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Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
A Gift from Hil - 2014-12-28
There was A LOT of turkey. - 2014-12-04
Can we just jump to January please? - 2014-11-14
A (don't kick the) Bucket List - 2014-10-28

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12:03 a.m. - 2014-10-28
A (don't kick the) Bucket List

Wow did that grumble help! So does all the encouragement and good wishes. Thanks! I felt dopey about complaining when I'm doing a good thing but then realized I never mind when my friends complain about how difficult something is even when that thing is strictly voluntary and done for good health or peace of mind. Training for a marathon or teaching themselves how to knit or heavier things like breaking out of a bad relationship or staying on the wagon, sometimes it's wicked hard and it's okay to say so. Quitting smoking has been infinitely harder than any other improvement I've made so far. Stands to reason I might have some negative stuff to say. However...

Positive Things About Quitting Smoking*

The point is moot since I am firmly in my year and my uterus was put out to pasture four years ago anyhow, but being a non-smoker means I could get hormone-based birth control if I wanted. Be handy if I ever borrow Mr Peabody's WABAC machine and revisit the past. I'd go on the Pill in a hot minute.

When I wet my hair to refresh my 'do my hair no longer reeks of tobacco smoke. Formerly if I wanted to stand my wilted spikes back up and finger-combed it under the faucet to reactivate the gel my damp noggin stunk like a pool hall.

I am breathing easier. Though to be honest this is more due to the change of season and subsequent reduction in ozone and pollutants than from quitting. It's only been a month and I smoked for 38 years. My lungs are going to be mad at me for many more moons to come. Eventually they'll forgive me (I hope) and I can go nuts doing other good for me things like swimming laps. I love doing laps, it's the one endurance activity I can do where my boobs aren't a problem. Even if I wanted to run I couldn't. They don't make sports bras big enough, I checked. Yes, I really checked. Juno, etc, etc. The biggest sports bra I found was a DDD. This does me no good. Clothing and undergarment makers assume when you have knockers the size of mine that you lie on a chaise all day in a tent at a county fair letting people look at you for 50 cents a pop. No, really. My tent is right between the Alligator Boy and the World's Smallest Horse.

My office. Oy, my poor office. Everything in it is coated with smoke residue. I've been cleaning things in a haphazard 'whenever' sort of way and while I knew it before I never wanted to acknowledge that everything in my office was a secondhand smoker. My books. The artwork. My terribly emphysematic computer. Everything. Blech. Now I can display some of my nicer things and not worry they'll end up all sticky and yellowed. Even covered in glow-in-the-dark bats my desk pal, Limon, is happy about the newly smoke-free environment.

Okay, he really hates the bats. Still glad for me though.

I can bleach my teeth and not undo it within weeks. This is something I'm really looking forward to. I've used whitening strips before and they worked fine. My teeth slowly got dingy again, but way faster than they will now that I'm not smoking.

So. My things with stay clean. My lungs will eventually be clean. My hair doesn't stink. Nor do my clothes. (Though Mick always swore he couldn't ever smell it on me. Nor taste it when we kissed. Which is weird, sometimes I grossed myself with my reeky mouth.) I'm saving money and probably my life. Okay, nobody gets out alive, but you know what I mean. Some of you remember Cosmic. She died from smoking. Died far too soon and this really sucks for those us who loved her. I am not as widely loved as she was, but the dear few who do love me are probably glad I'll be here longer.

And it's really nice to matter to myself enough to do this. Truly a first. I'm glad to know I can do something that's hard and scary and make a success of it. Even harder than kicking my vile weed habit has been kicking the even worse habit of letting myself down. Quitting smoking is kind of a two-for-one deal. I get rid of self-defeat as I get rid of self-destruction. Pretty damn cool.


Much love from your tobacco-free friend, ~LA


6 Wanna talk about it!

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