The gavel has slammed, the judgement has been made:  I HAVE to give up smoking.

 

For those of you who have checked in here this summer, you know I had a heart attack last month.  I was told in no uncertain terms that if I continued to smoke I would end up back in the hospital for another heart stent; people with coronary artery disease simply have to give up tobacco, no ifs, ands, or buts.  And although the whole hospital experience is still rather blurry and hazy in my mind, I have no desire to repeat it.  (Or pay for it!)

 

It sucks.  I, of course, thought I would be one of the lucky ones who could float through life indefinitely without worrying about it.  I always said that I didn't inhale and it couldn't be hurting me that much, etc., etc.  Hah.  I realized once I ripped off the nicotine patch they put on me in the hospital how wrong I was.  I'm hooked, baby, and probably have been since the first time I lit up.

 

I've realized over the past week or so that before I even begin to detach from smoking physically I have to begin to let it go mentally.  I've never really tried to quit before, but I can say with pride that I have cut down in the past few years.  When I moved here to Old Spruce Cottage in the late summer of '06 I vowed I would never smoke in this house, and I haven't.  Seeing the smoke damage in my old place convinced me that tobacco smoke is just as bad for home interiors as it is for human interiors.  Confining my dirty habit to the out of doors has helped, but I have a long way to go.  Simply writing about this is making me want to get up from the desk, go downstairs and out to the deck and torch up. 

 

Before I moved here I always smoked like a chimney when I was writing.  I wrote The Handyman's Dream and the first draft of The Handyman's Reality in the old house.  I shudder to think how many packs I went through during those writing sessions.  Considering that, it surprises me how little smoking goes on in my stories.  My muse gave me Ed Stephens, the handyman, so completely formed that I never questioned his lack of a tobacco habit.  Ditto that for Rick Benton in regards to smoking.  At some point it did strike me as odd that neither of them smoked, so when Ed's best bud Gordy Smith entered the story I stuck that poor guy with the habit, and to add some character color to the story Rick became one of those insufferable prigs who bitch about cigarette smoke.  Ed's story begins in 1980, the year I began to hang out with a gay crowd, and believe me at least ninety percent of the guys I knew at the time smoked, so someone in Ed's world had to have a pack of smokes and a lighter around. 

 

So when did I start smoking, and why am I still doing it?  Answer:  at age 17 (thirty years ago this past spring) and probably because I'm a perverse son-of-a-bitch.  The more people tell me NOT to do something, the more inclined I am to do it.  I started smoking for the same stupid reason so many people do, to be cool and rebellious.  I had been a total goody-two-shoes as a kid; didn't misbehave, got good grades, and swore virtuously that I would never do something as destructive as light a cigarette.  Unbeknownst to me, there was a total hellion inside of me, and when I fell in with a fast crowd toward the end of my senior year in high school that inner badass came roaring into the world, doing everything that a 1970's-era teenager wasn't supposed to do but did.  Hell, I even went disco dancing!  (It was 1979, after all.  Somebody please cue up Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff", please.)

 

I bought my first full pack at some point that summer -- Arctic Lights if I remember correctly.  That brand didn't last long so I moved onto to Salem Light Menthols, and in 1983 acquired the companions that are still with me today, Player Menthols.  Damn those folks at Philip Morris for coming up with those!  That brand flamed out (no pun intended) in the 80's, but PM continues to manufacture them for diehards such as me.  Hopefully, gentlemen, you have lost a customer.  There is a tobacco store here in town that special- orders Players for me, and I told the counter lady to tell my friend Ann, the manager, to kill my standing order.  If I crack once my supply is gone, I'll have to go get a pack of some generic brand from the gas station like the rest of the poor smokers.  And believe me, most smokers are poor these days just maintaining their habit.  Indiana just jacked up its cigarette tax again this past spring, and the cost of smoking has become truly prohibitive in the current economy.  For that reason alone I'm relieved to have, at last, a good excuse to quit.

 

My goal is to be completely smoke-free by my birthday, September 22nd.  That gives me two months to convince my inner rebel that it is not at all cool to smoke anymore.  I will continue to remind myself of all the money I will save, how much better I will feel, how less stressed I will be; how I won't have ask someone to cover for me at work so I can run outside and smoke a fast one; how much more socially acceptable I will be, and how I'll probably even get more dates.  THAT sure has changed since I first came out! 

 

The mental process has begun.  Writing about it here on the webpage has made it much more real to me.  I think a part of me wanted the whole world to know so it will be harder to back down from this goal.  If I flop I will let a lot of people down, so that gives me one more reason to succeed.  Wish me luck, folks.  I'm gonna need it.  And I promise to check back here in September and let you all know how it turns out.            

 

 

Okay, first things first and all that.  I just this moment stole the title of this blog.  As I was preparing to write a quick update here on my health I received an email from a dear reader in Oregon who wished me a wonderful 4th of July with "no internal fireworks."  What a great line!  So thanks, Steve.  I always acknowlege where I get the good stuff.

 

I'm doing fine.  It's been a quiet week.  After a disastrous return to work on Monday, I wisely retreated home for the rest of the week.  I found out quickly that I was NOT yet up to the hurly-burly of my job.  Frankly, in this economy, I don't know anyone who has stress-free, easy days at work, so I was happy to take my supervisor's offer to go home and stay there.  My official vacation began yesterday, so I have yet another week to recover from my adventure in the hospital, and get used to my new designation as a "heart patient."  Geez, it still doesn't seem quite real.  If it wasn't for the ugly bruising on my right leg from the heart cath and the new row of pill bottles lined up in the bathroom, I could almost believe nothing has changed.

 

It has, though.  I feel different in a way I haven't quite figured out yet.  I've been very tentative about exploring those feelings.  A co-worker who has been through the same thing offered to talk if I felt the need, and I suspect that I'll be inviting Dave out for a heart-healthy lunch one of these days. 

 

The biggest issue at the moment is smoking.  Ugh!  I've always talked about my grandfather whenever anyone would give me jazz about quitting -- how he had a two-pack a day habit up until the day he died of old age.  It's become apparent I won't have that option.  A good friend of mine emailed and told me he's doing well taking a presciption pill to quit.  Just as I was pondering that, an article popped up in the newspaper about dangerous side effects being reported from this medication.  Oh, brother.  I tell you, if the diseases and addictions don't kill us, the medication for them will!  I keep saying that when my stock of cigarettes here at the house is gone, that's it.  Hmmmm...start watching the news about mid-July for stories about a gay fiction author going postal in northeast Indiana...

 

I have no big plans for our nation's birthday today.  I turned down a few invitations as I just wasn't up to a lot of driving or crowds.  I seem to be content to be alive and well, and to have time to let my mind wander.  Although, I do suspect it will get a bit lively around here tonight.  I've observed quite a bit of activity at several of the neighbors', and I suspect there will be parties with fireworks tonight.  Poor Abner; he hates loud noises.  Is it safe to give a cat a Xanax????  It doesn't bother me.  I'll just crank up my happy hit parade from the Ipod and let 'em blast away -- that is, until something hits my roof, in which case I'll immediately turn into the neighborhood crank.  I've always wanted to be considered an old character, so this may be my chance. 

 

Well, just to prove that my mind and my personality haven't suffered from this experience, I'll share an observation from this morning that reminded me I'm still my snotty, cynical self.  There is a bread outlet store not far from my house.  I knew they would be open for a few hours today so I drove over to pick up some bread and English muffins for the next week.  As I was preparing to pull out an enormous pick-up truck slide into the next parking place.  I glanced over, and I'll be honest here; the young-ish driver looked kinda hot so I watched as he got out, followed by a dumpy middle-aged woman and a pale little girl. 

 

At that point I realized the guy was wearing a t-shirt with "Legion of the South" or something to that effect, and that he was walking in a rather studied rebel slouch.  To make sure everyone watching knew he was a gen-u-wine redneck he hawked a big loogy before he went into the store.

 

I snickered.  I couldn't help it.  As I pulled out of my parking spot my eyes widened as I took in his vehicle.  It had been completely Confederate-customized, even the damn taillights.  Being me, I made sure he had an Indiana license plate.  Of course he did.  Shit, I thought.  He's probably as pure-bred yankee as I am.  I paused and raised my can of Diet (caffeine free) Pepsi in a toast to the truck and solemnly intoned, "The South will rise again...NORTH of the Mason-Dixon line!"

 

And I drove off with Lesley Gore blaring from the car and thought that as long as people continue to fascinate me, I'll always have something to write about, heart-attack or not.  Yep, folks, I'm still here.  I suspect Ed Stephens' story will continue as well.