Downer Days

Today is a good day to listen to the Cure. Most days are good days to listen to the Cure, I would have to say broken hearted and gloomy Mondays are possibly the best. 

The gradual shift towards winter and Christmas has hit me square in the feels. I love Christmas and I also really love winter. There is an energy in the air that floats around during the season. Plus, writing in winter is the best. The cold weather, gloom dimmed clouds and visible breath are amazing world makers.

This is going to be my first Christmas alone. There, I said it, and it hurts. A lot.

I fucking love Christmas. I love having a lofi Christmas soundtrack as I skin up a sneaky early morning Christmas pinner. I love cooking more food than is necessary, eating  a fraction of it and having days worth of leftovers in the fridge. I love watching Home Alone, drinking brandy after lunch and eating pasteles de boniato my favourite of all the Spanish Christmas goodies. Then there is the inevitable food coma that kicks in around 45 minutes into Die Hard. Followed by a late afternoon / early evening nap. The snuggling on the couch with my wife and all the dogs, each fighting for a squeeze of space and physical contact.

Good lord, I fucking love Christmas.

Not this year. Nope. Not this fucking year. 2021 has taken so much from me, and I fear that this year it is going to go full Grinch and steal Christmas as well. Not even the lofi Christmas music is getting me out of my funk. There'll be no dogs this Christmas. No snuggling on the couch. No physical contact. Nope. Just me, on my ace, with John McClane and Kevin McCallister to keep a sad old fuck company.

Rituals give life order, they give life meaning. These wonderfully reliable and repeatable rituals give our lives a north star to fix direction upon.

What happens when our favourite rituals are so thoroughly bound up in the one that hurt us and took it all away? What is there to celebrate in failure?

I honestly have no answers. I do know that I am still going to cook too much, eat too much, smoke too much, listen to Christmas lofi and watch Home Alone and Die Hard. Who knows, maybe I will leave the flat and walk along the river. Go out and have a coffee. Who fucking knows. One thing is for sure, I guess it is time to start a few new rituals. I just wish I was ready to start them with someone else. Because more than anything, that is what I miss the most. That somebody else, there close by to complete Christmas, to finalise the specialness of this special day of excess.

Stumbling

The path to awesomeness is paved with uneven stones. Stumbling on these hidden stones is inevitable. What is not inevitable is picking yourself up, dusting yourself and starting again, even if it means starting from the beginning. Playing life on easy mode is unlikely to make you better. 

This week has not been great. It's fucking Tuesday. The fuck?

Needless to say, this week has not gotten off to the best of starts. In fact, more than once I've stared myself down in the mirror, banishing all thoughts of giving up. Those thoughts have been loud of late. Then she called. We spoke. It hurt. As it always hurts now.

This darkening shift to winter has been a challenge. I find myself increasingly longing for my home. My space and my routines. And us, our space, our house and our routines. Most of all, our dogs. That is the area that I am struggling the most with. My four stupid dogs. I love them so very much and I miss them even more.

I even began fantasising about a return, a reunion and a final sorry, let's try this again.

Then she called today and that band aid was rather unceremoniously torn right the fuck off. 

I love her and I want her to be happy, but fuck off if I want her to have all those things before I do! I am fucking selfish like that. Fuck her! I want her to feel my pain, to have my pain, to hold my pain and to know my pain in every visceral way.

But I love her, and I want her to be happy. I can no longer behave in the manner of child. Not anymore.

Then, because of course, I am sick for the first time in over two years. It has been less than ideal. The most frustrating consequence has been the absence of exercise while my body gets over this buuuuuullshit. Without the challenging of working on my body, my mind has filled the vacuum with thoughts and thinking and thinking and thoughts.

Yes, I know, I need to process and I cannot compartmentalise my feelings, but for fuck's sake! I am fucking so goddamned tired. I want this part to be over so I can keep powering forward.

So where does that leave me? Hopefully this is the bottom of the downward swing. And even if it isn't, that changes nothing. Everyday is an opportunity to practice awesomeness and being awesome. So today, I cannot workout, but I can work. And most of all, I can write. So, today, much as any other day, I will do what I can to the best of my abilities and wait on that which I cannot do and do it when I can.

Biologically engineered bodies and minds are governed by the simple rule: use it or lose it. If you do not use it, it gets fat. If you do no train the fat away, the fat will kill. It will kill bodies, brains and relationships. Relationships with self and relationships with other. So get up, get moving, work, workout and write you positive motherfucker!

Out with the negative, In with the positive

 "In with the positive, out with the negative". This is a breathing pattern that I first learned about in my twenties when I was too young for it to have any meaning. I cannot remember who shared it with me, but it was intended to help me cope with stress. Yurp, how droll. Stress in your twenties. Well, in my twenties. I had no idea what stress was. I was perma-baked. Nonetheless, the breathing exercise has been with me ever since.

I have been using it a lot lately. That is mainly because I have been having a really hard time sleeping. I then realised that it went even further.

I realised that I have been dwelling. Wallowing even. The negative has been a comfortable blanket with which I wrapped myself. It has kept me warm and snug as I have processed where my life is right now. I now want to put down the negative. I want to breath in the positive.

So what are these positives, how do I hold onto them, follow them and surround myself with them? In short, how do I become positive again?

Well, short answer is I have no fucking clue, but I am going to try my hardest to get there.

Let's start small.

First I have this, my keyboard, my PC, an apartment with electricity and the internet. This immediately puts me into a better position than a huge majority of my fellow South Africans. I have been using my set up to guarantee a regular source of income. Some of which I have spent wisely: paying bills, debts and buying food. These are all good things that I must remember and hold on to as cause for optimism. They may seem minor if you've never been hungry or never known anyone who has suffered hunger. Some of my income has been spent poorly: alcohol. tobacco, and the occasional bag 'o green.

Additionally, I have my writing. While my writing has gotten me nowhere in terms of getting published, it has allowed my a chance to logically process and express these deep and turbulent emotions roiling beneath the surface. Many of the friendships I have struck up here in Seville have been fun friends. And as such, it is never really appropriate to be a downer king and talk about my feelings. But still, there is positives to be taken from fun friends or firm friends. Human interaction is a positive. That in addition to the endless humans I get to engage with on a daily basis, all of whom offer a unique insight into the human condition I would not have had had I been successful in getting published prior to this point.

So that is work and the writing. Then there is the work out.

Exercise has been a major aid in moving away from being shit down the path towards awesome. I split up my training session between upper and lower body session mixed up with core and cardio. Then there is the yoga. Oh how past me would mock and ridicule present me for becoming a Yoga-vangelist. I fucking love the stuff. You vs you. It is the best way to get inside my head and squeeze out thoughts and feelings deep beneath the surface.

Finally, there is one foot in front of the next and sheer stickatitness. I would love to quit. In fact every day I am faced with the desire to throw in the towel. I refuse to. I will allow those thoughts their voice, so that I can shine light on them and as such identify them as not being a logical option. I refuse to allow life to beat me. 

That leaves me with a simple path ahead: "breathe in the positive. breathe out the negative" every second of every day. Embrace whatever few positives there are, hold on to them and use them to make new connections and pathways towards yet more positivity. For me, I will follow the path of the 3 Ws: Work, Work Out, Write.

This is probably not the path for everyone, but it is my path and I walk it, looking about and engaging with whatever beauty my mind can take in.

Today's writing soundtrack: Prefuse 73, Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives

Here come the dreams

Recently I bought a ten euro baggy. When I say recently I mean about two weeks ago. As I wrote about in a previous blog, it both helped and hindered. It was super easy to slip back into bad habits. All I wanted was to kick back, skin up and zero out. But I cannot do those things, not now. I have objectives, targets, goals. None of this things will be achieved by zeroing out.

So about a week ago, I smoked the last of it. The first few days were cloudy as hell. Blurry edged thought continued well passed the last joint. It took those first few days to properly stop feeling the effects of the green. 

Then after about mid week the real consequence of stopping began: the dreams.

I'm not sure what it is, maybe it's a case of not remembering or maybe it's a case of not having, but when I smoke green, I almost never dream. Since stopping, oh my lawd, the dreams, the fucking dreams. Good goddamn, they are incessant. And so fucking real. 

I can't really write about all of them because they are impossible to put into words. What I do know is that in a few of them, she has appeared, haunting and taunting me even in my unconscious dream state. At times we are friends, at other times we are lovers, and none of what has happened in reality has existed in the dreams. Those have been the good / bad dreams. Good while asleep, comforting and familiar, bad when I awake, and remember all that I once had and have since lost.

Other dreams have been far more bizarre, football in a war zone, holidays in the mountains with what can only be described as country folk, you know, the banjo playing kind with fairly poor dental hygiene. Then there is the final category, the one with women. Not only sexual, of which there have been a few, but strangely most of the dreams with women have been about first contact. The thrill of accidental touch, the excitement of a meaningful smile and the simple joy of mutual liking.

And then I wake up. 

The strange thing is that I am not interested in having sex. The very thought of being intimate with another person other than my ex sends shivers down my spine. I don't have the foggiest clue on how to open up and let someone else in again. What I do miss, however, is the companionship. The easy going nature of someone who you share thoughts and feelings with. And of course, the warmth of another body in the same bed at night. An empty bed in winter is an awful thing. These dreams have cut right to the centre of self denied truths about self.

I am quite possibly one of the loneliest motherfuckers out there, and I am afraid I do not have the social skill set or the right mental state to not be. At least not yet. I have so much healing to do before I can truly let anyone in again.

And that sucks, because now that it is getting cold, that cold and empty bed is a very sad thing. A very sad thing indeed.

To conclude, this weeks soundtrack has been brought to you by Slowdive, nice jangly music to accompany the coming of winter.

The Shadow Point

This shadow is the point

where two worlds meet.

It is here where lines blur

nothingness solidified into hard and edged, formed

and outwards explodes every

direction, sense, concept and / or

idea,

straight lines, curves and waves,

tumbling stumbling and jumbling

each over the other.

Sometimes fast and sometimes slow,

this shadow's crawl across

possibility leaves trace

evidence to be read,

seen and / or understood

by both minds and brains

capable of doing so.

This is the shadow point,

because there is no substance,

until there is.

And once there is,

there will always have been.

Until the end.

She Called

Yesterday was tough. In fact, let's maybe upgrade that to harder than fuck. I guess it might have been the fact that it was Monday. However, I normally don't have issues with Mondays, but yesterday I went full fucking Garfield. Maybe it was the first day post green since the last first day post green. I also went cold turkey on cigarettes and booze. None these things are easy to leave behind.

On my way to work, I felt the ball of depression in my gut. I have been working on it, squeezing it and trying to find the knotty centre of it in order to start solving it and putting it into order. As yet I have failed to make progress. The previous week of green helped me forget, but now it's back. I tried to take in the beauty of Seville, that helps quite a bit. I imagine depression in a less beautiful city must be quite a bit more challenging. 

Then there's work. Teaching teens and adults always help me to put my game face on. I don't know if that is healthy or not, but I feel that it does help. At least it is good practice to put feelings in their place and not to let them be the driver of my car.

Then my phone pinged. It was a message from her.

"Can I call later? It's about the dogs."

Fuck.

All the processing and putting into order my thoughts and feelings undone with nine words. 

I miss my fucking dogs so fucking much. I miss that when I cook meat or open a can of tune or even my morning yoghurt for breakfast, there aren't four begging dogs reminding me that they're the best of dogs and well deserving of a treat.

I also miss her. I am trying very hard not to, but fuck it, close on two decades with the same person kinda makes things stick.

I still love her. That is the hardest part of this all. I wish I could just erase 2021 and go back to what it was. Even though it was to be honest. It was Mary Jane helping me to bury my head in the sand and pretend everything is ok.

I had to put my head down and slog through work. Smiley face plastered on, cool, let's pretend everything is ok. Finally 21:30 comes and I head home, dreading the phone call coming at 22:00.

I change out of my work clothes, pour myself some water, do some dishes, and wait.

21:55 my phone rings. It's her. God I've missed her voice. The worst of it is how sad she is. The strings get pulled, tugging my heart sad. I cannot break down. I must not be weak. I need to be strong for the sake of progress, but god fucking dammit, it is not easy.

None of this is.

Words were spoken, feelings expressed, regret shared. Yet still there is no resolution. I have no idea if resolution can be found. 

So now it is Tuesday. Another day to power through. Another day to process feelings that I am so incapable of healthily processing. But fuck it, one foot forward and then the next. The only option is the final sleep from which we never wake.

A week of slipping

As the title suggests, last week was a bit of a back slider. Old habits and bad behaviours returned to my life. And to be quite honest, it was awesome. It was really comfortable getting baked again. In fact, by the weekend I was ready to go back to full perma-baked mode. It was so easy to slip right back into those old patterns of behaviour:

- 0900 cuppa and a spliff.

- 1000 work online interspersed with cuppas and spliffs.

- 1300 workout blunted.

- 1400 post workout shower and feeding followed by a spliff.

- 1500 - 1900 work online interspersed with cuppas and spliffs.

- 1930 clean, cook, smoke spliffs

- 2100 chill with telly and several spliffs.

That quite honestly was my life in Valencia for the last few years. In particular starting in the lockdown when my smoking really got out of hand.

The thing is, I love getting baked. It is so very comfortable and so easy to forget about all the work that needs to be done. The work I need to do on myself, mentally and physically, the work I need to do on my physical space in order to keep it clean and habitable, and finally the work that needs to be done in order to keep relationships with others clean and healthy.

It was the last part that was a major factor in the end of my marriage. I stopped doing the work because I was perma-baked for the last two decades of my life.

And for the last week I have toyed with the idea of sliding back into that well worn groove.

Partly it has been the change of season. Autumn and winter have always been my favourite bakage seasons. There is a special note that enters music and the soul when you bun up during the crisp mornings that greet every day. It sets the right tone for a creative tingly finger tip magic that drives creative thought. Art, music, literature all merge into metaphysical meaning and all things carry the magic of meaning one inch beyond reality.

The reality, however, is this: at this stage of my life, comfort without effort is dangerous. I cannot allow myself to backslide. I need to achieve a comfort as consequence of effort. Those childish escape mechanisms of my youth are problematic and I know know exactly where they lead. Biology is a cold motherfucker and in my view, a very good programmer. Biology has been on a drive to engineer the best energy solution mechanism: spend less, get more. Which means that all serves function, and that which does not slips away. Basically, use it or lose it. Which means that all things in your body, brain and life need to be exercised.

If you sit on anything, it will get fat. If you fail to burn off the fat, the fat will kill. This is true for your body, your brain or your relationships. Use it or lose it. You cannot afford to sit on any of them. Yes, I know, the dose defines the poison, as such, in all things let there be balance. The occasional zoot will not break me. However, I also know that having a baggy in my draw will also lead to old habits returning within less than a week. 

So where does that leave me on the path away from being shit and working towards being awesome instead? To be honest, as I have been saying since I began this blog, I have no fucking clue. I don't know if I am closer to the beginning of this journey or nearer the end. Actually, I know I am nowhere near the end. I do not feel that I am anywhere near as awesome as I want to be. I want to the awesomest motherfucker I've ever met. The most awesome version of myself that is humanly possible and even then, I will try to be even more awesome.

Because the only other option is being shit. And I've done that. I am done with that. I do not want to be shit anymore. Being shit is easy. Being awesome is not.

Conclusion time, I guess. Simply put, one foot in front of the next is the best I can do for now. Yes, I fell off and spent a week wearing old and comfortable shoes, they were wonderfully familiar. But, I know that these shoes need to be put away and other shoes need to be worn in their place. Yes, I can take them out from time to time, to look at and perhaps fondly reminisce, but the past needs to be left if I have any hope of a better future. You cannot find newer, better shoes, if you keep on relying on the old pair that are gradually eroding your knees and ankles, ready to leave you incapable of ever even walking. Yes, getting high this week has been awesome, but it does not help me progress down the path towards awesomeness. It is a complete hinderance.

Lost and Found

I have found myself,

lost.

Rediscovered in my

fragment self.

Splintered form of

irregular cracked edge

surface wiped smooth.

Invisible fractures formed

on personality,

grow to form

canyons of deep

longing for that

which is lost.

To memories passed,

beyond comforts

frayed and fearful.

Pass away time,

slipping through cold

numb fingers,

to stumble neatly onto

pastures new formed

distractions from

click over glitch,

back to the beginning.

What was that thought?

Nailed down, cycled return,

which was that thought?

Thoughts spinning pin the tail

chasing one after the other.

That old familiar warmth

seeping out of the body's

deathly decomposition.

So many places, thought has been,

but now exiled

is set adrift.

Explore new tangential

hopes of mornings

offering glimpses 

of meaning hidden

behind false dawns 

of tomorrow's lies.

Gently put down all thought

and embrace what is 

left in kind and 

graceful acceptance of

this place as consequence

of paths previously

chosen.

Falling Off

I am weak. I have no discipline nor willpower. For the first time in over two months, I smoked a spliff by myself. Since Monday night when I chose to do so, I have had incredibly mixed feelings about the choice I made.

On one hand, I enjoyed it, mostly. It felt good to relax and let myself go a little bit. On the other hand, the rest of this week has been influenced by the return of cloudy thinking that has been so prevalent for the last 25 years of my life.

Let us start with the incident. I tried to write while smoking. Here is what I wrote:

First solo spliff in over a month. The clarity has been good. But, the familiarity is also good. I have had the fresh green haunting smell of memory wafting from my desk draw. However, what I was able to do today that I have struggled with previously is the whole saying no part of the equation.

Now, I am ready. I took out a tiny nug, tolerance being what it is. It crumbled up super nice, I will be 100% honest, as that lovely fresh green smell wafted through my room I find myself struggling to put into words how excited I am to smoke this spliff. Yes, I have been drinking, what's your excuse?

First things first however: what is the soundtrack? Weird glitchy electronica? Some lovely homestyle dub, the kind that gran cooked up in the kitchen? So much to choose from. I know, Timewheel.

https://soundcloud.com/timewheel/timewheel-radio-show-100-dillard?si=449051810a484c23af52e824bcdcdb76

When in doubt, smoke a zooty and drop some timewheel.

Alright. Here goes. Time to spark.

My gawsh. That is tasty. Memory flood torrents in. That is it. All the last twenty odd years in one familiar taste. There are those wonderful overtones of sativa scent, undercurrented with tobacco, and that never ending highlighting of the pixelated edges of our shared realities. I wouldn't say I have missed this, so much as why did I ever stop?

And that, my friends, is why I stopped. Comfortable like shoes that are bad for your ankles. You know, yet still they are your favourite pair.

Why is it that music makes so much sense when you are gwafted? I mean, I get it, music is the business, but smoke a bit of the green and all of a sudden, music is speaking to the centre of centres that you were previously unaware of existing. Those subtle background fills become the hidden clue to the understanding of the hidden mysteries of universes yet to be discovered.

But I guess that's half the point. I'm not baked, you are. And in such a place as this, it's easy to confuse feeling for meaning. And with this spliff and this whisky, I know quite certainly that come a few days, they will wear off, and this music, this song, this sound, will continue to exist for me to either get or to not get. The problem is other brain drugs. The ones that only exist inside your head. They are that much more difficult to separate, identify and place under the spotlight of interrogation.

Much like any other drug, they become a part of us, they become us. They define us and they motivate us. Like weed does, like crack does, like the h bomb does and like charlie does. But these are external and as such we can that much more easily separate them from ourselves.

But brain drugs? Oh, brain drugs are from us, by us and bind us. They are so much more difficult to isolate and interrogate. They are so much more difficult to quit, because we do not know where they end and where we begin.

---

That is far as I got. Soon after writing the above, I went to bed, absolutely goofed to high heaven. Seriously, I cannot recall ever being as baked as I was on Monday night. It was good, bad and necessary.

So let us now talk about the after effects. Firstly the cloudy thinking. Since Monday I have been walking in a cloud. My clarity of thought that I had been enjoying of late was right out the window. The ability to focus for extended periods on a single task had evaporated. Along with these two negatives, there was an enhanced sense of significance and meaning attached to things: music, thoughts, feelings etc. 

Finally, I slept again. Dreamlessly. I guess that is a positive.

So that brings us to now. Has it helped? I honestly don't know. I was really enjoying "sobriety". And I say "sobriety" because daily alcohol consumption doesn't exactly scream sobriety. Yet, the longer term effects of alcohol, in terms of clear thinking and ability to concentrate are not as severe as cannabis. 

Then there is the mental health aspect. It felt good to get blunted again. However, I do feel that it was a case of short term distraction from the awful reality of my life at present. I do not think that that is healthy to do. Certainly not all the time as I was doing previously (25 years of my 40 years to be precise). I must not bury my head in the sand and ignore my health, mental and physical. I need to own my life and not let my life be owned, not by God, nor money, nor drugs.

What comes next? I have been good at limiting myself to a sneaky after dinner mint every night since and apart from the cloudy mornings it has not been terrible. It has not effected my work nor my exercise. It has massively decreased my desire to be social and out in public, and when you are trying to meet people, make connections and friends, that is perhaps not ideal.

One thing is 100% certain, I will go back to keeping Mary Jane at arms length. She is not good for me. And again, to be perfectly honest, she never was, not really. But I will interrogate that in a future blog. That's all for now, I guess and don't forget: Radiate Positivity Mother Fucker!

JHB

 

I owe it to all of you that never made it out

to all the victims of the efficient organ grinder factory

Johannesburg,

you brutal bitch.

I must stand on the bodies of all those left behind

in order to just get a peak,

a brief glimpse

of what it is like,

on the other side.

I need to bring attention

to all the forgotten voices,

limp leg rope swinging

soft hearted broken edged

people

of whom, none but their profit line

was of significance.

So now I must process,

express and never repress

this burning and building rage

of the years

so unkind and heavy

to build a memorial,

a monument

and a memory,

to shout as loud as possible,

fuck it, this is not acceptable.

There is no need for the beauty

to be factory framed,

pounded down into nothing you

and every thing an s with lines.

So here's to you,

the dead and unspoken

voiceless numbers

hard packed

in cold golden orange ground

the land on which the brutal bitch

Johannesburg was found.

First of the new month

Not much to say today. 

I watched some horror films last night, you know, Halloween style shit. It was fun. Drank beer, smoked weed, talked shit. Oh yeah, that's right, I am not supposed to be doing that anymore, the whole weed smoking thing that is. However, it could simply be a case of Dose Defining Poison. Or, as a new friend suggested, maybe I should unclench a little bit.

So let me interrogate a few things.

First, making friends over 40. Holy fucking shit and balls Batman, this is difficult. Seriously, how the fuck do you make friends over the age of 40? Pre-marriage, friend making was easy, organic and fun. Now I have trust issues, I am cynical and hard edged and on a very disciplined path in life. These are, or at least so I am told, not the best qualities to have when it comes to making friends.

Then there is the very idea of friendship itself. What does it even mean over a certain age? For example, in your teens and twenties friends were easy. You went to school with them or university. You had shared interests and hobbies: music, drugs and partying. You spent time together doing those things and then became friends by default.

Now, friends are no longer people to simply do stuff with. I need support, advice, a person to share inner thoughts with, a shoulder on which to lean on in the dark times or perhaps a shoulder to clap warmly in laughter during the good times. Co dependent friendships centered on booze, substances, or brain addictions (sport / religion / politics) are slightly problematic at my age and at this stage of my life. Friendship is so much more to me now than simply having fun and doing stuff together that fills time. 

Then there is the baggage. We all have it. I know I certainly fucking do. How do you let a stranger in for long enough to care about helping them carry their baggage and to allow them to help you carry yours? I have trust issues weighing me down and I have no clue how to trust anyone that wants to help me carry my baggage. Johannesburg taught me to doubt well-intentioned people. Seriously, anyone who is nice to you in Johannesburg 9 times out of 10 has some self serving agenda attached. Unless you grew up together and formed the bonds forged in the trenches of surviving that city.

So, I am simply trying to unclench. To give myself a longer leash. I am not very good at it. I have kept the leash short because I do not have much in the way of self control. This is evidenced by the years of substance abuse that plagued my adolescence and most of my early adulthood. Cannabis was both a support and a crutch through getting over the properly bad substances.

But then it too became a properly bad substance for my mental and physical health. As mentioned in a previous post, it was my love affair with Mary Jane that was a significant factor in the collapse of my marriage.

Let us now talk about learning how to unclench. How to lean back and simply enjoy again. Yes, you are right, I have major difficulties in enjoying the simple things. What gave away the fact that I am a chronic over thinker? Was it the absence of hair burnt away by incessant over thinking of all things in my life? 

It being pay day at the end of 2 months of a 7 day work week, interspersed with 6 day workout schedule and many days of excessive drinking and smoking, I rewarded myself with a small baggy. It is here in my desk draw and I have been thinking about the hold that green has had over my life. When I woke up this morning, a public holiday in Spain, I slowly got ready for some online teaching. I made myself a cuppa, and almost on automatic, wanted to skin up a pinner.

It was as natural as breathing. I didn't, but I am amazed as to how quickly that thought process returned after 2 months of not smoking. So now I am sitting here, talking to strangers online between writing this blog and stopping myself from making that first joint. I guess that is progress. Dose defines poison.

I guess it's time to wrap this all up, put a pretty bow on it and try to extract some meaning. I guess life is what it is, a constant and never ending work in progress. It is unpredictable and if you play it on easy settings, you probably won't get better at it. Life throws you curve balls and you need to adapt. I am going to finish my self imposed work day on a public holiday, hit a nice workout sesh later, do some yoga, squeeze out the poison and then at the end, not the beginning as I once was doing, I will skin up a pin up, not drink beer for the first time in months, listen to some music, smoke a pinner and un fucking clench. I am quite looking forward to be honest.