This is a public service announcement

Smokers Cough

Splutter, weeze, retch, splutter, splutter, splutter....

Time to give up the menthols perhaps? I have to admit, as I type this I have a fag pinned inbetween my middle and forefinger. Yeah and I just coughed...

I have been talking to friends of mine who have recently given up the evil nicotine sticks- they keep telling me, 'honey, you won't quit until you REALLY want to!'. But I do, I seriously do......I kind of do....really......inhale, exhale, stress over.

At the moment due to major wallet malfunctions (i.e- zero money), I've had to smoke roll ups. There is something ritualistic about pulling out a rizla, neatly lining up my tobacco in the paper and just rolling. You anticipate the smoke, nicotine and all the glorious crap that goes into making a ciggarette filling your lungs....... A roll up isn't as instant a fix as a regular pack of smokes, you have to work for it. 'Work for it'? How ridiculous! How obscene! People who quit smoking have such backbone in them.

A morning ritual- heave body out of bed, wipe sleep from eyes, scan the room for lighter, fag, ashtray, light up...good morning. I actually enjoy it, fuck it, there I said it...I ACTUALLY ENJOY SMOKING. I am aware of the health implications and that my lungs are probablly held together by a mass of tar and crap- I say, reaching for another.....

I tried giving up the other week with C-Bird. We kept telling ourselves, 'we don't need one, we don't need one!!!' By the end of the day we were screaming the house down. Operation: Clean Lungs lasted one day and one night. Also it didn't help that in order to switch our brains off the nicotine we watched a docuamentary on the Manson Family. It's funny how a documentary about horrific mass murder makes you want to reach for a 20 pack... Next time I think we'll read a book instead.

X-Bird