Saturday, June 11, 2011
It's Oh So Still
I haven't smoked in what feels like decades. Still, every night, I think to myself, I could drive to town right now and buy a pack of smokes. Then, I watch Clean House instead.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
I will touch a hundred flowers/ And not pick one.
Every few days during the past month, I have gone outside to seek out the spring's flowers when I got a particularly bad craving to smoke. I'm not a flower photographer. I'm not really even a still life photographer. But I've really enjoyed my macro lens in this project. And much as I joke here, spending my breaks in search of vivid color and otherworldly petal striations really has helped to distract me. It's been a reverent and meditative exercise. Whereas I might not suggest to someone else that they eat their weight in cookies to avoid smoking, I would definitely suggest that they go on a scavenger hunt such as this one. It's timely. It's sappy. It's the first step in making your own greeting cards.
These Precious Things
I'm finding that aside from baked goods, naps, crap television and nicotine patches, the best thing for me right now is to focus intently on the minutiae. Hence scouring the property for edible weeds, painting my nails (then systematically peeling the paint off two weeks later while visiting an AA meeting), reading the text on the cans of diet soda I consume by the truckload, etc., etc.
Today, that attention to detail manifested itself in the determination to capture the snouts of farm animals on camera:
Today, that attention to detail manifested itself in the determination to capture the snouts of farm animals on camera:
Cooking with Weed[s]
Here's a suggestion: next time you want to smoke a cigarette, eat a dozen chocolate chip cookies and then a cast iron skillet full of sauteed weeds: lamb's quarters with garlic, olive oil and red wine. You'll forget about the cigarette, until you start blogging about the lamb's quarters being a distraction from smoking. At which point you'll remember and want a cigarette again.
Friday, May 27, 2011
You Know You Woke Me From My Sleep
There's absolutely nothing like shooting things to make you feel better about nicotine withdrawal.
Still going strong. And I'm not a bad shot, either.
Still going strong. And I'm not a bad shot, either.
Monday, May 23, 2011
I See Signs Now All the Time
Three cheers for Fort Collins, which is apparently the City of Willpower.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Contains Phenylalanine
At 17, I wrote a play about a bunch of seemingly unconnected people who happen to find themselves at the Museum of Natural History on the same day. They're all transfixed by the pterodactyl. Naturally. There's a teenager runaway, the concerned father, a love interest, and a janitor. Maybe also a small child. I can't remember now.
They all had these insanely long monologues that were hardly-fictionalized versions of the stories of people I cared about. One of them was color blind, for instance, and was remembering how her sister always helped her to pick outfits that matched and taught her what the colors were by feeding her gummy bears, so that her perception of color was based on taste. That's the true experience of my high school orchestra teacher. She didn't seem to mind that I ripped her life off. She probably knew that now, at 30, I'd spend maybe five minutes looking for that script in my old files and give up when I realized that any document written at that time was "created in an unsupported version of Word."
But I named that play "Contains Phenylalanine." I'm not sure why, except that I was a bored and overly observant teenager in a rural household of Diet Coke drinkers. Along those same lines, I wrote a play soon after, with characters named Calliope and Tartaras, called "Lights on When Raining." Calliope was supposed to have long dreadlocks and I imagined myself playing that part the whole time I wrote it. I was prematurely very excited about going to get a weave, even called a few salons for pricing.
Which leads me to a discussion of my latest distraction. No, not playwriting. No, not obnoxious titles. No, not fake dreadlocks. It would seem I can't stop pumping one toxic substance into my body without replacing it with another, so I've chosen artificial sweeteners, unidentifiable corn products and carbonated water. Diet soda. Phenylketonurics: Contains Phenylalanine. And it's working like a charm.
On my budget, I opt for generic. I have recently discovered Safeway's soda brand, Refreshe, and cannot help but pronounce it the way it is written. Refreesh, then, is a delicious imitation of name brand soda and costs about $1.50 for a 12 pack. It also has a wide array of diet flavors available, including diet root beer, diet cola, zero calorie soda and diet orange. Harkening back to my white trash roots while attempting to control the amount of caffeine I consume during any given day, I have naturally gravitated toward the diet orange. It reminds me of redneck lake parties and high cut bikinis. It reminds me of childhood and big bowls of Cheetos.
I do wish there were a diet grape option, but poor people have to get their diabetes somewhere, so I suppose I understand the industry's insistence on corn syrup in at least one of their artificially flavored fruit sodas. Bottoms up!
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Blessed Be the Day When You Set Me Free
It is with more than a little regret that I admit here to relapsing. Without getting into particulars of the evening it happened, I will just outline the pitfalls that led to my buying cigarettes from a gas station at 1 a.m.
#1: I quit using nicotine patches. This happens when I get cocky. Over the past week or so, I've gradually sort of forgotten to switch the patches out. When I realized that this was happening and that I'd gone an entire day without an active stream of nicotine entering my blood, I thought I was out of the woods and comfortably quit. I have some pretty incredible will power in a lot of situations, so it makes sense that I'd believe I could persevere here, too. But one of the tricky and beautiful things about the patch is that it gives me a false sense of security. I forget that I have not rid my body of nicotine simply because I am no longer inhaling it. I feel less irritable and less tired and I get prematurely confident. It's happened before. Maybe writing it out here will help me remember it next time.
#2: I was happy. I am most disappointed in myself when I begin smoking again due to some small annoyance or hiccup in an otherwise steady mood. It's annoying, though, when I begin smoking again because I feel celebratory and decide I deserve to indulge. This also has to do with feeling cocky in some way: I feel so Up as a result of days and days without smoking that I believe I can dip my toes in again without experiencing the full gamut of addiction. So it goes that sometimes, when I am most optimistic and comfortable in my skin, I test the waters with too much bravado and find myself caught up, once more, in this bullshit cycle.
#3: I was overwhelmed. When I am making a myriad of changes in my life, I tend to chastise myself for taking on too much at once. But sometimes it's necessary to instigate a big overhaul, and that doesn't mean that any one piece necessarily has to fall to make room for the others. At the same time I quit smoking, I began the tapering-on-and-off process of switching medications. I also practically quit drinking (four drinks in one month's time, all consumed on different nights). I also adopted a new work schedule, leading to earlier mornings, less free time and less sleep. And let's not forget that I added a new obligation to my abbreviated evenings: studying for standardized tests. Last time I studied for a standardized test, when I was taking the GREs in 2003, I sat on the floor in my childhood bedroom and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day while I pored over the mathematics study section. It's almost unsurprising that I caved the day I opened my Praxis study guide to the math diagnostics test. Unsurprising or not, it's disappointing. Besides, who likes predictability? Being predictable, I mean, but also studying predictability. It's no excuse to smoke.
#4: I am not running. I kid around a lot about how I'm either an athlete or a chain smoker, but it's entirely true: when I run, I don't smoke; when I am injured, go right back to cigarettes. Assuming I'd be okay to run again was one motivation in choosing the day I did to quit. It was a couple days later that I realized my ankles are still too injured for high-impact activity, so I'm back to begrudging my dog for his need of daily walks and periodically icing and elevating my injuries, which are going on two months old now. I am impatient with this and know from previous experience that physical activity is of paramount import to my mental health and thus, my ability to make healthy decisions for myself.
At other times when I've been on the sidelines, I've believed it impossible to treat this particular symptom of my addiction. I've used my inability to work out as an excuse to become more and more stagnant and to smoke copious amounts of cigarettes. It is possibly the most difficult part of my journey thus far to promise myself that I will find other ways to get my body the exercise it needs in order to be motivated to stay away from smoking. I haven't yet found a proper substitute for running four miles a day, but I am doing what I can to rehabilitate myself toward that goal again: using a wobble board, visiting a chiropractor, seeing a corrective exercise therapist, wrapping and icing my injuries, wearing supportive shoes. It's a start.
#5: I stopped asking for encouragement from my friends. At first, I talked nonstop about my projects and my efforts to quit. Because I was so open about it, people often asked me how my efforts were going. When I stopped mentioning it, people stopped asking. They assumed I was doing fine and that gave me license to stray, as I no longer felt the pressure of wanting to meet their well-meaning interrogations with reports of continued success.
#6: I stopped focusing on this blog. During the first two weeks, this was how I made light of my daily struggles and discomforts. Then, I lost momentum. I stopped daydreaming about my distraction projects and then stopped planning them altogether. When I did follow through with one or the other, I only wrote one sentence about them (painting) instead of spending the time to appreciate what I'd done for myself in lieu of inhaling smoke. I stopped thinking about my triumphs as being related to quitting smoking, so my successes felt less profound. I also told myself no one was reading my blog and so I stopped feeling accountable. I could smoke and no one would ever have to know. Which is dumb, as I realize that quitting smoking is a choice that I am making and in which no one else is truly invested. I have supporters, but no sponsors. It's an excuse of sorts to even include these last two bullet points, but it's important for me to recognize that they are excuses or I'll fall prey to them again next time.
So here's to quitting again. Or pretending the past two days never happened. I don't think I can put myself through the chocolate experiment again without giving myself diabetes, so I think it may be best to pretend that I am on day 17 instead of day 1. First thing's first, though: I'm putting the patches on my nightstand, right next to my alarm clock and my medication. And I'm renewing my dedication to this space and to my projects, which being miserable about denying myself something I want inspire me to finally get off of my ass and do. In my case, this time, misery is a great motivator.
#1: I quit using nicotine patches. This happens when I get cocky. Over the past week or so, I've gradually sort of forgotten to switch the patches out. When I realized that this was happening and that I'd gone an entire day without an active stream of nicotine entering my blood, I thought I was out of the woods and comfortably quit. I have some pretty incredible will power in a lot of situations, so it makes sense that I'd believe I could persevere here, too. But one of the tricky and beautiful things about the patch is that it gives me a false sense of security. I forget that I have not rid my body of nicotine simply because I am no longer inhaling it. I feel less irritable and less tired and I get prematurely confident. It's happened before. Maybe writing it out here will help me remember it next time.
#2: I was happy. I am most disappointed in myself when I begin smoking again due to some small annoyance or hiccup in an otherwise steady mood. It's annoying, though, when I begin smoking again because I feel celebratory and decide I deserve to indulge. This also has to do with feeling cocky in some way: I feel so Up as a result of days and days without smoking that I believe I can dip my toes in again without experiencing the full gamut of addiction. So it goes that sometimes, when I am most optimistic and comfortable in my skin, I test the waters with too much bravado and find myself caught up, once more, in this bullshit cycle.
#3: I was overwhelmed. When I am making a myriad of changes in my life, I tend to chastise myself for taking on too much at once. But sometimes it's necessary to instigate a big overhaul, and that doesn't mean that any one piece necessarily has to fall to make room for the others. At the same time I quit smoking, I began the tapering-on-and-off process of switching medications. I also practically quit drinking (four drinks in one month's time, all consumed on different nights). I also adopted a new work schedule, leading to earlier mornings, less free time and less sleep. And let's not forget that I added a new obligation to my abbreviated evenings: studying for standardized tests. Last time I studied for a standardized test, when I was taking the GREs in 2003, I sat on the floor in my childhood bedroom and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day while I pored over the mathematics study section. It's almost unsurprising that I caved the day I opened my Praxis study guide to the math diagnostics test. Unsurprising or not, it's disappointing. Besides, who likes predictability? Being predictable, I mean, but also studying predictability. It's no excuse to smoke.
#4: I am not running. I kid around a lot about how I'm either an athlete or a chain smoker, but it's entirely true: when I run, I don't smoke; when I am injured, go right back to cigarettes. Assuming I'd be okay to run again was one motivation in choosing the day I did to quit. It was a couple days later that I realized my ankles are still too injured for high-impact activity, so I'm back to begrudging my dog for his need of daily walks and periodically icing and elevating my injuries, which are going on two months old now. I am impatient with this and know from previous experience that physical activity is of paramount import to my mental health and thus, my ability to make healthy decisions for myself.
At other times when I've been on the sidelines, I've believed it impossible to treat this particular symptom of my addiction. I've used my inability to work out as an excuse to become more and more stagnant and to smoke copious amounts of cigarettes. It is possibly the most difficult part of my journey thus far to promise myself that I will find other ways to get my body the exercise it needs in order to be motivated to stay away from smoking. I haven't yet found a proper substitute for running four miles a day, but I am doing what I can to rehabilitate myself toward that goal again: using a wobble board, visiting a chiropractor, seeing a corrective exercise therapist, wrapping and icing my injuries, wearing supportive shoes. It's a start.
#5: I stopped asking for encouragement from my friends. At first, I talked nonstop about my projects and my efforts to quit. Because I was so open about it, people often asked me how my efforts were going. When I stopped mentioning it, people stopped asking. They assumed I was doing fine and that gave me license to stray, as I no longer felt the pressure of wanting to meet their well-meaning interrogations with reports of continued success.
#6: I stopped focusing on this blog. During the first two weeks, this was how I made light of my daily struggles and discomforts. Then, I lost momentum. I stopped daydreaming about my distraction projects and then stopped planning them altogether. When I did follow through with one or the other, I only wrote one sentence about them (painting) instead of spending the time to appreciate what I'd done for myself in lieu of inhaling smoke. I stopped thinking about my triumphs as being related to quitting smoking, so my successes felt less profound. I also told myself no one was reading my blog and so I stopped feeling accountable. I could smoke and no one would ever have to know. Which is dumb, as I realize that quitting smoking is a choice that I am making and in which no one else is truly invested. I have supporters, but no sponsors. It's an excuse of sorts to even include these last two bullet points, but it's important for me to recognize that they are excuses or I'll fall prey to them again next time.
So here's to quitting again. Or pretending the past two days never happened. I don't think I can put myself through the chocolate experiment again without giving myself diabetes, so I think it may be best to pretend that I am on day 17 instead of day 1. First thing's first, though: I'm putting the patches on my nightstand, right next to my alarm clock and my medication. And I'm renewing my dedication to this space and to my projects, which being miserable about denying myself something I want inspire me to finally get off of my ass and do. In my case, this time, misery is a great motivator.
Monday, May 16, 2011
A School Boy's Dream, You Act So Shy
My latest attempt at distraction: Honeymoon Red nail polish. It's not the 1980s anymore. No one wants to see a cigarette dangling between the long, red nails of a lady. Which I am. A lady. Stop laughing. We've come a long way, baby.
As someone who works outside and with my hands all day, painting my nails makes little to no sense. Then again, it doesn't make any sense for me to have long nails at all, and here I am with talons.
What they don't tell you about painting your nails is that the lines are actually arbitrary: the polish comes right off of your skin when you wash with soap and warm water. Knowing this makes me unreasonably happy. I just slop it all over my hands, essentially, and hope I end up with enough on my nails to look intentional. This time, it was a success.
The one drawback: I am too impatient to wait for nail polish to dry completely and always end up going to sleep with tacky nails, so I wake up with the pattern of my sheets or pillowcases imprinted into the polish. I like to think of it as texture, adding depth to my palette.
A little aside brought on by my Honeymoon Red nails: the other day, I was collecting lilacs for a flower arrangement. I had them bundled up in my arms and one of the women here said, "You look like a beautiful bride!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, this is a first and a last, then," and she frowned a little, grew weirdly tender. "Oh, honey," she said. "Someone will want to marry you." I think she might have felt a little awkward when I told her I don't want to get married and anyway, it's illegal. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
As someone who works outside and with my hands all day, painting my nails makes little to no sense. Then again, it doesn't make any sense for me to have long nails at all, and here I am with talons.
What they don't tell you about painting your nails is that the lines are actually arbitrary: the polish comes right off of your skin when you wash with soap and warm water. Knowing this makes me unreasonably happy. I just slop it all over my hands, essentially, and hope I end up with enough on my nails to look intentional. This time, it was a success.
The one drawback: I am too impatient to wait for nail polish to dry completely and always end up going to sleep with tacky nails, so I wake up with the pattern of my sheets or pillowcases imprinted into the polish. I like to think of it as texture, adding depth to my palette.
A little aside brought on by my Honeymoon Red nails: the other day, I was collecting lilacs for a flower arrangement. I had them bundled up in my arms and one of the women here said, "You look like a beautiful bride!" I laughed and said, "Yeah, this is a first and a last, then," and she frowned a little, grew weirdly tender. "Oh, honey," she said. "Someone will want to marry you." I think she might have felt a little awkward when I told her I don't want to get married and anyway, it's illegal. I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Impressionism. Or Something.
Today, I am thankful for The Onion. And for Anita, who coerced me into a group painting class tonight wherein I interpreted a koi fish through the baffling lens of Monet. Oh and also, she sent this article to me several days ago, which has me laughing. About smoking. Which is not easy right now, my friends. Not easy at all.
New Eco-Friendly Cigarettes Kill Destructive Human Beings Over Time
New Eco-Friendly Cigarettes Kill Destructive Human Beings Over Time
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
How Doo-Wop Saved My Soul
What's gotten me through the last very difficult 24 hours is music. More than music, though, is being able to put names to the kind of music I have always loved but for which I had no language.
Once, two years ago, a song came onto my father's stereo and I fell in love. I remember nothing about it except that it was maybe Led Zeppelin and was low-key, discordant, quiet, unsettling. Then, last year, I saw Ghost World and fell in love with "Devil Got My Woman," listened to it on repeat for weeks in the strange emptiness of my Philadelphia apartment. Longed for a record player but was trying mightily not to become a hipster, so never got one. Then, I dated a stoner who ended up sending me a super-early Wailers CD after we broke up and were pretending we could be friends. I can't stand Bob Marley, so imagine my surprise when I found out who the Wailers were.
These three musical hauntings were given flesh last night, when Bryce came over. I discovered then that Bryce knows about music made before the 70s in a way that I know about music made after the 1990s. I also discovered that music made before the 70s is pretty much all that's been missing from my life.
Here I was, all this time, thinking I only liked hip hop, lesbians with guitars, men with falsetto voices, and the Beatles. My dad listened to a lot of pre-1970s music, but it wasn't the right stuff. Turns out I love Delta Blues, Doo Wop and old school Ska (I can't stand contemporary Ska). Turns out I love Led Zeppelin. And not just in a passing, niche-interest kind of way, like the time I thought it was so cool to buy the Pulp Fiction and Eve's Bayou soundtracks to round out my music collection.
I pretty much want to spend the rest of my life listening to this stuff:
And this is the Zeppelin song I've waited two years to hear again:
We also determined that we miss the presence of the muted trumpet and the organ in contemporary music (thanks to Arcade Fire for bringing the latter back, at least). And I was finally able to articulate that I dislike the electric guitar when it becomes a solo instrument. I feel about it the same way that I feel about the epilogue in otherwise excellent literature.
Wow. It sure is great to know thyself.
Once, two years ago, a song came onto my father's stereo and I fell in love. I remember nothing about it except that it was maybe Led Zeppelin and was low-key, discordant, quiet, unsettling. Then, last year, I saw Ghost World and fell in love with "Devil Got My Woman," listened to it on repeat for weeks in the strange emptiness of my Philadelphia apartment. Longed for a record player but was trying mightily not to become a hipster, so never got one. Then, I dated a stoner who ended up sending me a super-early Wailers CD after we broke up and were pretending we could be friends. I can't stand Bob Marley, so imagine my surprise when I found out who the Wailers were.
These three musical hauntings were given flesh last night, when Bryce came over. I discovered then that Bryce knows about music made before the 70s in a way that I know about music made after the 1990s. I also discovered that music made before the 70s is pretty much all that's been missing from my life.
Here I was, all this time, thinking I only liked hip hop, lesbians with guitars, men with falsetto voices, and the Beatles. My dad listened to a lot of pre-1970s music, but it wasn't the right stuff. Turns out I love Delta Blues, Doo Wop and old school Ska (I can't stand contemporary Ska). Turns out I love Led Zeppelin. And not just in a passing, niche-interest kind of way, like the time I thought it was so cool to buy the Pulp Fiction and Eve's Bayou soundtracks to round out my music collection.
I pretty much want to spend the rest of my life listening to this stuff:
And this is the Zeppelin song I've waited two years to hear again:
We also determined that we miss the presence of the muted trumpet and the organ in contemporary music (thanks to Arcade Fire for bringing the latter back, at least). And I was finally able to articulate that I dislike the electric guitar when it becomes a solo instrument. I feel about it the same way that I feel about the epilogue in otherwise excellent literature.
Wow. It sure is great to know thyself.
Monday, May 9, 2011
Oh Hey, Still Not Smoking
I have been too busy doing things like farming in my bra, freaking out about standardized testing, hustling to finish a book the day it's due back at the library and visiting psychiatrists to update here, but the news is good, my friends. I'm taking care of business. I'm talking myself into Planning For My Future (like, beyond paying this month's credit card bill) and eating things other than Peanut Butter M&Ms. I can breathe through my nose again! A certain very supportive friend sends me Steven Tyler videos as inspiration! I've still got a nicotine patch slapped onto my ass for good measure! I even showered this week! I'm pretty much a rockstar!
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Do I Get a Chip For This?
It's been a full week since I smoked.
After spending the entire day in hot pursuit of 42 rogue cattle, clambering up and down veritable mountains (I suppose they are foothills, but when you sprint them twelve times in one day with a head cold and two sprained ankles on the mend, they count as mountains, okay?), I have no lung capacity left to consider smoking a cigarette, much less breathing my way through the next 12 hours.
Good thing I have an asthma inhaler that's further expired than my Toblerone.
So anyway, things here are great.
After spending the entire day in hot pursuit of 42 rogue cattle, clambering up and down veritable mountains (I suppose they are foothills, but when you sprint them twelve times in one day with a head cold and two sprained ankles on the mend, they count as mountains, okay?), I have no lung capacity left to consider smoking a cigarette, much less breathing my way through the next 12 hours.
Good thing I have an asthma inhaler that's further expired than my Toblerone.
So anyway, things here are great.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Q: If Harry Potter Jumped Off of a Bridge, Would You Do It, Too?
I mean, I guess maybe. Although I'd be more likely to follow Hermione Granger into the pitch. But here: the characters in Harry Potter eat chocolate after they've been visited by the dementors, who, if you are among the four people left in the world who haven't read the books or seen the movies (shame on you), are evil, soul-sucking wraiths sent by Darth Vader. I mean Voldemort. To destroy all that is good in the world.
Hypothesis:
So I figured, hey, if chocolate can practically reinstate someone's frozen, devastated immortal soul, it can probably help me quit smoking.
I originally planned to eat a chocolate bar a day for the first two weeks of quitting. But things got a little out of hand and here I am, on day six, and I've eaten the entirety of the two weeks' supply, plus some.
I tried to take a photo of what's left, but my camera's macro lens seemed more interested in the dog hair on the table than the chocolate crumbles, so I gave up.
Methodology:
I started out with half-priced Easter candy (Whoppers in the shape and color of Easter eggs? Count me in), then moved on to such classy, timeless favorites as Reese's peanut butter cups (require no review, nor introduction: just plain awesome).
Then I got all fancy. Or, as fancy as the local grocery store would let me get, because finding truly fancy chocolate requires more money than I have and also a trip to Fort Collins. Which, by the way, means a trip past about 3,403,212 gas stations who sell the brand of cigarette I like, and give you free matches so you hardly have to commit. Because let's face it, it's a little weird to have six lighters for one little stick of incense. It gets people talking.
I was going to review each chocolate bar as I went through, but the idea of doing that sort of made me want to smoke a cigarette, so I decided instead to focus on which ones were absolutely best, and I'm just going to tell you which they are, and that you ought to eat them.
Findings:
I realized early into my chocolate-eating binge that dark chocolate just wasn't going to cut it for this purpose. I love dark chocolate. I love cocoa nibs. I will geek out over baking chocolate, bitter as a smoker sans nicotine, any time you want. But for this particular moment in my life, I needed to be able to consume as much chocolate as humanly possible in as little amount of time as possible. So after the first few tries at darks, I shifted to what Anita lovingly calls "crap."
When they say a candy bar wrapper houses 2.5 servings, they're assuming you're eating something--anything--other than chocolate.
Milk chocolate tastes really, really good with a very cold glass of milk.
Chocolate for breakfast will never fail to thrill me. It is the residual five-year-old within me. To this day, my sister and I like to sing, a la The Cosby Show, "Dad is great! He gives us chocolate cake!" because in one episode, Claire Huxtable left for the weekend and Cliff, good man that he is, feeds those lucky bastards chocolate cake for nearly every meal.
And finally, thanks to Bryce, Anita and Sara for providing me with more chocolate than is wise to consume in less than a week.
Conclusions:
Most Interesting Combination of Chocolates Which Were Never Meant to Meet: Lindt Excellence White Coconut + Lindt Excellence Intense Orange.
The former is pretty easy to infer and what's most awesome about this candy bar is that it's the only white chocolate bar I've ever tasted that doesn't taste like soap. I think it's because the soap part is wearing a cloak of coconut. The Intense Orange bar is actually the only dark chocolate bar that did the trick for me, and mostly only in combination with the white, which probably, essentially rendered the dark chocolate into milk chocolate. The label claims there are also almond slivers in this bar, but I hardly chewed, so I didn't really notice.
Best Expensive Chocolate Bar That's Actually Not All That Quality, Pretends to be European, Can Be Found in Your Local Grocery Store Year-Round, Still Tastes Good Stale and Which Reminds Me of Childhood in a Good Way: Toblerone.
I was adventurous and tried the Fruit & Nut version of this bar, too. The purple packaging just got me all excited. But what they mean by "fruit" is raisins, and what that means, apparently, is that the honey element of the traditional Toblerone bar dominates the taste of anything else and you feel immediately like brushing your teeth.
And no, I wasn't kidding about it being expired.
The bar I bought even featured careful Sharpie showcasing of the retroactive expiration date, yet I was too weary to return to the store to fix this egregious error. And it still tasted great. That's gotta be worth something. Give those preservatives a hand! And the Swiss! Although it's distributed by Kraft, in Illinois. Which is probably why it's so readily available on the aisles simultaneously marked "Candy" and "Diet Food" in the grocery store.
Best Solid Milk Chocolate Bar Simply Because I'm Gullible and Know This Brand is Excellent, So I Hardly Paid Attention to How it Really Tasted: Green & Black's Organic Milk Chocolate.
I have little to nothing to say about this bar, so I'll just type out the label's boasting points for you: Made with fine Trinitario cocoa beans for a rich taste//34% Cocoa Content. There now, we've all learned a word. Though I haven't bothered to look it up yet.
Best Solid Milk Chocolate Bar EVER, Which Features Strange Tribal Designs on the Package (Possibly Including a Hair Pick or Two?) and Annoyed Me to No End Before Tasting It: Divine Milk Chocolate.
It's Fair Trade Certified, so I can stop feeling bad about myself. The tagline is also "Heavenly Chocolate with a heart," which is interesting. Especially capitalization-wise. And I guess it explains why the "v" in Divine is a Smashing-Pumpkins-Logo-Drawn-by-12-Year-Old-Girl-Esque heart.
The inside wrapper is gold, which always wins me over. The expiration date stamp reads "BEST BEFORE END," which felt prophetic and customizable. The pieces weren't too big, so I could eat just a few and then just a few more and then just a few more and it seemed to last forever even though it was probably only ten minutes. When it was gone, I mourned. And nothing I tasted afterward held a candle. I wanted to melt it and drink it, but I've worked at Starbucks too many times to put myself through that crap again.
Hypothesis:
So I figured, hey, if chocolate can practically reinstate someone's frozen, devastated immortal soul, it can probably help me quit smoking.
I originally planned to eat a chocolate bar a day for the first two weeks of quitting. But things got a little out of hand and here I am, on day six, and I've eaten the entirety of the two weeks' supply, plus some.
I tried to take a photo of what's left, but my camera's macro lens seemed more interested in the dog hair on the table than the chocolate crumbles, so I gave up.
Methodology:
I started out with half-priced Easter candy (Whoppers in the shape and color of Easter eggs? Count me in), then moved on to such classy, timeless favorites as Reese's peanut butter cups (require no review, nor introduction: just plain awesome).
Then I got all fancy. Or, as fancy as the local grocery store would let me get, because finding truly fancy chocolate requires more money than I have and also a trip to Fort Collins. Which, by the way, means a trip past about 3,403,212 gas stations who sell the brand of cigarette I like, and give you free matches so you hardly have to commit. Because let's face it, it's a little weird to have six lighters for one little stick of incense. It gets people talking.
I was going to review each chocolate bar as I went through, but the idea of doing that sort of made me want to smoke a cigarette, so I decided instead to focus on which ones were absolutely best, and I'm just going to tell you which they are, and that you ought to eat them.
Findings:
I realized early into my chocolate-eating binge that dark chocolate just wasn't going to cut it for this purpose. I love dark chocolate. I love cocoa nibs. I will geek out over baking chocolate, bitter as a smoker sans nicotine, any time you want. But for this particular moment in my life, I needed to be able to consume as much chocolate as humanly possible in as little amount of time as possible. So after the first few tries at darks, I shifted to what Anita lovingly calls "crap."
When they say a candy bar wrapper houses 2.5 servings, they're assuming you're eating something--anything--other than chocolate.
Milk chocolate tastes really, really good with a very cold glass of milk.
Chocolate for breakfast will never fail to thrill me. It is the residual five-year-old within me. To this day, my sister and I like to sing, a la The Cosby Show, "Dad is great! He gives us chocolate cake!" because in one episode, Claire Huxtable left for the weekend and Cliff, good man that he is, feeds those lucky bastards chocolate cake for nearly every meal.
And finally, thanks to Bryce, Anita and Sara for providing me with more chocolate than is wise to consume in less than a week.
Conclusions:
Most Interesting Combination of Chocolates Which Were Never Meant to Meet: Lindt Excellence White Coconut + Lindt Excellence Intense Orange.
The former is pretty easy to infer and what's most awesome about this candy bar is that it's the only white chocolate bar I've ever tasted that doesn't taste like soap. I think it's because the soap part is wearing a cloak of coconut. The Intense Orange bar is actually the only dark chocolate bar that did the trick for me, and mostly only in combination with the white, which probably, essentially rendered the dark chocolate into milk chocolate. The label claims there are also almond slivers in this bar, but I hardly chewed, so I didn't really notice.
Best Expensive Chocolate Bar That's Actually Not All That Quality, Pretends to be European, Can Be Found in Your Local Grocery Store Year-Round, Still Tastes Good Stale and Which Reminds Me of Childhood in a Good Way: Toblerone.
I was adventurous and tried the Fruit & Nut version of this bar, too. The purple packaging just got me all excited. But what they mean by "fruit" is raisins, and what that means, apparently, is that the honey element of the traditional Toblerone bar dominates the taste of anything else and you feel immediately like brushing your teeth.
And no, I wasn't kidding about it being expired.
The bar I bought even featured careful Sharpie showcasing of the retroactive expiration date, yet I was too weary to return to the store to fix this egregious error. And it still tasted great. That's gotta be worth something. Give those preservatives a hand! And the Swiss! Although it's distributed by Kraft, in Illinois. Which is probably why it's so readily available on the aisles simultaneously marked "Candy" and "Diet Food" in the grocery store.
Best Solid Milk Chocolate Bar Simply Because I'm Gullible and Know This Brand is Excellent, So I Hardly Paid Attention to How it Really Tasted: Green & Black's Organic Milk Chocolate.
I have little to nothing to say about this bar, so I'll just type out the label's boasting points for you: Made with fine Trinitario cocoa beans for a rich taste//34% Cocoa Content. There now, we've all learned a word. Though I haven't bothered to look it up yet.
Best Solid Milk Chocolate Bar EVER, Which Features Strange Tribal Designs on the Package (Possibly Including a Hair Pick or Two?) and Annoyed Me to No End Before Tasting It: Divine Milk Chocolate.
It's Fair Trade Certified, so I can stop feeling bad about myself. The tagline is also "Heavenly Chocolate with a heart," which is interesting. Especially capitalization-wise. And I guess it explains why the "v" in Divine is a Smashing-Pumpkins-Logo-Drawn-by-12-Year-Old-Girl-Esque heart.
The inside wrapper is gold, which always wins me over. The expiration date stamp reads "BEST BEFORE END," which felt prophetic and customizable. The pieces weren't too big, so I could eat just a few and then just a few more and then just a few more and it seemed to last forever even though it was probably only ten minutes. When it was gone, I mourned. And nothing I tasted afterward held a candle. I wanted to melt it and drink it, but I've worked at Starbucks too many times to put myself through that crap again.
Shut Up Just Shut Up Shut Up
When I'm more comfortably quit, I'll put up a post about why it is that I love smoking cigarettes. Because much as I hate to admit it, I really do love the act and culture of smoking. But the thing that motivates me to quit each time--and which I slowly forget about over the course of months, years--is how much I torture myself about smoking.
If I could remain the carefree smoker I was in college, proudly flashing my Camel Lights pack like a shield when my nosy hall mates chided me for my habit, I'd probably he happy to ignore all of the very sensible reasons to quit and just continue along my merry, smoke-ring-ing way.
I can't do that, though.
Sometime around late 2003, I began to beat myself up about smoking. I tortured myself at the end (just the end at first) of every smoke break and gradually, I began to chastise myself at the first sign of a nicotine craving, at every little hiccup in my breath, at every cough that woke me in the night, at every surprising sniff of my own belongings, which revealed the scent of a smoker. And since then, I haven't been able to ease up on myself.
There's something inside me now that fights hedonism in all its forms, be it eating, smoking, drinking, lazing, shopping, sex. There is a constant, interior war between the part of me that needs to indulge in order to loosen up and the part of me that sees virtue in control. I was going to write "control and self-care," but the reason why this do-gooder voice inside me is infuriating is because I believe that self-care involves hedonism to some extent. Hopefully not the cancerous kind, sure, but my inner critic doesn't seem to notice the difference between dangerous pleasures and the kinds of pleasure that make us human and furthermore, make us happy to keep being human.
I loathe that controlling voice. It begins to rule me so that I get more stressed about my habit and more disappointed in myself. Then, I feel so lousy that I smoke more. So of course I beat myself up quite thoroughly for caving and so the cycle continues. If there is anything I wish to escape by staying quit this time around, it is that completely uncomfortable self-loathing. The myriad pleasures I experience while smoking a cigarette aren't worth the way I feel about myself immediately after having done so. It's strange to admit that I am not quitting because of cancer or emphysema or smelling bad or gum disease or social stigma or finances or an ultimatum from someone I love. It's much simpler than that, really, and moderately hedonistic: I am quitting to starve the judgment inside me.
If I could remain the carefree smoker I was in college, proudly flashing my Camel Lights pack like a shield when my nosy hall mates chided me for my habit, I'd probably he happy to ignore all of the very sensible reasons to quit and just continue along my merry, smoke-ring-ing way.
I can't do that, though.
Sometime around late 2003, I began to beat myself up about smoking. I tortured myself at the end (just the end at first) of every smoke break and gradually, I began to chastise myself at the first sign of a nicotine craving, at every little hiccup in my breath, at every cough that woke me in the night, at every surprising sniff of my own belongings, which revealed the scent of a smoker. And since then, I haven't been able to ease up on myself.
There's something inside me now that fights hedonism in all its forms, be it eating, smoking, drinking, lazing, shopping, sex. There is a constant, interior war between the part of me that needs to indulge in order to loosen up and the part of me that sees virtue in control. I was going to write "control and self-care," but the reason why this do-gooder voice inside me is infuriating is because I believe that self-care involves hedonism to some extent. Hopefully not the cancerous kind, sure, but my inner critic doesn't seem to notice the difference between dangerous pleasures and the kinds of pleasure that make us human and furthermore, make us happy to keep being human.
I loathe that controlling voice. It begins to rule me so that I get more stressed about my habit and more disappointed in myself. Then, I feel so lousy that I smoke more. So of course I beat myself up quite thoroughly for caving and so the cycle continues. If there is anything I wish to escape by staying quit this time around, it is that completely uncomfortable self-loathing. The myriad pleasures I experience while smoking a cigarette aren't worth the way I feel about myself immediately after having done so. It's strange to admit that I am not quitting because of cancer or emphysema or smelling bad or gum disease or social stigma or finances or an ultimatum from someone I love. It's much simpler than that, really, and moderately hedonistic: I am quitting to starve the judgment inside me.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
You Can Do It Put Your Back Into It
Four years ago, my mother nearly died as a result of years of alcohol abuse, and today marks her fourth year of sobriety.
I don't know what else to say.
That I am proud of her or inspired by her?
Huge understatements.
That's Incentive
It is well-documented that quitting smoking often causes some unpleasant immune responses in the body, but it's largely downplayed. I had almost forgotten how lousy I feel during the first two weeks of any quitting attempt: I get canker sores all over my mouth so that eating is difficult; it becomes painful to swallow; I hack up mucous of so many different colors it seems I should start a curiosity collection; my ears itch and ring; my back aches where my lungs sit protesting inside; I can't breathe through my nose; my eyes are plastered shut when I wake up each morning; my energy stores nearly disappear.
Pair those symptoms with the cold that's making the rounds here and I think it's safe to say I'm miserable today. I can't get comfortable inside or outside, upright or lying down, eating or hungry, with hot liquids or cold.
It's difficult to power through this when you know it's a result of quitting a bad habit. You'd hope that walking away from those toxins would lead to positive physical results. Super human strength, you know? Song birds landing on your pointer finger Disney-stye. An increased social life, immediately whiter teeth, cleaner fingernails, the persistent taste of fresh mint upon your tongue. Clearer vision. Rainbows. The sudden advent of unicorn-watching excursions, giving the whales a break.
But it makes sense that that's not what happens. First of all, birds mistrust us because we eat and sic our dogs on them, and unicorns don't exist (sorry, Ryan). Secondly, my body is expelling everything nasty I've put into it. But as much sense as it may make, it's still a pretty lousy incentive to quit. In fact, in college, I used to smoke menthol cigarettes when I got a chest cold because I was convinced it helped me to expectorate. And I suspect I may have been onto something.
There's so much waiting involved in quitting smoking, so much invisible and constant effort. People who haven't been addicted to nicotine probably don't even register half of the internal struggle in front of them when someone attempts to quit. It's a physical, habitual, emotional, mental and willful battle. It's so easy to justify going back to it again and again because if smoking makes you feel like a bad person, quitting makes you feel like a worse one. Someone with no patience, compassion, energy, work ethic, strength or sanity. Your virtues all but disappear, and the ugliness inside you becomes magnified.
Those struggles may wane in intensity, but they persist in some form for weeks, months, years. My longest quit was nearly six years, and I still fought with myself every time it would have been easy to bum a smoke off of a stranger, every time I entered a liquor store that sold clove cigarettes, every time I went to a gas station to fuel up. Every time I lost patience or felt socially anxious, my mind suggested to me that I smoke to take the edge off. With every stressful job situation, every minor misunderstanding between myself and a friend or partner, came the seemingly-rational imperative to smoke.
The same is true now, of feeling ill as a result of my quitting. I have made excuses left and right for myself to postpone quitting, buying one more pack: my sister will be in town and I don't want to be cranky with her; I have graduate school applications to fill out and I need to be at my mental and emotional best to begin them; the month of May is difficult for me and there's no sense in trying to quit now, as I'd surely be more successful at a time that isn't so rife with bad or trying memories.
Luckily, I've been through this enough times that I know my own tricks. So I may be a Whole Lot of Not Fun for an indeterminate amount of time, but I'll make up for it later. When I'm healthy again and convinced by my own strength and perseverance. Nothing--and I do mean nothing--beats being genuinely proud of myself.
Pair those symptoms with the cold that's making the rounds here and I think it's safe to say I'm miserable today. I can't get comfortable inside or outside, upright or lying down, eating or hungry, with hot liquids or cold.
It's difficult to power through this when you know it's a result of quitting a bad habit. You'd hope that walking away from those toxins would lead to positive physical results. Super human strength, you know? Song birds landing on your pointer finger Disney-stye. An increased social life, immediately whiter teeth, cleaner fingernails, the persistent taste of fresh mint upon your tongue. Clearer vision. Rainbows. The sudden advent of unicorn-watching excursions, giving the whales a break.
But it makes sense that that's not what happens. First of all, birds mistrust us because we eat and sic our dogs on them, and unicorns don't exist (sorry, Ryan). Secondly, my body is expelling everything nasty I've put into it. But as much sense as it may make, it's still a pretty lousy incentive to quit. In fact, in college, I used to smoke menthol cigarettes when I got a chest cold because I was convinced it helped me to expectorate. And I suspect I may have been onto something.
There's so much waiting involved in quitting smoking, so much invisible and constant effort. People who haven't been addicted to nicotine probably don't even register half of the internal struggle in front of them when someone attempts to quit. It's a physical, habitual, emotional, mental and willful battle. It's so easy to justify going back to it again and again because if smoking makes you feel like a bad person, quitting makes you feel like a worse one. Someone with no patience, compassion, energy, work ethic, strength or sanity. Your virtues all but disappear, and the ugliness inside you becomes magnified.
Those struggles may wane in intensity, but they persist in some form for weeks, months, years. My longest quit was nearly six years, and I still fought with myself every time it would have been easy to bum a smoke off of a stranger, every time I entered a liquor store that sold clove cigarettes, every time I went to a gas station to fuel up. Every time I lost patience or felt socially anxious, my mind suggested to me that I smoke to take the edge off. With every stressful job situation, every minor misunderstanding between myself and a friend or partner, came the seemingly-rational imperative to smoke.
The same is true now, of feeling ill as a result of my quitting. I have made excuses left and right for myself to postpone quitting, buying one more pack: my sister will be in town and I don't want to be cranky with her; I have graduate school applications to fill out and I need to be at my mental and emotional best to begin them; the month of May is difficult for me and there's no sense in trying to quit now, as I'd surely be more successful at a time that isn't so rife with bad or trying memories.
Luckily, I've been through this enough times that I know my own tricks. So I may be a Whole Lot of Not Fun for an indeterminate amount of time, but I'll make up for it later. When I'm healthy again and convinced by my own strength and perseverance. Nothing--and I do mean nothing--beats being genuinely proud of myself.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Electric Feel
This winter, we started a poultry operation on the farm. After spending the coldest parts of the season re-outfitting the old chicken house and building a mobile egg-laying unit, we received 170 chicks in cardboard boxes in the mail a few months ago. They have quadrupled in size since, and while they are still pullets, they're just about ready to leave the chicken house to enter the fields. We practice pastured livestock management at this farm and so these lucky chickens will follow along behind our 49 cows, entering pastures just as the cow patties are ripe for larvae-picking. We have a tentative move date of Friday, at which point we'll accost the chickens in the dead of night, as peacefully as possible, and move them into our egg mobile. One by one, by the legs.
In preparation, we have set up an electric fence that is intended to look like a rectangle but instead has become some strange geometric shape. Were I expected to find its area on the GREs, I'd skip that question and move on to probability.
That fence is connected to the fence we use for the cattle, which holds up to 9,000 volts of electricity, distributed in timed intervals. If you listen closely, you can sometimes hear the tick of the electricity pulsing through the wires. If you are blessed with flawless timing, you miss the shock wave. Most people have not been so lucky. I can boast that after a full year on this farm, handling these fences, I have yet to be the recipient of a shock, but I have no illusions about finishing this season in the same victorious position.
We have hawks, foxes, coyotes, eagles, owls and many more predators in this valley. As a result, we have purchased all kinds of predator deterrents: from balloons that look like giant, cartoon eyes to laser beams that mimic the glare of an animal at night to the electric fencing and extruded steel floors on the egg mobile itself.
Last year, we all cooed at the fox kits after we located their den, just above the place where the chickens will first be allowed to graze the pastures. This year, we're on a mission to deter those dastardly, adorable creatures so that they won't eat our other, not-so-bright, adorable creatures. It is illegal to kill or trap a fox, but it isn't illegal to scare the shit out of one with an electric fence.
Yesterday, we tied some high-quality locally-made sausages (because that's how we roll) to the fence and left them there overnight, hoping that the predators would approach those sausages and learn the consequences of attempting to eat what's housed inside the fence. Looking at the sausages this morning, twist-tied to the white mesh fence, I half-wished someone had trained me so well to the dangers of smoking.
Then I realized that I've been trained all my life to know better and it hasn't mattered. I plan to talk about my youthful love affair with D.A.R.E at some other time, and about the scare tactics with which the media and my dear friends in medical school still present me. But suffice it to say for now that with the memory of a goldfish, I go back to that proverbial fence over and over, enduring the shock again and again for the instant gratification of consuming what I understand might kill me.
And I pride myself on my intelligence. Go figure.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
She's Addicted to Nicotine Patches
I accidentally placed the patch over my first tattoo. It is a spider smaller than a dime, on my lower back. I got it in a seedy parlor along St. Mark's Place when I was freshly 18. The man who gave it to me had permanent prosthetic fangs and still (obviously?) managed to seduce the maudlin friend of mine who took me to get the tattoo.
I meant it to symbolize storytelling and personal agency, the ability to create one's life path through choice. Later that summer, when my grandmother saw it as I was emerging from the swimming pool at our annual family reunion at a Methodist church camp in Hinton, Oklahoma, she yelped and slapped me, thinking it was real and that I was under siege.
Now, it's more like a faded black blob, and on that first night with the patch covering the spider, I dreamed that the nicotine ate through it like acid, leaving that space red but unmarked by ink. I admit to being mildly disappointed when I woke to find that neither the pain nor the erasure were real.
I meant it to symbolize storytelling and personal agency, the ability to create one's life path through choice. Later that summer, when my grandmother saw it as I was emerging from the swimming pool at our annual family reunion at a Methodist church camp in Hinton, Oklahoma, she yelped and slapped me, thinking it was real and that I was under siege.
Now, it's more like a faded black blob, and on that first night with the patch covering the spider, I dreamed that the nicotine ate through it like acid, leaving that space red but unmarked by ink. I admit to being mildly disappointed when I woke to find that neither the pain nor the erasure were real.
Monday, May 2, 2011
First Thing's First
I talk to myself in first person plural a lot. When my dog's around, it seems less crazy. This morning, I walked about my little yard with my head hung down, searching the ground for cigarette butts. We're a bird and we're looking for worms, I said to myself, probably out loud.
After collecting them all into a heap, I bagged them up and threw them out along with the latest pile of dog shit. Then, I smelled my fingertips: the scent of stale cigarette and particularly rank dog feces made me wretch a little.
Well, I said as I washed my hands a moment later, the dog looking on curiously. We're not going to do that again, now are we?
After collecting them all into a heap, I bagged them up and threw them out along with the latest pile of dog shit. Then, I smelled my fingertips: the scent of stale cigarette and particularly rank dog feces made me wretch a little.
Well, I said as I washed my hands a moment later, the dog looking on curiously. We're not going to do that again, now are we?
Sunday, May 1, 2011
This is Our Last Goodbye
My first Last Cigarette was smoked directly outside of a hypnotherapist-to-the-stars' office in Manhattan in 2004. Joined by two of my favorite, chain smoking friends, we jokingly mourned our soon-to-be lost connection of addiction and oral fixation. I felt hopeful and resolved and was grateful for my friends' support.
If I am only counting successful attempts and considering anything past three months successful (because let's face it, listing every Last Cigarette attempt over the past 10 years would be tedious even for me, and I'm sort of convinced that the minutiae of my life is riveting), then my next Last Cigarette was had outside a hotel in Seattle in February 2010, alone after wine and sushi with Synergy, who had retreated to our shared room to prepare for bed. I had never met Synergy in-the-flesh before (yay, internet!), had never been to Seattle before. I was on the precipice of a pretty big life change, too, so that one felt charged and beautiful.
The most recent Last Cigarette was smoked in late fall 2011, in a canyon along the Big Thompson River, right outside of Loveland. It was dark and I was alone and could hear the slap of the water against the riverbed, could see a million stars with clarity. That one seemed profound and so final. And here I am again.
I like ceremony and tend to make more of every moment than is probably necessary. So last night, I consulted with Synergy and decided to dress warmly and sit outside, alternately on the swing set and my park bench. In the dark, a cup of strong coffee and the Sex Pistol's version of My Way on my iPod. It was near-perfect. Hopefully, I'll never top it.
If I am only counting successful attempts and considering anything past three months successful (because let's face it, listing every Last Cigarette attempt over the past 10 years would be tedious even for me, and I'm sort of convinced that the minutiae of my life is riveting), then my next Last Cigarette was had outside a hotel in Seattle in February 2010, alone after wine and sushi with Synergy, who had retreated to our shared room to prepare for bed. I had never met Synergy in-the-flesh before (yay, internet!), had never been to Seattle before. I was on the precipice of a pretty big life change, too, so that one felt charged and beautiful.
The most recent Last Cigarette was smoked in late fall 2011, in a canyon along the Big Thompson River, right outside of Loveland. It was dark and I was alone and could hear the slap of the water against the riverbed, could see a million stars with clarity. That one seemed profound and so final. And here I am again.
I like ceremony and tend to make more of every moment than is probably necessary. So last night, I consulted with Synergy and decided to dress warmly and sit outside, alternately on the swing set and my park bench. In the dark, a cup of strong coffee and the Sex Pistol's version of My Way on my iPod. It was near-perfect. Hopefully, I'll never top it.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Both Say Something About Me
Once, I visited Sweden for a week. The only thing I remember how to say is Ursäkta. Excuse me.
Once, I visited Montreal for a month. The only thing I learned to say with confidence was Est-ce que vous avez un cendrier, s'il vous plait? Do you have an ashtray, please?
Once, I visited Montreal for a month. The only thing I learned to say with confidence was Est-ce que vous avez un cendrier, s'il vous plait? Do you have an ashtray, please?
Nicotine Love
Apparently, there is a Jewel song entitled "Nicotine Love." No, I didn't listen to it. But take a minute to ruminate on these choice lyrics:
This love is like barbed wire running through my veins
Nicotine Love
Go ahead hurt me like that
I've been hurt before
Nicotine Love
Go ahead hurt me like that
I've been hurt before
Tonight, Jewel is speaking to me for the first time since I turned 18 and started listening to male vocalists who didn't necessarily play guitar. She's speaking to me because I work on a farm and spend a lot of time these days fixing and getting caught on barbed wire fences. But it's also because I started smoking in 2001 and while I've gone long periods of time without, I always seem to stumble back to the Parliament Lights.
Thus, today begins my 423, 323, 781st attempt at quitting and on this fortuitous day, I've decided to try something new: writing a public, navel-gazing blog about My History With the Cigarette and my most recent quitting process.
I plan primarily to distract myself by giving myself projects, such as Eat a Candy Bar a Day for Two Weeks and Write Reviews. Or Instead of Smoking, Try Watching the Entire First Season of Law & Order SVU again. Or, Try to Perfect Your Childhood Cartwheel. Needless to say, there's a lot of indulgence, adventure and regression to come.
Perhaps the most challenging task with which I'll present myself will be to keep it light so that this blog doesn't become as painful to read as nicotine withdrawal is to endure. Likely, I'll also resent myself next week for setting myself to this task. This will become yet another self-imposed obligation that stresses me out and therefore becomes an excuse to smoke. But for now, it sure seems promising, doesn't it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
