Like most young women of my generation I started smoking at age 23 when I married a smoker. I quit cold turkey 9 years later, thank God. My younger step-sister continued smoking until she died of lung cancer.
I see that you're still keeping track of when you quit. Do you remember the actual date? I thought it best to not memorialize the moment in any way, so let's say I quit cold turkey about ten years ago after thoroughly enjoying cigarettes for a good thirty years. I still consider myself a Tobaccaholic who can't cheat with just one or I'll be smoking a carton within a week. It is amazing how one's circulation comes back, the skin improves, blah-blah-blah.
Mike: I am also a Tobaccaholic. I know -- before I finally quit, I "quit" for as long as a year, but instantly was hooked again when I tried "just one."
But I don't even remember what month I finally stopped in. I do remember the year as the quitting coincided with getting serious about my, still happy, partnership.
I remember the day I quit: the day of my first of two surgeries for oral cancer. Even that didn't make it easy to quit. I needed meds, patches, acupuncture, and the fear of dying. Fortuantely, it didn't take too long to love being a non-smoker.
My musings on current events, current projects, current anxieties and current delights.
I started this under the Bush regime when any grain of sand thrown into the gears of the over-reaching imperial state seemed worthwhile.
I have worked to elect more and better Democrats -- and to hammer the shit out of them once we get them in office so they do the things their constituents want and need. It's a big job.
It's mighty uncomfortable, getting by in a declining empire where elites maintain their power by massaging our mean streaks and mobilizing our resentments. This country and this "civilization" may be on their way out, but there's nothing else to do except try to make them as humane as possible along the way. That and to celebrate the extraordinary love that sometimes accompanies our species' bumbling way.
And the end hasn't come til it comes, ever.
Visitors will find a lot of commentary on books I'm reading here. I am very intentionally reading more offline these days because when it feels hard to find direction, it's time to learn something new.
I'm a progressive political activist who runs trails and climbs mountains whenever any are available. I've had the privilege to work for justice in Central America (Nicaragua and El Salvador), in South Africa, in the fields of California with the United Farmworkers Union, and in the cities and schools of my own country. I'm a Christian of the Episcopalian flavor; we think and argue a lot. For work, I've done a bit of it all: run an old fashioned switch-board; remodeled buildings and poured concrete; edited and published periodicals, reports and books; and organized for electoral campaigns. I am currently an independent consultant to organizations seeking "help when you have to make a fight."
4 comments:
Like most young women of my generation I started smoking at age 23 when I married a smoker. I quit cold turkey 9 years later, thank God. My younger step-sister continued smoking until she died of lung cancer.
I see that you're still keeping track of when you quit. Do you remember the actual date? I thought it best to not memorialize the moment in any way, so let's say I quit cold turkey about ten years ago after thoroughly enjoying cigarettes for a good thirty years. I still consider myself a Tobaccaholic who can't cheat with just one or I'll be smoking a carton within a week. It is amazing how one's circulation comes back, the skin improves, blah-blah-blah.
Mike: I am also a Tobaccaholic. I know -- before I finally quit, I "quit" for as long as a year, but instantly was hooked again when I tried "just one."
But I don't even remember what month I finally stopped in. I do remember the year as the quitting coincided with getting serious about my, still happy, partnership.
I remember the day I quit: the day of my first of two surgeries for oral cancer. Even that didn't make it easy to quit. I needed meds, patches, acupuncture, and the fear of dying. Fortuantely, it didn't take too long to love being a non-smoker.
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