OK I didn't quit. (third time's the charm???)
laterz.
PS. HOLLAND TO VIN, BABY!!! fook those teutonic asshats ;)
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Friday, May 7, 2010
Keanu Reeves Whoa. Dept.:
(the following is excerpted from Steve Pavlina's blog post, "Cultivating Burning Desire". chek paragraph 2, italics mine... yikes!)
1. Burn the ships.
I'm not going to pull any punches with this one. If your goals are really important enough to you, then you can start by burning the proverbial ships, such that you have no choice but to press on. For instance, if you want to launch your own business, you can begin by making the commitment to quitting your job. Write a letter of resignation, put it in a stamped envelope addressed to your boss, and give it to a trusted friend with firm instructions to mail the letter if you haven't quit your job by a certain date.
One Las Vegas casino manager made the decision to quit smoking. He didn't feel he had the personal willpower to do it alone, so he took out a billboard on the Las Vegas Strip with his photo on it along with the words, "If you catch me smoking, I'll pay you $100,000!" Was he able to quit smoking? You bet! (Ok, bad pun.) This is called willpower leveraging. You use a small bit of willpower to establish a consequence that will virtually compel you to keep your commitment. As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket!"
In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?
If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.
(Steve's hardcore. And that's only point 1, lol)
-------------------------------
A small compendium of "whoa."s:
my fave: noodles. yum. :)
5-sec Matrix - the original "whoa."
more Keanu! Bill+Ted "whoa."
grand finale!
-------------------------------
reminiscing dept. (fave poker chatbox intar-mar-JEK-shunzh, c.2007):
1. dooooood!
2. wAWESHOMEz!
3. pwned.
4. qwned!
5. plankton.
6. whoa.
7. all your base are belong to meeeeee
8. shipitholla, balla ;)
9. WINNAHH! (gagnant!)
1. Burn the ships.
I'm not going to pull any punches with this one. If your goals are really important enough to you, then you can start by burning the proverbial ships, such that you have no choice but to press on. For instance, if you want to launch your own business, you can begin by making the commitment to quitting your job. Write a letter of resignation, put it in a stamped envelope addressed to your boss, and give it to a trusted friend with firm instructions to mail the letter if you haven't quit your job by a certain date.
One Las Vegas casino manager made the decision to quit smoking. He didn't feel he had the personal willpower to do it alone, so he took out a billboard on the Las Vegas Strip with his photo on it along with the words, "If you catch me smoking, I'll pay you $100,000!" Was he able to quit smoking? You bet! (Ok, bad pun.) This is called willpower leveraging. You use a small bit of willpower to establish a consequence that will virtually compel you to keep your commitment. As Andrew Carnegie once said, "Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket!"
In the classic book The Art of War, Sun Tzu notes that soldiers fight the most ferociously when they believe they're fighting to the death. A good general knows that when attacking an opposing force, it's important to create the illusion of a potential escape route for the enemy, so they won't fight as hard. What escape routes are you keeping open that are causing you not to fight as hard?
If you don't burn those ships, you are sending the message to your subconscious mind that it's ok to quit. And when the going gets tough, as it inevitably does for any worthwhile goal, you will quit. If you really want to achieve your goals, then you've got to burn those ships to the ground, and scatter the ashes. If you're thinking that the average person won't do this, you're right -- that's why they're average.
(Steve's hardcore. And that's only point 1, lol)
-------------------------------
A small compendium of "whoa."s:
my fave: noodles. yum. :)
5-sec Matrix - the original "whoa."
more Keanu! Bill+Ted "whoa."
grand finale!
-------------------------------
reminiscing dept. (fave poker chatbox intar-mar-JEK-shunzh, c.2007):
1. dooooood!
2. wAWESHOMEz!
3. pwned.
4. qwned!
5. plankton.
6. whoa.
7. all your base are belong to meeeeee
8. shipitholla, balla ;)
9. WINNAHH! (gagnant!)
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Californipontification!
Aside: "Californication" is an endearing "guilty pleasure" TV series (if you can make it past the first episode, where the main character, Hank, initially appears to be something of a douche). But this blog entry is actually a halting initial attempt to list what i have learned about presenting cigarettes with a sucessful, binding, and uncontested divorce decree (your mileage will vary! everyone's story is different! there are as many successful routes as there are unique, spe-shul, pretty snowflake, ex-smokers). Shall we? Wisdom, I have gained: impart it, I shall!
* most importantly: go be bumble-fumble- bumblebee My flight to freedom resembled a meandering, backlooping, slow, and seemingly endless/aimless bumblebee path, and not the glorious streamlined zzzoochh-*thwack!* of an arrow from crossbow to target. It took years and many "failed" quits, although there are no quit attempts that fail (or so us weak lameazoids tell ourselfves. I am a big fan of targetted self-deception!). Every one will gallop you along the Way, almost by osmosis. Trust the process. Be not ashamed. Just get out there and... bumble around! Ah, Glasshoppah, taking practice: all is coming! Every. Single. Failed. Quit. yields priceless skills. They'll become so second nature, you'll forget what they even are. Much like progressing to 10th dan black belt, or like fine laquerwork, quitting is layer upon layer of sad to mad skilz, accreted painfully over time at the cost of much humility and mortification.
Press on! Every try is a new scavenger hunt trophy en route to the finish; a further 20 new combinations to try that might silently swing open the bank vault door to reveal all those gold bars and bearer bonds the Shangri-La initiates speak of. Now you're there, too. Congratulations! Go buy that Lamborghini Diablo with the present-valued bux you're saving.
Doing up the below, I'm not sure if any of these are Big News... I fear all this is kind of like saying, if you look down you will note you have 2 hands! Indeed. "OMG WOULDJA LOOKIT DAT, ME HAV HANDS! WIF... APPENDAGE-FINGER-THINGEYS! STOP DA PRESSES!!!" :) Much like losing weight, the principles are easily grasped. Applying them consistently is something else altogether... But on the off-chance any of this is a useful new take:
* carpe Carr Allan Carr's book ("Easy Way to Stop Smoking") is badass. Always was, always will be. He really understands quit psychology: formerly a lifelong smoker and up at 100 a day by the time he quit, Carr knows the front lines of the battlezone and the proper way to defuse all bombs. This is your bible, bumble.
* better living thru chemistry I highly recommend Zyban. It does a great deal to mute cravings and totally blunts rageaholic zero-to-1 million hair trigger frustration levels, otherwise a lamentable and potentially deadly initial quit symptom. It substitutes dopamine you used to get via ciggies. It is an antidepressant (if your quit is at all like mine was, holy crap! you will need one of these). It is likely useful merely as a perceptual magic bullet, with considerable placebo effects. Trust me, you can use a nominal 15% edge with no scientific basis beyond popping a pill and trusting it helps. Take it. It will.
* cookie monster is a quadraplegic, otherwise known as zen-fu'ing your cravings and triggers. Would highly recommend meditation mad skilz as a prereq to a quit. Identifying a thought (quickly, nascently, before it cascades into entire 100-car trains of thought, multiplying and romping and dominating the landscape like bunnies unopposed in Australia), gently labelling it or rebutting it with a personal slogan or mantra, and then ruthlessly refocussing attention on something else, is meditation, more or less. It really helps to have practiced meditation pre-quit. Then, when a craving or situational trigger comes up, you iz jake! Pick a labelling word or mantra that is meaningful and moving to you. "I prefer Lamborghini Diablos", perhaps, if the financial savings of a quit particularly groove ya. "Cancer sux" might be valid, but not the best one: many smokers react to fear by leaping for a ciggie, so try not to induce it as a cessation aid, would be my suggestion. "Cookie monster" was my humourous mental image of an out-of-control addict at the feed trough, and reinforced to me that there's no such thing as "just this one" - it's always "yes, more, never enough, coooookkkkkkiiiieeeeeeeee mnaw mnum mmm gzooor kmwaaa smuuu snurrr..." (cute on Sesame Street, not so much for a nominally adult addict). The thing is, Cookie may be part of your brain, but he ain't ambulatory. Only YOU - the you with legs n mad walkie skilz - can wheel poor quadraplegic Cookie out to the corner store to indulge him. And you can choose not to. Cookie can beg, but youze gots da motor skills. I liked this mantra because it reinforces your steely, determined, way awesome, powerful post-quit self, fully dimensionally whole, and gives it primacy over lil whiny poos cookie gimme! two year old craving, gotta cry can't even crawl! lame-o crave-o monster. game set match. Every TIME, tell cookie to take a hike. oh wait - cookie no can hike-y? hahahaha!!! This identify/talk back/switch kata is super core to your quit, so perfect it, or be roadkill.
* just do it The Nike guys have an excellent point. Usually, I'm a big fan of organic gradual change, a big fan of really being psyched about a new development! Not just being capable, but being ready... not just wanting to want it, but hungrily WANTING it! Passion beats gut-it-out willpower, every time. If you can work up a jones for your quit, fantastic. I'm here to say, I never did. I only ever wanted to want to want to quit. Obviously I could work up a list of why quitting made sense, but I could never get really behind one. Those reasons stubbornly remained little blue ink scribbles, nothing heartfelt. Mea culpa. Maybe some people get Ready!!! But I was never ready, and this time was no different. I wasn't ready, and I didn't wanna. I just did. I struggled, I flailed, my quit was very un-fun, grit it out, panicked stuff, and a far cry from the ideal Allan Carr bungee jump-o-wheeee i'm freeeeee phase shift o' bliss into non- land. But I don't think I was ever gonna wanna or be ready. My enthusiasm was microbe-sized, pitifully bounded, enormously saddled with caveats, really very close to entirely hypothetical or deceptively fake-o, like a Viceroy lookin' good and enthusing, "I'm a Monarch I am! gonna fly to MEXICO. YESS!!!", very very earnestly. But sometimes you just - get yo' ass pregnant, and figure out the ideal parental stuff on the fly. It isn't easy subjugating yourself to a *wise idea* without personal buy-in. But it can be done. You made it through high school, right? You smother daily boss-snark, right? So, qvit already!
* -moo! yes, weight gain. what are ya, vain? lose it later; worry not. Dig in.
* evade Profound attention placed on activity, a full schedule, escaping into a laser focus placed on amazing novels, great company, trash TV - diversion is your friend.
* mustn't. crack. must. endure. Allan Carr: "Yippee! You'll never look back!" Your cakewalk mileage may vary...considerably. The worst may be just a suckFESTathon of uurgh!! Jack Bauer all over you, screaming, screaming! "Where's the nuclear device!! Tell me where it is!! Where is it!! WHERE!!!!!", violating 10 sections of the Geneva convention, gittin' all medieval on ya... Of COURSE, noone can endure hiJacks this severe for long... that high-pitched Beelzebub feedback screech, forever... Tricky Nic-y will whisper this is just a foretaste of Hades: look forward to worse!!! The truth is, peak suckage is not nothing, but it passes. I found week three was very much go ahead n' count chickens time. OK, week two sucked. Alot. But Jack will move on to some other bad guy pretty quickly. Don't crack. Your effort is unsustainable - fine. It just has to be sustainable *enough*. Don'st gots no info 'bout no nukes. Don'st!!! Please! You hafta believe me!!! Blaarwwghh!!! BLWGAHHHHH!!!
Well, let's cut it there for now, Gentle Reader. Let's call it quits. AHAHA! ;)
* most importantly: go be bumble-fumble- bumblebee My flight to freedom resembled a meandering, backlooping, slow, and seemingly endless/aimless bumblebee path, and not the glorious streamlined zzzoochh-*thwack!* of an arrow from crossbow to target. It took years and many "failed" quits, although there are no quit attempts that fail (or so us weak lameazoids tell ourselfves. I am a big fan of targetted self-deception!). Every one will gallop you along the Way, almost by osmosis. Trust the process. Be not ashamed. Just get out there and... bumble around! Ah, Glasshoppah, taking practice: all is coming! Every. Single. Failed. Quit. yields priceless skills. They'll become so second nature, you'll forget what they even are. Much like progressing to 10th dan black belt, or like fine laquerwork, quitting is layer upon layer of sad to mad skilz, accreted painfully over time at the cost of much humility and mortification.
Press on! Every try is a new scavenger hunt trophy en route to the finish; a further 20 new combinations to try that might silently swing open the bank vault door to reveal all those gold bars and bearer bonds the Shangri-La initiates speak of. Now you're there, too. Congratulations! Go buy that Lamborghini Diablo with the present-valued bux you're saving.
Doing up the below, I'm not sure if any of these are Big News... I fear all this is kind of like saying, if you look down you will note you have 2 hands! Indeed. "OMG WOULDJA LOOKIT DAT, ME HAV HANDS! WIF... APPENDAGE-FINGER-THINGEYS! STOP DA PRESSES!!!" :) Much like losing weight, the principles are easily grasped. Applying them consistently is something else altogether... But on the off-chance any of this is a useful new take:
* carpe Carr Allan Carr's book ("Easy Way to Stop Smoking") is badass. Always was, always will be. He really understands quit psychology: formerly a lifelong smoker and up at 100 a day by the time he quit, Carr knows the front lines of the battlezone and the proper way to defuse all bombs. This is your bible, bumble.
* better living thru chemistry I highly recommend Zyban. It does a great deal to mute cravings and totally blunts rageaholic zero-to-1 million hair trigger frustration levels, otherwise a lamentable and potentially deadly initial quit symptom. It substitutes dopamine you used to get via ciggies. It is an antidepressant (if your quit is at all like mine was, holy crap! you will need one of these). It is likely useful merely as a perceptual magic bullet, with considerable placebo effects. Trust me, you can use a nominal 15% edge with no scientific basis beyond popping a pill and trusting it helps. Take it. It will.
* cookie monster is a quadraplegic, otherwise known as zen-fu'ing your cravings and triggers. Would highly recommend meditation mad skilz as a prereq to a quit. Identifying a thought (quickly, nascently, before it cascades into entire 100-car trains of thought, multiplying and romping and dominating the landscape like bunnies unopposed in Australia), gently labelling it or rebutting it with a personal slogan or mantra, and then ruthlessly refocussing attention on something else, is meditation, more or less. It really helps to have practiced meditation pre-quit. Then, when a craving or situational trigger comes up, you iz jake! Pick a labelling word or mantra that is meaningful and moving to you. "I prefer Lamborghini Diablos", perhaps, if the financial savings of a quit particularly groove ya. "Cancer sux" might be valid, but not the best one: many smokers react to fear by leaping for a ciggie, so try not to induce it as a cessation aid, would be my suggestion. "Cookie monster" was my humourous mental image of an out-of-control addict at the feed trough, and reinforced to me that there's no such thing as "just this one" - it's always "yes, more, never enough, coooookkkkkkiiiieeeeeeeee mnaw mnum mmm gzooor kmwaaa smuuu snurrr..." (cute on Sesame Street, not so much for a nominally adult addict). The thing is, Cookie may be part of your brain, but he ain't ambulatory. Only YOU - the you with legs n mad walkie skilz - can wheel poor quadraplegic Cookie out to the corner store to indulge him. And you can choose not to. Cookie can beg, but youze gots da motor skills. I liked this mantra because it reinforces your steely, determined, way awesome, powerful post-quit self, fully dimensionally whole, and gives it primacy over lil whiny poos cookie gimme! two year old craving, gotta cry can't even crawl! lame-o crave-o monster. game set match. Every TIME, tell cookie to take a hike. oh wait - cookie no can hike-y? hahahaha!!! This identify/talk back/switch kata is super core to your quit, so perfect it, or be roadkill.
* just do it The Nike guys have an excellent point. Usually, I'm a big fan of organic gradual change, a big fan of really being psyched about a new development! Not just being capable, but being ready... not just wanting to want it, but hungrily WANTING it! Passion beats gut-it-out willpower, every time. If you can work up a jones for your quit, fantastic. I'm here to say, I never did. I only ever wanted to want to want to quit. Obviously I could work up a list of why quitting made sense, but I could never get really behind one. Those reasons stubbornly remained little blue ink scribbles, nothing heartfelt. Mea culpa. Maybe some people get Ready!!! But I was never ready, and this time was no different. I wasn't ready, and I didn't wanna. I just did. I struggled, I flailed, my quit was very un-fun, grit it out, panicked stuff, and a far cry from the ideal Allan Carr bungee jump-o-wheeee i'm freeeeee phase shift o' bliss into non- land. But I don't think I was ever gonna wanna or be ready. My enthusiasm was microbe-sized, pitifully bounded, enormously saddled with caveats, really very close to entirely hypothetical or deceptively fake-o, like a Viceroy lookin' good and enthusing, "I'm a Monarch I am! gonna fly to MEXICO. YESS!!!", very very earnestly. But sometimes you just - get yo' ass pregnant, and figure out the ideal parental stuff on the fly. It isn't easy subjugating yourself to a *wise idea* without personal buy-in. But it can be done. You made it through high school, right? You smother daily boss-snark, right? So, qvit already!
* -moo! yes, weight gain. what are ya, vain? lose it later; worry not. Dig in.
* evade Profound attention placed on activity, a full schedule, escaping into a laser focus placed on amazing novels, great company, trash TV - diversion is your friend.
* mustn't. crack. must. endure. Allan Carr: "Yippee! You'll never look back!" Your cakewalk mileage may vary...considerably. The worst may be just a suckFESTathon of uurgh!! Jack Bauer all over you, screaming, screaming! "Where's the nuclear device!! Tell me where it is!! Where is it!! WHERE!!!!!", violating 10 sections of the Geneva convention, gittin' all medieval on ya... Of COURSE, noone can endure hiJacks this severe for long... that high-pitched Beelzebub feedback screech, forever... Tricky Nic-y will whisper this is just a foretaste of Hades: look forward to worse!!! The truth is, peak suckage is not nothing, but it passes. I found week three was very much go ahead n' count chickens time. OK, week two sucked. Alot. But Jack will move on to some other bad guy pretty quickly. Don't crack. Your effort is unsustainable - fine. It just has to be sustainable *enough*. Don'st gots no info 'bout no nukes. Don'st!!! Please! You hafta believe me!!! Blaarwwghh!!! BLWGAHHHHH!!!
Well, let's cut it there for now, Gentle Reader. Let's call it quits. AHAHA! ;)
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Quit Iz OK, Week 2, Not So Much...
OK, I've had alot of trouble posting anything on this blog, because I'm having trouble with alot of things lately. And the thing is, I like doing blog posts like the first one, where I'm a Storyteller and the entry is Interesting and Fun, and I'm Brilliant and the quit is Easy and also, I don't know if any of you have noticed, but, I'm Perfect and a Genius and Very Together at all times, with No Problems Whatsoever and I am never Lame or Confused or Panicked or Human.
Godlike and Rilly Rilly Awesome!!! that's Me! (bow down, mortals. LOL)
Perhaps an interesting giveaway is the pseudonym I've chosen here. The writer of this blog is "Minerva", (not "real name goes here") and Minerva is not only a goddess, but a damn major one, one known for being all smart and brave and way cool n stuff.
Anyway, i'm (small case, last week - very very small case) only too human and Week 2 was a bitch. i'll just post an indicative email i sent an enquiring friend, because it covers the ground i'm traversing right now as a non-smoking sherpa. Happily, i feel somewhat better lately... yay! Future blog entries may cover some of the themes touched on below at greater length... or not. Depending on whether i can stand the vulnerability and self-revelation... i'm very comfortable writing small-case-me stuff in my journal, and it is very helpful in working things through.
A blog is great for a quit, because it is a public forum for accountability - and that really helps!!! "Do you really want to have a cigarette or 25, and then have to blog to the entire world that you fell off the wagon and oops, blush?" ANY motivation helps and this blog is additional motivation I've never used in other quits, and it HAS helped alot.
I am starting to run up against just how "real" I want the blog to be, though. I guess I'm not too good with not looking like a super stud all the time. Anyway, here goes...
----------------------email to friend below------------------------
heya,
the quit sux, lol. it is intact, tho.
but the past week has been one of those weeks i just start to wonder if i'm a total screwup or what. i have been drinking like a fish. and eating like a piggo. i swear, i am such a cow now. it is depressing; we gotta be at +15 pounds now; i prefer the jeans unbuttoned cuzz otherwise owie torture so waist +4 inches??? eek. my boobs are larger too, tho! lol. equal opportunity fatness.
medicating the quit, i guess. full on depression, which is weird since Zyban is an antidepressant. i can't be asked to do one single thing, including even cook, and i've been racking up the restaurant bills like someone that can afford them. and this place is a fucking pigsty.
when i'm not doing that, i'm obsessively watching movies (4 of those) and TV series (2 of those), or obsessively reading books (2 of those), or gratefully sleeping. (life is pretty sucky when sleep is a relief and a high point).
i'm just putting some distance between me and the butts one day at a time but i gotta getta frikkin grip here soon. uuurgh. i totally don't wanna write about it in my blog becuzz who knew a successful quit would feel so... totally suck. i feel miserable and out of control. i feel ... down on myself.
now, i'm an alchy and a fatty and someone whose eating is out of control, and a spendaholic (today i had carmelized onion/gorganzola pizza, veal parmigiano and sticky toffee pudding, all at restaurants, aka $$$, urgh) and depressed and pissed at myself
and even the quit is depressing. it's like, wow, i did it. it wasn't that hard. why didn't i do it 15 YEARS ago??? idiot. fuckup. and i find it very confusing in terms of identity or something. it's something i did for such a long time that now that i don't do it, do i have to be against the me that did it? it's like quitting has plunged me in this trap of judgemental-ness. i'm trying to just be inconsistent. it's ok i used to smoke, it's ok i don't any more. no values need be attached to either state.
it sort of feels spooky too, like if i've changed this element about myself, what else is an illusion or blind spot or a chimera? and is there anything left underneath these surface illusions that is more durable? a "me"? what if i think i hate blood sausage and really i love it? poor example. but it's like, WHO THE HELL AM I? and where is this going cuzz if i become one of those sanctimonious asshats who climb K2 pointlessly and stress about getting enough lycopene and ....
... i think i used cigs to be some kind of a badass or someone ... not normal and like, cool and not... square, man. someone different, artistic, beyond the pale, radical.
maybe i need a tatoo or something. cuzz doing something genuinely cool and radical or accomplished like starting a flipping band or creating a company or learning to surf or whatever felt so ... effortful. smoking and going to raves back then suddenly makes so much sense, cuzz it's so LAZY. it's the *pathetic* person's way of being all rad.
anyway i feel terrible. my state of mind is terrible. and confused. and very self-beating-up. which is SO WEIRD> i always thot i'd feel all good and proud if i quit. i feel like shit. LOL. oops. i don't want to go back, i don't want to smoke. but not smoking feels freaky, a non-accomplishment, and i'm PISSED i'm being such a baby about all this.
i guess quits are hard. in ways i didn't expect. blargh. i guess i better start working out, i cannot look this heiffer-esque, dude, on an ongoing basis. MOOOOO. argh.
i cannot wait for this vacances of ours. it will be SO great to see you. assuming i don't EAT my way thru the vacation fund. i finished my stupid book today so the plan is a "work week" starting tamorray. this "play" week has toootally sucked. will get a grip soon, i hope.
------------------end email--------------------------
Godlike and Rilly Rilly Awesome!!! that's Me! (bow down, mortals. LOL)
Perhaps an interesting giveaway is the pseudonym I've chosen here. The writer of this blog is "Minerva", (not "real name goes here") and Minerva is not only a goddess, but a damn major one, one known for being all smart and brave and way cool n stuff.
Anyway, i'm (small case, last week - very very small case) only too human and Week 2 was a bitch. i'll just post an indicative email i sent an enquiring friend, because it covers the ground i'm traversing right now as a non-smoking sherpa. Happily, i feel somewhat better lately... yay! Future blog entries may cover some of the themes touched on below at greater length... or not. Depending on whether i can stand the vulnerability and self-revelation... i'm very comfortable writing small-case-me stuff in my journal, and it is very helpful in working things through.
A blog is great for a quit, because it is a public forum for accountability - and that really helps!!! "Do you really want to have a cigarette or 25, and then have to blog to the entire world that you fell off the wagon and oops, blush?" ANY motivation helps and this blog is additional motivation I've never used in other quits, and it HAS helped alot.
I am starting to run up against just how "real" I want the blog to be, though. I guess I'm not too good with not looking like a super stud all the time. Anyway, here goes...
----------------------email to friend below------------------------
heya,
the quit sux, lol. it is intact, tho.
but the past week has been one of those weeks i just start to wonder if i'm a total screwup or what. i have been drinking like a fish. and eating like a piggo. i swear, i am such a cow now. it is depressing; we gotta be at +15 pounds now; i prefer the jeans unbuttoned cuzz otherwise owie torture so waist +4 inches??? eek. my boobs are larger too, tho! lol. equal opportunity fatness.
medicating the quit, i guess. full on depression, which is weird since Zyban is an antidepressant. i can't be asked to do one single thing, including even cook, and i've been racking up the restaurant bills like someone that can afford them. and this place is a fucking pigsty.
when i'm not doing that, i'm obsessively watching movies (4 of those) and TV series (2 of those), or obsessively reading books (2 of those), or gratefully sleeping. (life is pretty sucky when sleep is a relief and a high point).
i'm just putting some distance between me and the butts one day at a time but i gotta getta frikkin grip here soon. uuurgh. i totally don't wanna write about it in my blog becuzz who knew a successful quit would feel so... totally suck. i feel miserable and out of control. i feel ... down on myself.
now, i'm an alchy and a fatty and someone whose eating is out of control, and a spendaholic (today i had carmelized onion/gorganzola pizza, veal parmigiano and sticky toffee pudding, all at restaurants, aka $$$, urgh) and depressed and pissed at myself
and even the quit is depressing. it's like, wow, i did it. it wasn't that hard. why didn't i do it 15 YEARS ago??? idiot. fuckup. and i find it very confusing in terms of identity or something. it's something i did for such a long time that now that i don't do it, do i have to be against the me that did it? it's like quitting has plunged me in this trap of judgemental-ness. i'm trying to just be inconsistent. it's ok i used to smoke, it's ok i don't any more. no values need be attached to either state.
it sort of feels spooky too, like if i've changed this element about myself, what else is an illusion or blind spot or a chimera? and is there anything left underneath these surface illusions that is more durable? a "me"? what if i think i hate blood sausage and really i love it? poor example. but it's like, WHO THE HELL AM I? and where is this going cuzz if i become one of those sanctimonious asshats who climb K2 pointlessly and stress about getting enough lycopene and ....
... i think i used cigs to be some kind of a badass or someone ... not normal and like, cool and not... square, man. someone different, artistic, beyond the pale, radical.
maybe i need a tatoo or something. cuzz doing something genuinely cool and radical or accomplished like starting a flipping band or creating a company or learning to surf or whatever felt so ... effortful. smoking and going to raves back then suddenly makes so much sense, cuzz it's so LAZY. it's the *pathetic* person's way of being all rad.
anyway i feel terrible. my state of mind is terrible. and confused. and very self-beating-up. which is SO WEIRD> i always thot i'd feel all good and proud if i quit. i feel like shit. LOL. oops. i don't want to go back, i don't want to smoke. but not smoking feels freaky, a non-accomplishment, and i'm PISSED i'm being such a baby about all this.
i guess quits are hard. in ways i didn't expect. blargh. i guess i better start working out, i cannot look this heiffer-esque, dude, on an ongoing basis. MOOOOO. argh.
i cannot wait for this vacances of ours. it will be SO great to see you. assuming i don't EAT my way thru the vacation fund. i finished my stupid book today so the plan is a "work week" starting tamorray. this "play" week has toootally sucked. will get a grip soon, i hope.
------------------end email--------------------------
Sunday, March 28, 2010
I Can't Afford to Quit Smoking!!! (No Worries, I Kid.)
Well, this binary 1 work thing is a trip. I am not used to working this long and hard without something like a deadline or final exam in front of my face. But part of the reason for doing it was so in the early days of the quit, I would have something to do beyond think.
Thinking is extremely dangerous in the early days of a quit and should be avoided as much as possible :) Thinking should be done before a quit. All lists of reasons and etc. get done then. After a quit, thinking is so not your friend. You might think about doing a blog post about the reasons behind this quit, versus the others, for example. (No! Don't think!) The reasons are the same as they ever wuz. But now you have brought up the spectre of failure, like the other times, the ones with the same old reasons. Or you might find yourself arguing against the reasons! Honestly, give as little time and energy to cigarettes, your quit, the deprivation of same, etc, etc, as possible.
If you are a badass meditator, you can practice switching focus when one of these smoking thoughts comes up, or repeating a mantra: "I take excellent care of my health", for example.
For the rest of us, there is binary 1 work week: now we are unloading the dishwasher. Now we are sweeping the doghair off the floors. Now we are inventorying the Tex-Mex auction lot. One is deliberately keeping the focus micro level and populating thoughts intentionally with stuff like "Ick. This cat hairball Max threw up all over my Japanese marine insurance sign is disgusting! I must rub very gently so the paint isn't disturbed, cleaning it. Where can I store it that isn't the floor? Damn cat. Spawn of Satan.".
Worked great Thursday!!! omg, Friday we had a strike action, though. The combined stress of the quit plus the work-all-day, work-all-night thing; I went AWOL. (I think it was the redolent scent of cat urine and slurried litter chunks from the bathroom floors and wall I was cleaning behind the litter box, for the first time in three years. I snapped! I lost it!) I recovered briefly, though. Kept working, ran some errands working, THEN lost it 'round noon for good. Popped into a restaurant on the way back from errands to treat myself to lunch with the saved $10-$15/day I no longer burn through. I looved lunch, my book, my New Yorker, SOO much, and came home and read my New Yorker all afternoon and went out for dinner, too, goshdarnit. You want me to quit, you better divert me with something to make this day less SUCKFEST. Yes, penne with shrimp in a rose sauce fits the bill perfectly, thank you. Mmmmmmmmm. Yes, and I had 3 glasses of wine, and finished my book. Slothtastic!!! :) And verry expensivo. I think I spent close to a weeks' worth of ciggy $ bribing my butt into "not deprived!" mode on Friday (Friday was a Bad. Day. Bitter, glum, po' me, low energy, enthusiasm well into negative territory. Mr. Grumpy).
It was worth it, though: still no smokey!!! So, I must say, I recommend the work work work work quit plan. Apparently if you make life entirely intolerable and no fun whatsoever, chain gang style, breakin' rocks, then you can up and quit the chain gang! And the whole leisure + no cigs + food substitution thing, is halcyon! It's not deprivation, it's 100% ahhh, gonna read my magazine now, dudes, and yes the zabaglione for dessert sounds great. Screw you, Mr. Overseer. Smell ya later.
I think working Thursday and not working Friday saved my quit. That is the point I'm trying to make here. I always seem to manage the first few days on raw enthusiasm and novelty, and then mess up mid to late, in the first week, is my quit M.O. But not this time.
Good golly Miss Molly!!! It is Quit Day Eight here (Saturday and today to date, I am back on the Werk binary 1 wagon, too. Can you stand the virtue? lol).
Thinking is extremely dangerous in the early days of a quit and should be avoided as much as possible :) Thinking should be done before a quit. All lists of reasons and etc. get done then. After a quit, thinking is so not your friend. You might think about doing a blog post about the reasons behind this quit, versus the others, for example. (No! Don't think!) The reasons are the same as they ever wuz. But now you have brought up the spectre of failure, like the other times, the ones with the same old reasons. Or you might find yourself arguing against the reasons! Honestly, give as little time and energy to cigarettes, your quit, the deprivation of same, etc, etc, as possible.
If you are a badass meditator, you can practice switching focus when one of these smoking thoughts comes up, or repeating a mantra: "I take excellent care of my health", for example.
For the rest of us, there is binary 1 work week: now we are unloading the dishwasher. Now we are sweeping the doghair off the floors. Now we are inventorying the Tex-Mex auction lot. One is deliberately keeping the focus micro level and populating thoughts intentionally with stuff like "Ick. This cat hairball Max threw up all over my Japanese marine insurance sign is disgusting! I must rub very gently so the paint isn't disturbed, cleaning it. Where can I store it that isn't the floor? Damn cat. Spawn of Satan.".
Worked great Thursday!!! omg, Friday we had a strike action, though. The combined stress of the quit plus the work-all-day, work-all-night thing; I went AWOL. (I think it was the redolent scent of cat urine and slurried litter chunks from the bathroom floors and wall I was cleaning behind the litter box, for the first time in three years. I snapped! I lost it!) I recovered briefly, though. Kept working, ran some errands working, THEN lost it 'round noon for good. Popped into a restaurant on the way back from errands to treat myself to lunch with the saved $10-$15/day I no longer burn through. I looved lunch, my book, my New Yorker, SOO much, and came home and read my New Yorker all afternoon and went out for dinner, too, goshdarnit. You want me to quit, you better divert me with something to make this day less SUCKFEST. Yes, penne with shrimp in a rose sauce fits the bill perfectly, thank you. Mmmmmmmmm. Yes, and I had 3 glasses of wine, and finished my book. Slothtastic!!! :) And verry expensivo. I think I spent close to a weeks' worth of ciggy $ bribing my butt into "not deprived!" mode on Friday (Friday was a Bad. Day. Bitter, glum, po' me, low energy, enthusiasm well into negative territory. Mr. Grumpy).
It was worth it, though: still no smokey!!! So, I must say, I recommend the work work work work quit plan. Apparently if you make life entirely intolerable and no fun whatsoever, chain gang style, breakin' rocks, then you can up and quit the chain gang! And the whole leisure + no cigs + food substitution thing, is halcyon! It's not deprivation, it's 100% ahhh, gonna read my magazine now, dudes, and yes the zabaglione for dessert sounds great. Screw you, Mr. Overseer. Smell ya later.
I think working Thursday and not working Friday saved my quit. That is the point I'm trying to make here. I always seem to manage the first few days on raw enthusiasm and novelty, and then mess up mid to late, in the first week, is my quit M.O. But not this time.
Good golly Miss Molly!!! It is Quit Day Eight here (Saturday and today to date, I am back on the Werk binary 1 wagon, too. Can you stand the virtue? lol).
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Zero Switches to One
I must be quick. My week of zero (play, relaxation, restoration) has switched to a week of one (work, a financial focus, organization). For an explanation of this binary method of living and organizing one's time, please see Steve Pavlina's fascinating blog entry on this:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/02/one-week-on-one-week-off/
This blog will be as much about my experiences with that experiment, as about my smoking quit.
The smoking quit: Tuesday and Wednesday were very difficult. Although I seem to have cracked the craving code and don't have them much, a few other barriers appeared. Confusion, fogginess, the dropping of 50 IQ points, and a hair trigger frustration level (I had forgotten about these foes). For the non-smokers, let me illustrate: it is perfectly possible to mail the dog poo by mistake if you are walking your dog and simultaneously standing in front of a mailbox with 2 bills in your other hand, when one is in the grips of this pernicious mental foggo. (To a certain extent, I wonder if it is manufactured by the power of suggestion when we all read these quit smoking books: "you may experience blah blah and blah immediately after your quit". Oh boy, now you will, that's for sure :) )
Anyway, my solution for this has been 1) allow self to be retarded and completely ineffective by normal measures, and 2) get thee to a clinic post-haste and get some Wellbutrin (Zyban, whatever) prescribed; perhaps that will help. (I have switched off A and onto Z; for those readers who are fellow A-takers, combining A and Z lowers seizure thresholds and shd not generally be done. This is why I went to a remote walkin clinic: no way in hell any doctor who knew about the one would prescribe the other, as doctors tend to err on the side of caution and assume all their patients are complete idiots unable to understand simple instructions, but that is a rant for another time.
Frustration levels still very high today, but successfully mailed my letters and nothing else. Go team!!!
Must return to bustin' it out here; my goal is a ten hour day today. Let's roll!
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2010/02/one-week-on-one-week-off/
This blog will be as much about my experiences with that experiment, as about my smoking quit.
The smoking quit: Tuesday and Wednesday were very difficult. Although I seem to have cracked the craving code and don't have them much, a few other barriers appeared. Confusion, fogginess, the dropping of 50 IQ points, and a hair trigger frustration level (I had forgotten about these foes). For the non-smokers, let me illustrate: it is perfectly possible to mail the dog poo by mistake if you are walking your dog and simultaneously standing in front of a mailbox with 2 bills in your other hand, when one is in the grips of this pernicious mental foggo. (To a certain extent, I wonder if it is manufactured by the power of suggestion when we all read these quit smoking books: "you may experience blah blah and blah immediately after your quit". Oh boy, now you will, that's for sure :) )
Anyway, my solution for this has been 1) allow self to be retarded and completely ineffective by normal measures, and 2) get thee to a clinic post-haste and get some Wellbutrin (Zyban, whatever) prescribed; perhaps that will help. (I have switched off A and onto Z; for those readers who are fellow A-takers, combining A and Z lowers seizure thresholds and shd not generally be done. This is why I went to a remote walkin clinic: no way in hell any doctor who knew about the one would prescribe the other, as doctors tend to err on the side of caution and assume all their patients are complete idiots unable to understand simple instructions, but that is a rant for another time.
Frustration levels still very high today, but successfully mailed my letters and nothing else. Go team!!!
Must return to bustin' it out here; my goal is a ten hour day today. Let's roll!
Monday, March 22, 2010
What Fresh Meadow Is This?
What fresh hell is this? - Dorothy Parker
This could be your lucky day in hell! Never know who it might be, at your doorbell... - The Eels
Um, deliverance? Is that you?
Aw, doood!! Good ta SEE ya, man! The heck was the holdup, dawg? Ahhh, riiight... the bumpy gravel back roads... ooh, man, I forgot to tell you! My bad! Yeah, it's only paved for the first bit. Ran out of good intentions, was the story we got. Highway to hell is just one of those urban legends, I guess. Hey, let's get outta here! You eaten yet?
Deliverance wears many faces/ and grace is
An acquaintence of mine... - David Sylvian
Well, apart from being in a strange state, halfway between giddy and confused, this is going darn well, doggies!!! (For the record, Dear Reader, it is Day 2 of an historic Cigarette Hasta La Vista Fiesta, for those of you joining us late, here).
Specific advice and/or notable signposts for others, may be summarized in a later entry (COUNT those chickens, kiddo! :) Nae worries). But let me just tell you about the previous attempted quit, a year ago. The premise was decent: cold turkey. Nicotine has a very short half life. Get the worst done, on the flights from Toronto to Australia! By the time my father and I get to Australia (and it was quite a tortuous network of flights...), I'll be bog tired (cannot smoke while asleep), and from then on, Easy Peasy Street. None of the triggers of home will be around. No comfy chair. Phone won't ring for me, and its chirp will be different. I'll have three vigilant and interested babysitters in the form of my father, sister and brother-in-law, to keep me on the rails. And we'll be having a blast! How mopey can I get, in 27 degree bliss Downundah with 'roos around the Roo? (Roo is an old nickname of Ian's for Minerva -ed.) (Minerva is a pseudonym. Iz anonymous blog. Sort of. -ed.)
It was a good plan. It went awry almost immediately. I left myself a loophole. No more purchased cigarettes. Surely I could bum one or two. Since bumming cigarettes is actually extremely difficult for the average non-street person, I could count on this behaviour to fade, just help me over the hump.
Careful, young Skywalker. The Force will be with you. Things got very weird, very fast. Long Vancouver layover. I pop out-terminal, to enjoy a luxuriant bummed ciggie. The two flights to this point have gone spectacularly! Not a single craving. Do they disappear when there is no convenience store around, no way to assuage them? I was puzzled and surprised. But I was in Vancouver long enough to have one (despite a true lack of "gotta!"), and it was allowed per plan. I hoofed through the terminal.
Well, would you look at that. Abandoned. On an empty row of octo-siamese-twin airport chairs... virtually an entire pack, perhaps two missing. They are Cambodian cigarettes. Their name is Lucky Dragon. My Chinese sign is the dragon, and I cradle them tenderly. This is not a purchase. It is simply an astonishing windfall: 18 pristine cigarettes, with a "pick these up, kid! they're yours!" label right on them. It is warm, sunny (completely unseasonable surely? even for Vancouver?), and I smoke blissfully, drowsily, on a bench just outside the terminal. Several centuries pass.
We arrive in Singapore, and check into our transit hotel right in the terminal (there are delights in Changi: five hour layovers, a double-storied tropical butterfly pavilion, breakfast in 32 lingua francas at the food court the next day. And grace upon arrival: the best shower ever, in the history of the planet! there are no words). I navigate a little hungrily to the smoking room (Asia, lol, 'nuff said) 20 scant metres from our hotel. But I have forgotten my Lucky Dragon pack! Zoinks.
I approach an airport worker with a sharp plexi badge, and hesitantly ask if he could spare a cigarette. "It's my last one," he murmurs. In Canadianese, that is as flat a refusal as you'll find, and I instantly translate it as such, despite my exhaustion. "But wait here! I'll be right back!" and he is gone, as completely as if he had dematerialized. The room tips a bit. There's his visage swimming through the door glass, opening the door, and theatrical tendrils of mare's-tail smoke escape momentarily from my hazy fishbowl all around him like seaweed: I'm tired, but this is pleasant. Slo-mo. Looking as benign, beaming and pleased as someone who had just received an unexpected birthday gift from me, he proffers an entire unopened pack of Marlboroughs. "From my office! I have many!" Oh, Minerva, you are truly through the looking glass now, my friend.
And you know the rest. Did I mention my sister and brother in law smoke? Oh, very casually. But the remnants of my two packs, coupled with their kind offcasts, and suddenly it is game ovah, people. It's your holidays. You've been smoking for days here! It's soo pleasant. On a patio. In the sun. With a glass or twelve of outrageously good red wine (Mark is quite the oenophile. Is that the word? Dude knows his stuff). And great company. What on earth were you thinking, quit on your vacation? Vacations are about ease and indulgence. No reason you can't cold turkey on the return flights (that bit was a solid enough achievement, coming over).
I find I can't actually remember if I notified anyone Oz-end of this quit. I doubt I had, in advance. Probably wanted to spring it on them all full-blown, like Athena from Zeus. Ohh, hubris. Ohh, loophole le deux.
You will find and exploit ALL the loopholes, like an animal unerringly crossing desert to oasis, easily, with certainty, without ever the slightest flicker of concern that thirst would even appear, much less not be quenched.
I disembark in my home city, gratefully greet my boyfriend. In due time, I bum a cigarette at curbside, guilty and furtive and remorseful, for about a nanosecond that is eternity. But these feelings swallow themselves up, or I might be editorializing. It's hard to remember that part, actually.
It was odd. It was all, odd. I have kept the Lucky Dragon! packaging to this day. It didn't really feel like a defeat. More like an urging or a benediction. Not yet, little one! The day is soon. In the meantime, enjoy. (And I have enjoyed cigarettes. Thoroughly. I've luxuriated in them. They were never something I did by halves, or felt ambivalent about. They weren't coffin nails. My habit was not filthy. I am unusual in this respect, I find. A very happy smoker.)
This time, as many strange cogs have meshed and doors flown closed, as the last time opened. This time, I'm done. There has been remarkably little struggle. I had set my mind to anticipate "a lucky day in hell", a short hell that was lucky and purposeful, one I was going to endure steadfastly.
[Picking daisies. What fresh meadow is this!?!]
The one thing I picked up from last year, was my utter lack of cravings on both plane journeys. It was pointless behaviour, and my mind seemed to understand that, and just dropped them. That had never happened before.
There have been many other quits. Six others? Ten? I don't know. I have smoked a long time. Twenty years. Pack a day. Alot of false starts, alot of quits I wasn't quite behind. Maybe what they say is true, though: the cumulative knowledge is yours, quiet, growing, mysterious, invisible, invincible. One day, the tipping point arrives.
A new jedi mind trick: no more hesitant piercings of an imagined nicotine monster I held fondness for, hesitated to cut with my broadsword as our gazes caught. This time, I had decided I was a phoenix-dyad. A radical discontinuity. Old phoenix, burning. The fire. Endurance. Burn hot, flames, be quick. And a fresh fledgeling, newborn, in wonder, strange feathers, irridescent, every colour, metallic, wings tentatively outstretched, tempering like a butterfly's for a time. I expected a period of overlap and a battle, raucous cries, both eager to live, flames, confusion, pain. A pitched battle.
It was very easy. There was no overlap. There was no demarcation, really. It was just easy. It's still easy. Lucky Dragon, serpent-feathered, Quetzalcoatl.
It's different. It's just different this time. No longer a student laboriously parsing verbs in a non-native tongue, struggling for vocabulary, catching one word in ten on the tapes, always starting in English and mentally flipping dictionary pages to find the alien equivalent. The effort!
(I explained a smoking quit to someone once as being forced to hop instead of walk. "What's so hard about hopping? We all hop! You'll hop too! Just keep hopping! In a few months, you won't even think of walking! Won't even cross your mind!!!" Oh my god, shut UP! Putting the hell in helpful, are we?)
I awake to find I've been dreaming in French. Everything is French! There's just thought. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was! Thinking, musing, a-mused. Just a torrent of elegant sounding ease. Super geniale cette quit!!! Moi j'adore!!!
(happy go lucky dragon!!!)
I think this very softly, quietly, in another language, where my astonishment and pleasure and words will go unheard, misunderstood, embryonic, by those who have previously enforced an English rule, fierce English ears listening for someone to count barnyard chickens before they hatched, in English - oh, metaphors mixing, metaforce - chickens, drag-ons, drag-on-cigarettes, dragging on, no, dragon, no, phoenix! no english.
Seulement francaise ce soir! C'est... fantastique!!! shhh. shhh. shhh. The phoenix is drowsy, the fire is pleasant and warm. This is my nest! It is peaceful. I am mad, but that, too, is OK.
All is well. And all manner of things are well. And all will be well, well-wishers. A demain matin.
This could be your lucky day in hell! Never know who it might be, at your doorbell... - The Eels
Um, deliverance? Is that you?
Aw, doood!! Good ta SEE ya, man! The heck was the holdup, dawg? Ahhh, riiight... the bumpy gravel back roads... ooh, man, I forgot to tell you! My bad! Yeah, it's only paved for the first bit. Ran out of good intentions, was the story we got. Highway to hell is just one of those urban legends, I guess. Hey, let's get outta here! You eaten yet?
Deliverance wears many faces/ and grace is
An acquaintence of mine... - David Sylvian
Well, apart from being in a strange state, halfway between giddy and confused, this is going darn well, doggies!!! (For the record, Dear Reader, it is Day 2 of an historic Cigarette Hasta La Vista Fiesta, for those of you joining us late, here).
Specific advice and/or notable signposts for others, may be summarized in a later entry (COUNT those chickens, kiddo! :) Nae worries). But let me just tell you about the previous attempted quit, a year ago. The premise was decent: cold turkey. Nicotine has a very short half life. Get the worst done, on the flights from Toronto to Australia! By the time my father and I get to Australia (and it was quite a tortuous network of flights...), I'll be bog tired (cannot smoke while asleep), and from then on, Easy Peasy Street. None of the triggers of home will be around. No comfy chair. Phone won't ring for me, and its chirp will be different. I'll have three vigilant and interested babysitters in the form of my father, sister and brother-in-law, to keep me on the rails. And we'll be having a blast! How mopey can I get, in 27 degree bliss Downundah with 'roos around the Roo? (Roo is an old nickname of Ian's for Minerva -ed.) (Minerva is a pseudonym. Iz anonymous blog. Sort of. -ed.)
It was a good plan. It went awry almost immediately. I left myself a loophole. No more purchased cigarettes. Surely I could bum one or two. Since bumming cigarettes is actually extremely difficult for the average non-street person, I could count on this behaviour to fade, just help me over the hump.
Careful, young Skywalker. The Force will be with you. Things got very weird, very fast. Long Vancouver layover. I pop out-terminal, to enjoy a luxuriant bummed ciggie. The two flights to this point have gone spectacularly! Not a single craving. Do they disappear when there is no convenience store around, no way to assuage them? I was puzzled and surprised. But I was in Vancouver long enough to have one (despite a true lack of "gotta!"), and it was allowed per plan. I hoofed through the terminal.
Well, would you look at that. Abandoned. On an empty row of octo-siamese-twin airport chairs... virtually an entire pack, perhaps two missing. They are Cambodian cigarettes. Their name is Lucky Dragon. My Chinese sign is the dragon, and I cradle them tenderly. This is not a purchase. It is simply an astonishing windfall: 18 pristine cigarettes, with a "pick these up, kid! they're yours!" label right on them. It is warm, sunny (completely unseasonable surely? even for Vancouver?), and I smoke blissfully, drowsily, on a bench just outside the terminal. Several centuries pass.
We arrive in Singapore, and check into our transit hotel right in the terminal (there are delights in Changi: five hour layovers, a double-storied tropical butterfly pavilion, breakfast in 32 lingua francas at the food court the next day. And grace upon arrival: the best shower ever, in the history of the planet! there are no words). I navigate a little hungrily to the smoking room (Asia, lol, 'nuff said) 20 scant metres from our hotel. But I have forgotten my Lucky Dragon pack! Zoinks.
I approach an airport worker with a sharp plexi badge, and hesitantly ask if he could spare a cigarette. "It's my last one," he murmurs. In Canadianese, that is as flat a refusal as you'll find, and I instantly translate it as such, despite my exhaustion. "But wait here! I'll be right back!" and he is gone, as completely as if he had dematerialized. The room tips a bit. There's his visage swimming through the door glass, opening the door, and theatrical tendrils of mare's-tail smoke escape momentarily from my hazy fishbowl all around him like seaweed: I'm tired, but this is pleasant. Slo-mo. Looking as benign, beaming and pleased as someone who had just received an unexpected birthday gift from me, he proffers an entire unopened pack of Marlboroughs. "From my office! I have many!" Oh, Minerva, you are truly through the looking glass now, my friend.
And you know the rest. Did I mention my sister and brother in law smoke? Oh, very casually. But the remnants of my two packs, coupled with their kind offcasts, and suddenly it is game ovah, people. It's your holidays. You've been smoking for days here! It's soo pleasant. On a patio. In the sun. With a glass or twelve of outrageously good red wine (Mark is quite the oenophile. Is that the word? Dude knows his stuff). And great company. What on earth were you thinking, quit on your vacation? Vacations are about ease and indulgence. No reason you can't cold turkey on the return flights (that bit was a solid enough achievement, coming over).
I find I can't actually remember if I notified anyone Oz-end of this quit. I doubt I had, in advance. Probably wanted to spring it on them all full-blown, like Athena from Zeus. Ohh, hubris. Ohh, loophole le deux.
You will find and exploit ALL the loopholes, like an animal unerringly crossing desert to oasis, easily, with certainty, without ever the slightest flicker of concern that thirst would even appear, much less not be quenched.
I disembark in my home city, gratefully greet my boyfriend. In due time, I bum a cigarette at curbside, guilty and furtive and remorseful, for about a nanosecond that is eternity. But these feelings swallow themselves up, or I might be editorializing. It's hard to remember that part, actually.
It was odd. It was all, odd. I have kept the Lucky Dragon! packaging to this day. It didn't really feel like a defeat. More like an urging or a benediction. Not yet, little one! The day is soon. In the meantime, enjoy. (And I have enjoyed cigarettes. Thoroughly. I've luxuriated in them. They were never something I did by halves, or felt ambivalent about. They weren't coffin nails. My habit was not filthy. I am unusual in this respect, I find. A very happy smoker.)
This time, as many strange cogs have meshed and doors flown closed, as the last time opened. This time, I'm done. There has been remarkably little struggle. I had set my mind to anticipate "a lucky day in hell", a short hell that was lucky and purposeful, one I was going to endure steadfastly.
[Picking daisies. What fresh meadow is this!?!]
The one thing I picked up from last year, was my utter lack of cravings on both plane journeys. It was pointless behaviour, and my mind seemed to understand that, and just dropped them. That had never happened before.
There have been many other quits. Six others? Ten? I don't know. I have smoked a long time. Twenty years. Pack a day. Alot of false starts, alot of quits I wasn't quite behind. Maybe what they say is true, though: the cumulative knowledge is yours, quiet, growing, mysterious, invisible, invincible. One day, the tipping point arrives.
A new jedi mind trick: no more hesitant piercings of an imagined nicotine monster I held fondness for, hesitated to cut with my broadsword as our gazes caught. This time, I had decided I was a phoenix-dyad. A radical discontinuity. Old phoenix, burning. The fire. Endurance. Burn hot, flames, be quick. And a fresh fledgeling, newborn, in wonder, strange feathers, irridescent, every colour, metallic, wings tentatively outstretched, tempering like a butterfly's for a time. I expected a period of overlap and a battle, raucous cries, both eager to live, flames, confusion, pain. A pitched battle.
It was very easy. There was no overlap. There was no demarcation, really. It was just easy. It's still easy. Lucky Dragon, serpent-feathered, Quetzalcoatl.
It's different. It's just different this time. No longer a student laboriously parsing verbs in a non-native tongue, struggling for vocabulary, catching one word in ten on the tapes, always starting in English and mentally flipping dictionary pages to find the alien equivalent. The effort!
(I explained a smoking quit to someone once as being forced to hop instead of walk. "What's so hard about hopping? We all hop! You'll hop too! Just keep hopping! In a few months, you won't even think of walking! Won't even cross your mind!!!" Oh my god, shut UP! Putting the hell in helpful, are we?)
I awake to find I've been dreaming in French. Everything is French! There's just thought. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was! Thinking, musing, a-mused. Just a torrent of elegant sounding ease. Super geniale cette quit!!! Moi j'adore!!!
(happy go lucky dragon!!!)
I think this very softly, quietly, in another language, where my astonishment and pleasure and words will go unheard, misunderstood, embryonic, by those who have previously enforced an English rule, fierce English ears listening for someone to count barnyard chickens before they hatched, in English - oh, metaphors mixing, metaforce - chickens, drag-ons, drag-on-cigarettes, dragging on, no, dragon, no, phoenix! no english.
Seulement francaise ce soir! C'est... fantastique!!! shhh. shhh. shhh. The phoenix is drowsy, the fire is pleasant and warm. This is my nest! It is peaceful. I am mad, but that, too, is OK.
All is well. And all manner of things are well. And all will be well, well-wishers. A demain matin.
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