wilderworks

Here's a shocker: quitting smoking is hard. Not so much because you must stop smoking. More because it sets off a chain reaction of other changes. Many of these unexpected changes - you may not care for. I've broken the habit. But I'm not well-adjusted to the new ones. Smoking suppresses appetite. Which means, my appetite is now completely unsuppressed. My body doesn't remember how to make full feelings. Thus, I am hungry all the time. All the time. All. The. Time. While I'm eating, I wish I were eating. How many cheese-steaks could you eat? Eight? Nine? I bet I could eat a dozen. I'd like to try. I'd like to eat a whole head of lettuce with my hands. Right now. This insatiable hunger means that I can't eat the stuff I used to eat, because I'd become enormously unhealthy - and enormous. Thus, I am snacking on carrots and celery and crackers. I chain-snack for five hours a day. This daily fruit and vegetable binge adds more unfamiliar material ...

I walked around the apartment building hallway, listening to the rain. I ate some grapes and some Ritz crackers with peanut-butter. I watched about half of an episode of Quantum Leap. I haven't thought of a fun or funny way for someone to "come down" with serious flu symptoms, so I'm going to go to bed.

It's 2 o'clock in the morning: I can't make myself coffee. It's late, rainy, chilly, and Van Nuys: I can't take a walk. I've already had a shower: my skin would get itchy and dry. I've eaten more than I should: yet I can imagine enjoying some peanut-butter and Ritz. I could suck on honey-lemon cough drops, drink iced tea, and read John Hodgman from an old-fashion book, or perhaps read something else from my bourgeois Kindle. I could turn on the television, but that seems out-of-character. Are there still fascinating and strange things on television late at night?

Or "What's All This Then?" This blog exists to force myself to think through writing problems. In the past, when faced with a rusted-shut imagination, I'd step outside and have a cigarette. The chemical concoction, combined with a moment of solitary peace and metered breathing, would force my brain to focus and lubricate. Connections would be made. Ideas would stir up from the unconscious. The imagination would start spinning again. Alas, the physical consequences of this method are well known. It amounts to breaking a blockade by plowing the getaway car straight through the line of squad cars. Often, it works. But repetition is not advised.