***BY THE WAY*** sorry that i have not posted anything new in the galleries. i will post new stuff when i have more material, and actual time to back-catalog everything!!! will let everyone know when this happens! *****THANKS!!!****

it has been about 3 weeks since i’ve quit smoking, and it has been a very strange time for me. with the assistance of the patch, i have managed to stay smoke-free for every single day since, except for one night when i was (too) drunk and got suckered into a menthol by a pretty girl. and while it is awesome that i have basically lost the urge to smoke, it has not been without its unpleasant side effects: bad skin, bad temper, moderate headaches, loss of sleep, and loss of focus.

the biggest one has been my loss of focus, concentration, and ultimately, motivation. ive been patching it since right before spring break, and since then, i have been practically dragging my knuckles to school, and always felt completely out of it. i just didnt ever know what to say whenever it came time to critique or offer my two cents about stuff, and i’ve been late on a couple of assignments already. it is even affecting the way i normally function and talk to people. sometimes ill forget what i was going to say mid-sentence, and as a result have been stumbling around like a child in the dark, dialogue-wise at least. i am just thankful that i have had a week off, not so much to relax, but really evaluate myself and figure out what the hell to do next so as not to tank the entire semester.

initially i was nervous about entertainting the idea of going off the patch, but then i realized that the patch itself has become almost a psychological crutch, that i was relying too much on this thing to get rid of cravings instead of really challenging myself and motivating myself to truly quit. the choice became easy after i talked to my mom about it one day, who merely gave me a bunch of support, and suggested that i start eating healthier, drink more tea, and take more vitamin B.

there are different things i can do in my life now to move forward without cigs, both long-term and short-term, but like my mother pointed out, while the patch was probably a good starting point, the ultimate oppurtunity cost doesnt really come in my favor if it is severely hampering my artistic endeavors.

another interesting aspect of my life that i have been dealing with since i decided to quit smoking is my concept of friendship. maybe it is just me dealing with a bunch of weird mood swings and my mind doing weird things to me, but i have felt out of synch with just about everybody for the last month. like, EVERYBODY. i cannot think of a single person who has not rubbed me the wrong way, either by doing something while we were hanging out, or by saying something, or by acting in a certain way. i just couldnt fucking relate to anybody 100%, not even my closest core group of friends. no offense, anybody. and i felt like i had all this emotion and all this stuff i wanted to express, but if i did, nobody would understand. i guess i have always felt this way, but with the quitting of smokes it has just magnified these emotions in both directions.

needless to say, while i have surrounded myself in friends and company i dont normally get to have on a regular basis, i was almost always someplace else in my head, somewhere between loneliness and the infinite melancholy. i really dont want to disrespect anybody, and i hope nobody feels personally singled out, i am not trying to be malicious or critical, it is just something that i am going through right now that i feel like nobody can really relate to.

i hope things get better. it is easy to say that it will, but making it happen is definitely going to take a lot of hard work.

-jon

March 24th, 2008 | friends, life, misc., relationships | 2 comments

when school started, i got really sick. in fact, i was sick the entire first week. i had stopped smoking, but had resumed before i fully healed. bad stuff. by the end of the month, not ONLY had it taken longer for me to recover from whatever it is i had, i was now smoking more cigarettes daily than i ever was before.

averaging about a half pack a day, i was now hovering into three quarters to a full pack, daily. if you asked me why, your guess would be as good as mine. eventually it was a rare occurance to see me at any given waking hour without at least 2 or 3 cigarettes sucked down. it was getting so bad to the point where even when i had left my cigarettes at home on purpose in an attempt to curb it while outdoors, i would go out and buy a pack. this happened every day for an entire weekend, and by the time the dust had settled, i had 5 packs of cigarettes at home, all consumed to various degrees. call it overindulgence. or sheer addictive stupidity.

luckily for me and everyone around me that cares, it wasnt crack, right? after that weekend, i really sat down and looked at the big picture for the first time in awhile. if i were to continue this, i would probably be dead before i hit 45, if im lucky. so after my last pack of marlboros (that i obliterated in about 13 hours or so), i hurried over to safeway, and picked up a box of nicoderm patches.

today is day 1, and i can happily say that these things do actually work. obviously it is a different-strokes-different-folks kind of deal, but for me personally i can already say that it is doing its job. my arm is a little bit sore and it feels a bit cold from where the patch is, which i found odd at first, but i got used to it pretty quickly.i have NOT had a craving all day, and i have NOT gotten that “edge” yet, that very tangible combination of impatience and irritability, like someone just poured broken glass into my bloodstream.

i have felt an odd calmness the entire afternoon. the booklet says that a side effect is vivid dreams if one wears it to bed, so i think i’ll give that a shot tonight. haha.  anyways, i figured if everyone knew, itd be a source of accountability. wish me luck!!!  —–jon

March 3rd, 2008 | life, misc. | 3 comments