Day 6 - Evetech and I Make Friends

Monday. I'm tired, grumpy and uncomfortable. It's the second day without a nicotine patch or gum. The patch makes me itchy and the gum makes me feel sick. The good news is a cigarette would make me feel even more sick so I'm not tempted to have one.

I've never really suffered from insomnia so the inability to get to sleep, the waking up at 5am and the purgatory hours of lying awake are all really bothering me. Hopefully it'll all pass soon enough. And if it doesn't... well I have a lot of reading to do anyway.

Evetech and I were not friends today. I finally read the last email sent to me on Friday and it turned out to be obnoxious, ridiculous, whiny and rude. Eventually I replied to say that, while I understood how frustrating it can be to have a customer who doesn't seem to understand the things you find painfully obvious, his response to the situation still made him a giant prat. Amazingly I got an apology email in return, which of course embarrassed me immensely.

There's more to follow but to be perfectly honest, I've had a long hard day and, while yes, I have a new PC now, the last thing I feel like doing is being creative on it. I'll write more tomorrow.

Day 5

Very little to report today. It's my Dad's birthday and I was able to tell him I haven't had a cigarette for 5 days. The nicotine patch made me itchy so I've skipped using it for a day. Haven't had gum either. The weekend is passed and with it the worst of dealing with temptation for awhile, as now there's no smokers around. Hopefully I get my PC tomorrow. All is well. In honour of Queen Elizabeth II's diamond jubilee, here is a picture of her:

God save the.. Oh. Nevermind.

Day 4 - Hello, Insomnia

It's 5:30 am and, technically, day 5. This pamphlet my Dad gave me about quitting smoking promised extra energy within days of quitting. Turns out that's how they market insomnia.

Oh well. There are worse looks than The Insomniac.

I spent almost all of yesterday re-dying my blue hair. When I dyed my hair blonde, I'd put the bleach on for an hour, wash it off and be done. Now I have to bleach my roots before applying the dye, and then I have to leave the dye in for hours. Bleaching roots is a harder task than it sounds. Brandon had to paint them with bleach for me. Then I had to wash the bleach out, dry my hair and let him paint again, this time getting the spots he'd missed before. Finally I was able to put the dye in. I washed it out again before going to bed, but the tips of my hair is definitely green so I have more dye in again. You'd think this would kill my hair but thankfully Manic Panic is a lot kinder to hair than bleach. Apparently some people sleep with it in. I would too but I don't fancy blue-stained sheets.

It's been hard to resist smoking. Cobus visited last night, and he's always been a smoking buddy, so I was on edge from the moment he arrived and had to stop myself from telling him he smells really nice several times. (Ah the choking scent of smoke. Only ex-smokers really appreciate it.) Even after he left I wanted one. Eventually I got sick of craving a cigarette and went to bed. At no point was I craving nicotine. It's just the damn habit. 

Still, I've broken my own record. Usually I can't get past day 3 without having at least one cigarette. Pretty impressed with me.

6:30 and I'm definitely not going to get back to sleep. If this happens a lot I'm gonna have to get a hobby.

Day 3 - Patches Are Awesome and Evetech is Rubbish

I finally managed to hunt down possibly the 2 remaining boxes of Nicotine patches in the country. So far I'm a big fan of the patch. Before, cigarette cravings would trigger both when I did something I associate with smoking and when a sudden need for nicotine would was over me. Right now, I only crave a smoke during the association times. This is an improvement and makes things easier. Unfortunately I used to smoke a lot. Coffee? Have a cigarette! Driving? Have a cigarette! Just eaten? Have a cigarette! Woken up for no reason in the middle of the night? Have a cigarette! It is nice I didn't have to get all dressed up in ridiculously warm clothes. disable the alarm, unlock the house and go outside in the cold, I'll admit that much.

I did feel a bizarre wave of depression this morning only to have it disappear completely - so that was the patch.. or it's the withdrawal from the smoking.. or I'm just crazy.

I'm sad to report my hair does not smell of shampoo. It smells of boiled cabbages. The kids have lice so I'm wearing a spray in an effort to not catch it. So being able to smell is not a plus today.

Today is day 3 - the day I usually crack. To make matters worse, a friend of mine who smokes like a chimney is visiting. I wont break, I know that much, but I may become very sad inside and go through a lot of blackberry flavoured gum.

The other bad news is I won't be getting my PC today. Evetech, who insists 2-3 days delivery time all over their site, now tells me they mean that's after they build the PC. At first I asked if I could pick up the PC tomorrow from the people who are delivering it, knowing they don't deliver over weekends. The email I got back was dismissive and patronizing, as if I'm some stupid child who doesn't understand the fact that Ryan, (the customer service guy), really couldn't care less about me, the customer, since I've already given him money. I replied to say I was sad about that because, after all, today is the third working day since ordering. I got a very annoyed email explaining that by 2-3 days they mean 5-6 days and I should obviously know that. By now, irritated with this guy's attitude, I gritted my teeth and carefully didn't tell him where he can go jump, but did point out that their site is misleading. I received an very angry email in return filled with capital letters. "IT'S TWO TO THREE DELIVERY DAYS THAT DOESN'T INCLUDE BUILDING THE PC". Yes, Evetech, I get it. I also get the fact that your customer service guy is an obnoxious git and that you do bare minimum for your customers, then talk to them like you're vastly above them when they ask you simple questions. I get that doing a little bit extra for your customers or being extremely clear on your site is violently against company policy. And, by the way, when I phoned on the first day I was told 2-3 days meant I should get the PC today, maybe Monday at the latest. You know, it's really simple. Don't promise things you can't deliver.

So Monday it is. Maybe Tuesday. Wednesday on the outside. I really hope I get it before the week after next week. Last thing I want is to deal with Scumbag Evetech again.

Day 2 - I Hate Nicorette

When I was a child, we had these DOS computers. They looked kinda like this:

No mouse. Could run simple games and programs that would fit on floppy discs. I used to play Spy vs Spy and Police Quest and, when I got a little older, Elder Scrolls: Arena. It's bizarre to think of the monster I'm going to have soon, with Elder Scrolls: Skyrim on it. 

 Arena

Skyrim 

If you look closely you'll notice a slight upgrade in graphics

One of my brothers must have thought it would be nice to read something funny as you're waiting for your PC to boot up, so they ran some sort of program that caused one of the many Murphy's laws to pop up while the PC was loading. In other words, every day of my young life, I'd read something to the effect of "The other queue always goes faster", or "The repair man will never have seen a model quite like yours before."

To this day, I insist that's why Murphy rules my life.

So of course, the very moment I decide to quit smoking with the aid of nicotine patches, the only company in South Africa that produces nicotine patches has discontinued them. Not for health reasons, but because they're having some sort of import issues. The gum is available. I hate the gum. No one has the patches. I phoned everywhere. "We have the gum", they all said. "Oh and there's this wonderful new pill called..." Yeah. The moody - then - suicide pill. I know all about it.

I finally found one chemist that said they could get two boxes of the very lowest strength patches for me to pick up the next day, and who sold me the gum. For about R40 more than anyone else would have. Murphy again.

The gum itself tastes like old tyres. You're supposed to have one every time you crave a cigarette and at least 8 a day. Seems pretty excessive to me, and it encourages you to replace one action with another. I don't see how this can possibly not lead to a new addiction. So far I've had one piece and a lot of regular chewing gum.

Yesterday also was the day people chose me to listen to them blab about relationships. Oh so much joy. So loving of you to hang out, Murphy.

Despite all of the above, I'm still doing fine. People remain encouraging, though if I were them I'd be cynical and making bets on how soon this person who's making their quitting attempt public will give in. But my new PC is on its way,my hair smells of shampoo instead of smoke, and I can still have as much coffee as I want. In fact, there's a thousand things I enjoy that I can still do that are not smoking. For some reason I almost subconsciously thought all those things would disappear too.

Day 1

Yesterday saw this post on my main blog. Today is Wednesday 30th of May so here we go. No more smoking: Day 1.

I haven't tried out a nicotine patch yet, but I do have bubblegum. So far, my cravings are only ritualistic. It's strange to skip the cigarette I usually have on the way home from dropping my daughter off at playschool. I'm not entirely sure what non-smokers do during morning break time either. I have gone many a morning without smoking though so it's nothing new to me.

Most people are encouraging, which is nice, but one stupid git whined that I'm "making excuses" instead of "just quitting". I love how people are. The moment someone wants to quit smoking there's always one person who'll tell them they're quitting smoking wrong and should do it this way instead. In fact, there's usually more than one person doing that. There's also generally a good deal of non-smokers who can't understand why quitting "that disgusting habit" is so hard for smokers. I've also noted many times that quitting time tends to be when people decide to pick fights with you. There's no medicine out there that really helps either. And then everyone sits around wondering why you started again when something snaps and you have that damn smoke.

I have gum as a substitute for when I'm driving, (I've been smoking while driving since before I got my license - driving without smoking is going to be an adjustment of note) but I'm going to have to work on a good substitute for when people irritate/upset/annoy me. It hasn't happened yet, but it will.

Or I could just give everyone around me permission to do this:

A good plan. I'm going with it.