Nicotine Withdrawal Will Turn You Into a Monster. A Sobbing, Screaming, Snotty, Raging Monster. Like the Krakken, But More Than That.

Today marks 4 weeks since I decided to stop being nicotine's bitch, and since my family is completely unaware that I've smoked for the last decade I can't really brag about this accomplishment to them. Yes, I'm 29 years old and I still hide shit from my mother. Don't pretend you don't do it, too, and if you don't, well aren't you just a paragon of maturity and also shut up.

I quit cold turkey, which seems to be the way to go, but that third day was...special. Very, very special. The best way to describe to you how special is to say that at some point I realized I was sobbing my guts out over pancake batter, and I still don't know exactly how I got there. My husband came into the kitchen to be supportive and I immediately went from suicidal, sobbing, blackout depression to a red rage that made me want to stab everything that ever was, ever.

I decided it was a good time to get out of the kitchen. Because that's where I keep the knives.


You will be happy to hear that I am still married and I did not actually stab anything. I may have THROWN something and I may or may not have had several conniption fits that would put even the worst behaved toddler to shame, but no one's dead. I'm calling it a win.

Wanna hear about different methods of drying your lumber? Because I know some.

Today I stood on top of a lumber mill (its really hot up there), inspected a rendering plant (reinforces vegetarianism), and inspected a wood chipping plant. This has become my regular routine. Get up at an un-godly hour (seriously, why has science not done something about mornings yet?), drive around in a big truck, put on hard hat and manly boots, stomp around somewhere kind of gross, drive big truck back to office, go home. I'm feeling a little...manly. Powerful? Strong? Interesting? Yes. Feminine? No. Maybe I'll start wearing expensive lingerie under my fire retardant coverall.

Anyhow. Last week my husband came home from work and told me that one of the women in his office was really excited to meet me. When I asked why, he said he didn't know,she just said she was really excited to meet his "little wife".

She's clearly expecting to meet Donna Reed. I'm a little more...who was a wife who had a more masculine job than her husband and didn't clean the house wearing high heels? I'm drawing a blank. Jennifer Beals in Flashdance, except married and without the dancing thing, maybe.

I Actual Do Feel Kind of Sorry for Mr. Camping

I was going to live blog the rapture. Unfortunately, I had to lay around my house all day until like 5 when I realized we had to be at a graduation party at 6. So never mind. But here's how it probably would have gone:

5 pm. Waiting. I'm not sure what for. How will I know if it happens? We've already had a ton of flooding and earthquakes around here, that's probably not a reliable indicator. Who can I be on the phone with so if they disappear I'll know? I...don't think I know anyone like that.

5:15 pm. Nothing's happening here. Let's check the news for the east coast.

5:20 pm. Probably don't want to be on the road at 6...or on a plane. I bet it would be an awesome day to be a Christian magician, though. You would really disappear! Of course, you wouldn't be around to appreciate that so...maybe not.

5:22 pm. Some of these people are going to be in trouble if the end doesn't come. Some of these people gave away like all their money and stuff. Do you think they'll realize dude was wrong? Or will they think they got left behind? Maybe it will totally ruin their faith in God. This whole predicting the rapture thing seems pretty cruel, when you get right down to it.

5:23 pm. This is kind of boring me now.

5:24 pm. I wonder what happens to people's pets?

5:35 pm. Do you think I could just have someone's house or car after they're gone? I mean, is that stealing do you think? And does it really matter if I'm still here?

5:45 pm. Bored again. At least most of the tv shows I watch and musicians I listen to and authors I read will probably still be here.

6:10 pm. Life is pretty much still the same as it was before. I'm thinking there weren't as many actual Christians as people had always assumed.

29th Birthdays are Such a Cliche. Everyone Turns 29...OK, I Mean, Obviously, but...You Know What I Mean

First thing on Thursday morning (which was my 29th birthday. The first one) I received an e-mail from a friend. The e-mail contained pictures from a joint birthday party four years ago. In one photo I look like that chubby mouse in Cinderella. In another I look like a mentally challenged zombie, and in yet another I look like a pox addled donkey with a lazy eye. I think her intentions were good. On the other hand, it could be passive-aggressive shorthand for "You never call, you never write. And after all I do for you."


Cinderelly! Cinderelly!

I like to embarrass myself on my birthday...it keeps me humble-ish.

My mom called to tell my happy birthday of course. We had the following conversation:

Mom: 29 years ago today I hadn't met you yet, but I got a phone call telling me you were born. I loved you before I even met you. I even loved you all those long months when you wouldn't sleep because of colic and all the years after that you refused to sleep at night or nap in the afternoon.

Me: Thanks, Mom, I love you too. And if you had let me stay up at least one night you probably never would have had trouble getting me to go to sleep again. I was thoroughly convinced you were waiting for me to go to sleep to have a lot of awesome fun.

Mom: I guess if your idea of awesome was watching Dallas and going to bed early, alone, then, yeah, it was awesome.

My mom has her issues, but sometimes you can see where I get my personality from.

My husband gave me the gift of wisdom in addition to the more important material gifts. One of which was wrapped in Christmas paper. The wisdom was this: Don't worry about it. You've been middle aged since you were 26 anyway.

It's okay. He was middle aged first. Although he likes to remind me that no matter wrinkled and craggy and gray he gets, people will describe him as rugged and/or distinguished. And no matter how awesome I look at 40, people will still describe me as old. There is a reason men have shorter life spans than women. The statement itself for one thing, but also the fact that he's probably right.

The dogs also got me a present. It is a dead bird. The pinhead caught it herself, and then they mangled it up really nicely before giving it to me. That's the fourth one this month. I think the birds are starting to give me the stink eye. If they start flinging themselves at the window and dive bombing me, I'm totally giving the dogs to them as an appeasatory sacrifice. Birds are fucking creepy y'all.

Indulge me and pretend you noticed I haven't been here, 'kay? 'Kay.

So I'm very busy running all over the state in a hard hat and steel toe boots totally bringing sexy back while ensuring the continued breathability of air in the state. I have restricted internet access for the first time in my working life, so I keep meaning to blog and then...not blogging. I realize that approximately two people actually give a shit, but I am kind of a big deal in my own mind. Might as well be, since I'm under no illusions about my big dealness outside of my own mind.

Anyway, I have nothing truly interesting to report. I'm learning a new job and helping my elderly great aunt put on a yard sale and playing with the dogs and trying to survive stormpocalypse with the tornadoes and the straight line winds and the baseball sized hail what the hell. Also I turn 29 in a couple weeks and I'm fighting the urge to buy Ben Gay while watching Murder She Wrote and reminiscing about the days when gasoline cost like 5 cents a gallon.

I have learned something in the past month or so though about myself. I thought my only superpowers were the powers of Finding Things and Finding Help in Lowe's and Best Buy. Turns out I have another one. I am...the Anti-Drama. Wherever I work interpersonal drama decreases, uh, dramatically. And when I leave that place, the drama once again rises to its previous levels. I feel I should be able to make money off of this, but no one's buying it yet.

Oh! Yeah! P.S. going back to the hard hat and the boots...I have to wear jeans most of the time now. This pisses me off. I have what is affectionately known as an athletic body. So jeans are always like way enormous in the waist, about right in the ass, and tight in the thighular area. What the fuck? I am truly not curvy at all. I am curvy like stick figures are curvy. So who the hell out there has a waist approximately the same size as their ass and bigger than their hips and thighs? What kind of crack do the people who make jeans smoke?

Sayonara, Suckers

My cubicle is pretty much empty, I have tied up all the possible loose ends, and I have absolutely nothing to do. Do not ask me why I didn't just take a vacation day (since they don't pay for unused vacation days when I leave and I have like, 50+ hours of vacation time accrued that is basically being flushed down the toilet). I think I might be a special kind of masochist.

There are some things I will miss. For example, the family atmosphere. Even if it is one of those families where they constantly take advantage of you because "its family" and no one really ever takes you seriously because no one will ever forget that time when you were five and you bobbed for apples in the toilet.

I will miss the free soda. On the other hand, it's probably not healthy to drink 5 Diet Dr. Peppers in a day, especially when you have an anxiety disorder and tend to react to caffeine like a crack addled squirrel on a meth binge.

I will miss Super Dave, the office superhero, who saves the day through amazing feats like answering the phone. And signing for FedEx packages. I really should have gotten him a cape as a parting gift.

I will miss Mountain Man who always talks about how much pot he smoked over the weekend and the Widespread Panic shows he has seen. He was always good for a decent bitch session considering he's the only other person in the office who did not vote for George W. Bush even once (let alone twice) and who doesn't think voting for O'Bama made me an America hating commie who eats babies.

I won't miss having to answer the phone. I definitely won't miss conversations like this one:

Good Ol' Boy: Hey, honey, listen. I need you to change the language in this assessment so we don't look like we polluted the site, even though we did.

Me: No, I cannot just say that everything was fine and I didn't see any problems. There's a 2 mile oil stain on your property.

Good Ol' Boy: Well, darlin', can't you just mention that but not make a big deal out of it?

Me:...

I won't miss the attitude that I must automatically be better at making copies because I have female reproductive organs.

I won't miss having my concentration broken in the middle of a big project because some of the bosses don't understand how to print their own e-mails. Or how to put a piece of paper in a file that is sitting right in front of them. Or how to add extra lines to their spreadsheets.

I'm ready to start my new job as an Air Inspector. There is something refreshingly bizarre about that title. I will be the best inspector they ever had. I will be like Inspector Gadget without the wheelie feet. I do have freakishly long arms that might serve as the go-go-gadget-arms. Do-do-do-doo-do Inspector Gadget duh duh duh duh du-duh du-duh. Whatever. I'm not...music-y.

Exciting! Adventures!! Now with TOOTHPASTE!!!

No habla English.

First thing this morning (and I mean, literally, ALMOST THE VERY FIRST THING I DID) I found myself chasing the little fat Lucifer seedlet we call our second dog down the street in my pajamas. And bare feet. With my toothbrush hanging out of my mouth.

I learned two things this morning:

1. Evil apparently gives you the power to dislocate and relocate all your bones. Or liquefy them. Or something. It is the only explanation for how a 30 pound dog with a body like a wood barrel managed to squeeze herself through an opening smaller than the width of my hand.

2. The little shithead can run. I have NEVER seen this dog run in the almost 4 years we have had her. Everyone in my house has tried to make this dog run: me, my husband, the GOOD DOG. And we all get the same reaction. She sits down (or sometimes LAYS down), cocks her head to the side, and stares with this completely baffled expression, like she can't understand what we are doing or why anyone would even WANT to. There are several reasons her nickname is 'Lurch' and that is one of them (another reason is that when she wants to wake me up she will STARE intently at me. If that doesn't work she commences CPR, but you'd be surprised how often the intense stare of intensity haw woken me at 3 a.m., only to discover the dog hovering over me and staring). This morning, as she burst through the front door, flew off the porch, and bounded almost gracefully away you could almost hear the opening chords to Born Free underneath the chorus of my cursing and my husband shouting "No! Come back!" You can tell which one of us is more useful in a crisis. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure she answers to "Shit! Fuck! Damn it!" about as well as she does to her name.

Watching my husband chase our portly, clumsy hell dog through every yard in the neighborhood in his suit and tie and fancy shoes and not being able to catch her was almost funny enough to be worth it. But probably not worth all of the neighbors seeing my in my pajamas, foaming at the mouth from toothpaste.