Thursday, July 2, 2009

Blah

Just had a ciggy. Was out too long and didn't get my meds as early as I'd like. Had some drinks with friends... have a few ciggys in the house... bad move I think. Mom called late - called her back... she didn't get the job. Both my parents out of work for a looooong time now. She said 'not sure how I'm going to pay the bills'. Never heard that.

You want to feel old? Watch your parents feel vulnerable. The indestructible duo of my youth... wondering how to pay bills. Ugh. Second mortgage city I imagine... not the place to be in the fall of your life. They're strong, they'll be fine. Right?

Late night stress with a late night dose of Chantix - and two ciggy's. That's right - 2. The second I post this, I'm going for another. Later...

Sleepy Sleepy where art thou?

What a night. I woke up at 130 to pee and noticed the dog was gone. That's strange. She's usually the first asleep and the last awake. I checked my office thinking perhaps I had accidentally kicked her out of bed. Not there. I went downstairs to find her on the floor in the living room, panting. She bolted to the door when she saw me. Here we go again. So we ran outside where she took a decent size pee and a poop that made her proud. I can't believe she didn't wake me up! Okay, so crisis averted and we head back to bed around 200.

I'm startled at 330 to a very low helicopter flying above the house. As the crow flies, we're less than 3 miles from The Pentagon, so helicopters flying over are as common as birds flying over. No big deal. It's rare that they do it in the middle of the night, however, and certainly never that low as they do their best not to piss the neighborhoods off. So I listen, and I feel it go over, and I can actually see it out the window from my bed. Damn that is low I thought. I close my eyes and try to drift off to sleep again to get back on the Casino Train (see below) I was having so much fun on. About 2 minutes later, another one flies over, feels even lower than the last. I'm talking less than 250 feet low. Jesus! 2 minutes later another... then another... okay, so I'm right in the middle of 'we're being attacked and we're at war in the middle of the night' and 'this Chantix is seriously screwing with my head'. Around this time my wife even rolls over to see what's going on - and that woman could sleep through a fireworks show. I finally have to get up to see what's going on... it's the local police (I suspect) and they are looking for someone in our neighborhood with one of those giant lights. Turns out it was one chopper, not multiple, and he was using our roof as his perimeter. This shit went on until almost 530. I could not sleep through it as hard as I tried. I contemplated helping them look just to end it.

July 2 -

I'm on a train with my wife, very bored, I go wandering around. Oddly enough I found the casino car! What a find on a long boring train ride! They have two different games and I don't recognize either of them. It's a strange setup. You have to put your cash into a machine that takes it and tell the guy behind the counter what you want to do. I post up at what I believe is the blackjack machine. Put in 50 bucks and promptly realize it's not blackjack at all and start losing money. At that very moment, my bro-in-law, Ryan, enters the car and I waive him over. This kid has the Midas Touch with gambling and instantly makes me a few hundred dollars off my bet. We move to the other 'machine' and start playing something else - another game I have no idea what it is - Ryan start making a fortune. It was good times.

A few minutes later I find myself in the water slide car. There's a wading pool and a this odd slide that uses water jets to shoot you around in a big circle. It was a blast! I was enjoying it just fine when suddenly a bachelorette party came in to join the fun. Naturally, it's the ugliest bachelorette party I've ever seen in my life. The bride to be jumps in the slide and she's wearing a purple ballerina outfit and all her junk his hanging out. I left.

July 2 -

I'm in the middle east in some sort of military capacity. I have this friggin giant pistol (a reoccurring theme), but I can mostly handle it this time. My job is to take photos and document some of the things going on. My pistol comes with all these different attachments. One of them is a silencer, cool. The other is a camera attachment. So basically, I slap this camera attachment on the front and I literally point and shoot. So we're on this mission looking for some combatants and it's my job to take the pictures. I toss the camera attachment on there and find myself in some underground cave thing with an entire platoon. They find one of the guys they're looking for so naturally I want to take pictures. I raise my camera gun, point it at our guys, and shoot! Turns out camera gun, while taking pictures, also shoots bullets. I don’t remember much, I don't think I killed anyone, but I remember that not going well at all.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Buffet Bonanza

A peaceful nights rest. Ahhhh. So basically, if this material starts to get boring, I'll just take the meds late at night. I took them around 7 and was in in bed by 11. Asleep by 11:02. I remember waking myself up snoring which was interesting. Must be so sexy for my wife!

The quitting is going well. Chantix really does it. If I have a craving, I try to ignore it and three hours later I remember that I wanted a ciggy. This weekend at the shore should really be my proving grounds.

Many of my dreams revolved around food and I woke up starving which might explain the hot dog with relish and mustard I devoured around 815 this morning. Here are two I recall:

July 1 -

I was at a buffet at a resort somewhere. I was dining alone and surrounded by Asian businessmen. I was absolutely starving. You could only make one trip to the buffet and all they had were little tiny plates. I piled so much stuff on my plate it must have been four feet high. The Asian businessmen were marveling at my balancing ability and clapping for me... I started to put on a show for them and moments later toppled my only chance at dinner onto the ground. They all laughed and I walked away hungry.

July 1 -

Again at a resort, I was fishing this time. Trolling in some strange lake with a local. My first catch was some sort of crocodile. It was small, maybe 3 feet long. I wasn't touching it. The local guy had me bring it on the boat so he could get the hook out and release it. As he pulled the hook out, the croc latched right onto his face and really screwed him up. I was trying to pull it off his face and I remember him screaming not to pull. Instead he told me to tickle it, which I did and it promptly released and scurried off into the water. Dude was missing his nose but he seemed fine, so I didn't tell him. Later in this same dream I was at the resort and had become friendly with a couple on their honeymoon. They had come across some weed and were trying to get me to partake. I finally did and just as it set in that I was very messed up, a category 4 hurricane hit the island and we all had to scramble. As usual, I could not find a safe place to hide.

It wasn’t particularly scary, just strange.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Ask and ye shall receive

Yesterday I made mention that the dreams hadn't been as terrifying as anticipated. I usually take my PM dose of the dream crack around 8 or so. Last night I had forgotten about it and took it on my way to bed around 11. Well, the secrets out... taking that shit right before bed will bring on the crazy in no time flat. I woke up short of breath and in a full sweat around 330 and never really got back to sleep:

June 30 -

I'm on the balcony of our townhome, it's late, I'm smoking (Chantix only works while you're awake, BTW). It's definitely my house, but has no resemblance and there's a giant office building off my balcony that appears to be under construction. Strange glow in the sky and suddenly I notice hundreds of commercial airliners that normally make a pretty line to head to DCA are basically all darting for the Atlantic Ocean as fast as possible. Suddenly there is a huge surge of electricity and the office building I'm looking at bursts into flames. The heat is so intense I remember my cigarette burning twice as fast as it was supposed to. My face feels like it's melting. When the initial chaos stops, I can see the resulting fire is moving very quickly towards my building. Where is my wife? Where is the dog? I always have plans for this sort of thing but I'm helpless. I grab my cell and call 911 only to have the operator tell me half the city is on fire and do what I can on my own. The flames are actually on the posts of my deck. I know there is a hose down there somewhere. I grab the only extinguisher in the house and hightail it. Naturally, the only way to get to the back of my house is like a 1,000 meter dash. By the time I get around, the deck is engulfed in flames. I look up and there is my wife, screaming behind a pane of glass, holding the dog, banging on the glass for me to help them. She's hysterical, the dog is trying to squirm out of her arms. I'm screaming at her to get out. I start using the extinguisher and it's worthless. I find the hose that's back there, turn the water on, and look down to find my hands are are caked with bubbling melting plastic - the hose has melted.

By this time there are neighbors crawling around everywhere, all freaked out, no one knows what to do or how to help or where to go. I start the trek back to my front door as fast as I can, run inside, wife and dog are nowhere to be found. I search high and low and for the life of me can't find them. I swear I hear the dog crying, but don't know from where. I bolt upstairs, grab our safe box with the important things and run for it. Outside, the fires have started to die off and there are half charred people everywhere. They're crying, clothes half burned off, searching through rubble for pets and people. The building we live in is destroyed. I can't find my family. Last thing I remember is our neighbor putting his hand on my shoulder... I looked back and he was shaking his head. They were gone. I passed out.

Mental note - take PM Chantix dose early.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Smoking Vs McDonalds

Of the many lifestyle changes I've tried to enact as I get older, one was to quit fast food. Not for good, really, because how long can one actually go without a Big Mac, or a Taco Supreme with Fire Sauce, or a Whopper dripping in mayo? Dang that stuff is like crack. It also has another thing in common with crack - it'll kill you. I recall sitting in DFW airport one day after a particularly late night of entertaining clients. I felt like shit, my flight was delayed, and like an oasis in the desert I spotted the golden arches. I didn't think twice, I went for it. On this particular visit it was for a double quarter pounder with cheese, fries, and a sprite. I like to put the hot mustard sauce on my QP's, you should try it, heaven. Anyway - I was alone, so I had to find the right place to sit that didn't make me feel uncomfortable sitting alone. I found a spot on the edge of a heavily trafficked area so I could at least people watch. It's always great at a hub airport. As I plowed into my McDonalds, I noticed something... heavy people may see you eating it and think, "dang, that looks really good". However, when 'in shape' people see you eating McDonalds, they have a tendency to give you the most shameful look - like, "I can't believe you're doing that to your body." I imagine it's the same face I make when I see an obese family going out for a Friday night dinner of KFC. It's not a good feeling to be on the receiving end of that. As I cried into my french fries, I vowed from that day forward to only eat fast food in the privacy of my car!

Smoking in public makes me feel the exact same way. Like scum. A degenerate An outcast. Smoking is for losers. People with no self control. Why would I willingly (and repeatedly, mind you) ingest something that is proven to kill me?

Because they make me feel so good at that exact moment, that's why. Ugh.

Onto the dreams - I'd like to point out that the dreams haven't been nearly as psychotic as I anticipated. Vowing to keep track of them, I may have psyched myself out. They are vivid as anything, just not all that terrifying the last few nights. I just saw a guy post something on Facebook that said, "Chantix gave me nightmares from underneath hell but definitely cut the cig cravings to nothing." I loved the comment.

June 29 -

I was in the hospital caring for my mom. She was fine, but whatever it was required an overnight stay. She was sharing a room with a bunch of other people. As she lay sleeping, a patient walked in and was really messed up. He had skin hanging off his arms, his face was annihilated, but he seemed in good spirits none the less. I asked him what had happened and he told me he and a friend of his were really stoned and were throwing pennies down an old well. They got bored of this and decided to see what would happen if they put a toaster on a long extension cord, turned it on, and sent it down. As he tossed it, the cord got wrapped around this dudes leg and when it hit the water, it completely fried him. He was kind of laughing about it. Then he mentioned that his friend had been tripping on acid at the time and when he saw him all burned up, he freaked out, and is now in the psych ward. It was strange to say the least.

A few minutes later his friends came to visit him and they had all sorts of drugs with them. Weed, hash, pot brownies - they kept offering me all sorts of drugs and I kept declining (I mean, I had to take care of my mom not to mention WE ARE IN A HOSPITAL). I finally asked for something to take home for later and this girl handed me a bag of weed. Just then, my dad was walking into the room and for whatever reason, I could not get this baggie into my pocket. It just wouldn't go. It ripped open and suddenly there was like 3 pounds of weed on the floor in front of me - in a hospital - with my sick mom asleep in front of me - and my dad standing there staring at me. Awful.


June 29 -

A reoccurring theme lately - not being able to get where I'm going.

I'm at a hotel in Florida working a big trade show. The event is over and as usual, I'm looking for fun customers to take to the bars. Somehow I manage to grab a few great customers and Paris Hilton. Now, I'm not the biggest Paris fan, but I'm thinking it'd be pretty cool to have a few drinks with her. So I send them off to the bar and I'm going to meet them there. I had to go get my wife because there was no way she was going to miss this. I had to go pick her up some where. I spent what felt like the next three hours completely lost. My car broke down. I walked into a gas station to find an ATM, it wouldn't work. I found a bank an hour later of walking and finally got some cash. I couldn't find a cab. I finally found a cab and it got t-boned by a truck in the next intersection. I finally started walking back to the hotel. Couldn't find it. Lost my cell phone somewhere, couldn't call my wife or anyone to let them know what was going on. I finally got back to the hotel and needed to go up one level. All the elevators were busted. The escalators all went the wrong way. There were no stairs. It was complete an utter frustration. This bled into some dream about the Coast Guard doing practice maneuvers in San Diego and I was watching from a bridge. There were guys parachuting from choppers onto the decks of these huge ships. Problem was that most of them were missing the deck and you could see them getting sucked into the wash of the ships.

That's the last thing I remember.

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Wii Shall See

My fist Saturday after my quit date. Sweet. It's a beautiful day, I got a decent nights sleep, and I'm fresh off running a little over 3 miles through the picturesque village of Shirlington. Going to get some pho in a little while with my wife, then off to do whatever the hell we want as we have no plans, no kids, and basically no responsibilities today. This of course will likely lead to a little day drinking somewhere. Apparently there is a Peroni Festival downtown DC today - the Italian in me can't stay away.

After drinking no less than 20 bud lights between the two of us, me and my bro-in-law gambled on Wii Golf until the wii hours of the morning (of which I have at least one $5 bill to account for my game). I should have expected nothing less than the following very odd dream:


June 27 -

I'm in the Wii golf game. I'm actually walking the course that I just played 15 times while I was conscious. I'm playing against Taylor and there he is, all cartooned out. I'm a bit freaked out by the whole thing. Taylor starts yelling at me to go because he 'can't spend all night playing in this god damn game'. Wild. We're on the 9th hole. It's an island hole but there's like 4 islands. It's my go and I need to at least make par to get out this video game. I'm scared to death because while I'm a scratch in Wii golf, my real golf game is abysmal at best. I tee off and immediately hear this very high decibel 'wobble wobble' thunder out of sky- my shot went arrant because I swung too hard. It went right in the drink. Taylor is screaming at me because I only had the one ball. I have no pockets, no golf bag, no fingers even. He takes his shot and nails the fairway. I look up, and he's on the next island already. I have no ball, I can't figure out how to get over there - there's no bridge. It's awful. I see Taylor hit his next two shots and he's on the green. He two puts for his par and - poof - he's gone. I just stood there - fingerless, no legs, staring out at this imaginary ocean until I just drifted out of the dream...

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Show Cancelled

Maybe it was the spicy jalapeƱo cheese burger I had an hour before bed, maybe it was sheer exhaustion, I'm not sure. I can tell you that other than sporadic pops of golfing, cooking, an ex-girlfriend in overalls, something to do with the dog and trying to push a giant beach ball around... the HD theater of my dreams was dark last night.

Quit day tomorrow!! (see, the two exclamation points are basically emoticons conveying my positive outlook and relative excitedness to quit)