No One Likes a Quitter

I haven't been smoking but for a couple years. And it's only been recently that I've been a full-time smoker with benefits. I know I picked a piss poor time to stop with work the way it is and wanting to drop the lbs's. But nevertheless, being quasi asthmatic and having allergies is not so condusive to inhaling 1,000's of carcinigens on a 3-4 hour basis. But God, I love it.

A couple weekends ago when the weather was beautiful, I took my 20 year old wooden dining room table chair outside to the deck behind my house. I sat there for hours. Drinking Blue Moon, smoking Marlboros and reading the April edition of the Sun Magazine. It was so peaceful and inspiring. I wrote some half drunk thing about Iranian women and how they are more liberated than American women in their shrouds and inconspicuous clothing. I haven't brought myself to read back through it since I was kind of drunk when I wrote it. That makes me really nervous for some reason. I know...I need Xanax.

I'll miss the late night smokes after work when it's lightly raining and you can hear the hustle and bustle from the busy street in front of my aging house. I shut the screen door so Frank can pretend he's an outside cat for a couple of minutes. He loves it. I don't play music. I don't read. I don't talk on the phone. I just sit there and let the brain go where it wants to go. I find myself smiling and laughing one minute and tearing up the next. I think about my little life and how my thoughts are almost always of a selfish nature. I've come to the conclusion that life was good when you were a kid, because everything was just one emotion. You got ice cream...VERY HAPPY! You got sent to your room three times in the same day (yeah...I was a hand full as a kid)...VERY unhappy. Your mom tells you the kittens left on your front door got shipped to a kitten park...BAWLING unhappy. Now nothing seems to be just happy or just sad.

So, I say all that to say this: I'll miss you smokey nights, alone on the deck...I'll miss you. See! proves my point. Sad about the smokey nights...Happy to be done with nicotine. Life.