The 13th Apostol

Chantix Day 8...What The Hell Is WRONG With Me?

Soooo, WHEN am I going to even slow down?
Am I smoking simply because I shoud'nt be?

Little damn wildcat.

Maybe I don't want to quit? Maybe I can't imagine life with or without smoking?

MAYBE...it really is a spiritual malady.

Time for THIS addict to start praying her ass off.

I'm powerless over smoking, and my life has become unmanageable.

Twenty Six Years of Smoking...(Chantix Day 7)

I changed my quit date to July 3rd...or 4th, ya know Independence Day!
Ok, so I'm not ready, and that's all right.
The only place I seem to finish a cig, is right here at "my lover", while I'm writing or surfing.
Otherwise I can't smoke a whole short. Crazy that my "Trigger" is "My Lover"

The rain isn't helping.
Forty days and forty nights in the bible belt...Oh yeah.

Smoking and Signing (not the deaf kind)

I'm smoking my rear end off...(hey, that's an idea!)

Really difficult day with the cigs, and um, OTHER things.
Oh yeah, I signed a contract on The Bunker today.

I must be the only parent alive who sold their kid on a house by saying "But Al, it's tornado proof dude!"

Chantix (Day 6)

Choo Choooo...chuga, chuga, chuga, chuga, Choo Choooo!

WTF?

Chantix update (Day 4)

There was a moment or two over the past two days, when smoking disgusted me...just for a moment though.

Yesterday afternoon I became so sick to my stomach, that Al looked at me laying on the couch and RAN to get a pan. Good boy.

No barfing, but boy, one wrong tilt of the head, and 16 oz of coffee with Coconut Cream coffee mate, would've made a lasting impression on the couch.

I dozed off, and when I came to an hour later the nausea was subsiding.
I think maybe the side effects make you want to quit even more, not to mention the sporadic aversion to cigarettes themselves.

Never in a million years would I have thought cigs would seem repulsive to me.
Like I said though, it's momentary at best.

Once it passes, I'm right back to workin' on the chain gang.

Of note: A  special thanks to the other "Quitting" Bloggers for stopping by, I'm having some trouble posting comments on Blogger.

Wi, Woo, Whatever...I'm a Failure (Day 4 Chantix)

Times like these it totally sucks to be alone in the world.

I have no way to do anything for Al's 9th Birthday in August.
Every dime I have is tied up in buying a house.
I'm struggling to pay my bills, some of which are still out.

It's breaking my heart, and keeping me up at night.
The only thing I could sell is my bike, which cost me a fortune, but leaves me with no bike to ride with Al. Something he loves to do.

All he wants is a damn wii, Wii, woo, whatever they are.

I will not go into how much I completely hate Al's father, oh no. Or his extended worthless family, not now.

Or how my family self destructed by the time I was 30...nope, wont go there.

Eh, hem...

No child should worry about a Birthday, I speak from experience here. Birthdays are things to look forward to when your a kid, right?

When you can't make your child's dream a reality, it hurts like hell.

When every religious fruitcake you know, thinks children should not be "Spoiled"...makes you want to ask them how well that practice worked for them.

Crappy rain.

OKC's 20th Annual Pride Parade! (Chantix day 2)

Today commemorates the 20th anniversary of OKC's Gay Pride Parade .
Last years attendance skyrocketed to over 10,000, a far cry from my first parade back in 1996. I've only missed one parade since, due to my baby shower for Al being thrown the same day.

Usually First Unitarian has a float and marchers, and usually Al is on that float, but I haven't heard much talk about it this year.

I remember when Al was maybe three, we rode the float and Al fell in love with large crowds. He thought they were all cheering for him, maybe they were.

On the float route at one point, a very pleasant Southern Baptist individual in the crowd, yelled "You'll burn in Hell for having that baby out here! Repent sinner, repent!"

Her face was all distorted with a menacing scowl. And she'd been screaming so much, her voice was harsh and raspy. She and the group she was with, all donned t-shirts that read "God hates Queers" hand written in black sharpie.

I quickly focused Al's attention on "Mr. Leather Oklahoma" riding the float in front of ours.

You really have to be careful at events like Pride Parades...you never know what your child will be exposed to. 

Day 1 on Chantix (still ingesting nicotine)

Got quite a response from tagging yesterdays post with "Chantix". I'm grateful for the support, and backatcha's....no, that's not all I'm going to write about for the next 12 weeks.
I'll also write about how gigantic my ass has become sitting in front of this monitor for the last six months. I'm bigger than I've been in four years, and it's a direct result of lifestyle choices.

This computer has done what television did in the 70's, once every household had one, we became collectively, a sedentary society. Fast forward thirty plus years and were in the same boat, only the current boat has GPS.

I can sit in front of this monitor, aka "My Lover", and travel the world but never move an inch. I have the occasional bad habit of not getting up to go pee when I have the urge. This isn't a smart idea at my age (the menopausal thing), because by the time I'm up and headed to the bathroom, my blad ---what in the hell am I writing about?

I didn't read "incessant rambling at the keyboard" listed under SIDE EFFECTS...I was here, then I wasn't. How strange.
Let's redirect, shall we?

Spent the day at the pool instead of sorting or packing, but this kept my smoking down to only 4 cigarettes in a three hour period.  Course the minute we left th pool, I became Big Rig Mary, and started smoking like I had an over-night haul from Jersey to Amarillo.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Chantix, Turn and Face The Strain...

Today...I got my script of Chantix filled.
Sweet Holy Mother of Dean Martin, what have I done?
I love my cigarettes so much...why, why would I do this to my one and only truest, dearest, friend? This is the longest relationship I've ever had, me and my cigs.

Twenty-six-year-old love affair.
26. That's an accurate figure, I'm not just being my overly dramatic Greek self.
26, wow.
That's an incredibly long time to smoke 2 pks a day.
I'm currently spending over $300 a month on this addiction.

I recall when the media first started talking about smokes getting ready to hit a buck a pack, how I swore I'd quit before I paid one entire dollar for a pack of cigarettes.
I was into Cher back then, and Bette Midler had just released "The Rose"...so how serious could my young consumerist threats have been?
That's how I know who Dean Martin is...I'm old. Anyway...

I still love my cigs, but the consequences are out weighing the love, if you will.
I seriously tried to quit one time. One time in 26 years. Crazy. I was in the hospital for a week, and the Dr. put me on the patch. But when I got out and bought a box, (it was the middle of summer) they wouldn't stay on. The nicotine patches kept falling off because of the heat, (sweating) so I taped them on, but they still fell off.

Then I used some special medical supply tape, then packing tape, duct tape, a hot glue gun, a staple gun, nail gun, and finally I used a blow torch...to light a cigarette.

Hang on...
I'm back.
I have to log every cigarette I smoke for the next 24 hours, per daily assignment on the "GETQUIT" support plan. I'll have writer's cramp by noon tomorrow.
Officially, I don't start until tomorrow morning, when I take the first pill.

The instructions say keep on smoking like normal, but set a quit day seven days after the first pill.

Hang on...
I'm back.

They send you daily email support, tapering off to once a month near the end of the year-long-plan.

I'd love some feedback. If you know anyone who's taken Chantix, successfully or otherwise, let me know. Hang on...

I'm back.

Of course I want to quit for more than the financial aspects, more than just for Al, there's a mile long list of reasons to quit, the problems been the physical cravings, and spiritual malady. i.e. why I do it, the feelings it numbs, what will take it's place?

It's unavoidable step work, if I want to feel the sunlight of the spirit once again.

Working Through the Grieving Process

I haven't started packing anything. It's impossible to pack a house when you don't know where your going or when.
Trying to leave the place "put together" so it can be shown, which hasn't been often thus far. When I start to break down a house in preparation for a move, it usually resembles a tornadic event of f3 or higher.

They've only shown the place 3 or 4 times total. She's asking too much in my opinion. If I was spending 125K on a house, I wouldn't want to have the added financial burden of having to replace all the windows. Huge turn off.

It's not the same style of the other houses on the block, so it sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison.

See that window in front of my Pathfinder? That's my office. I love my office, and will miss it dearly. It has everything I've ever needed. It's perfect.
I'm so grateful we got to live here for the last year, it put me in a different mind set.
One I don't want to lose by living in the hood. That's why I'm trying to buy a concrete house right here in Mayfair Heights, so I don't have to don that mental armor again.

All I really need to be happy, is a room of my own (view is negotiable) and a place to create with my child.

These are what the other houses on the block look like. Very Colonial, well coiffed lawns. The legendary style Mayfair Heights is famous for.

The one to the right sold for $110K a little over a year ago. It's gorgeous inside.

Maybe she'll get what she's asking, or maybe it will sit here for months after I move, until she drops her asking.

Honestly, and I've said this before at some point, but had I been pre approved for $125K, I don't know if I'd have bought it. Not with what $125K could buy me elsewhere.

What a load of bullshit that is, of course I'd buy the house.
But I know the neighborhood, know how great it is living here. Potential buyers do not. I wish I could tell buyers how enchanting this place is. If I was selling it, I'd have sold it by now.

I just hope very cool people (with kids) buy it, so my very cool neighbors will have new very cool neighbors to take our place.   

 

I'll Take Some Cheese With That...

I should be writing down all I'm feeling, it hurts so much.
To be going through this all over again with having to move, trying to buy, dealing with an unpleasant Landlord. I have so much piling up around me I can't breathe.

I get this letter yesterday from the owner of the house were living in. The Landlord/Attorney, who wrote into the lease at the last minute, that if the house sold we had to move.
That's what it comes down to.

I'm doing the very fucking best I can, raising Al by myself, I'm fighting every day for a little bit of sanity, trying to get us someplace we NEVER have to go through this again.
She can GIVE me 30 days, but I wont have the money to move until August when the lease expires.

What makes people so mean? So selfish, so cold? Al has observed all of this over the last few years. What's it taught him? I can't imagine treating others some of the ways I've been treated. It doesn't even enter my mind to harm another for self gain. It's WRONG, and the consequences long term are too self destructive.

Thinking...about packing up my house again, just one year later, going where? Losing "My Space" that I finally had, just a little room with a view, to move where?

Thinking...about Al's Birthday in August, and how there wont be any fucking money.

Thinking...about how bad things have to be before they get better.

Thinking...about how all I want to do is write, write, write.

Why am I alone? What part of me causes that denial of companionship? Reading Chelsea, seeing their love. Knowing they have each other keeps them going when things get crazy.

Maybe, after so many years alone, I'm finally ready to let another into my heart... It's the only part that isn't sagging.

What I wrote one year ago.

Green Blogging?

For those of you anxiously awaiting my nominations for "Thinking Blogger", it ain't happnin' baby.

Not until SOMEONE can explain to me what an algorithm is, anyway.

I refuse to be a part of breaking the Internet. Not gonna do it, I'm an Internet hugger for Christ's sake. I had my post all ready to publish, had my little list of "Thinking Bloggers"...when all of a sudden my gut said "Whoa little I.P. Doggies, why am I linking back to this dude?"

Call it paranoia in my old age, call it, I ran out of Zoloft on Saturday, call it Al has been out of school now for TWO WEEKS, call it what you will, but a more thorough investigation is needed.

Soooo?

Grrrrr...Aarf, aarf, aarf!

I Think, Therefore I Blog

So I get this comment yesterday from Lori G. over at Bead Nerd, and she's all like "Did you get my email saying you'd been nominated as a Thinking Blogger?"

WTF is a thinking blogger, and who is Lori G?

It was time to investigate, to leave my cocoon of self absorption, and click, click, click my way into the world of The Thinking Bloggers. Since now apparently, I are one.

I'm such a rotten, don't-play-by-the-rules blogger, I can't imagine anyone nominating me for anything. Except maybe, the afore.
What can I say, this Lori G. character got to my ego. My psychotic, medicated banter actually engages her. (plus she has some reeeally cool beads)
That's the word she used ENGAGES. I'm not fabricating this, I'll show you here in a minute.
I never post regularly since I got the melancholia. Are there others of you out there waiting, hoping I'll have posted? Or is Miss G. the only one?

I should take more pictures.
I should read other blogs.
I should get a hobby (besides the pharmaceutical kind)
I should quit church hopping.
I should...buy a concrete house, that's what I should do.
A nice quiet, solid place where I can...think.

Now that I've thought about it, here's the deal:
I have to nominate five other bloggers who make me think. Right.

So the little girl who lives in the neighborhood who's parents knock the shit out of her...got a puppy. And guess what I'm watching her do to that puppy right this minute?

Thinking is dangerous for someone like me.

Check out Lori G over at The Bead Nerd , then follow this link here to find out what all this Stinking Thinking is about.

Mer-boy gets 2nd Degree Burns While Mom Dozes

First day at the good old "Aquatic Center"...this is where we live during the heat bearing months of summer in Oklahoma.

Please forgive the camera angle of the womans legs in the green polka dot bikini. She just wandered up and demanded to lay down on my chaise and use my phone...I was completely unaware of the picture of HER LEGS until I dumped the images this morning.

Damn pool hussies.

Casa de Bunker

i DON'T WRITE POSTS, i JUST PLAGIARIZE FR...how bout that caps lock huh?
I just plagiarize from Facebook.
I can't think anymore, the long lost ability to formulate written word to comprehend (see?)
Combined with Mer-boy being out of school for summer, at an age when NOTHING is right. I simply can do nothing to please his majesty The Mer. Life itself is hideously unfair.
Wasn't this supposed to start when they were teenagers?
He turns nine in August people.

My Realtor will make an offer on a house for me tomorrow. The anxiety is perhaps more than I can stand. The house was literally dropped in my lap, on the way to sign a contract on another property.

The house, if one can call it a house, is more like, well...a bunker.
A concrete bunker (w/ central heat and air).
Not just the external walls either, but the inner dividing walls are concrete.
Foot thick, steel reinforced, poured concrete...walls.
In a concrete house.
Even the roof, is concrete. Flat, concrete...roof.
On a concrete house.
The garage, you guessed it...concrete.

On the outside it appears to be your everyday, run-of-the-mill, contemporary home.
My limited knowledge of the property and it's owners, tells me it was planned that way. The house was meant as a fortress, right down to the facade of a chimney one could take aim, and cover from at the same time.

Built by a wealthy Oklahoma oil man directly preceding "The Bay of Pigs", nothing on the house has been updated or remodeled. (How?)
It has dark wood paneling throughout, is small and ugly as sin, but I'll be darned if it's not right here in our neighborhood at a price I can afford.

This may be the biggest mistake I've ever made my life...
but at least I wont ever have to worry about getting kicked out of this mistake.

You know you grew up in tornado alley if...

    You know you grew up in tornado alley if...

*The first thing you do if you hear tornado sirens during the day is check your
watch to see if it's noon.
*You don't get worried unless the sky looks "green".
*You use the word "tornado" as a verb.
*You chuckle at all the facebook groups called "I survived the ___ tornado."
*You might go indoors when there's a tornado, but you won't "seek shelter" for
anything less than an F3.
*You know what Doppler radar, Hook echo, wall cloud, and rain-wrapped all
mean.
*You've never exactly memorized the tornado precautions, but you've heard
them enough times that you know them by heart anyway.
*Watching the weather is entertaining. And red on the Doppler radar is exciting.
*The phrase "Tornado on the ground, take your immediate tornado precautions"
sends exciting shivers up your spine.
*You've seen photos/videos of tornados and said, "Wow, that's a nice one!"
*You can feel/smell tornado weather brewing a few hours before the storm
actually begins.
*There's an odd feeling as though you've misplaced something if you make it all
the way to June without a tornado warning near you.
*You think people that live in earthquake and/or hurricane prone areas are
crazy.
*You know what people are talking about when they mention the "May 3rd"
tornado.
*You watch the movie "Twister" just so you can point out all the inaccuracies in
it.
*You know your weathermen by their first names. i.e. Gary.
*When you hear the tornado sirens go off, you go outside to watch the storm
and take pictures.

* Most of the tornado video footage comes from everyday people with
camcorders instead of from actual news/weathermen.
*You're sure there's a giant tornado magnet hidden somewhere in Moore. And
that there are smaller ones distributed throughout trailer parks.
*You know that the four seasons are actually: summer, late summer, winter (if
you're lucky), and tornado.
*You don't consider it windy until the windspeed is faster than 30mph.
*You are highly entertained by people from outside tornado alley when there is
a tornado watch. (Especially if you're the one who's visiting the other state.)
*Your school has tornado drills. And you assumed that schools in every other
state had them as well.
*There's enough random stuff in your tornado shelter that you could live there
for a year.
*You stand under your carport or open your front door to watch hail and/or
thunderstorms.

* You know the difference between a basement, a cellar, and a storm shelter.
*The weather is a completely acceptable subject for conversation, at any time,
for any occasion.
*Your local mall has "tornado shelter" signs posted.
*It doesn't bother you the next day to find out that your area was under a
tornado watch the night before and you had no idea. Unless, of course, it
caused you to miss some interesting cloud formations.
*Getting to "play" in the basement/cellar/storm shelter excites you or numbers
among your favorite childhood memories.
*You keep matches, candles, and candleholders in more than one place in your
house.
*Your town will never get hit by a tornado because you're between two rivers or
because an old Indian legend says so.
*You complain about severe weather reports that interrupt the TV show you're
watching.
*You can get together all your most important possessions in 2 minutes flat.
*When tornado sirens woke you up in the middle of the night...you rolled over
and went back to sleep.
*You've ever tried to reassure someone by saying that "if anything forms it will
only be a little tornado"...and couldn't understand why this didn't calm them
down any.
*It's normal for your area to be under a tornado watch for multiple days in a
row.
*You laughed at everything in this list, but you also respect a tornado's power.
And you know that after it's over, clean-up and re-building has to begin.

Fear And Loathing in Mayfair Heights

I want a new blog - ity - blog, blog.

You Know You Are Greek If...

You know you are Greek if...

*You have at least one relative who wore a black dress every day for an entire year after a funeral... or their entire life!
*You spent your entire childhood thinking what you ate for lunch was pronounced "sangwich."
*Your family dog understood Greek.
*Every Sunday afternoon of your childhood was spent visiting papouli and yiayia or extended family.
*You've experienced the phenomena of 150 people fitting into 50 square feet of yard during a family cookout.
*You were surprised to discover the FDA recommends you eat three meals day, not seven.
*You thought killing the lamb each year and having feta, tzatziki and olives on your dinner table was absolutely normal.
*You grew up thinking no fruit or vegetable had a fixed price and that the price of everything was negotiable through haggling.
*You were as tall as yiayia by the age of seven.
*You thought nylons were supposed to be worn rolled to the ankles.
*Mamas main hobby is cleaning.
*You were surprised to find out that wine was actually sold in stores.
*You never knew what to expect when you opened the margarine, after all you thought washing out and reusing margarine containers was normal.
*You thought Orthodoxy was the only religion in the world.
*You thought every meal had to be eaten with a hunk of bread in your left hand.
*Yiayia never threw anything away, you thought seeing washed plastic bags hanging on the clothes line was normal.
*You learned to play tavli before you went to school.
*You have at least one relative who came over on the boat.
*You have relatives who aren't really your relatives.
*You drank wine before you were a teenager.
*You grew up in a house with a yard that didn't have one patch of dirt that didn't have a flower or a vegetable growing out of it.
*You thought that talking loud was normal.
*You thought everyone got pinched on the cheeks and money stuffed in their pockets by their relatives.
*Your mother is overly protective of the males in the family no matter what their age.
*There was an icon in every room of the house, including the bathroom.
*You wear or at least own a gold chunky bracelet.
*Garlic is considered a main meal.
*Olive oil is like a drug - you can't survive without it.
*You don't know half your relatives.
*You have a wedding at least twice a year.
*You or at least most of your uncles own a spit
*You consider soccer the eighth wonder of the world.
*Your cheeks receive their weekly work out every time you visit an aunt.
*Your last name ends with: opolous, os, as, or is
*Your last name consists of the entire alphabet
*When leaving a house, you stand at the front door for a half hour more and talk
*You arrive 2 hours late to a party and think that is normal
*Your church has a fully loaded bar
*No air conditioning is on at the house or you'll get sick... "regma"
*You only speak Greek at home
*You were forced to go to Greek school when you were little
*You use plastic grocery bags as garbage bags
*Your parents have never realized phone connections have gotten better in the last 20 years and still continue to scream on the phone when calling Greece
*You expect at least 600 people at your wedding
*Your 15 year old brother/sister can out drink ANY American guy
*Your only vacation is back to the homeland
*You tell your parents you're seeing someone and they start sending out wedding invitations.
*You're home an hour late and you're already listed as a missing person.
*You're Dad has those old Greek tapes in the car, and plays them on family drives. Especially in the vicinity of attractive members of the opposite sex.
*You break a leg, and yiayia thinks your life is over.
*You tell your parents you're having a party. They buy out the whole supermarket.
*It doesn't matter if people can't hear what you're talking about - you talk so much with your hands that people know what you're going on about anyway.
*You go to a wedding, and take a fancy to one of the guests. Later you discover that the guest is somehow related to you. =(
*You tell mama you're not hungry and she thinks you have an eating disorder.
*You can distinguish between kefalotiri and kefalograviera
*You're an adult and are forced to be with your family at 12 midnight on New Year's eve
*Your yiayia / mama / thia has a miracle cure for everything.
*If you're a girl, your mother still tries to put those pony tail holders with the BIG plastic balls on the end on your hair.
*If you're a guy, your mother still tries to make you wear that super frilly dress shirt with that huge bow tie, because it looked so cute when you were 7.
*Your mother or father still feels the need to tell you, "katse kala" in public
*You have been hit at some point with a pandofla
*You can dance kalamatiano, tsamiko, zembekiko without music
*You go to church picnics pretending you're there for reasons other than to check up / gossip about other Greeks
*You or a family member has been photographed with a donkey
*You have one or more of those porcelain figurines in your house or you have broken one of those porcelain figurines and mama still hasn't forgiven you for it
*Your parents make up the name of a street / store / TV show because they couldn't remember it or they couldn't pronounce it
*Upon meeting another Greek you try to find out what village they're from
*You or a family member wears their Sunday best to go grocery shopping
*You were spanked by your friend's parents because your parents gave them permission to
*You go to a wedding or a baptism and complain about the food, but are the first one to ask for a "to go" plate
*You know someone who always feels the need to point out how much something they bought costs
*You have a bottle of OUZO in your house right now
*Add aki to the end of any American word, and it becomes Greek
*Someone in your family owns any type of restaurant
*Your family inheritance includes olive trees and xorafyia
*Your entire house is a needlepoint warehouse...