handsome husband and Perfect Stepdaughter are taking a father/daughter trip to DC. they left this morning, after husband did a quick turnaround/change luggage/sleep a few hours breeze through the house...he'd just gotten back from a weeklong biz trip. i cooked an awesome dinner for myself, instead of the usual chips in front of the TV...watched a few movies...am reading The Power Of Habit now, and have decided that i may be able to quit smoking if my goal is to take all that saved money & go to Paris in a year. it's ridiculous that my attempts to quit have not yet been successful, and i hate that something that nasty controls my life. it really does. i remember being offered a job, and one of my first thoughts: how far to the front door? can i make it outside for a smoke, then back to my desk within the allotted break time? and going to a movie is like a ticking timebomb...after the movie ends, it's a race to the door, through a mall and outside to smoke. then catch up with friends and being the stinky one. i really hate it. by the way - smokers are aware that their clothes smell, that their habit is inconvenient, that their breath smells, that they are wasting tons of money and their health. and don't even get me going about the stinky car...how many times have i felt the need to warn people that, although i'm happy to drive somewhere, the car is stinky. i suppose it's the least i can do so you aren't trapped in it unawares. most smokers would give anything to have the habit just Be Gone...but according to a Dr friend of mine, the nicotine habit is harder to break than heroin. so, not to be rude here, but disdainful looks and comments are not a help. we know you mean well, but if paying $10.50 a pack isn't stopping us, then the evil eye is not going to cut it. thank you for caring, though. i have tried chantix, wellbutrin, hypnosis, acupuncture, inhaler thingies, lozenges, patches, drops, cold turkey, deprivation, smoking only outside, smoking only on even number hours...pretty much everything. i've smoked in the hospital bathroom when i was a patient, i smoked when i had pneumonia, bronchitis, root canals (and if dry socket doesn't cure you, i dare say nothing will)...it's been a battle. and yes, i feel badly about it. but the fact remains that i smoke, and right now, it is a part of the package. hopefully i can be done with this mess Very Soon. i want to be able to hug my friends without wondering if i'm grossing them out. i'm hypersensitive about that. and i DO care about it. it just has not been easy to master this habit yet. but soon.... so what was i talking about before i took that left turn? oh, right...house to myself. and suddenly i felt older...remember the days when being home on a saturday night was the Worst Possible Social Fate? funny, now i crave it! any day of the week. but not a lot of them in a row. maybe i'll take a friend to the movies tomorrow. just make sure it's a short one...