Quiting Smoking Playlist/ Mix CD

Fire Snakes-- Laura Veirs
Moon-- Bjork
Bouncing Off Clouds-- Tori Amos ("make this easy, make this easy, it's not as heavy as it seems")
Ooh La La-- The Faces ("I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger")
Keep On Livin'-- Le Tigre ("this is your life this is your time and this is your life this is your time...")
Everybody Hurts-- REM ("...don't blow your hand...")
Why-- Annie Lennox
Crystalline-- Bjork
This Island-- Le Tigre ("stop smoking those cigarettes, baby!")
Galaxies-- Laura Veirs
Spark-- Tori Amos ("she's addicted to nicotine patches...")
Rock In This Pocket (Song of David)-- Suzanne Vega
Walking On Broken Glass-- Annie Lennox
Mind Games-- John Lennon (" 'yes' is surrender... you gotta let go")
Hung Up-- Madonna ("I'm hanging up on you")
Crush-- Smashing Pumpkins
Sheikh-- Loop Guru
Don't Lose Yourself-- Laura Veirs ("don't let yourself be lost")

Reasons Why I Started Smoking

The world comes at you too fast; it's nice to have a reason to take a break. That said, a lot of people are "going out for some air" now when they need a break. I can do that instead. Going out for some air is so much nicer than going out for a cigarette. I can inhale the fresh spring air instead of the dirty carbon monoxide smoke, and not feel embarrassed for what I'm doing.

 

A word on the world coming at me too fast: I'm someone who is easily stimulated and likes to take my time on things to get them just right. In school, I frequently ran into problems because I "didn't work fast enough." The kids who worked fast got to have social lives; I spent all my time on my schoolwork and gave up on my social life because I don't work "fast enough." If I chose to hang out with friends, I often didn't do well in school because of it.

 

I think our culture is sick. It stresses people out and than villifies people for the ways they try to cope with the stress, whether it's smoking cigarettes, drinking, smoking pot, overeating, or whatever. Just as very few women in our country can fit the skinny, big-breasted, blond, young and white ideal for women, very few people in general can fit the ideal in our country of a physically fit, well-adjusted, healthy person with no bad habits.

 

Well, anyway, this Sunday I will have gone two weeks without smoking.

 

 

Quitting Smoking Playlist

Tomorrow Never Knows-- The Beatles
Alive-- Pearl Jam
High-- Cure
Stepping Up to the Mic-- Internal/External featuring Kathleen Hanna
These Are Days-- 10,000 Maniacs
Today-- Smashing Pumpkins
Get Down, Make Love-- Nine Inch Nails
If I Needed Someone-- The Beatles
Man On the Moon-- R.E.M.
Mr. Jones-- Counting Crows
Shine-- Collective Soul
Fade Into You-- Mazzy Star
Longview-- Green Day
Fire Snakes-- Laura Veirs
Bouncing Off Clouds-- Tori Amos

I posted this on a message board on facebook last night

This is my second day smoke free... I've joined an on-line Nic-Anon group... I ordered the book (I love to read anyway)... I'm on the full-strength patch... I've enlisted my 95-year-old great aunt (who successfully quit at 39... I'm 32) to ...be my personal cheerleader (that woman has a lot of life and energy left in her!)...everything's happening so fast, it doesn't seem possible that two days ago I was smoking... but I have this visceral feeling that a layer of smoke and ash has been lifted from my vision, and especially my senses of smell and taste

I was so dumb

i was fifteen years old. i was so dumb. the protaganist of the book girl, interrupted smoked (this was in 1994, before angelina jolie was a glimmer in the media's eye). franny glass smoked. courtney love smoked. but, most importantly, my friends smoked. flash forward to 17 years later: WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING!!!?

i know there are other points in my life when i may have started smoking if i hadn't at 15. like at college.

i hate the person i was becoming when i started smoking. the person who didn't believe in herself. the person who gave up on herself. the person who needed a boyfriend to feel valuable. the person who did drugs even though part of her was afraid of them. the person who found redemption, or thought she found redemption, in being "a bad girl." the person who let her boyfriend convince her to become an atheist. i hate that person. i hate that that person is in my past. maybe, somehow, i can exorcise that ghost of the girl i used to be by stopping smoking. because it was her who started smoking, it wasn't me. the real me was underground, letting this fake version of me be my avatar to the world.

quitting smoking

I'm quitting smoking (again.) It's only been my first day smoke-free and I'm already at my wit's end, but I just keep thinking of all the people I see who are hooked up to respirators. I don't think I'm a lost cause at 32, I just think the time to quit is now. I really can't afford to wait a few more years anymore. Now I am going to the American Cancer Society website to arm myself with information.