VirusHead

Still sick, coughing, shivering, sweating, miserable. One good thing has come out of this, though. I’m sick and tired of feeling sick and tired, and there’s one thing I know I can (and should) do to make things better.

I am quitting my terrible smoking habit.

Potential embarrassment and shame about failure will be a further incentive, so I’m announcing here there and everywhere.

I’ve got a quit date – next Wednesday April 15th. I took my first Chantix pill last night. and it takes about a week to kick in – and my birthday isn’t a bad day to quit. I (really, desperately) hope it helps me get through the initial stages of withdrawal.

I’ve got a list of various warning signs, and another list of helpful tips – and I’m trying to adjust my psychology between now and then. I’m not going to do any nicotine replacement, because for me that would just prolong the misery.

I’ve been thinking seriously about quitting for a while now, but I just haven’t had the will. Everything came together this time, and it feels like a good time to do it.

I want to feel better, have more energy, and get that smell off of me. I want to get my father’s flat hopeless look out of my eyes. I want to be free of this addiction.

I’m also sick of the snarky comments, and the increasing class distinction – although to be honest, that’s just one more stupid reason that I’ve kept smoking, in defiance and rebellion. Well, gotta transcend that too.

John seems a bit apprehensive, as well he should be. The last time I tried this, it didn’t go very well. I know he really wants me to quit, though, and he’ll be very happy to see me do it – once it’s done.

My posts for a bit may just chronicle this particular journey. Maybe it won’t be a big deal. Maybe I’ll be a little crazy. I’m not sure. Even if things are a bit unstable for a couple of weeks, it will be worth it to get to the other side. I’ve got a lot of support for this, and I hope that my family, friends and co-workers will cut me a little slack if I act a little bit uncharacteristically here and there. I’m a little worried about that aspect of things; it’s one of the reasons I’ve put this off. Ideally, I would be shuttled off to some cabin miles from anywhere for the first two weeks, but that’s never going to happen – and waiting for the perfect opportunity to quit has meant that I haven’t quit. There’s never going to be the perfect time.

By Ben’s birthday – one month after mine – he’ll have a totally smoke-free and recovered Mommy wishing him a happy birthday, and she won’t have a lighter handy for the nine candles on his cake.

There is one thing that I truly enjoy about smoking. The controlled breathing of smoke in and out of me always made me feel a bit like a dragon, the keeper of the flame, the mistress of the wind. I’ll miss that more than anything else.

Toward the end of our trip (and as a follow-up to Michael’s terrific party – I didn’t even mention the food he served! Yummmm), we were invited by a Sante Fe couple to their house for dessert and conversation.

David Stout is an interactive video-sound artist. His works explore real-time cross-syntheses of sound and image. He works at Sante Fe College in the Moving Image Arts Department, an innovative program that that integrates film, video and digital production with critical studies and writing. His oeuvre includes electro-acoustic scores for stage and screen, live cinema, video-dance, data-base narrative, noise performance and multi-screen telematic video events that extend the roles of performer, audience and environment.

He was preparing for an upcoming show, and had pulled out some amazing prints that had been generated by his real-time technology of combined mathematics, image, and sound.

David, Michael and John huddled and talked about all that kind of stuff. I talked with him a bit, too, and I really appreciate the kind of art/science/sound thing he’s doing. He’s a very soft-spoken and witty sort of person, and I enjoyed his company.

“Fear-based” Media Ad – (Hint for the literal-minded…. this is satire, a commentary on fear-based ad manipulation that actually functions as an ad for the installation. Ummm… it wouldn’t fly in Georgia…)

I spent more of my time with his wife, Julie West. She is one fun chick, I can tell you (Yes, I can say that. I’m a feminist and I love this woman, so bah!). If we lived in the same town, we’d be hanging out together all the time. She has produced, written, and directed several documentary and educational videos, and is currently the studio manager and photo editor of Rainbow, a stock photography agency. She had just designed David’s latest art book, too. And this girl’s got the rockin-est hips I’ve ever seen. We’re about the same age, and her presence rejuvenated me.

Their daughter talked with me about ballet, and we also compared our iPods (she has the blue one). Their very lovely son took it upon himself to play with Ben (although I told him that he didn’t have to), and they did the video game/movies thing. (Ben spent more of the vacation than I would have liked sitting in front of one screen or another).

We stayed out far too late, but it was worth it. I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures (wah).

There are lots of smart, creative people in Atlanta. I know a few of them, but I’ve been living here for more than 16 years now, and I meet more interesting people in a week when we go somewhere else than I meet in a handful of years here.

Normally, I tend to think that there may just be more intelligent, educated people in other places than the South – but I’m really trying not to project my own circumstances into a generalized regional prejudice. Maybe it’s just that people socialize a little more elsewhere, or that they more easily talk to strangers in public places. I get a sense sometimes that the brightest people in Atlanta are almost in a situation of being in hiding. It’s not as though there are many public spaces that are conducive to conversation, either. There are universities, and there is an art scene, and there are always lot of events going on, but somehow “I do not catch the spark” (cf. “Prince of Darkness,” Indigo Girls). I’ve been in a kind of limbo since I finished the Ph.D., and I’m sure that’s part of the problem, but it really does seem very anti-intellectual here.

Here I’ve often gotten the feeling that it was really all about “networking” (in the negative sense). I prefer to meet people, talk with them, listen to something new, get to know them. And in a “networking” situation, I’m not sure that I really have much to offer other than myself. I don’t have the desirable “connections,” just a working mind and a relatively kind heart.

One thing I really noticed – again – about my experience of the southwest is the way your surroundings seem to open you up. There, I’m inhaling lavender and sage and feeling the sky all around me. Here, I always feel a little bit like I’m walking in a drainage ditch. There are a lot of trees and flowers, but there is something inhospitable…. something hard to define or describe, but I find it oppressive. Maybe it’s just the clay? The humidity? When we got back, I immediately felt a cloying sort of stupor coming over me again. I’m not going to try to ignore it anymore, I’m going to fight it.

Life can be too fun, and I feel like I might be missing the heart of the whole thing.