Quit Pro Quo

Four years. Man, that's something to be proud of, right? If I could do this, I can do anything. Dealing with an addiction is about the hardest thing  - they can overshadow real life because you prioritize everything else around it. Some people laugh at the fact that smoking is considered an addiction - but that's because they don't know how far smokers (addicts - not social smokers) would go for a hit. It's not that obvious  as with other, more lethal addictions, but trust me, every smoker has a story to tell.

When I quit smoking, i did it cold cold turkey, and I did it alone. But that doesn't mean I didn't have to get some sort of help and I went out, did the research and made sure I got what I needed. i joined an online forum, started a diary to track my progress - went the whole hog. 

Just to get an idea of what the day to day was like, here are some excerpts from my diary: from back then: 

January 17, 2012

So here I am, third attempt at quitting smoking. I’m almost afraid to type out the words, afraid that I will jinx it. but from past experience I know that what I do is based solely on my will and goddammit this time I will not cave. My first attempt was about four years ago. I had recently gotten married, my husband decided to quit so I though I’d join him. I’d been a loner for most of life and I think I first started smoking because it was something to do, it was like a bad boy that kept me company. But now, I thought I wasn’t alone so maybe I could do it. Well, attempt one lasted a day. No more.

Attempt two was a few months back. I was dating a non-smoker and he was trying to convince me to stop. I knew he hated when I smelt of smoke, and he actually asked me to not smoke on the days I was to meet him. And so once I started doing that it became quite a nuisance. When the first thought you have on waking is "oh, today I can’t smoke"  - that isn’t the most relaxing thought. So after a few weeks of pent up frustration I thought to hell with this, smoked my last cigarette before bed, hid my ashtray and lighter and went to sleep. I stayed quit for a week and a half. Then my boyfriend had to go out of the country for four days, my insecurities kicked in, and two days after he left, I was smoking again. But I came away from the experience with one important thing ; my smoke free time was the best one and a half weeks I have had in a long long time. I felt confident, I didn’t feel embarrassed to be around people, I felt clean and most of all was busting with pride. I want that feeling back. Hence attempt number three.

I smoked my last cigarette this morning. (I was hoping to get a clean start by finishing them last night but I had too many). I suppose I could have not smoked it, but that was asking for too much. My one fear is the supermarket. It is the hardest thing ever to walk out of a supermarket without asking for a pack of smokes at the checkout. That’s where I usually cave. So for the next few weeks I shall studiously be avoiding supermarkets. I wish I had someone to support me in this, someone who would do a supermarket run for me, but I don’t. And somehow doing it alone has always worked for me. Sharing this makes the pressure greater so I will keep mum till I at least make it two weeks this time.

 Here’s hoping…

Friday 20th January 2012- Day 3
Made it from Tuesday to Friday without mishap. I came upon a couple of blogs that helped me along. Somehow reading up on someone else's experiences, reading about their slip ups and most of all the way that they understand exactly what you're going through was enlightening. I also downloaded Allen Carr's The Easy Way to Stop Smoking and read it in one day. It's all very illuminating, this reading other people's stories thing. It makes you realise exactly what it was in cigarettes that kept you hooked, what exactly it is that you don't need and how to stay quit. One of the most important insights I got from the book is that quitting smoking shouldn't be referred to as "giving up" smoking. because essentially, you're really not giving up anything. There's nothing that you're losing or "giving up". Think of it as stopping. Stopping something that's holding you back, slowly turning you into a social pariah, making you sick, making you nervous and edgy and stressed, making the lives of everyone around you miserable because all you can think of is how to engineer your next smoke break; all that stops. So you're not giving up anything, you're actually getting something back by stopping smoking. So I thought I'd make a list of everything I've got back over the last three days.

1. Free time - since I'm not engineering those around me and my own schedule around my smoking habit, I have more free time.
2. Exercise - I've been going to gym after dropping of Abby at school since yesterday. I feel fit, happy and hungry  - or at least one of those things at a given time.
3. Taste - everything tastes better. I thought that was just one of those things people said but it's actually true.
4. Waking up blues - I no longer wake up feeling sludgy. my eyes don't need to be pried open and I actually wake up feeling weirdly cheerful. Probably because I'm not stressing about my early morning smoke.
5. Snacks - unlimited snacks. I realise I might gain weight but I AM regularly going to the gym and also, I don't have huge meals - just tiny snacks throughout.
6. Ice cream - chocolates and ice cream were two loves I didn't need when i smoked. Somehow that ashy taste in your mouth doesn't make you crave sweet stuff. But now, bring em on!

I'm sure I can add to the list as I progress. I'm not saying I'm not tempted to smoke, I am. Many many times throughout the day. But when the urge hits and my brain says "c'mon just one. what's the harm?" I tell myself "rubbish, you don't need cigarettes" and I have a drink of water and dive into a book. Keeping myself occupied is a must. There are moments - especially after a hot curry when the craving for a cigarette is intense. But so far I have persevered. I have even made it through TWO supermarket runs without succumbing!

24th January - Day 7
Day seven and counting. I'm not going to say it's been a breeze, but at the same time it hasn't been hard either. The only "difficult" thing to do is to nudge away that nagging voice that says "c'mon, what harm can one cigarette do?". The one thing that bothers me (if that's the word I'm looking for) is the feeling of "what do I do now?". Especially after a meal I am overcome by this feeling of aimlessness. I have been tempted so many times during the course of a day to just throw in the towel and grab me a cigarette. but then i remind myself that it's only that first puff that I crave. and in truth that first puff will make me smile, will make me feel happy and will make me think 'this is what life's all about'. but then the second, third puff isn't so great. By the sixth you're wishing the damn cigarette was shorter. I remind myself of this, and then I make it through the craving. This time, I'm not doing it for anyone but myself. so I guess that makes it easier to stay on track. Every extra minute that I spend playing with Abby, every extra smile that I can give her, every time I hold her without wondering whether I smell bad to her, bliss.

25th January 2012 - Day 8
So yesterday I made the mistake of telling my best friend that I'd been smoke free for 7 days. I had actually been debating whether to tell her or not. Even last time, I never told anyone till I was about 5 days into it. This time there's more pressure if I tell people because they know I failed last time. So anyway, her response was along the lines of 'oh yeah? didn't we get here before?" and for a while I was totally disheartened. But then I picked myself back up, used that as fuel for my motivation.
So the downside to quitting smoking seems to be weight gain. The first few days I ate anything and everything I could get my hands on, and now it shows! I've gotten extremely rotund in the midsection and it's not a pleasant feeling. So from today I'm hitting a new eating regiment. More salads and protein and less sweets and fatty stuff. Also, I finally started getting my lazy ass off to the gym in the mornings after dropping Abby off at school. It's actually working out great because I get in to work an hour before anyone else so I have time to hit the gym and shower just in time to meet everyone else at breakfast.

23rd January 2014 - 2 years
Two years. Didn't ever think I'd make it a month let alone make it this far. I guess the real secret to quitting anything is to do it for yourself. A good friend told me that the anniversary of the day I quit smoking is more important than my birthday and I think he was right.

 So there it is. Looking back I seems to have stopped writing by day 8. I guess that first week was the biggest hurdle i needed to get over.

Magic Mike XXL (or how to use a nail gun in seven different ways)

so this gust of wind suddenly blew our shirts off...

I rarely write movie recaps or reviews. But what Channing Tatum does with basic household furniture should be documented for posterity.
The predecessor to Magic Mike XXL - simply titled Magic Mike  - actually had the semblance of a story. At the very base of it was your standard boy-meets-girl, they fight, they make up, rom-com formula - albeit with a lot of stripping thrown in. This time around, XXL throws off any pretenses and simply focuses on what we came here for in the first place - a hoard of finely tuned bodies getting their groove on and their clothes off.
The plot, if it can be called that, is simple. there's a strippers convention and the boys have gathered together to go on a road trip to the convention for one last hurrah. Along the way, there are the obligatory altercations, accidents and what-have-yous. But fortunately, there's nothing that can't be resolved with a little bit of, you guessed it, stripping!
The final part of the movie focuses on the act they put together for the convention. If the movie has any sort of 'this is what we're learning today kids' aspect to it it's that we should be true to ourselves. Something that Mike teaches the rest of the boys by way of getting them to ditch the old routines and come up with acts that are more personalised. This plan works out better for some (Dick) than others (Tito).
If you know Magic Mike, you already know what you're in for. XXL actually is bigger  - bigger cast, bigger acts and bigger damage to women's spinal cords (seriously, these women get thrown about a lot).  All I know is, after watching it, I'll never look at a chair the same way again.

Mortality Combat

No matter how it happens, whether it's sudden or long drawn out, expected or unexpected, death just fucking sucks. It just does. For the person who is dead as well as the people left behind. You can't say 'oh but he's better off now'. Like fuck he is. He’s dead. How can he be better off? He’s missing out on everything. He’s ashes. He's dust. That can't be fun. Oh sure, living the way he was wasn’t much good, so if that's what you're comparing death to then hell yes, this ending is better. But why did any of it have to happen anyway. All of it just blows. 

'Time will heal' is something you're bound to hear, many many times. Time doesn't motherfucking heal anything. Time, if at all, accentuates your loss because every single day you come across another new thing that isn't the same because this person died. What does happen is - you get used to doing without his presence. You get used to managing with other people. You manage. You never heal. You just learn to go on as if this gaping wound in your side doesn't bother you anymore. A bit like Henry VIII - without the serial marriages and spousicide. 

Next up we have 'the good die young'. Really? They do? Does kindness kill? How does that make any sense? Not everyone who has an untimely death is inherently good - this theory is hogwash.

Death, or rather, the post-death phase directly affects those left behind. And there are myriad ways in which people handle these situations. For me, personally, it’s the thought of the dead missing out on the rest of their lives and the lives they cared about that really gets to me. The fact that everything that comes after, they couldn’t experience. And these thoughts come unbidden, at the strangest moments. Anything can trigger them; from milestones in your child’s life to that moment where Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance on Eureka (which you started watching now because you remembered that he used to watch it on TV but you never got into it at the time).

Death sucks. Life after death sucks harder.

Potter not

When talking about books and kids and what our kids are reading, something that usually comes up is whether my particular offspring likes/reads Harry Potter. My answer is always 'she hasn't read them yet' - an answer that is usually met with surprise. The reason is pretty simple; I don't want to let Harry Potter into her life before she has had the chance to read better books. I have written about my issues with the series before  and  more able writers than me have explained why the books aren't the bees knees despite what most Potter-heads would have you believe.
It's not that I would ever stop her from reading them - I'd just rather delay it as much as I can. Just as I would put off getting a root canal for as long as I possibly could. (how can you compare reading Harry Potter to a root canal, you ask? They both cause me twinges of pain and go on for far longer than they should.)
I don't have anything against JKR - I just think that the blessed woman can't write very well and I think the hype surrounding her books is a tad undeserved. (That's not her fault, it's the fault of the people who lined up to buy them.) For me, her books are simply 'just okay'. I read the first book when a friend of mine started going on and on about it. A few pages into the book I was thinking  "well this isn't all that great, but now that I started it I may as well finish it'. And this was before pottermania was well on the way - so I had no preconceived notions about the book. If you had grown up reading fantasy and mind you, I'm adding Enid Blyton to the mix here (anyone who has read the Faraway Tree series would be going 'hey now, that sounds familiar' when reading about the magical sweets those Weasley twins conjure up) I don't think the Harry Potter series would offer up anything as amazing as Potter-heads would have you believe. More than the story itself, the writing - that's what really got to me. The sentences are poorly structured, nothing happens for chapters on end just because each book has to be longer than the one preceding - I'm surprised that at least one of the books weren't titled Harry Potter and the Unnecessary Sequel.

Then there is this villain - the poor sod is called He Who Must Not Be Named. That's quite a mouthful isn't it? (You can't help feeling that at some point someone meekly asked "wouldn't it be easier to call him Bob?"). It's not like the name itself has any power - like Beetlejuice. And that's the essence of what gets to me about all these books. they're all so needlessly convoluted. Stuff just happens sometimes just because JKR wants it to happen - when she killed off Sirius Black (oh, sorry, spoiler alert)  - what the heck was that? Even the red wedding, as ghastly as it was, made sense. You don't just kill off a main character just because 'oh wait, so I need this to happen on the next book so ...bye bye then'. Oh and the woman really knows how to ride a deus ex machina, bless her soul.
Another thing that bugs me is when I tell people that I don't like HP, their immediate response is "oh, so you probably like Lord of the Rings then". Well, no, Those are not the only fantasy series in existence. Besides, as much as I love them, the LOTR books are not what I would choose if I wanted an easy read. There are more books in the world people. A LOT more.
If I wanted to introduce a child to a world of magic - honestly, I'd start with Enid Blyton. Okay so she tends to get a bit repetitive, but if you wrote that many books you'd be wont to reuse a plot element here and there I bet. For slightly slightly older kids you have C S Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Philip Pullman, look I can't list them all here. Suffice to say that there's a fairly large supply of easy to read fantasy books with a strong story, and excellent worlds and characters.
The point of my whole rant is - pretty much what I said before. When it comes to reading, I'd rather any child of mine start off by knowing what good writing is. After that, a little bit of gunk here and there can't mess up the cogs.

The Walking Bread

I’ve turned into a Walker. A lumbering beast that follows a pack, aimlessly straggling down a marked course with only one mission: get to the end of it, and then turn around and walk back again.

Okay so it’s not as dramatic as all that.  But I have, sad to say, resorted to walking since I simply can’t muster up the motivation to engage in any other form of exercise at the moment. And this is not normal for me as those who know me well (about 2 people) will attest. But the truth is, my motivation to work out fluctuates. For the last few years it’s been a cycle of:

1. Gain weight
2. Get horrified by the weight gain
3. Frantically research new training schedules  
4. Get myself to the gym regularly and even (gasp!) do cardio
5. Eat better
6. Lose the weight
7. Feel fantastic
8. Get complacent
9. Skip a workout now and then because I think I can ‘get away with it’
10. Stop working out for a few weeks because<random excuse>
11. Start eating junk because I’m sad that I’m not working out
12. Gain weight
13. Go back to 2

I have now reached a new low where I can’t even get back to 2. For the last few months I have been stuck in a vicious loop of 11 to 13. So great is my shame that walking actually feels like a step up. “You’re doing fine.” I tell myself as I trudge along. “Look at you walking! You’re moving your body from one place to another with your legs! You’re awesome!”

These days I’m actually using a designated ‘walking area’. It’s nice because you don’t have to dodge traffic but it’s also a bit sad – seeing as about ninety percent of the people on it are senior citizens. The rest of them consist of:

• Two serious runners
• Three power walkers - you know how Pheboe runs? Well these people walk like that
• One headscarf wearing man
• One woman wearing a serviette on her head. I’m not kidding. Remember that kind of checked serviettes that your uncle who was a government clerk used to carry in his briefcase? That type of serviette.  (Okay fine, so it was my uncle who was the government clerk but you get the point.)
• One guy in sandals – who probably got lost on his way to the bus stop
• One guy walks with his head tilted like an actual zombie (why do zombies do that?)
• Me

Despite these deterrents, I have been persevering – for exactly three days. And I’m writing this because: 

1.  I wanted to use The Walking Bread in a title so very badly.
2. I’m actually kinda sorta proud of myself for doing something other than going back to sleep after getting the offspring to the school bus.
3. Using lists makes this look longer than it actually is so I can pretend I wrote something worthy.

The one good thing about these walks is that when the zombie apocalypse finally comes, and my car runs out of petrol during my escape, I will be able to walk miles and miles till I find a replacement vehicle – provided of course that it’s only 3.5 kilometers away.

Get your very own Walking Bread t-shirt! Order now!

"I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."

When I was small I wanted to marry someone called John. This was mainly because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to communicate properly with someone who didn’t speak English and John seemed like a safe bet. I also made myself a promise that I would never marry someone with Perera as the surname (I had an uncle with that surname who used to tease me a lot – and I thought all Pereras were related to him). I was quite happy with my well laid plans; it seemed quite unlikely that a John Perera would ever come into my life after all.

So what did I grow up and do? I married Shane Perera of course.

Being married was hard; being married was wonderful; being married to you, it opened me up to a whole new world of experiences, and made me into a bigger better person. It gave me the capacity to love strongly, and more importantly, to be able to express that love openly. For a shy girl who earlier couldn’t even utter a simple ‘I love you’ without tying myself in knots – that was a major freakin’ deal.

It didn’t last, but so what; that doesn’t take away what was. What it made me be. And no matter what form of love mine has evolved to, it’s there and it always will be. You opened up a side of yourself to me that quite possibly only one other person in the world has ever seen. One of the things that make my insides wrench is that Abbster won’t ever get to see you as I saw you. But she has so much of you in her. She makes me stop in my tracks when she mimics a mannerism or even says something that’s just so you. With her, I don’t know where I end and you begin and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Guardians of the Galaxy is coming out soon. And you’re not going to get to see it, are you. It’s funny, how things like that are what get to me the most. I’m sorry that the last thing you watched in the X-Men franchise was the shitty Wolverine movie and that you totally missed Days of Future Past.

For a while there babe, we had the most amazing ride. I suppose to have had even a short amount of indescribable happiness is better than a lifetime of banality. I’ll forever be grateful that the last moment we shared was when I hugged you goodbye so tightly I made your glasses smudge. You made that ‘tsk tsk’ face and I cleaned them up. Let’s call this that last hug anniversary; that sounds better than any other name I can think of. 

Spicy Wombat Balls - among other things

Here are a list of clichés:

I miss you more than words can say

My heart is broken

You left me broken-hearted

I think about you all the time

Not a day goes by that I don't think about you

I'll never be the same again

Everyday I miss you more

Thing is, they're all true.
I miss you bunny love. Wherever you are, I hope things run on Linux.

Much ado About Nothing

As of late i have been inspired by - well, absolutely nothing. Nada /zilch/zero/the amount of awesome in a Michael Bay movie. What to write when you're not inspired? Well, one could just randomly start typing in the hope the something would crawl its out of the keyboard. Not that I'm going to admit to doing that now.

Oh! I bought a tablet. Let's talk about that.

It's an Acer Iconia A 830 slab of pure awesomeness. My primary requirement from a tablet was for it to function properly as a comic book reader. I love comics but living in the third world means that no one except for the filthy rich can support a comic book habit. So us lower life forms are compelled to read e-comics obtained by stealthy means. I previously had a Kindle - which sucked demon eyeballs. Not only is reading comics on a monochrome display a barbaric practice, the Kindle is so small that you have to zoom in on panels to read them. Needless to say that experiment was never repeated. I grew weary of the Kindle as an e-book reader as well - it was so unfeeling - reading a book off this cold lifeless device. For some reason reading books off the Acer is a much more enjoyable experience. It took me a while to get used to the whole 'thou shalt install apps' aspect of it. but once I had my readers up and running the comics displayed like a dream. It's a 7.99 display so a single page fits perfectly and is superbly readable. I'm glad I didn't go for the ipad (a choice I was considering because of the size) because the 'droid is way more flexible; I don't approve of Apple's prohibitive nature anyway.

 I really hope the Acer doesn't go the way of the Kindle and get retired to a cupboard after a few months (my Kindle committed suicide in retaliation). But I somehow doubt it will. I have a feeling it's going to stay shiny. :)

Genesis - or something like it

At first there was nothingness and then there was light

and then there were creatures of mien and might.

God made Adam and from his rib, made Eve

and Adam said thoughtfully, "but Lord, where’s Steve?."

A wily old serpent who slithered and spun

A tale so tempting of apples that were ‘yum’

and coerced poor Eve, who dimwittedly agreed

to eat from the fruit which grew on yonder tree.

God said with a frown ‘what’s the one thing I said?"

"Eat not the apples, but dine on that bread"

"Now you have done it! You’ve committed original sin!"

But dad, pleaded Adam, "we didn’t even begin!"

"Not that sin you fool, the one where she ate the fruit.

Away with you both, and yes, go barefoot.

Out of my garden and into the wild

and never look back until she’s with child.

Go forth and multiply, fractions will be next.

By Jesus, it’s Sunday!  It’s time that I rest."

Man of Steel - a mild dissection

First off, this not a review but a rant. As such, it's going to be full of SPOILERS. I hope you heard me there; I said SPOILERS. So obviously, if you haven't watched the movie, don't read this. You may have other reasons also for not reading this post - but spoiler averting is the only one I'm going to warn you about.

So about the movie then. Despite the best efforts of friends, acquaintances and people I stalk on the internet, I managed not to read the reviews or watch a single trailer leading up to the movie. So I didn't know a single thing about it other than have a mild awareness that Henry Cavill seemed to be able to pull off a skin tight onesie. Having now watched the movie I am sad to say that had I been unaware of a single element of the Superman mythology, it would have been so much easier to enjoy the movie. If all that the audience knew about Superman was that he had a red cape and could fly, then they would have been completely satisfied with Man of Steel because it features a Superman who not only wears a red cape, but flies. In case this sounds too harsh, that's not all the movie got right. They got everyone's names right for one thing. But somewhere along the way, between the explosions and the expositions, the movie seems to have misplaced its heart.
Look I understand that when you reboot a franchise, (for what is it, the third time?) that you need to come up with a totally different story line from the ones that came before. And if you want to mess around with the timeline well, I can accept that too - albeit a bit uncomfortably. But what I didn't expect or understand was why I felt nothing, absolutely nothing for the main character. I’m someone who already loves Superman. So for you to make me feel indifferent towards him movie, that was quite a feat. 

The first part, the part set in Krypton, was fine. Maybe a bit fantastic than necessary but hey, at least Russel Crowe can rock a onesie too. Then when the ship holding Kal-El landed on Earth I expected the story to continue - at least for a bit - along the familiar lines. But instead we are slapped in the face with a completely grown up Clerk Kent. Sure there are flashbacks showing us how he gained control over his powers and so on. But usually, in a movie, we get stuff that gives us a strong sense of the protagonist's personality. But with old CK, there is nothing there to establish what he's all about. His moral and behavioural code just seems to be what Jonathan Kent told him it should be. Honestly, what Henry Cavill doesn't do in three hours, Hugh Jackman does in two seconds using just one eyebrow.  

Then there are the little things that really bugged me. The flying - does he really need to wait till Jor-El points out the whole gravity thing? Did he make it through 33 years without jumping even once and realising it for himself? The stuff at the Daily Planet - Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White is an awesome concept - if we'd actually been allowed to watch him BE the character. Then there was that time Lois turns up at the train station. Superman and Zod had been battling it out all over Metropolis. The whole damn city was their arena and yet at that crucial moment Lois somehow figures out exactly where they ended up and managed to run there using her non-superspeedy legs in a matter of minutes.  Even the whole Lois and Superman thing felt perfunctory. 

Gripes aside, did I like Man of Steel? Well, yes, I liked some of it. The action sequences were quite nice - up to the point where they deciding leveling Metropolis was the way to go, that is.  Seriously, superman would never allow for that sort of super-battle to take place in a crowded city - he'd take it out into space. Anyway, as I was saying, some of it was alright, BUT watching this movie, I didn't feel the way I wanted so much to feel. I'll give the whole thing a generous 'meh' and be done with it.

Sandy

A friend had posted the firs line that goes 'I woke up and she wasn't there' on Facebook and asked everyone to submit a line each and help him compile a song. I decided to write a whole song - never showed it to him though, I doubt he would have been amused. :D

I woke up and she wasn’t there

Nothing left but a strand of her hair
Why did she have to go away
And leave her wig burning in my ash tray

Oh sandy

you are the one for me

but you didn’t know it
I guess i blew it
now I’ve lost
my will to live
how was I to know
it was a weave

Yesterday was our dream date
we played in the park and ate fudge cake
on the way home I bought you flowers
at a florist open after hours

We got home in the evening chill
you planted a kiss on my sheepish grin
then before I could take a breath
the sprinklers came on and got your hair all wet

Oh sandy

you are the one for me

but you didn’t know it
I guess i blew it
now I’ve lost
my will to live
how was I to know
it was a weave