So it's July, and you're sitting here reading this. What is your excuse for staying inside? Incessant heat? People, pets, or plants to protect? A rampant outbreak of knuckleheads in your neighborhood, residual firecracker smoke and all?
I have nothing against fireworks. Personally, I love the smell of flashed gunpowder. And I still like the smell of second-hand cigarette smoke, just as long as it is in the open air... a curly wisp of smoke, that is... versus a crowded bar/house party environment where the ever-prevalent cloud of carcinogenic compounds permeates your better clothing, and emanates the stale stench of smoke until the next cleaning.
I never noticed this as a smoker. No news flash there. Smoking kills your sense of smell, and qutting will make you macrosmatic like a bloodhound. I kid you not. While puttering through stop-and-go traffic, I've been able to smell a cigarette from six car lengths up. I could even tell that they weren't menthol.
To me, independence remains an absolute idea. Though I have been independent of the cancer sticks for over a year, and gave up my nicotine supplement (Nicorette 2mg, generic Walgreens version) on July 4th a year ago, I make no claim to being independent in an overall sense, if you're talking about overall addictive patterns. To paraphrase an A.A. truism that is based on their 4th-step inventory, fear lies at the base of what is wrong with the personality of an alcohol abuser.
Back to cigarettes, a great piece of my work has to do with occupying my time to make up for the absence left around my various daily cigarette rituals. Having that first ciggie with my morning java. Smoking another one on the way to work, and building up that battlefield armor. Smoking during breaks, because this is the reward, are you kidding me? Shit!
Lunch break was good for three smokes. Then afternoon break. And then a smoke on the drive home (when applicable). From that point on throughout the evening, I'm smoking like someone who is making up for lost time with their loved one. Six or seven smokes during my wake-up/workday, and another 15 or so throughout the evening.
Of course, I saw flowers and beautiful people and nature, as a smoker. Every waking moment wasn't built solely around my cigarette habit. But it was always a habit that I would attend to, in one way or another.
This past Friday and Saturday, I bicycled a total of 60 miles back and forth from my humble abode to where I am currently working. There is no way in hell that I both do this, and remain in shape to complete the work at hand, if I am still smoking a pack of Camel Lights a day. Maybe in an earlier younger bsm era, but not while looking down the pop-gun barrel of age 45, when maybe the best idea is to stop doing the things that were cool as a teenager, but now are detrimental to me as an adult.
However, I will never be too old or cool to perform a badly-done Riverdance to this tune (h/t Vacationland, Boston pals, and Stanley Cup-winning Blackhawks fans):
Current members of the GUS team!
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