So....

...here's what happened.

It was a bad couple of weeks culminating in a bad weekend leading to a bad morning. This is not an excuse - it just is what it is. In the throes of a tantrum (me??? a tantrum??? I know how shocked you all are, but stretch your imaginations ;), I bought a pack of cigarettes. Lovely lovely Winston's. I smoked one.

One.

It was such a bizarre experience. I suppose that my very first cigarette ever was similar, but I don't remember that far back (11? 12? 9?....I dunno). The first big lungful was just heaven - just a flood of sweet smoke and everything I had been missing.

BUT....

Then the taste. How can I describe this? 'Bottom of a shoe' is probably the closest I can get. It was so horrible. It just like coated the inside of my mouth and nose. Egaherblarghwerwyucky. The smell. Not good. All those times I walked by someone smoking and thought it smelled so good.....WRONG. It's one thing to walk by someone doing it....but it was in my nose and all around and just gross. Just holding the dang thing felt weird and foreign.

So then I cried, shredded the rest of the pack, and flushed it all down the toilet. Nothing too dramatic. Just a momentary lack of concentration. Or something similar to that.

The Quit Meter. Frankly, I'm sick of it. Tick tick tick. It just seemed to be mocking me. If I'm really a "non-smoker" why do I have to count up all my non-smoking days. Seems silly. I understand that for the Fill-in-the-blank Anonymous people there is some value to getting the monthly or yearly chips.

(Wait. Just a dang minute now. They don't give the Gambler's Anonymous people chips to celebrate the time gone by do they??? I'm not trying to be snarky or make fun...but seriously....what do those folks get??? Because a chip would be like a 30 days sober commemorative shot glass. Not good.)

Sorry - where was I? Quit meter. Ok so I'm sick of it and I'm not putting it back up. I know the date I quit - August 8. I'm unlikely to forget the date as it is a big day (and a month before my birthday).

Chantix. I took a pill after I smoked that cigarette and have not taken one since. There is no real reason for this. Other than maybe I'm somewhat sick of the whole process. This does not me that I'm sick of the other bloggers or the topic. Mostly I'm just sick of ME. I'm bored with me smoking, me quitting, me being tempted, me smelling smoke, me worried about smoking, me and insurance. There are lots of other things about me that I'm still totally fascinated with...but ME smoking or quitting...eh...not so much. Plus I think that obsessing about it just keeps it at the forefront of my mind. It's weird. For me.

*Whew* This is way longer than I intended. I still plan to keep up with all the other Chantix bloggers. Y'all are way too cool and interesting (and in the case of Ren's video - very cute ;) to not read. But I may just give the smoking/quitting topic a rest for a while. I'll still blog about the other things that catch my eye. If you want to stick around for that - swell. If not - also swell, may you live in interesting times.

:)