My brain feels like sausage. It’s the grease dripping out of the sausage and bubbling on the edges of the pan. Once it hardens, it’ll take all your elbow-might to get it loose. My brain is the lint in jean pockets, liquid vanilla from a crappy ice-cream machine, and the shattered lollipop on the ground that’s become a sugar swimming pool for ants.

Translation: I’ve gone two days without a smoke.

I’ve quit before. Mark Twain was great at quitting—he did it thousands of times. Me, I’ve only done it three or four, but I was great at it, too. So good was I at quitting that I always came back to the wagon so I could quit again. If you don’t use it, you lose it; I had a gift for quitting, so I kept on quitting.

The tables have turned. Tables tend to do that on me lately. This quitting episode isn’t making me feel like the Schwarzenegger of chemical dependence. This time, I’m really feeling it. I left work early today. I’m sleepy no matter how long I sleep. I feel like I have a fever, but I don’t (my head is a dirty liar). I’ve spent the day surfing dating sites—I tend to do that when I’m bored and lonely. (If you judge me on that, I’ll light you up and smoke you.) All I want to do is eat and sleep. Instead, at the behest of Voice editor Mr. Jackson, I’m filtering my altered state into an irate tirade. At least it gets me off of the dating sites for a spell.

You know who takes a special light in the midst of addiction-related irritability? James Bond. I just watched The Quantum of Solace from my blanketed position on the sofa. All I could think about while watching Daniel Craig saunter around with machine guns and buxom ladypersons was, who the hell does this joker think he is? That train of thought inspired another article I’ll write sometime when my brain isn’t quite as unreliable. Right now, I’m leaping topics … like a leapfrog? Don’t blame me for that simile. It’s the best I can do right now.

Are we back on the subject of addiction and withdrawal? Y’know what really irritates me, other than James “I Do Everything Right and Am Impervious to STIs” Bond? People who quit something and become pompous pontificators. Example: If I can stay away from the ciggies, and then I start frowning and shaking my head at all of the pitiable smokers, then I deserve to have a cigarette put out on my pretentious forehead. Like I didn’t adore the sweet, savory release of nicotine into my bloodstream! My brain still relishes the slight dizziness that accompanies that first morning drag. Hypocrisy is the human condition, but seriously, those are the kinds of people who walk around with scarves in the summertime.

What’s their damage? Can’t people be proud of themselves without being snots? And, speaking of snot, I am so looking forward to producing less mucus. Did you know that smokers can produce more than twice as much mucus as non-smokers? Yeah. That’s what science tells us. Science also tells us that heart disease is more of a risk to smokers than cancer, but the media likes “cancer” as a buzz-word, and doesn’t like to sling science proper.

There’s a great episode of The X-Files where Morley cigarettes produces a genetically engineered tobacco beetle whose tobacco contains its eggs. Secondhand smoke from a Morley definitely kills—unless you smoke so much that it kills the bugs, too. Anyway, the interesting thing is, Mulder’s life is saved by having his egg-infested body dosed with nicotine. After recovering, and while on his way back to work, Mulder is compelled to buy a pack of Morleys. Scully convinces Fox to throw the pack away. The last thing we see in the episode, after Scully has left the office, is Mulder staring into the wastebasket at a pristine pack of cigarettes.

That’s how it’s going to be for a long time. Why do we quit? Because we know it’s for the best. Eventually. Until we reach “eventually,” quitters may as well be banging their heads on brick every morning. We make zombies look like … really smart zombies. Quitting is a marvelous activity for all the punishment-gluttons in the world. I don’t have any cigarettes in the apartment, but there’s a convenience store conveniently placed beside my building. I know the cashiers. I have lighters. All I lack is the desire to have all of today’s suffering to be for naught. I’m not your crony anymore, R.J. Reynolds! You hear me? We’re done.

You know that friend you had in middle school who would piss you off royally, and trigger a war that would always end in renewed friendship? How even if you said that you really, really, really, really meant that it was over, a cease-fire would invariably be called within a fortnight? R.J. and I are like that. I really want to cut off heart disease, impotence, and yellow-brown teeth. I will miss my raspy smoker’s voice, though. I really, really, really, really will.

Charles Smith is pondering which bad habit he should pick up to replace the one he just quit. He’s open to your suggestions.