American Fez

Me and Them

These days, aside from the inadequately illuminated exteriors of nightclubs and bars, the ever-diminishing socio-economic group known as of smokers can mostly be found loitering outside hospitals and college campuses, or just about anywhere at all during the very early hours of the morning. I mention this observation, not because I begrudge or wish to prohibit people's pleasure in tobacco, but because at the moment I happen to spend a great deal of my time outside hospitals and college campuses during the very early hours of the morning, so I'm in a good position to know.
The smokers huddle around concrete, institutional ashtrays like vagrants around a makeshift brazier. Occasionally they embark upon random circumnavigations of the paving slabs, or make brief spitting expeditions to the edge of the sidewalk, trailing ephemeral jet-streams of nicotine in their wake. They glower down the street at nothing in particular, then return to the communal hearth to discuss the daily injustices encountered by their kind.
For some reason, there is always a preponderance of pale blue jeans and weather-beaten, brown leather jackets with over-sized shoulders amongst this group of puffing exiles. You could be forgiven for thinking you're walking past an historical reenactment of the 1980s, co-sponsored by Marlboro Lights and some anger management guru. I suppose these must be the loyalist smokers: the hardcore inhalers who refuse to quit despite lungs festooned with and blood vessels that are hardening into strands of pure crystalline plaque.
I, on the other hand, smartly turned out and wearing Clarks suede shoes, like the fresh-faced new boy at school, am extremely early for my first appointment with Cardio-Rehab. The doors don't open for another twenty minutes, so I'm forced to hang around in the cold morning air, pretending to find interest in the Brutalist architecture and freight delivery instructions. I almost wonder if the smoking gang will beat me up before I can escape inside.
I don't consider myself to be superior to them, of course. God knows I have my own fair share of stubborn blind-spots and idiotic misconceptions. It's just that I trust in medical science and they put their faith in the fact their best friend's uncle knew a guy who sucked down three packs a day, unfiltered, and lived to be a hundred-and-five. We have fundamentally different creeds, the smokers and me. I'll soon be running on a nurse monitored treadmill while they're only running out of cigarettes. Perhaps my efforts will all be in vain, but I'd rather try than stare at the floor with black lungs full of tar clouds.

A Brief Journey Into the Caves of Self-Justification

Like many writers, I keep a journal beside my bed - not that I actually write anything in mine, of course, but I do keep one all the same. There is a pen, too, although I doubt that any ink runs through its veins. These valuable and venerable tools have been spurned in favor of the smart-phone notepad and its stylus. After all, those digital words are actually readable by their own author; whereas that smudgy, wayward scribble on lined paper, well, just take a look for yourself: Is that blot an f or an s? Does that scrawl say burritos or buttocks? Who the Hell knows? Not I. And it's my handwriting.
Alas, inspiration most often strikes me when I'm taking a shower, a location perhaps unequaled for inconvenience when it comes to writing ideas down quickly, unless you're especially skilled at forming letters in soap scum with the business end of a loofah. And so my most fertile ideas just disappear down the drain, hitching a ride with all those emancipated hairs from my balding head. Gurgle, gurgle, there goes the plot of a best-selling novel and the outline of blockbuster screenplay. Oh well, at least I remembered to wash behind my ears.
Of course, good writing is, like Thomas Edison's famous formula for success, mostly the reward of perspiration rather than inspiration. So I suppose the preceding paragraphs are a scant excuse for lack of quality or quantity on my part. After all, I am not the sort of diligent, industrious writer who drips with sweat and elbow grease after an eight hour shift at his desk. But then I'm cursed with the existential concerns and tedious labors of a proper job, squatting on my brain like a killjoy gang of lugubrious toads and obstructing progress on more interesting and amusing projects.
This blog, for instance. True, it is perhaps the world's least informative coronary artery disease resource, and rarely makes a serious point that isn't blunted by some degree of facetiousness, but at least it's written with some degree of verve whenever I actually find the time to record my experiences, even if they are a shamefully thin gruel compared to the soul-searching tales of triumph over adversity recollected by other bypass "survivors".

The Greek Way

In ancient Greek myth, the Gods always punish the human crime of hubris with all manner of grisly fates: getting turned into a spider or a weeping stone; suffering for eternity with an unquenchable thirst; being chained to a rock while an eagle devours your liver; and, although there's no specific mention of heart disease in any myth I'm aware of, it's surely possible that Nemesis also clogged the arteries of arrogant Athenians with divinely vengeful cholesterol and plaque. Imagine, if you will, a shepherd from about three thousand years ago, perhaps someone not entirely unlike me, wandering happily on the sun-kissed plains of Attica telling everyone that he feels as fit as Zeus, only to be suddenly struck down with stabbing chest pains and rushed to the nearest Asclepieion. Such were my thoughts, anyway, as we boarded the British Airways flight to Eleftherios Venizelos Airport.
We had booked the Greek trip many months before I had felt even the slightest twinge of a chest pain, back when the idea of undergoing heart bypass surgery seemed as unlikely as me diving into a large vat of Tzatziki sauce; and so at certain low moments during my hospitalization I doubted whether I'd actually ever make it there; not because I thought I might die or anything quite as grim as that, but because I knew that the extensive physical recovery required might put island hopping with luggage well beyond my puny, convalescent reach. And to be sure, there was a period when I would have encountered almost insurmountable difficulty crawling to the Greek restaurant at the end of the road, never mind jetting off to Athens and points Aegean. Fortunately, the human body brushes aside its traumas much faster than you might expect, and I was able to pack my guidebooks and collect my boarding pass after all.
Having said that, the conclusions of Socratic method, Aristotelian logic, and even a brief appeal to simple common sense would all advocate against climbing the Acropolis - 500 feet above sea level - in my delicate condition; yet I staggered up to the top anyway. Call it Byronic whim (Robert Byron), but making an ascent had seemed like the thing to do when staring at the Parthenon from our hotel window. And also I feel a great affinity for this ancient temple, since its creaky columns are currently held together with iron scaffolding, much like my breastbone is held together with tiny sternal wires.

After all, if the Parthenon is still standing after three thousand years, despite the attentions of Turks, tourists and Lord Elgin, then I suppose I can survive to a venerable age also, providing the Greek gods and their Furies don't read this blog, obviously.