Reasons I Will Quit Smoking (Partial List)...

     I’m not one for believing in the quantity of life (I’m sure some of that has to do with the fact that I am still young, but); I see no need to live to be a hundred if I lost interest in being alive about sixty-five years ago. What I do worry about is the quality of life. If I only live for another four years, I want those to be the best four years of my life. I don’t want to spend two of them curled up in a cancer ward fighting for my life wishing my lungs would stop coughing up blood long enough for me to beg for a second chance. I want to still be having wild, cover story worthy, sex well into my senior years. I want people to still be telling me how young I look when I am fifty; not people assuming I should have been dead years ago. I remember a comedy skit I heard once by Rodney Carington; in the skit he had a line that went something like this: “When I die I don’t want people looking at the casket and saying things like ‘he looks so natural’ , ‘he looks so good’; I want people to walk up to the casket and say ‘holy shit! He looks like he’s been dead for years!’” The reason I brought this up is because I am the opposite. I want to look as young and as vibrant as possible well after I’m dead. I want people to walk up to my casket and say “holy shit! Are you sure he’s dead?” Which leads directly into my next reason…

          Vanity.

     I want to have ridiculously reflective white teeth, and zero wrinkles when I am forty. What I don’t what to have is yellow teeth, rotten gums, and noticeable wrinkles around my eyes, mouth, and forehead. There is no other way to define this phobia other than vanity. It is all about looks. I should point out that this has nothing to do with being attractive (I’m not some sort of anorexic model want-to-be), I just don’t want to be repulsive before my time. Someday my tattoos will start to sag, and I will omit a body odor closer to compost than popery, but I would rather have that day be later than sooner.

          Lost Experiences

     I love to cook. And not just random mix-all- the-ingredients-together-on-the-back-of-a-hamburger-helper-box sort of way either. I am a foodie. Which is ironic because smoking dulls the taste buds to the point that I might be eating a three hundred dollar meal at Bobby Flay’s restaurant in Atlantic City or Las Vegas (I’ve ate at both), but I might as well be eating taco bell because my taste buds can’t pick up the subtle flavor profiles over the wretched cigarette taste that is always in my mouth. I would like to taste those subtle flavors; I would like to be the best cook I can be, not somebody who overdoes it with the spices in every dish I cook because I can’t taste anything else.

     This list is in no way comprehensive, if anything, it is just a quick glance at the surface, a glimmer of reason. I will probably update, and add to, the list as I have more time. I have read in one of the many, many stop smoking books I have leafed through over the years that writing down your list of reasons for wanting to quit is very important. It helps structure your thoughts, and focus the mind. I am supposed to print this list out and carry it around with me for those times that my will is weakening and I can’t remember why it is I wanted to quit in the first place and a cigarette is sounding just so damn tasty. I might print this list out; I might not, but I will keep adding to it. I will try to spend the time each day structuring my thoughts and focusing in concrete reason why I want to quit… Did I mention bringing sexy back?