Category — strategies/replacements

Yesterday was lovely, simply lovely. I worked all morning, very early, so I was done work by early afternoon, with plenty of time to take in an afternoon stroll to the bank in the springtime sun. Then I returned home and baked a cake!

It was a day worth celebrating and I wanted to have something special with which to celebrate! Two years ago when I made it to Non-Smoking Fools’ Day I baked a cake and made some really messy, cement-coloured icing that caused me such strife that I very nearly broke up with my girlfriend, who was laughing at my pain over the phone. We laugh about it now, but it was hell at the time!

It ended up being a really ugly cake. I mean seriously ugly. I am no baker and I am certainly no cake decorator. It’s kind of hilarious, how bad it was, really. Witness:

Ugly as it was, it was actually really delicious. So much so that every time we have had some birthday or other cake-worthy party to celebrate since then, Kabuki requests the special coconut icing. I have since adapted it to make it not only even more delicious, but also less sloppy and ridiculous. And a more appetizing colour. Live and learn.

So this year I wanted to make that yummy cake again, complete with the miraculous, if trying, coconut-mascarpone icing that has gone from being my bane to being my specialty. However, this time around I wanted to do something a bit different with it. A few weeks ago I had rewarded myself with a trip to Kitchen Stuff Plus, one of my favourite places in the universe. I went in for a spatula and came out with a haul, including these nifty little guys:

They’re cupcake cups, but made of silicone so you can bake the cupcakes right in them! So cute and colourful. I was itching to post this find on here before, but wanted Kabuki to be surprised on NSF Day, so I kept my mouth shut until now.

The Ugliest Cake In History, however, had become something of a nostalgia by now, after all of our struggles, so I still wanted the cupcakes to reflect the old cake in some visual way. So I adorned each one with one of my ridiculous decorations from the old cake. And since my decorating skillz are so…interpretive that it may be difficult to tell what any of these illustrations are, I made another funky image map to explain them! To view it, click on the image below:

After enjoying a delicious meal that Michelle so kindly brought home from Chipotle, we sauntered over to Kabuki and the Good Doctor’s place to share the cupcakes and congratulations on all of our hard work. The cupcakes were a hit! I am really proud of the both of us.

And I have a whole cake left at home yet to be decorated… There may be more ridiculousness in that department still to come.

So things have been a bit tough. I have had at least three days this week that felt like weeks unto themselves with the cravings, but I have managed to stay clean. It doesn’t help that Kabuki and I seem to have let the weekly outings and daily phone calls fall by the wayside.

I am trying to get out of the house anyway, though, so I won’t end up feeling crappy like I did last week. Last time we quit together we fell off the wagon together as well, and Kabuki noted—quite correctly—that we were too codependent about it. I could really use my wing-gal right now, but ultimately I have to be able to be in this for me.

So I have gone to the gym a few times, including today, and also have been trying to get out and walk around in the relatively nice weather we have been having. The exercise helps. Yesterday I went to the Danforth to pick up a book that I had ordered from Book City. I love that book! So gorgeous. It was such a nice day and I have been so good with the not smoking and feeling pretty happy about it that I thought we should both reward ourselves with dinner at Astoria. Yum!

Oh, and also? I drank wine! And didn’t sit there hating it because I couldn’t smoke. Rock on! To celebrate I picked up a couple more wines on the way home to bring back here for the weekend.

I have been working a lot, and I mean a lot, which helps and doesn’t help in that it keeps me busy but ups my stress level and back pain. But the money is nice. And I made an appointment with an accountant for my taxes, but haven’t gotten all of my stuff together yet. Um, I guess I had better do that. Thank heavens I am able to drink wine again!

With the weather getting nicer—and sunnier—I would like to get some of the toy and obsolete cameras Michka and I have together and go photo-adventuring. We have a Holga, an Oktomat, a pinhole (yet to be put together), a Brownie and a Voightlander. Oh, and an 8mm, for which of course they don’t make film anymore, but it’s pretty, and a Super 8, for which they do, although it is a bit pricey to process. The possibilities are simply delicious.

Wow, this week flew by. I barely even had time to document the week’s struggle here, which I suppose means that it’s getting easier to live without thinking about smoking all the time.

After all of my talk of side effects the other day, I forgot to mention one very important one: I spend next to no money when I am not smoking! I rarely go out and don’t drink, don’t throw money away on stink-sticks and instead use the cash on other more enjoyable things. Which means that my money jar is already accumulating some serious dough!!

That’s what I’m talking about. I’m fucking rich.

In addition to rewards, of course, we needed to come up with lists of replacements for cigarettes and strategies for keeping off of the smokes. Different things work for each of us. I prefer things like hot water, tea, mints and chocolate while Kabuki prefers to sleep and take baths.

Here are a few strategies and replacements we came up with for those moments when we feel we are ready to gnaw our fingers to the bones:

Note that neither of us wanted to use cessation drugs or implements such as patches or gum. I have tried that Nicorette shit and man, it nearly *killed* me. I didn’t realize you had to chew it once and let it rest, then chew once or twice more and let it rest… I chewed it like regular gum and it tore the shit out of my throat. Ugh. Never again.

As for patches, I don’t know. I think half of my addiction is in my hands and another third of it in my lips, so the fraction left that the patch would tackle seems less than satisfactory. Plus I wanted to end my relationship with nicotine altogether rather than to wean off. I may be bitchy (I really, really am), but I will be free sooner. Or so the theory goes.

So basically the plan is to tackle the immediate cravings with whatever distractions work the best, whether it’s a good old fashioned sen-sen (I live on these), a nap, or…sex! Whatever works. And in the longer run, keep busy with projects, walks, exercise, and…sex!

We’re also avoiding situations that lead us to want to smoke. So, in essence…everything. Ha! I informed my close friends that I wouldn’t be around for a few weeks, that I needed some cloister-time. No drinking, very little socializing and never at night, avoiding super-rich foods, leaving my taxes for a later time because dude—NO STRESS. That last one is a hard one. It’s a tough time of year. but as Kabuki has said numerous times, there is never a good time to quit smoking.

So we know we’re going to hit the hard moments, no matter how we try to avoid them and no matter how we have planned to deal with them. The next question is, how do we avoid losing our cool? How especially do we avoid taking out our bitchery on our supportive and loving partners (who will of course be the first to bear the brunt of our frustrations)? Well we didn’t come up with very many strategies for that, but I think the ones we have are important:

I have to be careful with using something like baking as a distraction, though. One year when I had quit for a month and was making the cake for the Non-Smoking Fools Party that was to take place on April 1st, the icing didn’t come out as planned and I was freaking out and Michelle was laughing and, well, we almost broke up. It’s funny now, but at the time it was…not. So a note to myself: stick to the easy stuff. Or just buy the cake!

I do think the first option is very important, and I know both Kabuki and I took our partners aside before Q-Day to explain that if in the coming weeks we need to leave the room in a huff for a few minutes or be alone in a corner for a bit, even if this arises mid-conversation or mid-argument, it isn’t because we can’t stand the sight of them or they have offended us greatly at that moment; it is because we need to do something with the moment where we would formerly have gone for a cigarette to do something that is not going for a cigarette. Like leaving the room. Counting to ten. Deep breathing. Reading a book. Blowing some bubbles. Drinking some water. Whatever.

Yesterday I was trying to print something out for Michelle and the printer was acting up, as it has been doing a lot lately. Michelle, eager to read her printout, was asking what the problem was, and in my irritated state I felt very near snapping at her instead of at the computer that was giving me the trouble. So as calmly as I could, I said, “It’s not working; it’s pissing me off and I have to deal with it. So just…don’t talk to me for a few minutes while I figure it out.”

And she was like, “Okay.” And went to change the laundry over, giving me my required moment to fume and then work my shit out. Nobody lost their cool and nobody got hurt. I think that’s a success, no?

So it’s March 1st, a.k.a. Quit Day!! It was a hard day, but Kabuki and I made it through. We got together last night to go over our plans and get pumped up about quitting. We made plans to keep our minds off of the cravings today; I slept in and had plans with another friend later in the afternoon, then went to get some movies for the evening. Kabuki napped a lot. Napping is good.

It has been a long day, but I do want to set down some of the groundwork for our plan to quit. So I scanned some of the notes from our planning sessions to share here.

Those are the bare bones plans we have made, but the important thing I wanted to put up here is the list of positive benefits to quitting. We didn’t really focus on the health aspects, because those are both obvious and abstract. We wanted to focus on things that mean something to us immediately and personally. I like to have the list here ready for the hard days, so I can just look it up and remind myself.

Unlike many years before, although I had trepidations surrounding my own ability to stick to my plans, I didn’t go into the challenge with dread or sadness. I know there will be hard days, and having a list of things to look forward to helps me to get through those moments.

Tomorrow I’ll share some of our plans for rewards and some of the strategies we have to get through the day-to-day.

Day 1: we made it through the day! Here’s to us.