Day two: Coo Coo ca choo.  It's also another day one of sorts. I have not yet smoked a cigarette today. I have recently relapsed on my teeny tiny little horribly socially unacceptable habit of sneaking cigarettes.  Max about a 1/2 pack a week.  Still--this has been going on intermittently for 2 decades now.  I would say on an conservative accounting that I am probably officially a smoker. I have tipped the scales from probably no long-term lung damage to yep, you're plum scarred up, girl.  Ain't no un-doin' that.  The problem with arriving at the conclusion that you have most likely damaged that all important system that delivers oxygen to EVERY CELL IN YOUR BODY is that, well, the deed is done. Why not just keep on keepin' on? Then there's a public service announcement on the entertainment tab of CNN that I like to frequent to check out the state of Lyndsay Lohan's injectables and the fluctuating BMI of Demi Moore, etc., etc. The public service announcement the following:  a woman, breathing raggedly, oxygen tubes in nose, lying down on her bed being bathed by her barely adult son. She has had at least one stroke, emphysema, some other horrible smoking-related ailments that I won't tell you about.  She's lying there. Helpless while her sweet son takes care of her. She's telling me to enjoy my freedom while I still can.  She's 62. She looks damn good--not even gray yet-- from a distance. Then they zoom closer and you can see that characteristic skin that has been dessicated from years of epidermal vasoconstriction.  So, the PSA worked on me.  I know Henry and Elliot wouldn't clean me that well, first of all. And secondly they'd go play Mario Carts and 4 hours later remember that I was in the tub or on the can or wherever.   Plus, it's so gross. The smell gets on everything.  My fingers smell. 

The point to all of that was to say that I pushed the 'weighing myself' cork down in the river (a vague and bastardized reference to the Tao De Ching) and it popped up in a pack of cigarettes.  Such is the disease of 'isms. I go from putting out an organic $2 cigarette and washing my hands with earth-friendly soap to obsessively sweeping and cleaning my kitchen floor--with cruelty-free,  vegetable-derived cleanser, of course.  Did I say that I'm wearing my 2.00+ reading glasses and every light in the house is on?

Let me preface the floor cleaning insanity by stating the following: I live on a dirt road. My children's school is on a dirt road. The horse I own but never see or ride lives a long way down a very dirty dirt road.  We live in Michigan.  Once the motor capital of the universe, now we only specialize in precipitation of every variety and viscosity at pretty much any time of the year.  So we have 2 filthy-ass cars pulling into our garage multiple times a day.  Dragging with them half the county's dirt. In fact, I saw the Washtenaw Road Commission truck just an hour ago putting a load of 21AA on Pratt Road.  I'm sure that which has been lost has been gained by my shopvac. But I digress.

My obsession with a clean kitchen floor reminds me of a video I saw a few years ago.  These people were being filmed while coming back to their homes or emerging from their safe rooms after a Category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean.  A woman was standing at her kitchen sink doing dishes with a somewhat catatonic gaze on her face muttering inaudibly.  It all seemed pretty normal until they panned around the room.  And then up. And there one noticed the distinct lack of a roof.  On her house or any of the surrounding houses.  Yet she muttered and washed on.   Hmm. I said to myself. Poor old bat.