I was wrong...

There are times when I screw up. Seemingly, when I do two things happen, I screw up more than once in a short amount of time and I make it worse by not coming right out and admitting I screwed up. I find myself operating under the assumption that I am perfect and how dare someone tell me I'm wrong. When I am confronted I'll protest and justify until my face turns blue which almost always makes the situation worse.

It took me until very recently to realize that not only do I screw up but in fact I need to admit it and face the fact that I did screw up. It's an ego thing to not admit I'm wrong (which is another surprising discovery, considering for years I thought I had no ego). Looking back it suddenly makes sense where I get it. I don't think my father ever admitted he was wrong about anything. I'm sure one of the siblings can set me straight if that's not the case. Anyway, it occurs to me that I'm just emulating him when I act like this.

What I need to learn is that if I can't just immediately admit that I'm wrong then for the time being I just need to keep my mouth shut until I can admit it. Sometimes silence isn't such a bad thing.

Cute widdle bunnies

First let me get this out of the way:

"But he said no mowe swippery swope!"
"Oh, the administwation is mewely pandewing to its cwazy voting base again."

Thanks to this post at Sadly, No! the phrase "mewely pandewing" has been stuck in my head for the last day. Stupid bunnies.

We can move on now with that out of the way.

It seems that there has been a small pattern develop in the life of my lovely and talented girlfriend. Every so often a former beau will contact her, seemingly out of the blue. It's happened enough that now I don't think it really phases me anymore. At first it was a tad disconcerting but I learned that I really had nothing to worry about and it would do any good to worry about it anyway. Also, most of these guys were more in the "it's been a long time, how are you doing?" catagory.

Sometimes I'm surprised at how secure I really am in this whole relationship with Phrank. I know at times it seems that I'm not that secure but when I really think about it I actually am. There really isn't that much to get worked up about and when I do it's pretty much just me driving myself crazy. Sure we have problems but show me a couple that doesn't and we'll probably be looking at a couple of people in serious denial.

It's been said here before but I really do still think I'm pretty lucky or bless if you will. I've got a woman that loves me and accepts me for what I am right now. On top of that she makes sure I take better care of me including preparing healthy meals (I do the dishes). It makes me happy to know that I deserve to go to sleep next to some one as awesome as she is.

Last cigarette (who the hell sang that song, anyway?)

Sometime in the next several hours, I'll have hit three weeks without smoking. Not bad for never tried to quite before, I think. There are still moments when I really want one, especially after work, skating and doing the dishes but it's not every time. Most of the time I don't think about it. Of course, it hit me tonight that to make it work I can't allow myself to ever have one again. Ever. Bummer.

There was a time when I enjoyed smoking actually. Back when you could still buy single cigarettes here in Colorado, I would smoke maybe three a day. One in the morning on my walk to work (this was before I had a car), one after work and another sometime in the evening. I'm sure there were times when I would have more than that but it was rare. In those days I would get a buzz off each of those cigarettes (that buzz is what gets you hooked by the way) and I enjoyed that buzz. It's hard to describe just what it was like now.

My guess is that I will miss those death sticks. They were always there for me. Anytime there was a crises (or I had to talk to certain people on the phone (mostly mom)) there was a cigarette. If I was upset, I believed that cigarettes would calm me down, when it fact it was probably just deep breathing. Perhaps I should have said goodbye to them.

And the thing is after writing all of this, I still don't want one. Or at least bad enough to have one.

Useless idiot?

I think I've stumbled (and thousands of others) across what could be the greatest piece of writing on the Internet, ever. First go read this, I'll wait. Done? Good. Did you notice the source? Yes, the man quoted the The Onion. An article from 1999 no less. This post of Pete's garnered several hundred comments informing him that a) he is an idiot and b) The Onion is a parody site/paper. I think the best comment may have been this:

I'm pro life, but sweet Jesus you're an idiot. For your next post, how about a passionate speech on the need to immediately free Prince Albert from the can?

But it gets even better. Pete is either too obtuse or to proud to admit that he'd been had. He had to go and write another post quoting even more of the original parody and defending his original post is some twisted way that you will just have to read for yourself. Sheesh. Double sheesh actually, because there is a third post decrying the language used in the comments from the two previous postings.

Now I'll be the first one to admit that I can be something of an idiot sometimes. But geez, I usually drop it after I realize that I was wrong (of course, there are times where I'll hold out until it's just painfully obvious). Although, I also don't have an extreme position that I'm holding onto and obsess over (and no Wikipedia does not count!) that leads to blindness of sorts. I guess I'll have to check on old Pete for the next few days and see what comes of it.

Rainy Monday...I mean Wednesday

The thing about having a holiday/day off in the middle of the week is you can sometimes end up with two Mondays. Which was sort of the case today after having yesterday off. Actually the only real reason for this was because it started raining (and yes we need it desperately, I'm not complaining) almost as soon as I walked out of the door of work. This after the storm clung to the mountains as if we were approaching Mordor for the entire day up until I left. Heck I spent a fair amount of the day watching the clouds just rest there. Somedays it really looks like there must be an evil wizard deep inside Cheyenne Mountain.

Anyway the only reason the rain slightly annoyed me is because I wanted to go skateboarding after work. There is a skatepark within five minutes of work (depending on traffic, of course) and I'm beginning to get the hang of this park. I've managed to go everyday since Saturday and I kind of like the habit I'm getting into.

It's been good for me to get out and skate ever since I started this quitting smoking thing. For one, it helps reinforce why I'm actually quitting in that my lungs will be stronger eventually. And while I'm doing it I don't really crave a smoke (although I still can't say the same for after skating).

The truth is I didn't even think about the reasons for quitting until after I stopped. Apparently this isn't the best way to go about it but I've never been known for picking the best methods of doing things. I do know that I was getting sick of the money I was spending on the damn things and that someday the smoking would catch up to me in the form of a portable oxygen tank.

And almost five hours later, it's still raining. If this keeps up the grass on the hills may yet turn green.

Forty-eight hours

A few minutes ago I hit forty-eight hours without having a cigarette or any form of nicotine. Right now I don't want one because I wouldn't want to go through the last two days again.

At some point last weekend I came up with the brilliant idea that Phrank and I should quit on July 1st. As the state of Colorado instituted the smoking ban today I figured that it would be appropriate. Of course when I woke up yesterday morning and had no cigarettes left I figured I might as well start quitting then.

Ugh. Talk about out of it. I was incoherent and loopy all day yesterday. Not to mention tired yet restless.

Today I've just been grumpy and itchy. Which isn't such a good thing because Phrank is grumpy from not having any cigarettes. Of course she was smart enough to use nicotine gum but it's not any easier on her as the no cigarettes hack has descended on her. We cleaned the house for most of the morning and after which I made myself scarce as much as I could. I knew being as grumpy and irritable as I was feeling, I could actually say something that I might regret and I didn't want to do that.

Here's the strange thing, the cravings aren't yet as bad as I thought they would be. I've yet to fully tell myself that I want a cigarette. Yeah, there's been moments where I crave just a hit of nicotine. That's the physical addiction. I'm wondering about the mental part. Perhaps the fact that I'm trying to change my routines is helping. For instance, I would always have a smoke after eating, now I've been trying to take a small walk after eating. It's weird, even some of the triggers that usually send me straight for a smoke have happened and I haven't even thought about one other than "I used to smoke when this would happen".

All I can say is I hope I can make this last.