(no subject)

As symbolism-bound as I generally am, I almost let my one-week anniversary of quitting smoking pass by without notice!  How/why could I do this?  PAIN.

I continue to be very happy with the MC, which I have now renamed in my head a few times: first, as the e-cig, which is uneuphonious, and then as the e-garette, which is nice, because it has the connotation of both an egret and a garrotte (long neck!  choking!  much like the common perception of smoking!), and finally as the e-gar (they do, btw, make an electronic cigar, and even an electronic pipe).     I've been sleeping poorly since I went on it, with incredibly vivid dreams and, commensurately, incredibly broken sleep: I'm not sure if this is linked, psychosomatic, or purely coincidental.   I could be experiencing mild withdrawal if I'm cutting my intake unexpectedly: alternately, I could be experiencing nicotine highs right before bedtime if I'm guaging my dosages wrong (being a night-owl, I always did like to smoke most at night).  Hell, I could just be plain old anxious about quitting smoking and the start of the term ... it's hard to tell.  It does, however, seem to be getting better.

So, having quit the tobacco, I decided to undertake another one of what I'm starting to think of as my quarter-life crisis experiments: six months from thirty, and I'm trying a hell of a lot of new things, some significant - changing Pills, the e-gar - and some silly and jejune - waxing, and now dental bleaching, and worse.  A week ago, I wouldn't have bothered, because the odds of my being able to go the two days immediately afterwards without smoking would have been slim to none, much less the odds of my not tinting them back within six months: now, it seems realistic to think that I might be able to maintain it.  This isn't purely vanity/curiousity, btw: I broke one of my front teeth back in high school and had to get it crowned, and a year ago, the crown chipped.  Now that I'm having it replaced, the dentist's convinced me that it'll look silly if it doesn't match the rest of them color-wise: I am not convinced that this was not entirely self-serving.

The dental bleaching bloody hurt.  The process itself was relatively innocuous, but the aftermath ... look, remember being really bored, and reading about toucing a battery to your tongue/chewing tinfoil at age 9, and thinking, why not?  Well, as far as I can tell, dental bleaching is the adult equivalent of not in terms of pain.  After I got home - yes, after, for which I am a fool - while in the throes of occasional sharp pangs of agony, I decided to Google the procedure: many of the reviews said it was Worse Than ChildBirth.  Now, while it did hurt, man, do I hope they are right: if so, baby-making will be cake compared to the re-crowning!  Because that is my worse: that really hurt.

Four Motrin and a Tylenol w/coedine later, I'm a-okay (if thinking that I might keep the afor-mentioned future kids  in a box so as to discourage them from brawling in high school to avoid this stupid, stupid fate) and still thinking: if I hadn't quit smoking, right now, I wouldn't be in so much pain.  On the one hand ... why did I ever quit smoking?  I say this only because OW.  On the other hand, how incredibly jarring to think I've been postponing necessary health concerns for a  stupid addiction.  Who knows?  In a month or two, I might even get enough of my breath back to start rollerblading or climbing again ....

(no subject)

As symbolism-bound as I generally am, I almost let my one-week anniversary of quitting smoking pass by without notice!  How/why could I do this?  PAIN.

I continue to be very happy with the MC, which I have now renamed in my head a few times: first, as the e-cig, which is uneuphonious, and then as the e-garette, which is nice, because it has the connotation of both an egret and a garrotte (long neck!  choking!  much like the common perception of smoking!), and finally as the e-gar (they do, btw, make an electronic cigar, and even an electronic pipe).     I've been sleeping poorly since I went on it, with incredibly vivid dreams and, commensurately, incredibly broken sleep: I'm not sure if this is linked, psychosomatic, or purely coincidental.   I could be experiencing mild withdrawal if I'm cutting my intake unexpectedly: alternately, I could be experiencing nicotine highs right before bedtime if I'm guaging my dosages wrong (being a night-owl, I always did like to smoke most at night).  Hell, I could just be plain old anxious about quitting smoking and the start of the term ... it's hard to tell.  It does, however, seem to be getting better.

So, having quit the tobacco, I decided to undertake another one of what I'm starting to think of as my quarter-life crisis experiments: six months from thirty, and I'm trying a hell of a lot of new things, some significant - changing Pills, the e-gar - and some silly and jejune - waxing, and now dental bleaching, and worse.  A week ago, I wouldn't have bothered, because the odds of my being able to go the two days immediately afterwards without smoking would have been slim to none, much less the odds of my not tinting them back within six months: now, it seems realistic to think that I might be able to maintain it.  This isn't purely vanity/curiousity, btw: I broke one of my front teeth back in high school and had to get it crowned, and a year ago, the crown chipped.  Now that I'm having it replaced, the dentist's convinced me that it'll look silly if it doesn't match the rest of them color-wise: I am not convinced that this was not entirely self-serving.

The dental bleaching bloody hurt.  The process itself was relatively innocuous, but the aftermath ... look, remember being really bored, and reading about toucing a battery to your tongue/chewing tinfoil at age 9, and thinking, why not?  Well, as far as I can tell, dental bleaching is the adult equivalent of not in terms of pain.  After I got home - yes, after, for which I am a fool - while in the throes of occasional sharp pangs of agony, I decided to Google the procedure: many of the reviews said it was Worse Than ChildBirth.  Now, while it did hurt, man, do I hope they are right: if so, baby-making will be cake compared to the re-crowning!  Because that is my worse: that really hurt.

Four Motrin and a Tylenol w/coedine later, I'm a-okay (if thinking that I might keep the afor-mentioned future kids  in a box so as to discourage them from brawling in high school to avoid this stupid, stupid fate) and still thinking: if I hadn't quit smoking, right now, I wouldn't be in so much pain.  On the one hand ... why did I ever quit smoking?  I say this only because OW.  On the other hand, how incredibly jarring to think I've been postponing necessary health concerns for a  stupid addiction.  Who knows?  In a month or two, I might even get enough of my breath back to start rollerblading or climbing again ....