Missing a bad habit.

Yeah, I've quit smoking, but in my heart I'll always be a smoker. That's probably why today's Wikipedia featured article on the anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany tickled my little smoker's lungs. It gives me a legitimate reductio ad Hitlerum when I call the anti-smoking lobby "fascist."

For Andi:

Loyal readers, thanks for checking in to check on me. I’ve been pretty quiet, mainly because I really don’t know how to blog this part of my life. Things have been going well with Meg and we’ll have been together for five months this coming Friday. The adventures haven’t stopped; they’ve just changed. The Famous International Playboy gig has been put on the backburner.

I have not had the opportunity to wear the bespoke tux. I did go to a bourbon tasting with Frankie and Bob, the “periodic table man.” Bob started dating Elisa, the Fulbright Scholar in April, and . . . well . . . he accidently knocked her up within a month after they first got together. They’re having a boy. As Elisa is Meg’s friend, and she introduced us, I have come to know Bob in all his nerdiness and it turns out he’s all right.

I smoked my last cigarette on August 7th, and haven’t fallen off the wagon. I must admit, I was a smoker for so long, it’s hard not to think of myself as a smoker. My lungs still have pangs of longing – not unlike hunger pangs – but I feel healthier for having quit. The Girl bought me a bottle of bourbon to mark one month smoke free and has kept a stock of Maker’s Mark at her place for me.

I made Meg a mix-CD, and here is the playlist. I call it the:

Sitting by the River Mix 2008

1. Bring on the Dancing Horses – Echo and the Bunnymen
2. Rebel Rebel – David Bowie
3. Ride a White Horse – Goldfrapp
4. Shoulder Holster – Morcheeba
5. The Last of the Famous International Playboys – Morrissey
6. The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure – The Magnetic Fields
7. Sweet Jane – The Velvet Underground
8. There She Goes – The La’s
9. Brimful of Asha – Cornershop
10. You Can Get it if you Really Want – Jimmy Cliff
11. My Little Red Book – Love
12. Picture – Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow
13. Modern Love – Last Town Chorus
14. Southern Cross – CS&N
15. The Moneymaker – Rilo Kiley
16. I Got You – Split Enz
17. Pretty in Pink – Psychedelic Furs
18. All out of Love – Air Supply

Turns out this is a pretty decent road-trip mix. . .

The Fifth of November