Secondhand Smoke 

I have been toying with the idea of having a pic of me for every day on my journal, a la Firedrake.  Unfortunately, due to my unphotogenicity and the struggle to get a pretty image out of this ancient Fotoman (I love you Brooklynguy, but seriously, if it's so great why did you stop using it?), I haven't yet come up with a single shot of me that I want on the net.  So here is a substitute, a daily shot of whatever I feel like shooting that day.  For this purpose, the Fotoman is extremely useful, thank you Brooklynguy. 
    The van was not back home in time for me to go pick up the kids from daycare today, so I bundled up in a jacket and hat, grabbed two towels and stuffed them into the jacket, loaded an umbrella into the plastic wagon we have, and set off on foot.  The rain came down in torrents, and I had many minor rivers to dodge on my ten minute walk, some of them too big, deep, and wide to leap, circumnavigate, or tiptoe through. 
    I got to the daycare provider's and warmed up a bit, asked the kids about their day, got them into their jackets, signed them out.  As I spread out the towels on the wet seats of the wagon, the wonderful aroma slithered through the air so heavy with wetness, and clambered down my windpipe to a tingling welcome deep in my alveoli.  The provider's husband was on a cordless phone out on the front porch, smoking a cigarette.  Oh god!  As I expanded the big umbrella over my boys, I took gulping breaths, savoring it, holding it deep down, letting it do whatever it wanted.  Oh how I hated to leave.  But if I lingered too long, she might think I was hitting on her hubby.  Hell I didn't even look at him; I was transfixed by the cigarette. 
    The need is great.  I do pretty well most of the time, but the cravings still come.  Not as often as before, not as urgent, but they still come.  From my letter to Doug today: 

When you get ready to quit smoking, I'm with ya.  I quit New Year's Day, and so far, so good.  My friend in Sweden says lemon juice is particularly helpful in the middle of a craving, but I haven't had any on hand recently, so I dunno from experience.  Coffee helps me, but I hear it hurts others cuz coffee and nicotine are substances a lotta people take in together, and so having one causes an urge for the other.  Heh sexual fantasies help me too, but it's a tradeoff, cuz you just distract yourself from one craving by focusing on another.  It's possible to wind up even more miserable that way.
    Oh I didn't modify that sign in my non-smoking life; it actually dates to late last year.  But it still applies.  Please smoke around me, please, please? 
    For the first time, I walked my mom through a software installation, over the phone.  She was so thrilled, but oh how I need to get her a modern machine.  "Oh wow it's already 7% out of 13k....7%...8%...oh this is soo cool!...8%...9%..."  Imagine how much genealogy she'll be able to access once she gets on the net.  Imagine how tickled she'll be to get emails and ICQ messages from me and from her nephew.  Imagine her reading my journal... 
    Hmmm, well, she'll find out I'm bi, heh. 
    I told her about my journal, but she didn't really get the point of why I would want to post a diary online and why people actually hit my pages.  She said, "Wayull, just be sure to write how much your mama loves you and your boys, and what a good mawmaw she is," giggling.  Gotta love her.