Life Without Cigarettes (Part 47)
Apr. 20th, 2007 09:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraI'm still not smoking, but the week just past has been the roughest yet in terms of I'd [Your Act of Ritual Self-Abasement Goes Here] for a Camel Wide.
Yesterday it got so bad I actually picked a butt up out of the gutter. Hey! The butt was still smoldering. And the homeless derelict suffering from terminal syphilis and a rare form of untreatable tuberculosis who'd first lit up with shaky, shit-stained fingers had left a whole three quarters of a cigarette for somebody else to enjoy!
I didn't smoke it, of course.
Instead I just thought, Wow. Am I the world's biggest loser or what?
But of course I wasn't, I'd failed even at that, because there are people in the world like Alex Baldwin – who recently told his own daughter, age eleven, she was "a thoughtless little pig" – and Kim Basinger, Babe's Mommy, who leaked the conversation to the world because, natch, it's more important to vilify an X-Husband than to preserve the psychological security of a child.
It's been a stressful week, to be sure, what with taxes and the end of spring break (which effectively ends the parade of families marching past the Little Store on their way to the Aquarium) and the other various and sundry pressures and strains I'm under which include the fact that I have yet to finish writing thank you notes for all the loverly birthday presents I received this year and thus will receive no presents at all next year. Also Sanjaya got voted off American Idol. I had been calling in every week to vote for Sanjaya, pouncing on that cell phone, the second 9:00:00pm PST rolled around. Not that I watch American Idol, you understand. No, I am a fan of Dancing With the Stars – I can't wait to see Heather McCartney's leg fly off in the middle of a rumba! You can't watch American Idol and Dancing With the Stars both without incurring serious brain damage. But I figured every vote for Sanjaya was a tiny splinter up Rupert Murdoch's ass, a way to topple the mighty Fox Entertainment Juggernaut. And now because I fucked up the Fox Entertainment Juggernaut will continue its evil dominion over all, only becoming Ozymandias when the cockroaches take over the earth.
Is it the nicotine jonesing thing? 'Cause I went from the 14mg patch to the 7mg patch on Sunday. You wouldn't think 7mg of nicotine would make that big a difference. But maybe it does.
Or maybe it was stepping on the scales and realizing I've gained fifteen pounds since this whole Quit Smoking thing began. There's just this… need … to grind my teeth into something. Put something in my mouth and chomp down hard. I'm a big girl. Fifteen pounds only shows in my tummy, mostly camouflaged anyway behind those loose-fit elastic waistbands us Over Fifties prefer to wear. Comfort trumps beauty any day of the week.
Still. I hate being fat.
Wednesday night I couldn't sleep and so tuned into Bravo, the All Gay/All Of The Time cable network which is doing one of those contestant-elimination shows about cutting hair. Most boring thing ever, right? I watched because I was itchy and fretful and also because Shear Genius was hosted by Jaclyn Smith, one of the most beautiful women on the planet in her youth, so beautiful you were tempted to forgive her utter vacuity. You didn't. But you were tempted.
I was really, really curious to see how she'd aged.
She looked great. Dame's gotta be close to sixty but on television – three inches of pancake makeup, but still – she could pass for forty. Easy.
There's a moral object lesson there for actresses everywhere:
Angelina, ditch Brad immediately and find yourself a nice plastic surgeon to marry. When you're sixty, you'll thank yourself for it. It worked for Jackie.
Yesterday it got so bad I actually picked a butt up out of the gutter. Hey! The butt was still smoldering. And the homeless derelict suffering from terminal syphilis and a rare form of untreatable tuberculosis who'd first lit up with shaky, shit-stained fingers had left a whole three quarters of a cigarette for somebody else to enjoy!
I didn't smoke it, of course.
Instead I just thought, Wow. Am I the world's biggest loser or what?
But of course I wasn't, I'd failed even at that, because there are people in the world like Alex Baldwin – who recently told his own daughter, age eleven, she was "a thoughtless little pig" – and Kim Basinger, Babe's Mommy, who leaked the conversation to the world because, natch, it's more important to vilify an X-Husband than to preserve the psychological security of a child.
It's been a stressful week, to be sure, what with taxes and the end of spring break (which effectively ends the parade of families marching past the Little Store on their way to the Aquarium) and the other various and sundry pressures and strains I'm under which include the fact that I have yet to finish writing thank you notes for all the loverly birthday presents I received this year and thus will receive no presents at all next year. Also Sanjaya got voted off American Idol. I had been calling in every week to vote for Sanjaya, pouncing on that cell phone, the second 9:00:00pm PST rolled around. Not that I watch American Idol, you understand. No, I am a fan of Dancing With the Stars – I can't wait to see Heather McCartney's leg fly off in the middle of a rumba! You can't watch American Idol and Dancing With the Stars both without incurring serious brain damage. But I figured every vote for Sanjaya was a tiny splinter up Rupert Murdoch's ass, a way to topple the mighty Fox Entertainment Juggernaut. And now because I fucked up the Fox Entertainment Juggernaut will continue its evil dominion over all, only becoming Ozymandias when the cockroaches take over the earth.
Is it the nicotine jonesing thing? 'Cause I went from the 14mg patch to the 7mg patch on Sunday. You wouldn't think 7mg of nicotine would make that big a difference. But maybe it does.
Or maybe it was stepping on the scales and realizing I've gained fifteen pounds since this whole Quit Smoking thing began. There's just this… need … to grind my teeth into something. Put something in my mouth and chomp down hard. I'm a big girl. Fifteen pounds only shows in my tummy, mostly camouflaged anyway behind those loose-fit elastic waistbands us Over Fifties prefer to wear. Comfort trumps beauty any day of the week.
Still. I hate being fat.
Wednesday night I couldn't sleep and so tuned into Bravo, the All Gay/All Of The Time cable network which is doing one of those contestant-elimination shows about cutting hair. Most boring thing ever, right? I watched because I was itchy and fretful and also because Shear Genius was hosted by Jaclyn Smith, one of the most beautiful women on the planet in her youth, so beautiful you were tempted to forgive her utter vacuity. You didn't. But you were tempted.
I was really, really curious to see how she'd aged.
She looked great. Dame's gotta be close to sixty but on television – three inches of pancake makeup, but still – she could pass for forty. Easy.
There's a moral object lesson there for actresses everywhere:
Angelina, ditch Brad immediately and find yourself a nice plastic surgeon to marry. When you're sixty, you'll thank yourself for it. It worked for Jackie.
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no subject
Date: 2007-04-20 05:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 01:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-20 05:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-20 09:47 pm (UTC)Hmmm....maybe that's what is wrong with me lately?
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Date: 2007-04-21 02:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:51 pm (UTC)Hope you're well.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-21 02:48 pm (UTC)