maarmie's musings

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Visions of D.C...

I'm going to Washington, D.C., Thursday for eight days of drinking, eating, traipsing through museums, and, apparently, freezing my ass off. It's cold up there, folks. Time to drag out that coat I bought in Montreal.

I've been thinking of moving to a bigger city. I've narrowed it down to D.C., Philadelphia, Chicago, or Austin. I'm going to D.C. this week to see if it's a place I'd want to live. I was there last year for four days, but I was there on business, and I was drunk most of the time. It'll be different this time.

I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept waking up and hearing noises. I was cold. Congested. Couldn't get back to sleep. I remember a pretty good dream that I moved to D.C. and lived in this cool apartment/house kind of thing with a neat staircase up to a second floor and hardwood floors. There were lots of hot guys my age living in the neighborhood and in the same house (maybe more than one apartment in the same house), as I recall. That would be a nice change from Tallahassee where guys are either 20 or 60 or already married or not on the market for one reason or another.

So, D.C., we have a date. Let's see if you fit into my vision of my future.

The Quitter has Quit

Since Sunday at about 5 or 5:30 p.m., I've been a nonsmoker.

I've been sick. Some kind of lung/sinus kind of thing for more than a week now. Of course, I had continued smoking throughout the coughing fits and the three days off work. Just not as much. That's considered conscientious, right?

Wrong.

Sunday at about 5 p.m., I was sitting on my front porch smoking the second-to-the-last cigarette in my last pack of Marlboro Light 100s (box). It tasted like shit. My mouth tasted like shit. I started to feel queasy. I thought, "This will be my last cigarette."

But what about the lucky? I couldn't just abandon the fifth cigarette in the first row that I so diligently turned on its head pack after pack after godforsaken pack. On second thought, yes I could. I decided breaking my last lucky in my last pack of smokes was the luckiest thing I could ever do. I tossed it in the trash, put out my mostly-smoked cigarette and proceeded to vomit for about 10 minutes in the bathroom sink. Lovely feeling as snot shot out of every hole in my head and barely-chewed food from my recent dinner spewed from my stomach out of my mouth.

I haven't smoked since. I know it's only been 1.5 days or so, but I don't even want one. The only time I miss it is when I get in my car. Smoking is a necessity, after all, when one is behind the wheel.

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Words to Live By

Thirteen
from the Tao Te Ching

Accept disgrace willingly.
Accept misfortune as the human condition.

What do you mean by "Accept disgrace willingly"?
Accept being unimportant.
Do not be concerned with loss or gain.
This is called "accepting disgrace willingly."

What do you mean by "Accept misfortune as the human condition"?
Misfortune comes from having a body.
Without a body, how could there be misfortune?

Surrender yourself humbly; then you can be trusted to care for all things.
Love the world as your own self; then you can truly care for all things.