Well, it’s time for a little batch update, as I’ve got a few things to say, but each of these are too small to warrant a separate posting. So, here goes:
* I’m back in Vienna, and it’s great. Not much has changed around here, only that my flat doesn’t smell of smoke anymore. Which leads me to the next point.
* It’s SF day 8. No cigarette in eight days, which I think is rather impressive. And I’m not constantly thinking about smoking either. So, hooray to me (and my girlfriend and my mother, who were so easily lured into my evil plan of quitting the habit).
* I picked up “Planet Simpson” by Chris Turner, and I’m about to find out if it’s any good. But I guess one can hardly fail writing about The Simpsons (they are in bold because they deserve it). Check out Turner’s blog here.
Monthly Archive for September, 2005
H&M, Swedish fashion discounter, currently has an ad on TV which probably ate a budget the size of Austria’s university funding. Oh, sorry, I forgot the money they needed to pay for the whopping six minutes of airtime. So let’s say twice the size of Austria’s university funding.
The commercial’s for H&M’s new denim collection, aptly called &denim. Here’s a link to a flash-based site featuring the video, an intro to the whole thing and cast & crew bios, including David LaChapelle’s, famed photographer and director of that romance-monster.
Well, thank you all for the kind words of support, pity and glee. I’m very much set on keeping my non-smoking ways, and I guess from now on it’ll be easier than ever.
Although I’m still missing my cigarettes terribly, I believe I’m tending towards something similar to indifference now. Sure, sometimes it hits me like a brick when I think about the fact that I won’t be having a cigarette anytime soon, but these moments are rare and last not very long. Afterwards I just think about the money I’m going to save and the health I’m going to get back (in about seven years…which seems like a ridiculously long time for a piece of stringy tissue like my lungs to recover).
Well, I guess in about two days a week, I will be able to devote my energy to other things again, not just concentrating on not smoking. Until then, you’ll just have to keep reading this sorry diary of a smoker gone non (ok, this last sentence does bend the laws of linguistics, but considering that I’m going through a really rough phase, I guess one shouldn’t be too harsh. Wait, did I just write “harsh”? Like in: “My favourite cigarettes are the harsh ones”?)
Ok, scratch the two days, make it a week. Wait, I’ll do it.
It’s well into the third day of my life as a non-smoker.
I’ve found out that my love for smoking is based on some rather solid reasoning. Here goes:
* Nicotine is an upper. In the morning, I need nicotine as much as I need coffee. I noticed the first day and yesterday as well, that not even my usual15 cups of coffee were able to completely wake me up.
* Nicotine is a downer. The day before yesterday and yesterday, I was unable to sleep the way I usually do. I even went to bed really late, so I’d be asleep within a minute or two. Well, didn’t work out. And I’d like to stress that I’m almost always able to fall asleep instantly. Very rarely does it take me longer than your standard 7 minutes, and it’s almost completely out of the question that I would roll around in bed or, god forbid, count those proverbial sheep.
* Cigarettes give me something to do when there’s time I desperately need to kill. Another ten minutes left before I can leave work? Smoke a cigarette!
* Almost all my memories of fondness are attached to smoking a cigarette. Not because my only fond memories are of smoking, but rather because I usually smoke all the time. Sure, one could argue that due to me smoking all the time, all my memories of bad things are attached to cigarettes as well. In that case I would simply call you a wise-ass and quit talking to you.
* Smoking is an easy way of dividing up your time. Say you’ve got half an hour. In smoker’s terms, that would be about two. Now, without smokes, how am I going to know how much time has elapsed? Apart from checking one of my numerous clocks, that is.
* Finally, there are two sorts of people: smokers and non-smokers. I’m a smoker. I’ve always been a smoker, and I had planned on staying a smoker for ages. Unfortunately, my government’s greed and Ireland’s decision to ban smoking from pubs have destroyed my plans. But I’ll always be a smoker at heart. Nobody can take that from me.
In the spirit of this dispiriting update, let me showcase one my Photo Phriday features I created a few years back: Death of a Gauloise.
I quit smoking two days ago.
I know it’s a sensible thing to do, but believe me, it’s killing me. It’s not really that I crave the nicotine that much. That was yesterday. No, it’s breaking my heart. I love smoking so much, giving it all up is like forsaking a friend who’s been with me for the last ten years. It’s been with me wherever I went. It has given me joy while waiting for the tram. It has aided me in writing papers for university, mainly by giving me something else to do. Hell, I’ve got so many cool ashtrays. What am I going to do with these? And what’s going to happen to the cigarette I usually had just after dinner? What am I going to do instead? Drink a glass of fucking water?
Not smoking is stupid. Unfortunately, smoking is stupid too. But since not smoking is a lot cheaper than smoking, I’ll just have to accept that my smoking days are over. And that is killing me.
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