I can’t stop laughing about what happened last night / this morning with Cellphone Guy.  It’s so funny how I’ll tolerate bad behavior from other people for a real long time, then one day I’ll just go off and tell them what I really think!  No fear, and by that time I’m not really driven primarily by anger either; it’s more a case of "enough is enough". I just open my mouth and tell the person straight-up what the problem is, and walk away.

The fact that the guy turned out to be nekkid, well, that wasn’t something I was expecting but what was I supposed to do?  If I saw that and walked away without announcing my presence, I would’ve felt like a peeping tom or something.  I personally don’t get too much of the heebie-jeebies from nudity — he obviously shouldn’t have been standing by the window where ANYbody walking by could’ve seen him, but that wasn’t what I wanted to complain about.  Anyway… I haven’t heard him on his cellphone all morning, so I guess… hopefully!! he got the message.  Oh god… ha ha ha.  Poor guy, how could anybody be so clueless that it would actually come down to a situation like that?  What a knucklehead.

Change the subject Edith!!!  Okay, ha ha.  Well, I decided I needed to stop chewing that disgusting Nicorette gum.  I thought about it a lot and it just doesn’t make sense to me.  I’m addicted to nicotine — nicotine is damaging me, it’s my biggest enemy right now.  If somebody were beatin’ on me with a baseball bat, would it be a good idea for them to just slap me for awhile so I could get used to the idea of being assaulted a little bit less every day?  Naw.  The violence against my body has to stop completely, and now.  I want to get 100% clean, I don’t want to be strung out and prolong the agony any longer.  I’m sure there are studies that point to results in favor of using the gum, and other studies which tell you to quit cold turkey.  Well, my body and my mind are telling me to just STOP it with the nicotine, the gum is not helping me.  I’ve tried the patch before too, I had the same reaction: it drove me crazy!!  I couldn’t get enough of that patch, I wanted to slap about three of ‘em on me!!

So, you know, I’m addicted and no amount of nicotine is going to satisfy me, it’s only going to taunt me with its presence.  So I’m going to try quitting the gum just like I did the ciggies.  I feel like my mind is pretty strong and stubborn once I’ve decided to do something.  The only reason I was smoking for so many years is: yes, because it’s highly addictive, but more than that: I submitted to that addiction.  I didn’t choose to quit, nobody was going to talk me into it either.  I had to make up my own mind to stop, and that’s the ONLY reason I’m quitting now.  So — I’m sure the pharmaceutical companies would love to sell me anti-smoking aids, and I’m sure RJR would love to convince me that I can’t quit.  They’re wrong though.  Fuck them, I made up my mind and that’s it. If I go back to smoking it’ll be because I chose to do so, because I allowed myself.  I want to stay strong though… and if I want to, I know I have that power in me.  It doesn’t seem as hard of a thing to do as people would lead you to believe.

Rian’s coming over in an hour or two, to supervise my practice-progress… good thing he waited a few extra days!  I’m a whooooole lot calmer and more focused now than I was on Thursday, the day of our original appointment.  I haven’t turned into a brilliant guitarist in the past week, but I am getting better and re-learning the songs one at a time, little by little.  He’ll see some improvement, I’m pretty sure of that.  I’m fighting a blister on the middle (fuck-you!) finger of my left hand, but hey: blisters turn into callouses.  It’s not that bad and I need the callous so… on with the show!