Monthly Archives: July 2013

I’m pretty sure it’s a demon wizard












Tips to Beat the Heat (To Death)

Curl up in the fetal position in front of a fan and sob.


Lose an obscene amount of weight so you have absolutely no body fat and are now one of those lollipop heads who wear fur coats in the summer.


Make an altar to the air conditioning gods and pray regularly that there are no rolling blackouts.


Drink alcohol until you can’t feel anything, even humidity.


Get nekkid. Stay nekkid until October.


Stick ice cubes down your pants by your no-no parts.


Cold (and heartless) turkey

Quitters get a bad reputation in American society. But I’ve always been a bit of a rebel (I totally cut off that tag from my mattress even though it explicitly states you shouldn’t cut it off under penalty of law…Ha Ha!).


After years of failed attempts, I have officially been smoke-free for two weeks. Yes, I haven’t had a cigarette in 14 days. Needless to say, I’m extremely proud of myself. I mean, that’s 336 hours without lighting up. That’s 20,160 minutes without that sweet, sweet smell of cigarette smoke surrounding me. That’s over one million agonizingly slow seconds that tick by so loud you can feel it in your very blood. Tick…Tick…Tick…


(Stuffs face with entire one pound bag of M&M’s).

OK. OK. Much better. Sorry about that. As I was saying, this is quite the accomplishment for me. I’ve been a smoker since I was a teenager, which I blame on coming of age in the 90’s, a decade where the only thing for young people to do was sit in a bowling alley and chain smoke while looking like what hopefully passed for jaded. Although sometimes we young people did switch it up and chain smoke at the mall while looking like what hopefully passed for disgusted at the mindless consumerism surrounding us.

But that was only on special occasions.

After college, smoking had become more than just a thing I did. It had become a regular part of my personality. And as I began my writing career, it became an integral part of my creative process. There’s nothing quite like typing away like a mad woman as a cigarette dangles out of your mouth, the smoke slowly coiling up, making you feel a connection to the writers of yore who also wrote with a cigarette dangling out of their mouth and suddenly you feel like Hemingway and glamorous and important but then you quit smoking and have to write without a cigarette and now every word sounds stupid and when you get writer’s block YOU JUST WANT TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN IF YOU DON’T GET A CIGARETTE RIGHT NOW!

(Gobbles down entire family-sized bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos, bag and all).

OK. Where was I? Ah, yes. How incredibly wonderful smoking is. I mean, how bad and horrible it is.


OK, OK, you caught me. It’s just the cost. I couldn’t care less about the other stuff. I’d gladly look 70 when I’m 40 and smoke in a dumpster since everywhere else is banned from smokers if a pack of cigarettes still costs two bucks.

But they don’t. They don’t cost even close to that anymore. Stupid anti-smoking zealots lobbying Congress to continually raise taxes on those sweet, sweet boxes of death that taste like rainbows and unicorns and are the only friends you can depend on AND FOR THE LOVE OF JOE CAMEL WILL SOMEONE GET ME A CIGARETTE BEFORE I SET FIRE TO THE NEXT PERSON WHO WALKS BY ME!?

(Inhales entire large sausage pizza and a gallon of ice cream).

Oopsie. Went off the rails again. Sorry.

But in all seriousness, I am glad that I have finally quit. It’s my first step to a healthier, longer life. And from what I’ve heard from other ex-smokers, it only gets easier with time.

So, who knows? Maybe here in a month or so I can finally leave my house again and interact with society without punching elderly women in the face (again, I’m so so sorry about that, Agnes).

And I can live a normal life that isn’t centered around being a slave to a substance that ultimately only decreases my quality of life.

Here’s to hoping.

(Opens fresh bag of Doritos).