(no subject)

[petermarcus]

I'm not exactly what one would call a practicing Catholic, but 12 years of Catholic school kind of sits on me. So, I'm doing the Lent thing this year. No meat or snacking on Friday (and before 1968, it was no meat every Friday of the year, with serious fasting on Fridays during Lent). And, I have to give something up, make a sacrifice. I think I'm going to combine my New Year's Resolution with Lent and stay away from tobacco. Not that I've really been smoking, but I've been cheating here and there, every 2-3 weeks or so. I haven't yet gone 40 days without. Last was part of a cigar on Mardis Gras, safely outside of Lent by one day....

I had a fish sandwich value meal from McDonalds today for lunch. The residual Catholicism in me is simultaneously amused and horrified that a McDonalds value meal is considered fine for Lent. I wonder what St. Francis would think.
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I'm going across the state to Melbourne tomorrow. I haven't been home on that coast since before Christmas, I think. Good fishing over there, this time of year.
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I need to change my spark plugs tomorrow morning, though. I changed four of them last weekend, but there are two that are hiding behind an air conditioning duct, and I have to do some disassembly to get to them. Modern cars...sheesh. I'm having problems starting the thing in the morning. It has 112,000 miles on it, so I know it needs a tune-up, and I was hoping the spark plugs were part of it. The four I changed don't seem to be helping, though. I changed the air filter as well, and put in some fuel-injector cleaner, but it's still starting rough. The battery still has a green light, though I don't know if I trust it for 112,000 miles (I think it's the original), and my alternator seems to be fine. I'm hoping that it isn't a stupid computer chip somewhere. This thing (a '99 Ford Explorer) has literally, honest to God, more computing power than the Space Shuttle, but if one of those chips fry, then all of that power is worth its weight in sand.

Comments

[ex-kriya.livejournal.com]

No meat or snacking on Friday
(*Kriya hides slice of sausage pizza)

Not that I've really been smoking, but I've been cheating here and there, every 2-3 weeks or so. I haven't yet gone 40 days without. Last was part of a cigar on Mardis Gras, safely outside of Lent by one day....

Heh...I remember once, when I lived in NY, a small group of us went to the Gingerman, a more upscale bar for businessman, that us poor college students went to just for kicks. Now, I was the only woman in the group of four, and probably looked very silly, but we each ordered a different fancy cigar. One guy thought tequila shots sounded fun. (*Already you probably know where this is going)

Sheltered me was trying to be "bad". It was only after 15 minutes that mengakalkan (an NYU buddy) asked me, concerned, "You're not actually inhaling that, are you?"
Uh...Was I not supposed to? Needless to say, that between the tequila and the cigar (neither of which I was accustomed to), I never did make it through the Jean-Claude VanDamme movie we had all gone to see. It was fortunate that mengakalkan was a gentleman, and made sure I got home safely. As, I had never been so sick in my life, and if I hadn't been with people I trusted, it coulda been an ugly situation for me.

I had a fish sandwich value meal from McDonalds today for lunch. The residual Catholicism in me is simultaneously amused and horrified that a McDonalds value meal is considered fine for Lent. I wonder what St. Francis would think.

It's probably 'cause it's only imitation fish. ;)

[petermarcus.livejournal.com]

LOL. You get plenty of nicotine just puffing a cigar. (And you get plenty buzzed just drinking beer -- though I never really learned that in school ;)

Quitting smoking doesn't bother me, normally. Most days I don't even think of it. Every now and then, though, I get a huge craving out of nowhere. I need to resist those.

[ex-kriya.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the huge craving for a cigarette is out of nowhere, or if there is a trigger? For a while, when I would have a cigarette when my Ex and I got together, while it really did make me feel physically bad (I have bad allergies), I found that when I got really stressed, I wanted one. I wonder if it has to do with focussed breathing (at least in my case) vs. the nicotine. I don't know.

I also remember when I was 19 in the theater department at a local college, I was around smokers all the time backstage. A couple of times, I thought someone would have to peal me off the floor, I was so nauseus. But, after the show was over, and I was no longer backstage all the time, I started to actually feel withdrawal symptoms...craving a cigarette and I didn't even smoke! Isn't that weird?