I'm smoking again (but you shouldn't (unless you want to))

My therapist says I have oral fixation and that I probably don't even like smoke. She's half right. I'll nibble on anything. I keep two sets of pens, one for me and one to lend out. The "me" pens have gnawed on covers split open from persistent, unusual, dental pressure. You can see teeth marks in the plastic along the shaft. Though I do like smoke. It's sharp, hot and it fills me up. I'm trying to practice mindfulness. I'm always "trying" but during guided meditation podcasts where I breathe through my nose and out through my mouth on my bed to the sound of an instructor's slow, soft, boring whisper-talk, I think "I would love a cigarette."

I never quitted smoking. I quitted smoking a pack a week (or more during finals season). It would be better to say I quit the context. Now, I'm a social smoker. One cigarette passed around. It would be rude to refuse. Sitting in backyards or in drained pools, laughing, flirting, falling into each other. It feels good. By my math: I'm smoking maybe two/thirds of a cigarette a year. Not bad but for some too already too much.

Come the end of July it will be three months since my last pay cheque from my current employer. That's not strictly true. Since starting in December of last year, I have not been paid on time once. This has cascaded, so I was paid in May for April's labour but at the time of writing I have not been compensated for May or June, and we're at the half-way mark of July. So I'm soon to be owed three months of pay, but it's easier and accurate enough to say "I have not been paid in three months." This is an issue across the entire company with some employees going even longer without pay.

This is a news company, and we've covered the successful strikes of our peers. There is no union. When speaking to a co-worker in the IT department, he was surprised that it's been three months since my last payday. "They don't play with my money," he said. "This entire place falls apart without us (the IT Department)." He's not wrong. Our equipment is decaying. I have had to refamiliarize myself with Windows XP. One of our capture devices has 4 out of its 5 buttons missing. In order to pause, record, etc., I have to pluck the remaining button out of its slot, push it into its empty neighbour's and press. He went on to say that people leaving or protesting didn't make sense, as someone would just do your job and then you were out of one. I had spent months agitating for us, across the company, to do something. Anything. There are parents and spouses at this company. People with immense responsibility working unusual hours for an unreliable salary. It's untenable. There's been no collective purchase, and no co-ordination in delinquent action. People don't show up for work and then they're replaced by someone younger, hungrier, stupider. Now, a man acknowledges the power and privilege has has, but says "you have to understand it from the company's perspective." It's never going to get better here.

This was supposed to be it. My first salaried job. An office job with health care and a pension. No more lugging cameras up waterfalls, no more getting shot at in the too early morning. Stability. I know I need to leave but if I'm honest, the routine has been good for me. The scaffolding from which I can plan the rest of my day around. It's what I mean when I say I'm a bad writer. There is no internal combustion engine propelling me to write. No directive. I am not a dilettante to my craft. I have not honed it. I have not pruned bad habits. I'm streaky.

And while I'm honest, the prospect of job hunting in what feels like the most barren landscape to do so, terrifies me. My last spell of unemployment coincided with the worst I've ever felt about myself. The worst I've done since University. A walking tally of personal failures, and collective familial disappointment.

So I'm smoking again and I'm smoking alone. And it does kill. You won't see me do it though, both for your health and my peace of mind, but it does kill. It's a slow murder, slower than my recent rounds with capitalism, maybe. It's good for me, for a little bit at least. Reclaimed agency in my death to be romantic. To be bleak. To be dumb. But it's resume season and I need to light something on fire so permit me this until it gets a bit better.