"HAH-HAH!" and then she wrote "Success!"

I made it through a whole 24 hour period of not smoking yesterday. Actually, I haven't touched a bone-pony since around 5am Thursday morning...

So I've reset the counter to the last cigarette I had and we'll see how that goes. I've sworn off smoking and this time for good. I knew I would quit as soon as I got to hating it again, and finally I do. I built a fire Wednesday night, opened a beer and was sitting around that flaming fixture enjoying the humidity and glazy blaze of a fire when I decided I should light myself up a stickotine...

The smoke was thick and I could barely inhale the necessary oxygen between hits. I soldiered through it, but kept my smoking to a minimum throughout the night, until later at a bar when Bob, like a dick, pulled the release on the cigarette machine for a pack of Camel Filters. Drunken, I nearly finished the whole pack that night.

The next morning I woke up hating the part of me that is too weak to stop this rank addiction and disgusted at cigarettes in general.

So I haven't smoked since then and haven't had the desire to do so, either.

Which is good for this.

The Move

Today's the day. No more bullarking or piddly winking around. I'm just straight up, cold as a dead turkey's ass quitting.

My nose is gushing flem. My lungs are whispering "Save me, I can't stand to sit" from desperate clinging to try and fulfill there position as chief breathers. My eyes burn and my fingers stink and I hate it and so I'm done.

I'm also retiring from drinking for awhile, too. Until I beat the smoking game. It's just no fun.

You know what big Willy says, "Parents just don't understand." Well, it's true. And irrelevant.

I turned in the license plate to my Neon yesterday. And I'm giving the Mustang up tonight. I canceled my car insurance and will spend tonight oiling up my bike. I'll show Tristan the ropes. I'll be a lean, mean, bike riding machine for the rest of the summer.

The first few days are going to be rough, burning the engrained tar out of my lungs. I wonder how black and charred they look. I almost want to see. That would be a major deterant. The doctor said it was pretty much a no-go, though. He said that maybe I could get an X-ray but who has time for x-rays? I didn't, not last month, and now I don't have a car and am trying to save up my cash to go to distant lands.

Well, I'm off to lunch and not smoke.

Where I'm at with respect to *breathe* in *choke* out

I can't even finish an entire cigarette anymore. That's good. I had a few ideas to help me quit. One was that I would smoke cigarettes without nicotine, so that the physical addiction would have time to subside while I still had the comfort of suckling a butt with my lips like a tit moth to a spurting flame. Then I had no idea what that meant and I was in need of nico the tine and Bob sold me a pack of Camel Wide Lights. That helped. They're awful. So I can't finish even a whole one. I'm getting to the point where I don't enjoy smoking, it disgusts me, and that's where I need to be.

In a few days I'll relinquish my right to drive via cancelling my car insurance and giving away the Mustang and begin riding my bike. A few pedals and my lungs will be scream "Hellish Mary!" and I'll be sure to remember not to smoke on the frequent. Hopefully that helps.

Soon I'll be gone. A major change of life and destination. What will happen? What will I replace this addiction with? Do I need to replace it with anything, or can it just go away? What happens to the spot where it used to fill? I wonder, does it get collapsed in on by various other things, love, drama, running errands, watching TV, thinking...or does it just cease to exist. I tend to think of my brain like a computer, with various files in various folders. Windows XP: Nathan's Brain Edition.

That's a bit depressing. Lunchtime means the threat of possibly smoking. Ba dumm...