Listen:

Fucking Christ Christmas break is dull.

I keep telling myself to enjoy this one because it's probably my last, but there is no way to sugar coat tedium. So far I've divided my time in three ways; sleeping, making myself stupider and making myself smarter.

So far my average arrival time for consciousness has been, oh...I guess around 1:30 in the PM. I've been making myself smarter by braving the always treacherous Barnes and Noble in the magnificently terrifying new shopping center on the east siiiiyde.

Seriously, if you want to have a mind numbing, awkward convo just head to Kroger or B&N anytime this week. I live in constant fear of a roving pack of former high school acquaintances in the isles of B&N. "Nose in the book, boy, you're safe there," is my mantra.

I make myself dumber by night to brace my brain from all the new and shocking truths I've learned in the Self Improvement and Current Affairs isles at the B&N. My elixirs of choice have been cheap Merlot, Camel Frosts and large quantities of cheese. Obviously my insides are not in the best of health, but my brain is better for it I'm sure.

Of all the lines in all the books I've skimmed over in the last days, one has stuck I my mind like a javelin in a cottage cheese filled cantaloupe. Like to hear it, here it go-"I had a paper tube in my mouth. It was filled with leaves. I set it on fire." That's Kurt Vonnegut talking about lighting a cigarette in his book Breakfast of Champions.

Well, when you break it down like that...damn, that is kind of stupid. I mean not stupid in the sense those fucked up TRUTH advirtasments want you to believe, just odd.

So I got to thinking, like I'm apt to do, and I wondered why I liked smoking so damn much. Because, I do like it a lot. I'm thinking about the one I'm going to smoke after I get done typing this none sense at this very moment. And that, in a nutshell is why I like cigarettes. Anticipation.

I don't lead an exiting life. I usually have to create what little excitement I experience and being a lazy man I only do that when high on some chemical or in some rare cocksure mood. If it sounds tragic, that's because it kinda is. But, I digress. What I mean to say is, cigarettes give bored people something to look forward to. They're that little extra kick of joy after a big ass, American sized meal. They're that icing on the cake of a good buzz or bong rip. They are that last bastion of of sanity when our world has been ripped to shreds and crammed down our throats.

Sure, it's probably just our physical dependence to nicotine or our oral fixations that shoot that tiny spark across some synapse buried deep in our skull, but the sum is greater than the parts in this case. Cigarettes are horrible for us, stink like shit and, I'll admit, seem to serve no obvious purpose but to give us cancer. But knowing, as I do now, that in mere minutes you will be getting the one thing you crave more than just about anything is reason enough to throw caution to the wolves.

Tube of leaves, here I come.