Work is kind of sucking but my lack of anonymity does not allow me to digress further. Which also sort of sucks - sometimes I regret not cloaking myself behind a big black mask and cape, which would give me the latitude to rant on about work and sex and that really mean thing so and so said to me, the bitch. Alas, though, because I have never, ever been any good at keeping my own secrets (other peoples, I can keep for years, but my own are an open book) I never even stepped fully into the closet but instead let it all hang out. So everybody knows who I am and where I live and where I work and so I must be discreet.
Bah. Sometimes I don't want to be discreet. Sometimes I want to cathartically holler about how underappreciated I am and how tired I am of being celibate and how sick I am of the fact that every single guy I'm attracted to is never attracted to me back, no, the only guys who are interested in me are hopeless substance abusing psychotic short fat greasy creeps (okay this actually is only a description of like the one guy who has come on to me at a bar recently but I must say, dude, he was the ONLY ONE so you see how it could get a girl down) and how all around me there are ugly crazy women with great boyfriends while I, who am not ugly and not all that damn crazy really cannot get even a stupid date to save my life, and also how I've been placed in a professionally untenable situation and how much, goddamn it, I really, really want to stop being responsible and go off on at least one crazed sex, drugs and rock and roll rampage just one more time before I have to be hauled off to the ice floe. You know. Stuff like that.
Also, I started smoking again. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. My son is calling me a failure and he has a point. I'm going to quit again though, I promise. I swear. I just don't know exactly when, but I did get a prescription for some kind of nifty new wonder drug that makes you not crave nicotine or get fat or any of the other miserable shit that happens when you quit. On the bright side of all this, though, is the simple fact that added nicotine will make me far less likely to take to the tower with a shotgun next Wednesday, and we should all be glad about that.
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label smoking. Show all posts
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Saturday, January 06, 2007
The Smoking Thing
I was doing so well.
I went four whole weeks and a couple of days. Granted, I spent every minute of those four weeks as a seething human cesspit of furious anger, ready to explode at any minute, but I didn't smoke. Sure, I alienated my whole family and most of my friends, got complaints at work and had people recoil from my rage filled glare on the sidewalks, but I didn't smoke. I honestly didn't know I had so much anger in me - I never think of myself as particularly cranky. Eccentric & crotchety, yes, in a lovably endearing way somewhat akin to a muppet, but angry? Never. Not me. I don't get mad much. But apparently the cigarettes have been keeping it at bay all this time and I just never noticed. My friend said, "You're a Southern woman. Of course you're full of anger; you just never let it out."
Still, I went around angry and handled it but I just wasn't prepared for every single craving to come back three score and worse about 48 hours ago. I don't know what happened - I honestly thought I had beaten the demon and then kaboom, all I wanted was a smoke and the craving just didn't go away. For 48 fucking hours, at which point I gave up.
Now I'm sitting here trying not to go to BJs for a pack. I want another one so bad. Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn.
I went four whole weeks and a couple of days. Granted, I spent every minute of those four weeks as a seething human cesspit of furious anger, ready to explode at any minute, but I didn't smoke. Sure, I alienated my whole family and most of my friends, got complaints at work and had people recoil from my rage filled glare on the sidewalks, but I didn't smoke. I honestly didn't know I had so much anger in me - I never think of myself as particularly cranky. Eccentric & crotchety, yes, in a lovably endearing way somewhat akin to a muppet, but angry? Never. Not me. I don't get mad much. But apparently the cigarettes have been keeping it at bay all this time and I just never noticed. My friend said, "You're a Southern woman. Of course you're full of anger; you just never let it out."
Still, I went around angry and handled it but I just wasn't prepared for every single craving to come back three score and worse about 48 hours ago. I don't know what happened - I honestly thought I had beaten the demon and then kaboom, all I wanted was a smoke and the craving just didn't go away. For 48 fucking hours, at which point I gave up.
Now I'm sitting here trying not to go to BJs for a pack. I want another one so bad. Damn. Damn damn damn damn damn.
Monday, December 18, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Mondays
There were hairy electricians in my office today; hairy, sleepy eyed electricians with large overalls and power tools. I had to go downstairs and use my other office, a.k.a. the front desk, and they disconnected the printer and made lots of noise: Mondays. I went to work early, as I will have to go to work early for the next couple of weeks while my daughter (who is currently undergoing a bad breakup and a new job and is thus less than delightful company) gets her schedule together. When I got home I had to go to the laundromat and the children made rude jokes about yesterdays lasagna. So, okay, strictly speaking it was not lasagna. The lasagna noodles were full of bugs, and anyway there were less than I thought, so it became a sort of spaghetti casserole a la lasagna, which apparently wigged the kids right the hell out. I had no idea they were such purists, such devotees of classic Italian cuisine. I half expected them to call the lasagna police on me. And when I got home from the laundromat the puppy had naturally thrown up in technicolor around the dining room: he's been eating ornaments off the Christmas tree. Now we have to worry about him as well although I cynically think that he can digest a little thing like a glass ball (or two) with no trouble at all.
One week, one day, 20 hours, 59 minutes and 35 seconds. 88 cigarettes not smoked, saving $17.75. Life saved: 7 hours, 20 minutes. So far, so good, or so awful - I still haven't smoked and I even went to the Westville and had one slow miserable beer at the bar this evening. Supposedly it will all get better in another week; just one more, one more week to hold out and I'll be able to go for more than a few minutes without thinking about cigarettes. It's like having a urinary tract infection - when you have one, all you can think about is peeing and your urinary tract, but when you don't have one you simply never think about your urinary tract. You go days, in fact, without thinking about it even once. When I was smoking I didn't spend hours thinking about it all the time: I just did it. Now, I have to relearn how to live without smoking and all I'm hoping is that soon I can do it without my whole head being taken up fighting the urge to smoke.
One week, one day, 20 hours, 59 minutes and 35 seconds. 88 cigarettes not smoked, saving $17.75. Life saved: 7 hours, 20 minutes. So far, so good, or so awful - I still haven't smoked and I even went to the Westville and had one slow miserable beer at the bar this evening. Supposedly it will all get better in another week; just one more, one more week to hold out and I'll be able to go for more than a few minutes without thinking about cigarettes. It's like having a urinary tract infection - when you have one, all you can think about is peeing and your urinary tract, but when you don't have one you simply never think about your urinary tract. You go days, in fact, without thinking about it even once. When I was smoking I didn't spend hours thinking about it all the time: I just did it. Now, I have to relearn how to live without smoking and all I'm hoping is that soon I can do it without my whole head being taken up fighting the urge to smoke.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
My Friends
Three days, 10 hours, 2 minutes and 6 seconds. 34 cigarettes not smoked, saving $6.84. Life saved: 2 hours, 50 minutes.
My cigarettes were my evil friends who helped me get through the rough times by doing bad things. You know, the best kind of friends. The kind of friends who, as the T-shirt says, can't bail you out of jail because they're in the cell next door. Now I'm sad and lonely without them. And boring. I'm getting boring and less cool already, I can tell. I know it's boring you. And I don't even promise to make it - it's entirely possible that I'll be back smoking like the proverbial chimney by tomorrow night. I keep thinking I can't make it even one more minute so we'll see.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, so that this blog isn't all just one of those horrible quit smoking do gooder blogs, here is a nifty link to a variety of funky free images, always handy.
And, here is a book review: WILHELMINA BAIRD TOTALLY ROCKS! Unfortunately, like so many other authors I suddenly discover and fall madly in love with, she's not exactly prolific (drat. Drat drat drat drat.) and I just read the three Crashcourse books. SF Reviews says it isn't a masterpiece, and I beg to differ. Okay, it's more of a pulp fiction, fastpaced masterpiece than, say, As I Lay Dying or something, but shit, come ON. It's WAY more fun to read, goes faster and you don't have to deal with some annoyingly over serious reader's guide in the back. And also the main character has TWO boyfriends and all three of them are fairly happy together for the most part, even though in the course of the three books one boyfriend dies and is replaced with another, vastly better boyfriend, and all I have to say is that this situation sounds eminently satisfactory to me. Hubris, I know, since considering that I can't even seem to get ONE boyfriend I sort of have a lot of nerve suddenly demanding TWO but, well, what the hell. Might as well shoot for the moon. At any rate get & read the books. They're brilliant.
My cigarettes were my evil friends who helped me get through the rough times by doing bad things. You know, the best kind of friends. The kind of friends who, as the T-shirt says, can't bail you out of jail because they're in the cell next door. Now I'm sad and lonely without them. And boring. I'm getting boring and less cool already, I can tell. I know it's boring you. And I don't even promise to make it - it's entirely possible that I'll be back smoking like the proverbial chimney by tomorrow night. I keep thinking I can't make it even one more minute so we'll see.
We'll see.
Meanwhile, so that this blog isn't all just one of those horrible quit smoking do gooder blogs, here is a nifty link to a variety of funky free images, always handy.
And, here is a book review: WILHELMINA BAIRD TOTALLY ROCKS! Unfortunately, like so many other authors I suddenly discover and fall madly in love with, she's not exactly prolific (drat. Drat drat drat drat.) and I just read the three Crashcourse books. SF Reviews says it isn't a masterpiece, and I beg to differ. Okay, it's more of a pulp fiction, fastpaced masterpiece than, say, As I Lay Dying or something, but shit, come ON. It's WAY more fun to read, goes faster and you don't have to deal with some annoyingly over serious reader's guide in the back. And also the main character has TWO boyfriends and all three of them are fairly happy together for the most part, even though in the course of the three books one boyfriend dies and is replaced with another, vastly better boyfriend, and all I have to say is that this situation sounds eminently satisfactory to me. Hubris, I know, since considering that I can't even seem to get ONE boyfriend I sort of have a lot of nerve suddenly demanding TWO but, well, what the hell. Might as well shoot for the moon. At any rate get & read the books. They're brilliant.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
Death, I Say
So I’m not smoking. I’m not smoking because I had this fucking two day and three night long near death experience that was either the worst hangover of my life or food poisoning or a virus or a vicious attack from outer space or possibly a virulent combination of all four of those possibilities. I have rarely been more miserable. I am still miserable. I still haven’t really eaten – I had half a bowl of chicken soup and a piece of toast on Sunday night, a bowl of rice, a banana and some toast on Monday and so far today I have had water – and I haven’t smoked. I can’t smoke when I’m that sick. Now I’m feeling better and I want to smoke, but I can’t because I was already going to quit at the end of the month anyway and now that I’ve been handed this head start of two days, I need to take advantage of it.
Which means that right now, at this very moment, I truly, madly, deeply want to kill you. Yup. I hate you. Don’t take it personally; I also hate and want to kill everyone else on the planet. And all puppies and kittens, and blue skies and big rock candy mountains and all that fuzzy shit. Unicorns. Fuckin’ rainbows. Stupid crap like that. It all must die. I want to live somewhere that looks like Mordor and I want to live there RIGHT NOW. I want to lie in the black rocks and sludge and groan occasionally. I want to be ALONE so I can sulk in perfect solitude and miss my goddamn cigarettes. Also I have a headache and I’m dizzy and I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours because I thought I was probably dying. Yet I did not die; no, I came back to life so I could want a cigarette. Shitfire.
Which means that right now, at this very moment, I truly, madly, deeply want to kill you. Yup. I hate you. Don’t take it personally; I also hate and want to kill everyone else on the planet. And all puppies and kittens, and blue skies and big rock candy mountains and all that fuzzy shit. Unicorns. Fuckin’ rainbows. Stupid crap like that. It all must die. I want to live somewhere that looks like Mordor and I want to live there RIGHT NOW. I want to lie in the black rocks and sludge and groan occasionally. I want to be ALONE so I can sulk in perfect solitude and miss my goddamn cigarettes. Also I have a headache and I’m dizzy and I woke up at 3:30 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep for two hours because I thought I was probably dying. Yet I did not die; no, I came back to life so I could want a cigarette. Shitfire.
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