Four Things Week Three

     I have been attempting to write this for the past couple of days, but I wanted to tie up the loose strings before writing about these things.  For instance you can probably already see by the first header that I have quit smoking in the past week.  I didn't want to say I had done that only to re neg on it a couple of days later.  I had to make sure that it would stick.  To be honest I probably would have kept you waiting if it hadn't have been for Kelli's glowing review of this Four Things series.  I would like to thank her publicly by stating that she is the best writer I know, with a talent that usurps mine greatly.  She is also probably nicer than I am, and is always willing to be the only other person I know that is willing to order more than one desert with me.  If you have never read her blog I couldn't possibly tell you in under three thousand words how fantastic it is, so go and find out for yourself.

This week I quit smoking.

     I should start this out by saying that I have an addictive personality.  If I find myself liking something, I can't ever seem to get enough of whatever that something may be.  If I like a sandwich at Quiznos I'll eat it every day for a week, for lunch (In case you were wondering my sandwich of choice is always a Chicken Carbonara on Rosemary Parmesan bread with extra jalapenos).  If I think a person is funny, I'll call them every single day and talk to them for hours at a time.  I can never seem to get enough of the things I like.  I guess what I'm saying is that I would make a good junkie.  I can honestly see myself with dark circles under my eyes, sweaty and even paler than I already am, just looking for my next fix.  I guess that's why I've never been much of a drinker, I've always assumed that if I have more than a couple of sips, I'd be dead within a week, my liver in shambles.

     It's just that I have always been too willing to give myself up to something, anything for a little bit of satisfaction.  I realize that with some things like my Quiznos obsession the only thing in danger is the credit limit on my Old Navy credit card because I will eventually have to start buying new clothes to accommodate my expanding waistline.  Though sometimes my addictions are more reckless.  I should have known better than to ever start smoking.  I could chalk it up to the indiscretions of my youth, or that when I took my first drag I was in a horrible period of my life, or that I was surrounding myself with the worst kinds of people.  Those things all have some semblance of truth to them, but they're not the whole story.  Sometimes I think I just wanted to do something bad for the first time in my life.  Do something that people wouldn't' be happy about, do something that made me stand out for once.  I'm not saying that it's good reasoning, because it is not.

    I've been smoking since I was nineteen, I am twenty four now, for those who are as mathematically challenged as I am that totals to five years (I had to count on my fingers twice to figure that out).  Five years that I willingly did something I knew was wrong.  God, am I starting to sound like an anti smoking PSA?  That was not at all my intentions.  I'm starting to believe that quitting is taking away my sense of humor, I hope that's not true.  Last week I bought my last pack of Marlboro Menthol one hundreds, and bought my first pack of NicoDerm CQs.  When I put the first tan colored patch upon my forearm, I felt an immense sense of relief.  And even though the patch stands out awkwardly among my pale skin, I'm okay with that.  I keep telling everyone it's my Ortho Evra birth control patch, which is a huge blow to those people who are trying to inseminate me, I'm sure.  Though, I like the patches because they  make me not have any cravings at all.  Though breaking the habit of driving around listening to dumb music and smoking, is going to be a bitch.

This week I traded one addiction for another.

     I've always heard that the second you stop smoking you are sure to gain thirty seven pounds of your dignity back.  I guess I am doing my part to keep that truth alive.  Within seconds of smoking my last cigarette I quickly found solace in a bag of goldfish,  followed by a six pack of twenty ounce mountain dews, and chased them with an entire bag of cherry flavored pull and peel Twizzlers.  I love Twizzler's, they are God's perfect food.  They are sweet, and chewy, and taste like home; if you happen to live in a dirty movie theater that is.  In fact I think it's possible that in the past seven days I have consumed the world's supply of Twizzlers.  There are no Twizzler's left for the children of the world, unless of course they're looking for the black ones which I'm sure they'll find in droves because no one wants them--they're disgusting.

    I'd like to say that I am attempting to counteract this sudden binge of carbo-loading, but instead I'm just going to let it play out.  I guess I could try to eat sensibly and maybe try to figure out exactly what pilates entails, but instead I think I'll go the opposite direction.  No, instead I am going to eat whatever the hell I feel like and pray that I don't get crazy fat.  As everyone knows crazy fat is the exact weight you must reach to be considered for a job in postal service.  All postal workers I've ever seen are crazy fat individuals, not that I think there's anything wrong with the postal service or anything.  I'm just not sure I'm organized enough to be considered for it.

This week I had the craziest dreams.

    On the box of nicotine patches there is a warning that states that the wearing of said patches overnight might result in vivid dreams.  They were not lying.  The first couple of nights I wore the patch to bed without much concern of the consequences.  I made the wrong decision. I did not sleep for three nights straight due to the ridiculous dreams I was waking up from every fifteen minutes.  I am well aware that there is nothing in this world that is less interesting than having to listen to someone talk about their own dreams.  Trust me I know, I used to know this guy who was constantly walking up to me and asking me to talk about his dreams with him, this guy was the worst.  Though his dreams were not at all as interesting as mine.  Let me walk you through a couple of the scenarios that I remember.

     Scenario One: I had a dream the first night that my friends Bryant and Kelli asked me to accompany them on a trip to Oklahoma, the journey was made my train. On the voyage Kelli who is not narcissistic in the slightest, would not stop talking about her own hair.  Bryant did the only normal thing in the entire dream, and did what he always does and talked about electronics he wanted to purchase.  Once we arrived in the great state of Oklahoma, Bryant quickly informed me that he was ready for me to leave.  I was somehow transported back to Louisiana, and I cried about never getting to see Oklahoma whilst baking the most bizarre apple pie I've ever seen. 

     Scenario Two:  I was on some kind of covert mission with a guy who I guess was supposed to be my brother, when in reality I don't even have a brother.    My fictitious brother and I were both proficient with firearms (in reality I've never even held a gun).  We broke into a stranger's home where an overweight teenage prostitute resided.  We ran out of bullets, and the whore's father told us that we could steal some from the local Walgreen's (Sadly, Walgreen's is part of my reality).  The dream ended when me and my partner left the house and entered into a lobby where someone shot us (If this was reality, I'm pretty sure my last words right now would be "Twizzlers").

    See?  Even people on high quality pharmaceuticals don't have dreams like that.  That is ridiculous.  Remind me to never quit smoking again. 

 This week I bought some goldfish.

     I'm finally going to talk about something that except for the twenty three words in this sentence has nothing to do with smoking.  For the past few months I've been having this fantasy about owning goldfish.  I'm not sure why, because I'm not even a huge fan of fish.  In fact I don't really like animals other than dogs.   I hate cats, reptiles, and rodents, parrots are okay. Though,  I would be perfectly happy to have as many as seventeen dogs, eighteen would be enough to have someone call animal control on me, but seventeen would be perfect.  Though for some reason I've been wanting to own a goldfish really badly.  I don't even have a great track record in fish ownership, as the only marine life I've ever been responsible for has met an untimely death.  I once had a Betta fish named Jalapeno, and he met his fate early on when I completely forgot he existed and forgot to feed him for two weeks.  I also once purchased a pair of fish for my Grandmother that I had named Rizzo and Kenickie (from Grease fame), who died in a matter of weeks.  Though I had nothing to do with their demise, I still feel guilty about it.  I also once killed an entire colony of Sea Monkeys by accidentally dumping them all over my bedroom floor.  So I guess you could say that I might not ever foray into the world of marine biology.  Although, I do think it would be fun to run an aquarium, only so that I could sneak behind children who were viewing the shark tank, and scream loudly in their ears so as to make them pee themselves.  Because if R. Kelly taught us anything it is that urine be funny.   

   
     I guess the point of all this is to say that this fantasy has been fulfilled  I purchased these last weekend, and surprisingly they are alive.  I have no clue as to what sex they are, but I'm just assuming that they are male and female, and are of course in love.  I was originally going to name them Queen Latifah and Tupac Shakur because my coworker told me that she believes I have a blackocity higher than most white people she knows.  I wanted to name them after two great African American's as to benefit our community.  Though, I ultimately decided to go back to my roots and to name them after two Southern deities: Paula Deen and Conway Twitty.  Paula is a boisterous cow of a goldfish, and is constantly mixing foodstuff with her bare hands, bawdy rings on every finger.  Conway is a womanizing alcoholic, who enjoys guitar strumming and harmonizing.