It's Wiscpunk You Idiot

It's been a week and two days since I quit smoking. I walk at least three times per day from here at Zang & Davis down to Jefferson and back. I looked it up on google maps, and that is approximately a mile, I think. I have cut every bit of fat that I can out of my diet, and I take an aspirin every morning and separate the yolks from my eggs before making my morning omelet. I still haven't called a doctor. Frankly, I'm a tad scared of that, and I am resistant to spending the money, even though I have medical insurance. I read while I walk, so my walks are somewhat gentle. Even so, I sweat a great deal in the process and always feel better afterwards. I started this almost two weeks ago, and last Friday I had lost eight pounds when I weighed myself at the farm. I'll probably head out there tomorrow evening as well and check my weight once more to see if there's any more tangible evidence of progress in that regard. I still get some of that dull ache in my chest and my left arm, but I'm noticing improvement.

I'm reading a good deal more now. I just finished Jim Harrison's "True North" yesterday, and this morning I started reading Balzac's "The Wild Ass's Skin". I made the mistake of looking up the book online before I began reading, so I more or less know how it ends. It is, however, one of those books that makes me want to carry a pen with me so I can underline passages, write in the margins and otherwise tear it up in the process of owning it. That is my nature with books. Few of the paperbacks I read are suitable for much after I'm done with them. My copy of Stendahl's "Charterhouse of Parma" is held together by rubber bands somewhere.

I'm writing again, but everything is a jumble at the moment. I have several Word documents on both my computers at home and work that contain nothing but digitally scribbled notes and ideas that surface and give the vague notion of a greater substance in the depths beneath that remains hidden. If nothing ever comes from any of that, I still enjoy that process.

I had thoughts the other day about being celibate and avoiding emotional entanglements for the time being. I was on such a ride after giving up the smoking habit that I wanted to continue further removing whatever obvious props remained that allow the kinks in my psyche to govern me and create whatever tyranny under which I seem to labor. I still have that idea, but only by the accident of circumstance. An old lover of mine from years ago came over last night for a visit and lay with me in his arms while we watched a movie. I would've exchanged that tenderness for a quick fix had he been amenable to that impulse, but he was not. The moment he was gone I was glad nothing had happened. He has several women in his life now, and I am in need of my own company more than I am of some quick fix and the exchange of body fluids I would get from being serviced in that way. Still, it was nice to be quiet and lie next to someone and go through those motions.