i fell off the wagon

my no-cigarettes wagon hit a bump in the road last night after several beers and a little coaxing from chris. but i'm back on the patch this a.m. i missed having the crazy dreams....

and i'm SO ready for my vacation to England. less than three weeks to go!!

Currently listening: Sumday By Grandaddy Release date: By 10 June, 2003

side effects of the patch

several of my friends already know this, but i am trying to quit smoking... again.

i decided to try the patch this time, and i put one on for the first time last night. i went with the medium-strength version since i smoke less than half a pack a day. i'm 12 hours into it, and things seem to be going well so far... i'm chewing a LOT of gum.

but the patch has some weird side effects, one of which my friend megann warned me about... you can sometimes have "vivid" dreams while you're on the patch. i was skeptical, but my dreams last night were like movies! in one, i dreamed that i was sitting on the bank of a pond on my paw-paw's farm, watching my dad and my brother swimming at sunset. while they swam around and laughed, i was watching for -- get this -- hedgehogs in the water. not water moccassins... hedgehogs. rabid little things, i suppose.

weird, no? i might start a dream journal to keep up with some of this stuff.

i sent this email to a few female coworkers today...

could you guys help me with a little something today? i am on breast watch... i put this shirt on this a.m., forgetting that the MF'ing buttons tend to pop open on their own. it would be handy at the after-after party, but in the office, it's a pain in the ass. so, could you guys just raise a big red flag if you see the girls coming out for an adventure? i'd appreciate it.

my seat is sore...

I saw Manhattan in a whole new way today: from the seat of a bicycle.
Thanks to my gracious host, who sensibly talked me into wearing a helmet, I have now biked through Central Park (it took me 35 minutes to get around the main loop. I was lapped by a kid with training wheels once.), Harlem, Inwood and Washington Heights. It was awesome. And I even managed to keep from flying over my handlebars when some chica opened her car door six inches in front of my bike.

It was a great time, and except for the fact that I may never be able to sit down again properly, I had a blast.

I learned a few things during our five-hour ride... Open fire hydrants are a special blessing. There is a neighborhood in Harlem Heights that looks like Quebec City, complete with cobblestones and row houses. There are men on this planet who box, salsa dance and bike all in the same week. And this city has a lot of hills. The only way I could keep pedaling at some points was to imagine twinkies and cheetoes falling off my ass.. All those spoonfuls of Ben n Jerry's vanilla ice cream, plopping to the ground after I pushed through each uphill stride. I did walk one particularly tough hill behind the Cloisters... It was so steep that I thought I might need some rope to repel back down it. Of course, I might have been able to ride up the hill if we hadn't stopped for lunch at a Harlem restaurant called Soul Food. For our mid-ride lunch, I ate fried pork chops, mashed potatoes with gravy, the best damn corn muffins I've ever tasted and black eyed peas. Oh, and a jug of sweet lemonade. I can't imagine why they don't serve that exact meal to all the racers in the Tour de France. Oof...