weekend which started on a Friday with cocktails in hand on a train bound for a birthday party two towns over, and ended at 7:30 am on a Sunday as I walked out of an unknown bar and into morning rain, trying to convince a 23 year old Japanese woman who had been talking with me all night that she should leave her 43 year old American fiancé and come home with me. I was unsuccessful, which is for the better. She had horrible teeth.

I decided that I needed to cool it off, that my life is not going anywhere good by drinking all night on the weekends and less heavily in between. So, after I crawled out of bed at 2 in the afternoon last Sunday, I decided that these horrible drugs had to go. At least for a while. I took it as an experiment, a test to see what would happen to my mind and body should I suddenly deprive it of the heavy blend of nicotine and alcohol that has been requisite to feel normal for the longest time. As an added control to this experiment, I eliminated masturbation from my daily repertoire as well.

So after a week, what has happened? What effects have I felt? What is for the better? What is for the worst?

Surprisingly, I did not crave the evil temptations. For the first two days of the project, alcohol seemed repulsive as a cheesy vaginal discharge and cigarettes are easy enough to limit when I’m away from alcohol and other smokers.

I’ve been going running semi-regularly with a couple friends in town. One of the routes we run is quite hilly and takes about an hour. They’ve estimated it to be about 10 kilometers. Naturally, when we went for the 10K on Wednesday, it was significantly easier to do, thanks to not smoking for only four days.

Later in the week, Thursday and Friday specifically, I found that I was able to wake up with much more ease than before. When the alarm sounded off at 6 am, I was more or less ready to get up with it.

The Craving came on Friday night as I was on a highway bus bound for Aizu Wakamatsu, a township about three hours west of me, where I would meet my friend Randal for a weekend hiking adventure. I am most of the way through reading a novel called Middlesex and there was a scene that lasted a number of pages where the narrator in fixating on a teenage girl he refers to as The Object. The Object smokes menthols while brushing her teeth and has enough muscular dexterity in her lips and face to blow a vast array of smoke rings, a different one for every occasion.

This, of course, was described more eloquently than I could ever do myself and also at much greater length.

A cigarette can be an incredibly sexy thing. In his novel, Jeffery Eugenides succeeds in proving this. I’ve also known several women who’s cigarette smoking made them insurmountably more alluring and mysterious. These are good qualities, if you ask me. The Object possesses them too.

I sat there reading about this alluring, chain-smoking creature and suddenly, as the bus sped onward into the darkness, more than at any other time all week long, I needed a cigarette.

This could not happen, since I was on a non-smoking bus. I also had no cigarettes.

There is no denying the merits of abstaining from the booze and tobacco, they are plenty.

However, other ill affects do come from depriving one’s self of the lovely poisons.

Perhaps those of you who are writers can relate to this. During this week of abstention I did not write a single word. I didn’t work on the short story, I didn’t blog, I didn’t even jot down random notes and ideas. The only writing I did was on instant messenger and facebook.

I did not come to Japan to teach English. I happen to be employed as an elementary school English teacher, and I do take my job seriously and given that I’ve only been here two months, I think I’ve done a good job at it so far. But teaching English is definitely not my purpose on this Earth. I don’t know what exactly my purpose is, I don’t think anybody ever figures that out.

But I did come here to write. Whether or not that’s my purpose in life, I do not know. What I do know is that I have to give it a shot. Back home there were too many distractions and not enough time to get any solid work done. Here, my only distraction is myself. I have plenty of time to write. I’m not nearly as social as I was back home. Those of you who spent time with me in KC on Wednesdays at Harry’s and Monday’s at McCoy’s might be surprised to hear this.

Okay, to the point….

This experiment shed light on two things: a.) I feel healthier and generally better about myself when I don’t drink and smoke. And, b.) I need to drink and smoke to write.

Perhaps that is too vague. But let me stop here for a conceit: When I woke up at Randal’s house on Sunday morning, after our day-long hike, he made me lunch and offered me a beer. I ate and drank. Then I had a second beer while we we’re watching an anime. Afterwards, he drove me to the station and I had a third while on the hour long train ride to the city. Then, at the bus station, I had a cocktail before boarding the bus for home. And now, as I write this, I’ve moved on to whisky and the words are flowing easily from my brain and to my hands and to the keys of the machine.

Every entry of this blog has been written under the influence of alcohol, and often at the end of an entry, the ashtray is overflowing with butts of cigarettes smoked down to the very end. Thank god for spell check and its red squiggly lines, no?

Most of the great writers were raging alcoholics with numerous illegitimate children and suicidal tendencies.

Example:

E. Hemingway: had blood transfusion with a bottle of Bacardi; several wives; blew his head off. Won Pulitzer Prize.

H.S. Thompson: drug-addled freak; violent, aggressive and hostile; dead by revolver to the mouth. Journalistic icon, cult literary hero.

F.S. Fitzgerald: notorious alcoholic and chain smoker; drank himself to death by his mid-forties. He was 29 when The Great Gatsby went to press.

So does alcohol makes me a better writer? Probably not. Actually, of course not. I just reread everything I wrote and it came off as vane and boring. But does alcohol motivate me to turn off the music and the Internet and sit down and write? Absolutely.

So what does this all mean? Nothing much, really.

It is what it is.

There’s nothing I can do. Except have a cigarette and go to bed.