Smokeless Day #2

I went 24 hours without a cigarette and smoked one.  Next goal:  48 hours.

The tremours and tics have mostly gone back down to normal (at least normal for me) levels.

Last night’s dreams were awful though.  I dreamed that I had a romantic relationship with my ex Nigel–not the bloody motherfucking asshole who recently broke my heart, but an old high school boyfriend I haven’t even thought about in months.  We were walking hand-in-hand from my apartment to Pop’s, an ice cream bar on my street in Roanoke, when a man leaving Spike’s, the bar next to it, pulled a gun on us, shouting, “Faggots!  Queers!  Everywhere I go; these fucking queers!” and shot us both, wounding me and killing him.  I woke up screaming and crying.

After I went back to sleep, it was the same story line—which was odd—but I was in court testifying over what happened and wept on the bench.  After I couldn’t stop crying the judge called me a, “blithering faggot,” and held me in contempt of court.  He then dropped the murderer’s charge to “voluntary manslaughter.”  Then I led a million-man march on Richmond to urge the inclusion of the LGBT community into Virginia hate crimes law.

This was the first dream I’ve had on the patch that wasn’t patently absurd—although the thought of me dating Nigel again is personally absurd, even though I do consider him a friend.  It could have only been made less horrifying if there was something absurdist about the dream… I don’t know… Sarah Palin shooting an octopus cannon at the march from a zeppelin or something.  And now that I wrote that, I guarantee she will at least have a balloon-oriented cameo in tonight’s 3-D IMAX mindfuck.

Nothing too interesting or entertaining to report, I’m afraid.  My last few posts garnered enough attention that I almost didn’t post an update today out of fear of boring/depressing my readers today… but liveblogging my recovery from addiction is something that helps me and I hope helps other quitters as well, so I’ll continue doing this as often as possible.

One helpful tip to fellow quitters:  As tempting as it may be, never sniff the back of a NicoDerm patch.  Shit stung my nose for five minutes after one short sniff.  The smell is comparable to a paper mill and the stinging comparable to a jellyfish… a jellyfish the size of Rhode Island who is currently PMSing inside of your nostril.  Don’t sniff the patch.