Stuff I should've already posted

I'm still a lazy slacker blogger.

My daughter Emily just got her driver's license. For real. Like, she can drive without anyone else in the car.

So if you are headed to East Tennessee, stay off the roads.

I need to get my hair done. I have to wait until Friday for that. My roots are showing. So I think I'll send my legally-driving daughter to WalMart twenty miles away and ask her to buy me some scarves and bandannas. I can't be seen in public looking like this. Mama would have a fit.

Heck, *I* am having a fit.

I went to the doctor Tuesday and she prescribed Chantix to make me stop smoking. Lots of conflicting thoughts about that. I almost blogged about it Wednesday night, but it was so mean and acerbic that I decided my attitude must be bad. Bottom line: I like smoking and I love smokers. Love, love, love them. I want to keep hanging out with smokers in the designated smoking areas all over the continent.

I used to think that the non-smokers would succeed in making tobacco illegal, but now I think I was wrong. I think they're just going to make it too expensive for regular people to smoke. The state and federal folks are raising the taxes so quickly and so biliously that I just don't WANT to afford smoking. (Rich people have all the fun, right?) And that's why I'm quitting. Not because I want to quit, but because I want to use the money for things I love more than cigarettes.

Like going to Las Vegas to visit my sister. And going to Disney World to hug Mickey. And dining at fabulous restaurants. And buying more scrapbooking paper. And more Crocs. And buying another beloved Prius for Emily to drive.

(OK, that last one is pretty much a pipe dream. Emily has saved only $1500 for a car so far. I'm sure we'll have to buy her an absolute junk heap eventually.)

Yep. I'm trying to quit smoking merely because I'm Greedy People. Yeah, quitting might make me slightly healthier, but with my family history, I'm gonna die of some kind of cancer no matter what I'm ingesting. So health is not my motivation. Money. Makes the world go 'round, and makes me actually try to quit smoking.

This isn't the first time I've tried to quit. And I was hesitant about Chantix, although all my nurse friends swear that it is the best thing since sliced bread. Chantix is a dopamine replacement therapy, y'know. And it has some nasty side effects. I lived through some of the worst of those Friday, after the drugs had been building up in my system for two and a half days. I was terribly nauseated Friday and spent much of the day curled up on the couch in a fetal position refusing to *look* at food much less eat it.

I did still smoke, however. That's how Chantix works: Take it for a week, slowly increasing the dosage and the amount of the drug in your bloodstream. Then quit smoking on the 8th day. My quit date is Wednesday, August 8th. In the meantime, I have to log every cigarette, analyze the data, and formulate strategies for what to do if I have a craving after my quit date.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot: Chantix is more than a drug. It's a drug with a "support system." I get daily emails reminding me to go to the Chantix website and perform my Daily Activity. I have to print something out almost every day. I gotta tell you, I hope the printings stop soon. I don't like using the laser printer that much, what with the toner particles in the air being potentially carcinogenic.

[That was a joke. Feel free to snort audibly.]

In the meantime, I have already experienced some odd sensations thanks to the fake dopamine. If you've never smoked, or if you quit easily, then you don't know what it's like for someone who *likes* smoking to try to quit. It's ugly. I've tried cold turkey and I've tried with the nicotine patch. Oh! I just remembered, I even tried hypnosis once! (Well, I was young then, and honestly, even then I was rolling my eyes and trying not to snort audibly while my best friend sat next to me and tried really hard to get hypnotized so she would quit smoking.) Nothing worked for me because I *wanted* to smoke. The desire combined with the nicotine addiction proved undeniable.

So for me to be sitting around, smoking, and thinking, "I think I'll put this cigarette out. I just don't like it," is REALLY strange. Like... maybe I'm being replaced by a pod person. Like... maybe I'm not *me* any more. Because the Bay *I* know loves to smoke and really wants everyone else to love her smoking.

That's where I am tonight. Well, actually, I happen to be smoking at the moment. I'm counting down the hours 'til Wednesday.

And I'm having a nice, therapeutic cocktail like the Over Clover. Enjoy your herb gardens while ye may! Autumn's blush is just a few weeks away, and I'm desperate to enjoy the last bits of cicada-song-filled summer!