I spent the next five years playing hide and go suck as her vampire cabana boy

aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhgurgle. I stayed home from work today. Every since I picked my brother up from his school in michigan, oh, about a month ago, I have been sick. Mostly cold kind of symptoms that fade out like they're going away and then rear their ugly little heads a few days later, crushing my relief. The most pernicious of the symptoms, and the most worrying, is the sore throat, the very symptom that convinced to call my boss at 6AM in his car and let him know that I would not be present today to wear a respirator and impact hammer masonry shit out of walls all day. He was fine with the whole thing, I mean after all, this is memorial day weekend (this means that I'm off work for the next 4 days) . So now I'm at home, writing shit in this blog thing and waiting on my appt. time at the doctors.

This desicion of mine has likely complicated a few things for my brother; his college girlfriend is here, and the family is supposed to all be safely at work, wink wink. Of course, of the family members to be home, I'm a good one, because I don't care if they screw their brains out, I just don't want to be privvy to it, whereas my mother and father both care very much whether or not they're screwing and also do not want to be privvy to it. 1-1 vs. 0-2 I win. in anycase, I have to be careful as I stalk around the house sniffling in my boxers, lest I disturb something that should be left undisturbed.

I am trying to decide whether to go biking today. About two weeks I purchased a nice mountain bike on ebay so that I could tag along with my brother when he goes off xc riding. I've gone once so far, and excepting the part where I ended up throwing up because i couldn't breathe, it was really awsome. My bike didn't fit real well at first, but after about 150 USD of part upgrades, I have finally have the handlebars and stem high enough and long enough to fit my rather unorthadox frame (body, not bike). Heres a pic of what it looked like when I reveived it. it's purrrrdy.

It is fantastic excersize, as while you are riding you feel ok, and excited, but the minute you stop and get off the biike, it's like a ten pount maul is slammed on your chest and you collapse. My case is worsened by the fact that I have been smoking, regularly, for about two+ years now. The good news is that after my fun breating experience on monday biking, I've decided to show cigarettes the door, and have started to quit. Now I'm only four days in, so I'm not going to make any blustery statements like 'I'm totally off those fags now!' butI went from smoking about half a pack a day, with the help of my mother, down to no more than one or two. I made it through the entire construction work day yesterday without nic fitting or bumming a cigarette from anyone, which for me is an acheivement, because without smokes, the jobsite is a much much harder thing to endure. I have a semi-developed theory about what cigarettes are to me that I thought up over the last couple days. I have always operated on a sort or incentive/reward system. Which means that I balance hardship or things that make me unhappy by looking forward to good things, or treating myself. So for instance when I'm not very happy, I buy a lot of stupid materialistic shit, because it gives me momentary jolts of small happiness, etc. thats nothing new, shopping therapy. but for the same reason that when I get a coffee it's a treat, but a soda is mundane, smoking a cigarette is a treat to me. It feels good, it allows you to set aside whatever it is you are doing and relax, calm down just sort of step outside of the normal world. I started smoking when I was in a pretty bad place back in school, and have kinda used it in the same way ever since. In the construction stuff, it was a way to break up the day into little pieces and sorta refresh myself every so often. I've noticed this week, while I've been trying to be commited to quitting, that my stupid boring tasks are so much harder to deal with now. Part of it is probably being on edge from wanting nicotine, but as well, now there is this sense when I'm doing some task that I don't like of there being nothing to break it up, nothing to look forward to. Middle of a wednesday afternoon, on a ladder covered in dust and pounding into a wall with a too-heavy tool, sucking dust, knowing that you're going to be doing this for the next three hours, and the next two days, and that theres nothing to break that up, or make it better. It's been a challenge. I should find employment where I don't have to mentally wrestle with myself all day not to quit. the question 'what the fuck are you doing here, doing this for?' scrolls across the inside of my skull like a marquee board. I don't have an answer to it either, the closest I've come is laziness, or apathy or fear of the next or the unknown, but thats all kind of vague. how can you hate something so much during the day that when you are at home you don't do anything to change it? I'm glad I stayed home today, even if it does cost me 96 dollars.

p.s. a music recommendation to pass on for El Fongarino. when i was in toronto last, he played me this badass underground rap album from MF Doom and Madlib. And it is certainly badass.