Smoke diary

3rd october 02

It's been quite a big deal, my having given up smoking, and I have to
keep patting myself on the back, nauseating as that may seem.

2 months

I still get urges especially at night, the really painful daytime urges
are staunched by something fattening. A biscuit , cake or snickers bar.
Yes part of me overhangs but no-one would describe me as fat yet (with
clothes on) Naked ................ I'm not sure, I tend not to
look.

Like they said it would , food tastes so fucking good. Chocolate is
abominably sweet AND salty, and I hadn't realised. The plus side is
that however good the new flavour is, sooner or later I'm going to get
bored with the textures. My mouth gets sick of the munching. When I was
little I had a list of foods which I liked but only for a couple of
mouthfuls. On this list was pastry, mashed potato and sponge cake,
especially madeira.
When eating fruit, veg or meat it's possible for every mouthful to have
its own identity.
But potato in particular can be extremely monotonous.

Just as a fag tasted delicious upon being lit, during the first drag,
and then can become samey , so it's a relief to extinguish it.

And I get sick of wanting to temporarily fill the gap left by something
I never had but always wanted.
I can think back to being 11 . I was in school assembly. How I hated
that place. No seats, just standing up singing hymns, then sitting
crosslegged on the floor listening to the headmistresses twopenny
hapenny rubbish . I thought I saw her eyes skim across me and look sad,
disappointed. (Of course she would never have noticed me like this in
the crowd. Just a repressed first year held together by
hairgrips.

And I shuddered with the wanting. Wanting nothing but everything.
yo be loved and admired, to be invisible and unhassled, left
alone

to be needed and looked forward to, to be unappreciated so that nothing
is expected

to be away, anywhere new
sampling first time of everything
to be on holiday somewhere hot, but to be eighteen wearing all the best
clothes with nothing to be unconfident about

to be famous and to have no ambitions no dreams
to know true intimacy and to be able to kick it away violently at the
drop of a hat
to snap my fingers and get it back

So every cigarette I smoked over the last 30 years, promised and failed
to come up with the goods, to supply the excitement i needed.
Because?

Because I am always asking illogical questions which cannot be
truthfully answered.