Sex and Rock & Roll

This morning I wasn't exactly depressed. There was no black ball of darkness lodged in my solar plexus.

Huh...

First time in almost four months.

Maybe it's just a lucky morning, or maybe I'm turning some sort of corner in the quitting smoking bad craziness.

I've been working up to some kind of resolution with new interests....or rather, resurrected ones.

It's a little disconcerting. I was expecting to return to normal eventually after quitting smoking. But I don't think that's happenin'.

It's more like there's a New Normal I'm going to have to get used to... full of new sensations, new demands, new appetites and massive amounts of energy.

Like I'm returning to the day before I started to smoke.

I was 16.

I told my girlfriend that I feel like I'm taking some kind of upper...I'm buzzing all the time.

....she said, "It's called oxygen".

She's a smartass.

Aerosmith's Steven Tyler said of Sex, Drugs and Rock & Roll.

"When you quit drugs you have a lot more time for the other two."

Considering nicotine a drug....I think he might have a point.

I am definitely rockin' the R&R.

The other is none of your business.

The Gunslinger

Smoking in the Matrix

Hi y'all.

I feel bad for letting so much time go by between postings. But my life has taken an odd turn.

It all started when I quit smoking.

At first I thought it was the process of quitting that created all the psychological turmoil and drama...but I think I've come to the conclusion that it was not so much that as the fact that somehow the natural psychological effects of quitting somehow lowered my normal defenses so that things I've been stuffing and holding at arm's length....got in.

In Lyin' Eyes the Eagles say "every form of refuge has its price".

And I'm realizing that mine does too. But for a long time, my natural hard-ass attitude kept intimate awareness of that reality away. The craziness of quitting smoking upset that fine balance and undermined that foundation...and suddenly all the emotions I did not deign to acknowledge managed to get over the wall and into the chinks in my armor.

They included stuff I'm not comfortable acknowledging to myself, let alone admitting to anyone else. Stuff that makes you feel out of control, weak, vulnerable. Not feelings I normally permit myself or ones I'm happy dealing with. But once your defenses are down, and they find their way in...well, there you are.

Maybe the process is healthy. Maybe the result is increased strength and maturity.

What I do know for sure is that it seriously sucks.

And there was no way I was going to "share" those feelings on a blog!

So for a while here....I haven't had a lot to write about, because all that shit was pretty much at the center of my attention...stuff I'm not going to "SHARE" like a whining Liberal....okay?

I can tell you this: One of my ways of dealing with it was listening to Guns & Roses, Def Leppard,  Blue Oyster Cult,  Muse, Screaming Trees, The Scorpions, AC/DC, Aerosmith, etc...VERY LOUD...and driving TOO FAST.

(Oh, and Tito and Tarantula...a disc called "Tarantism". YOU. MUST. BUY. IT.)

I can also tell you this: All my priorities have changed. I'm having trouble giving a shit about the day to day outrages of government...the kind that I used to chronicle here with —I like to think—such verve (heh heh).

But every day it's the same story. Government commits another crime to limit our freedom. Government  bureaucrats & apparatchiks are filthy, contemptible and corrupt.

Wow. Big Whoop. Alert the fucking media.

Oh wait, the fucking media is filthy, contemptible and corrupt too. Joy.

There are a million blogs that detail all the crimes and misdemeanors of "public servants", "journalists" and others that presume to know better than us...

Honestly, I just don't have anything more to say about it.

They are all corrupt pigs. They want to enslave you and me for their own wealth and/or status and/or power. The timeless & universal evil troika: Money, Status & Power.


You can pretty much trace every ignoble deed to one of them.  They never lose their attraction to a certain number of people...and many will do whatever it takes to gain them...including enslave entire nations of fellow human beings.

What more can be said about them? How many more keystrokes should be wasted deploring them.

Dude...we get it.

So I find myself silent. Bored even by the parade of wickedness on shameless display all over our country. It never ends these days. It never pauses...it's numbing.

And it's designed to make us feel overwhelmed. And if we keep tallies and note each outrage, and if we counter each idiocy, each insult, each crime, each scandal...we will not do anything else—we won't have time. We will be drawn into the trenches with our faces in the mud, and miss the bigger picture.

And not only is that insufferably, mind-numbingly tedious...it's counter productive.

It's time to change tactics. Think strategically. Long term.

The Progressives have been working on the victory they are enjoying today for a hundred years. And the damage they are doing will continue to cause harm to our nation for 100 years if we don't change the way we deal with this evil.

And it can't be worrying about the next election exclusively. Important as that is, we have to understand that changing the hearts and minds of America is required to guarantee that she remains the Land of the Free.

Convincing people to pull a lever, for one moment in time, because of a temporary situation that favors OUR party....is not a good or long term way to insure freedom.

We have to make them see that what they most believe in, what they most cherish, what they would DIE for....is precisely what we offer....

And that is what I see as my mission from now on.

More to come...

The Gunslinger
(Zombie killer)

Six Weeks

Another boring update on my quest to not smoke.

It's been six weeks as of this morning. No cheats.

It's getting easier, but I still have moments. And they suck.

I've gained almost six pounds in six weeks. At this point, that's my biggest problem. Pretty soon my clothes won't fit. On me, six pounds translates to nearly a full clothing size.

Short people.

So, the new venture....never let it be said that life is fucking easy or fun...is losing weight.

I used to SMOKE when I wasn't eating. What the hell am I supposed to do now? Knit?

(I am rediscovering the joys of chewing gum...)

The Gunslinger

4 Weeks Today

I  remember saying this wasn't as bad as I expected.

Yeah, well. Only because I was expecting a different kind of "bad".
I expected physical/psychological cravings for CIGARETTES.

But it turns out that's not the real danger (though I get them from time to time and they suck.)

No. The real problem is the feelings of emptiness and pointlessness; of generalized frustration and dissatisfaction; a sort of grief of loss and sadness — and extreme boredom. Which are all spiteful little snatches of DEPRESSION.

Somebody said that in the beginning quitting smoking made him feel like he'd lost his best friend, but by the sixth week he felt like he had defeated his worst enemy.

I've talked about the TV show Supernatural before, in which the heroes hunt all manner of supernatural evils, including demons, who in order to materialize on this plane, must possess a human body. Very unpleasant for the human, as you can imagine, who remains awake and aware, but not in control of his body.

I feel like a demon is trying to take me over, and we're in this pitched battle...and his weapons are psychological tricks to make me feel bad...to get me to smoke again to get rid of all these debilitating and depressing emotions.

Demon Weed.

Thinking about it like this is helpful. It's like there is something "to fight"...you know? Not just amorphous feelings of lassitude, enervation and listless depression.

Every time I feel like that, I personify it...and picture the Demon "attacking" me. Which generates the fight response, and anger which is WAY better than depression as a mood enhancer.

So, you know,  it's good.

But, I'll sure be happy when I finally KILL the bastard.

The battle is hard. And the enemy is sneaky, relentless and mean.

The Gunslinger
(Demon Killer)

Three Weeks Two Days

You guys are totally awesome. Thanks for all the info and encouragement about the whole not smoking thing.

The process has been distracting and unsettling, but not as hard as I expected. It's been three weeks and 2 days, and I don't really think about smoking very often anymore. And that's pretty cool.

Honestly, I thought there would be more urges and cravings. But right from the beginning, it's been relatively mild. I don't really understand why, but I am grateful. Seems like it should have been a lot worse, I've been smoking a lot for a long time.

I'm still not "normal" as a non-smoker. Here's the best way I can describe my current state:

I don't actually "miss" smoking now...but sometimes I still "notice" that smoking is missing...if you see what I mean.

I figure when I no longer notice that I'm not smoking...then I'll be done.

(Oh....and since I never remember dates or time spans, when I stop knowing exactly how long it's been since I quit, that'll be another indication that I've moved on.)

I've been lucky actually. It's been easier for me than for people who quit before the PC pinheads ran the world because now there are so few places where you run into people actually smoking. You have to go out of your way to find them.  In the old days, people who quit were confronted with a thousand burning cigarettes every day. That's gotta make quitting way harder.

And finally....while I'm not entirely settled into my Non-Smoker identity....my biggest issue isn't really Not Smoking. It's Not Eating!

I CAN'T STAND the idea of pudging out because I quit smoking.

No rest for the wicked.

So anyway, there's my update which I ended up doing because I wanted to say thanks for the support.

The Gunslinger
(May do old age without an oxygen tank...)

I Am Not Smoking

I didn't want to mention this until I thought it might actually stick, but I am no longer smoking. Today marks 3 weeks away from the evil weed.

And I'm still sort of off-balance...reaching for the pack, wondering what to do in those "down" moments when a cigarette used to fill the space and time.

It's partly responsible for my inexcusably erratic  postings. I am sort of a mess...and sort of spacing out, and sort of weirdly depressed, bored, annoyed, fidgety & enervated all at once.

At the moment, I don't really give a shit about politics. And I'm not sure why.

Oh I'm just as pissed as ever (more perhaps, just now—heh heh), but I can't concentrate on the narrative. Reading/listening to anything "serious" is a task I'm just not up for. All I can deal with at the moment is pop escapism—fiction reading and TV.

Not that great for someone who writes a political/social commentary blog. And REALLY not good for someone who is the ostensible "leader of the pack" of a local political group. Thank God for the "leadership team" who are picking up my slack...but it makes me feel guilty as hell.

I just can't seem to get it together.

I feel like I'm shedding my old life. Life everything needs to be re-evaluated and redone. I feel like I want to get in (a new) car with the "Supernatural"  soundtrack on the stereo, screaming down a highway to parts unknown....and never come back.

I feel like nicotine has been my SOMA...keeping me somnolent in a Matrix fugue.

For 40 years.

And suddenly I'm awake, and I'm stuck in this boring place, in this nowhere town, somehow settling for this nowhere existence at this nowhere job supporting this nowhere life...for no good reason. wondering what the hell the point of it all is.

And it all seems so extreme for just not smoking cigarettes - that THAT's embarrassing too. Millions of people have done it. Why am I going so crazy?

They say it's all temporary. But, honestly, three weeks of it seems like forever.

I understand that at somewhere between a month and 6 weeks I should return to some semblance of normalcy where not smoking becomes the comfortable norm....and my regular like can resume.

So...between one and three more weeks of this off-balance, weird craziness to go.

Oh fucking sweet.

I know you quit years ago....it's only my bad attitude and militant anti-anti-smoking crusade that kept me from doing it when I should have a long time ago too. So, tell me how long before it's all going to be "okay", and all the psychosis ends...

...and lie to me if you have to.

The Gunslinger
(Breathing to fight another day)

A Thought While Smoking

I just had one of those random thoughts that happen to me once in a while. Must be the nicotine.

Menopause and Erectile Disfunction are two of the best things that ever happened to civilization. And Cosmetic Surgery, Botox andViagra are among of the worst.

Stay with me here.

As we age naturally, we naturally separate ourselves from our youthful passions, and obsession with vanity, popularity, sexuality.

If left to Nature, our inclinations toward them decrease, our ability to engage in them decreases and the fresh, youthful beauty that once attracted partners with which to engage in them, decreases.

While some American perpetual teenagers find this depressing—a disease that needs a cure—it is really graduation from self-focus to other-focus. When we are able to detach from the immediacy of our passions, from vanity, from self-absorption...we find understanding, of each other, of humanity, of history, of politics, of truth.

This is why the elders of so many civilizations have been venerated.

And rightly.

We celebrate the child becoming an adult. We should also celebrate the adult becoming an elder. We should do it personally, within ourselves, rather than feeling bad that we are "getting old". And we should reflect that new pride in age and wisdom in new traditions, that recognize and honor the citizen that willingly and proudly leaves middle adulthood behind to seek and share the wisdom of experience and age.

We abjure that phase of life at our peril. Both on a personal level and a societal one.

The Gunslinger

We Gave Them An Inch; This Is What Happens

It was bound to happen. More idiocy from the HealthStasi.

Let's see, now they'll want to forbid you from smoking outside, alone, in the rain, and returning indoors....because you might have THIRD HAND SMOKE clinging to you that will instantly trigger disease in everybody in the room?

So, nobody will be able to take a smoke break ever, anywhere, if they are going to have contact with another human being before they shower, change their clothes and wash their hair?

Are they going to have "scent detectors" at every place of business, refusing admittance to workers and patrons who carry the dreaded THIRD HAND SMOKE PLAGUE?

You can bet they'll try. But they won't profile terrorists. That would be wrong!

God, I hate 'em.

Apparently, this is their idea of science:

But far fewer of those surveyed were aware of the risks of third-hand smoke[*]. Since the term is so new, the researchers asked people if they agreed with the statement that “breathing air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of infants and children.” Only 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers agreed with that statement, which researchers interpreted as acknowledgement of the risks of third-hand smoke.

*which is like saying that fewer of those surveyed were aware of the risks of consorting with pixies—GS

Well, by God, if a lot of people agreed with the statement, it must be true. Sort of like "consensus" on Global Warming.

How did we all get so stupid? And why are these people allowed to pretend to be scientists? And where was the looking glass I obviously fell through without noticing?

The Gunslinger

Anti-Smoking Nazis Never Give Up

Never did the Inquisition attempt to wield so much power over the private behavior of adults as the United States Government.

Democracy and "freedom" at work in America.

The Gunslinger