Day...I've stopped counting

Holy shit all you people are persistent! I know that I am really late getting this blog post up, and for that I don't apologize. It's my freaking blog! buuuuut since you all have asked so kindly for more stories I have pulled one out of my back pocket for you, but you're still going to have to wait for my swimming cellphone story...

So I have been smoke free now for a little over a week. Boo Fucking Yeh! I will say that this time around has been a whole lot easier than my last few attempts. I think this time my mind has taken control and blatantly told my body that it can't fuck around anymore. Every time I get a craving and my body tries to have a massive knee jerking reaction my brain just fucking puts it in its place. Damn straight brain, you go girl!

That is accept for the day I received my e-cigarette.

So here is a little back story on this e-cigarette deal. I've been reading about these contraptions for about 2 years now (if you don't know what they are just go to youtube and find a video you lazy bums) trying to decide whether dropping $50 on a starter kit would be worth it. In about the middle of February with my quit date looming I decided to purchase an entire kit. At that point I was anticipating WWIII with my body and I thought to myself, I better fucking prepare.

So when I ordered the stainless steal "cigarette" I purposefully decided that I would order it out of the US so that I could get nicotine in the cartridges. I'm bloody, fucking, chemically greedy! I wanted to make sure that I would be getting my fix every time I put that cigarette up to my lips. Please keep in mind that I had not gone a day without a cigarette (or less than 4 cigarettes) in about a year at this point.

Fast Forward....My ecigarette did not arrive in time for my quit day, so I got inhalers instead and we all know my opinion on the tamponess of those things.

But on Tuesday my ecigarette did arrive...and I will tell you my entire body lit up in utter confusion. I stared at the box thinking OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OMG OMG I can "smoke" again! I ripped that box open faster that a 4 year old on Christmas morning. Its not cheating its not tobacco...this is the most amazing thing ever. At this point I completely ignored that fact that I had already kicked the nicotine out of my system. That. was. a. bad. idea.

So I ran upstairs with my ecigarette, and began reading the instructions. My hands were physically shaking at the anticipation of putting this wonderful thing to my lips. I put the jig-saw pieces together and VOILA I had a working, electronic nicotine infuser ready at my disposal. I turned it on and inhaled deeply. It was the most wonderful inhale that I have ever had. Then it dawned on me...it was far too wonderful. It was identical to smoking a cigarette, accept it tasted wonderful and there was no smell. My brain turned on to that fact that this was not going to work out.

I had to break-up with my ecigarette.

My heart was screaming "no"...my entire body was begging me not to go through the hell that I knew was about to happen....again. I packaged that shit up and with a small tear handed it to georgie and requested her to hide the package. I felt like running after her screaming and throwing a temper tantrum in order to ensure that my nicotine fix would not be lost but I knew that georgie would just kick my ass (like she has in the past when dealing with me during these quit times).

And for 2 days my body went through withdrawl, again.

Moral of the story...don't revert and try a replacement therapy when you do not need it.

Day 5

Today's morning was so fucking awesome! It has such epic proportions, that I am holding off telling you the story of how I dropped 2 different cellphones in 2 different toilets. 

Today was product knowledge day. I love product knowledge days. They really are the best part of my job and the most fucking awesome time ever, I get to play with toys for hours!....So why was product knowledge day so relevant to my day 5 fucking day non-smoking habit? Because product knowledge day found itself being scheduled on a Sunday which basically meant I woke up drunk. Yeh, you all can laugh and point your fingers at me saying "ha, its your own fault" and yeh it is, but seriously if you normally work Monday to Friday and the only time to relax with your friends is on a Saturday night, you would choose having a few beers with them too. So needless to say my morning decided to set the pace for my day of the WORST CRAVINGS EVER.

So my Saturday ended very late and my day today began very..... very...... early. All I had to do today was get up, get ready, load the car with my games, get gas, get baked goods and show up to teach some games to some teenagers. I had my alarm set for bright and early 6 am. Yay 6am! and I woke up for 6 am, but my nicotine deprived, non-cigaretted brain decided that 6 am was too early. Yup, unconsciously my fingers decided to, not even press snooze, but TURN OFF THE ALRAM. This was not a good thing. I woke up in a sheer panic about 45 mins later. I believe I screamed the entire lyrics to Blink-182's "Family reunion"..I apologize mom (WARNING EXPLICT LYRICS)..http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Does-My-Breath-Smell-lyrics-Blink-182/CE25D7A6D994CDA54825689D002FF39A . 

So in my panic induced state I ripped through my room and straight into the bathroom for a much needed shower. I think we all know after a night of indulgence, nobody smells pretty sweet. I will give props to my non-smoking status though, for the first time in a century my hair did not smell as if a random bar threw up an entire pack of smoke in my hair AND my hangover was bearable! BOO YEH. but anyhow back to the bathroom and my sheer panic. I ran through my hallway smacking my knee on a drawer and smashing through the bathroom door. At this point I was blinded by my already swelling knee, so I threw myself into the shower without testing the water. For those of you who know me, you know that I enjoy the hottest showers known to man. The type of showers that make people scream in agony because they are making their skin boil. Much to my dismay my shower was not hot, it was not even luke warm, it was FUCKING COLD. and the shower was not fucking cold due to the water being out of hot water...it was pouring ice cubes due to my tired ass brain not turning the tap on all the way. 

This is when I finally woke up.

I told you this story was worth it...we arn't even out of the bathroom yet. 

 So after my much rushed shower I pulled back the curtain to hop out. What is the first thing you reach for when you get out of the shower? what is that? I can't hear you? Yes, you're right A TOWEL a fucking T-O-W-E-L. Much to my dismay my moron, tired, still partially drunk self forgot to bring a towel into the bathroom. For a guy this may not be too bad of an issue, but for me and my long hair, this is a serious problem. So I flooded the floor for a moment and decided to weigh my options. I could either A.) run through the living room naked, most likely blinding my roomate (or more likely the cat) and find a towel in my room or B.) Use the hand towel located beside the tub. On any normal day I would have rationalized the fact that my roomate doesn't get up until the afternoon on weekends, but instead my psychotic brain decided that the hand towel was the best solution. It was not.

So by this point I had made up some much needed time and I was realitvely back on schedule. This was when I walked out into the living room and saw what happens when you have a few girlfriends over for some beers. It is amazing how quickly you forget that beer cans do not belong on the floor, but instead their home should be in the box they came in. I think some ninjas came in and actually destroyed my living room after my friends left because seriously, we girls couldn't have left the apartment in this state. A nuclear bomb would have made less of a mess than I did last night. So I did what any other good roomate would do, I started cleaning up a bit. It didn't take nearly as much time as I had thought to clean up the place to the point where it was presentable (HAH NINJAS...TAKE THAT). But instead of actually finishing the job and running the dishwasher, I left it locked, without the dish soap and I didn't even run it. This confused my roomate later in the evening when she began using dirty dishes to cook with from the dishwasher because she thought they were clean. Yup.....

By this point, I was officially awake, sober and cursing every fucking thing in my life that told me I couldn't have a cigarette.  

For all of you who do not live in Toronto, last night we had a lot of rain...and then it turned to freezing rain, and then it changed into enormous fucking snowflakes that changed the sky to white, thus the entire street was fucking white this morning. Which also in turn meant that my car resembled a GIGANTIC marshmallow when I finally reached it on this already fucking silly day. I mean seriously you could not even see the sides of the damn thing. I believe I just stood there in shock thinking "A smoke would make this whole job feel a whole lot better right now". Instead I just started mumbling under my breathe random explicatives while I attempted to rationalize how I was going to get my marshmallow out of the driveway without covering myself in snow.  I came to the solution that I needed a snow blower so that I could just run it over the top of my car and spray that snow straight back where it came from. Unfortunately this was not deemed feasible, so I decided to get the brush out of my car and begin cleaning it off by hand. 

This was the plan, until I realized that nice layer of ice that I previously mentioned, had frozen the doors of my car shut. My car was not only a marshmallow, but it had a protective forcefield that was preventing me from obtaining the one thing I needed...

at this point I put the coffee i had just gotten down on the roof of the car and just hung my shoulders and head, thinking...wow...this is seriously the best day of my life. At this point I gave up on actually making it to my product knowledge early. My little girly arms did not allow me to get into the car quickly. It was my manly legs that finally allowed me the strength to get that fucking car door open. I think if someone had been watching they would have seen me grow many muscles and turn a slight shade of green because that is the only way I can rationalize the burst of strength to get that fucking door ajar. And for a moment I silently sang out joyously, like in those Disney movies when the plot finally resolves and all the animals in the forest dance triumphantly, it was such a glorious moment of achievement...until I witnessed the horror of my coffee tumbling from the roof of the car onto the snow covered driveway. I think i would have cried a little bit then if I didn't already know that my tears would instantly turn to ice.

By this point all I wanted to do was get in my fucking car and go, so I cleaned that shit like a molly maid and began the 5 minute drive down the street to my home so that I could pack up the car. The entire time my hands were white knuckling the wheel while I was telling my brain that if I just got through this morning without a smoke I would go out and buy some C4 and blow some shit up. Luckily for the population of Canada, my packing actually went smoothly and the C4 was quickly forgotten. In my mind i was screaming Hallelujah! All I had to do from here was go get the baked goods from my favourite bakery down the street and get on the highway and go. 

The Bakery didn't open until 9 am...it was 8:30..I had to be in Oakville by 9 am. I believe at this point I just looked up into the sky and thought...hmmmm...today is just not going to work. I decided to cut my losses and just find a fucking Tim Horton's to get those shitty donuts in Oakville. 

So I am finally on the highway...ready to go...fucking speeding as much as I can possibly speed on the snow covered road. Everything is going great, for the first time the QEW is actually moving at a place that can not be equated to a parking lot :> !!!!!!!! And then it hit me when I heard a strange beeping from my car, do you remember the small list of shit that i HAD to do before I left Toronto? I know this has been a long post but try to think back as I did. GAS. G-A-S. the liquid gold that I need to actually get from point A to point B. At this point I glance down at my gas gauge. I don't think it could have gotten further below the letter "E". I immediately exited the highway and found a gas station. My car chugged onto the concrete of the pump and I attempted to take the gas cap off the car.

It was stuck.

IT WAS FUCKING STUCK

IT WAS FUCKING FROZEN STUCK ON THE FUCKING CAR.

At this point I there must have been steam coming from my ears.

My brain began to formulate a plan to buy a pack of smokes at the gas station, drop a match and blow up the whole place with everyone in it. I had visions of the opening scene of the movie Romeo and Juliet in my head.  Somehow these thoughts calmed me down, and I got the nice gentleman beside my car to get the gas cap off. 

Don't worry the story is almost done.

So I get back on the highway and fucking boot it...and I mean absolutely fucking speed demon that shit down to my retailer so that i could actually get there on time (YES I AM STILL SOMEWHAT ON TIME :> ) I go get the donuts (which thank god went very smoothly) I drive over to the store and I park my car and run to the meter. I have the correct change for once in my life! I put in the toonie looked back at the meter and rejoiced because everything was great. Until I looked up at the parking sign. My dumbass brain did not notice the GIGANTIC sign that said "Sunday parking-Free". 

I just needed someone to hook up some sort of cigarette to my vein at this point. 

But nobody did and I got through it, and I did a wonderful product knowledge! I even had one of those stupid donuts...and the best part of the whole morning, one of my customers brought me a coffee. 

So that is it.  That was my cigarette free largest craving ever morning. 

I survived!

 

Day 3/ Day 4

Yes it is actually Day 4, yes I realize that I didn't post yesterday. I'll do a combined post for all of you that have discovered that I am actually a hysterical writer. I'm not very funny in real life but apparently you all get your panties in a knot when I start to talk about my tampon and machine gun fetish.

Hokay...so onto the good stuff!

Day 4...what a fucking weird day.

Yesterday was terrible for cravings for one reason and one reason alone...the archives. For all of you who do not know, myself and a friend are putting together a presentation on historical photography showing rural communities and farming in the early 1900's for a presentation in Illinois in June. Which means that we have been spending a lot of time at the archives looking at very..very..very old photographs. For most of you your thoughts may strive into the realm of "why is this significant to your smoking addiction Michelle?" well it isn't, accept for the fact that the archives are extremely quiet, you can't eat or drink, and you are wearing rubber gloves. I couldn't even use my fake nicotine inhaler in that reading room. It is literally a pit of a place daring you to think about smoking every second you are there. And the thing that I also realized while starting at photographs from the 1900's is that EVERY FUCKING PERSON SMOKED IN THE 1800'S!

You don't see it too often in the photos because most of them are portraits of people in a studio that look like they have a stick up their butt gluing them to their chair...but its those photos that show some sort of natural life that you realize tobacco was like vitamins in those days, either you were smoking it or chewing it. Which bring me to my entire point of this post. Every time I saw some guy in his lumberjack outfit with a fag in his hand I just wanted to reach into the picture and steal his obviously terribly rolled cigarette. I must have looked oh so appealing to the girl at the reference desk, every time I pulled out a photo. It was like I turned into a labouring mother. "Breathe in and out...good" and again "breathe in and out...good". Now normally this technique would not be so noticeable, due to the fact that in the majority of places there is some semblance of noise, but in the archives some can rip the tiniest of farts and you will have the person sitting across the room muttering under their breath "Jesus can't they just be quiet over there". Needless to say I think the other people who were occupying the room must have thought that I had some sort of debilitating disease because of my hyper ventilation at the sight of some dead guy enjoying a cigarette.

So in an attempt to save my sanity, I ventured over to the greatest food court ever *please insert the most obnoxious sarcastic tone* York Lanes. If I thought the receptionist was bad for staring at my inhaler, the university students who occupy York Lanes should be given an award. It was like I was an alien. I was the older woman walking around the university center sucking on some white thing that looked very dirty to them. I know I heard some giggles from the girls sitting around me. And then the noise began and my attention, and the attention of the entire University center looked towards this pounding dancing aboriginal drum circle. I thought to myself, "Huh, what a weird fucking day...at least this will keep me distracted" and it did...I even took a video...

But then to my absolute HORROR I thought I heard someone start talking about the sacred tobacco and why it was so important in the aboriginal culture...At this moment I booked it. I must have looked like the flash with how quickly I got up and out of there. I don't even think the people around me realized I was moving I was that quick. I should have been given an olympic gold medal for sprinting for that glorious dash.

And today...well today nothing interesting has happened yet. I'll let you know if it does. DAY FUCKING 4 THOUGH!!! BOOYEH!

  

Day 2

So I am onto day 2. Today was a day where I got outside and had to hang with my boss all day. In other words...I always forget that Day 2 fucking sucks just as bad as day 1, and today I got to drive in downtown traffic, discuss budgetary stuff for work and then hang out in reception for an hour while my boss (who is actually pretty awesome) had a meeting. Boy this day just constituted a fucking cigarette. But I held true~! And I did this by using my trusty inhaler. Why is this significant?

Because you look pretty stupid when you are sitting in a reception area for an hour with a little white tampon looking thing hanging from your mouth.

I could just see the receptionist sneaking little glances my way...her little brain thinking, why is that woman sucking on a tampon. I tried to signal her and tell her that it was not an absorbing thing, it was the inhaler that I needed to continually suck on in order to give me the right amount of nicotine to continue functioning in a way that did not make me murderous. Maybe it would have been better to just pull out a tommy gun to get her attention just to say "I am not Crazy, I am an addict". But I think that may have made the situation worse.

So beyond the receptionist that now thinks I like to eat tampons, I discovered a very significant thing over the past 2 days. Not only does the inhaler make me look like a true feminist in all the wrong senses of the word...but it also tastes like absolute crap. The first time I inhaled i expected some sort of sweet relief to my fanatical addiction, instead I received a mouthful of a taste that I can only equate to sucking on balloons. Yup, you know you did this while you were a kid..sucking on a balloon. Now I know it is difficult but bring yourself back to that god awful taste. Now times that crummyiness by about 1000 so that it makes your tongue numb. This is what the inhaler tastes like. I'm almost thinking the cop-out of the gum may be a good way to go.

So all in all day 2 was quite successful.....no tobacco inhaled...no receptionists killed...and nicotine levels at a declining amount...

onto Day 3

Day 1!

Oh Dear Lord...If only I could go back to that first cigarette and throw it in a puddle before I put it to my lips. Who knew that the 1st taste of nicotine, so innocently inhaled, that made me cough like a mad woman, that made my lips burn and my stomach feel like it was going to heave my previously eaten chips onto my kid worn sneakers, would change my life so dramatically.

My name is Michelle and this is Day one of quitting smoking after a 14 yr addiction.

Granted this is not my first time quitting. This realistically is my 4th time throwing the butts down. But this time I swear to God will be my last time. It seems my brain just forgets after a while about this stupid day. This "DAY 1". The day where your entire life turns upside down as you wrestle with your brain begging it to stop telling you "Just forget about this quitting nonsense". This is the day you wish you had a light switch so you could just put yourself in a coma for a while, so that you wouldn't feel the shake of the withdraw and the ultimate PMS like symptoms that will rupture very soon.

YAY BRIGHT AND CHEERY NON-SMOKING FUTURE!!!..I have to keep telling myself this otherwise I start to go a little psycho.

This time I am doing quitting right:
1. I have nicotine inhalers. None of this chewing gum for nicotine bullshit. I'm coping out! I am going to trick myself today...bahahaha take that body...my brain is getting smarter this time!
2. I have mentos! That's right! The fresh maker
3. I have my sketch book, even though I am a fucking terrible drawer...I'm still picking up that pen. Screw you hands...you will be busy for the next couple of weeks.
4. I am conquering my brain by using this Blog. BOOO YEH..Screw you brain...bahahaha, I can't get a craving if I'm writing shit down.
5. I have copious amounts of gum...and I seriously mean copious amounts. I swear I could make a mountain out of chewed gum when I am done.
And thus...this time I will succeed! I will triumph over big tobacco and make it so it is easier to breathe again.
So what you can expect from this little blog of mine is simple...many "I need a fucking cigarette rants", also a lot of cool internet shit that I will steal from stumble, and a a lot of fucking swearing....because truly I am French at heart.

*muah*