Disconnected Rants N' Rambles

I haven't been able to think of anything consistent to post about - I think it's part of the quitting smoking thing: my mind doesn't seem to be connecting things very well. I have a theory about this, actually, which even contains within it an explanation for why my stomach has hurt pretty much solidly since I quit; it's pretty gross, so you may wish to skip to the next paragraph. Still here? You're the one with the gross out wish. (Like my kids, who, when they pull some milk out of the fridge and smell it and find that it's totally disgusting, immediately say, "Smell this!") Anyhow, smoking produces mucus, right? It makes all the million creepy little cilia things that your whole insides are lined with (ewwwwwwwwwww!) work overtime creating mucus to coat all the surfaces in your body so that the smoke won't irritate them too much. Over time, your body gets addicted to mucus. The mucus feels good, like jello wrestling:(I have this twisted lifetime ambition to dive into a swimming pool of raspberry jello, yes, yes I do) it's all slick and smooth and slippery. Albeit disgustingly mucusy, also brown, right, from the tobacco. (Braaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhh!) So your brain uses all that mucus to conduct thoughts from one synapse to another, because it's electrically conductive. Yeah, it is, and so are your thoughts, which bop about all electrically like little yellow zig zags. I think vaseline is too; or something like that; I have a vague memory of a filmstrip about making something electrical in the manner of the Young Scientist. Billy was in black and white and said "Keen!" as he applied vaseline to a potato. No, that's not dirty - get your mind out of the gutter, you perv. Meanwhile, your stomach is also all coated with mucus which means that nothing really hurts it because it can't get through the thick globby layer. Isn't this horrible? Did you like my barfing sound effect? Then, when you quit smoking, your brain hasn't got any electrical mucus tobacco jelly for the synapses to fire through and your stomach doesn't have any mucusy defensive shield against evil shit like fried things or black coffee and so you just sort of fall apart. Hopefully you get better eventually though. Hopefully.

That is, unless it isn't the quitting smoking that has fried my stomach but instead the deep fried little debbie snack cake I ate directly before becoming deathly ill for three days which is, as we know, what led to the smoking cessation. Do you think it's possible that a deep fried ho ho can destroy your intestines forever? The Brits apparently eat them regularly and they're mostly still alive. Hmmmmm.

This has been a public service message brought to you by my years of medical training, which consist mostly of a) ancient magazines from waiting rooms and b) a slightly overactive imagination.

This is the next paragraph, which isn't gross, but is also going to be way short, because I can't think of much to say. I'm having one of those hormonal evenings where I get terribly sad over really stupid shit but then I almost immediately am able to realize how utterly idiotic that is so I laugh a little, which makes the incipient tears come out and causes people in Ingles to look at me uneasily and steer their shopping carts away. This guy tried to sell me mistletoe in the parking lot: I didn't buy any because I thought, "Well, hell, of all the pointless things for me to get - mistletoe? Who am I going to kiss, the dog? Ewww, he gives too much tongue anyway." Which of course made me all sad but then I realized what a total drip I was to get teary eyed over mistletoe being sold in a parking lot by a suspicious looking guy from a brown paper bag - contraband mistletoe, probably.

And this paragraph isn't gross either, and it's really just a short lament on the fact that other people appear to be able to put up Christmas lights that look like Christmas lights instead of some kind of demented blinking floor show put on by developmentally delayed Martians. Honestly, I do try, but somehow I just can never hang things up straight or hide the wires or make it all look, I don't know, grown up. I think I'm just eternally halfassed, but, oh well, what the hell, that's okay. At least I don't smoke anymore.