Last night I was an absolute wreck. I wanted to cry and scream and peel off my skin. I couldn't concentrate on anything, and ended up spending most of the evening on my couch, hating the couch, and then, one by one, isolating everything in my life that I also suddenly hate, before finally giving in, taking two Tylenol PM, and calling it a night by nine.

I hate the fact that cigarettes have such power over me. However, as shitty as I was feeling, I knew that smoking would only make me feel worse. When I tried to quit in June I gave in a after a week and started smoking. I felt so extremely sick that I didn't know what would make me feel better, to continue smoking or to stop. I continued. I'm not making the same choice this time, but I'm sort of regretting not having some sort of help along the way. Perhaps some gum or a patch would have made this whole ordeal less agonizing.

Last night I also discovered that I have read every single book that I own. Do you know what an oddity that is? I always have at least a half dozen that I've purchased or borrowed that I haven't gotten around to reading yet. So last night, to keep myself occupied, I began rereading Middlemarch. I figured it would be a bit more enjoyable that Confessions of an English Opium Eater (which would make a great blog title, by the by). Now I'm simply trying to make it through the work day with hot chocolate and The Return of the Native breaks (love free internet literature).

I've also decided that, try as I might, I need to stay away from all of my friends that smoke, which basically means that I can't see any of them. I will be using these next two weeks of solitude to frequent the non-smoking coffee shop a few miles from my home and to continue my goal of reading all 100 of the 100 Best Novels of the Radcliffe Publishing Course. I'm actually sort of amazed that with all of the stuffy drivel I've read (I just LOVE stuffy drivel) that I've only read 19 of the 100 on the list. I've done even more poorly on the Modern Library list, with a whopping 15 of 100. There were a few on the list that I "mostly" read, but I figure I can't count them and still be honest. I'm not sure where I'll begin tonight, though I'm leaning towards some E.M Forster or Henry James action (no surprise, really). Though I should save those and read something that I've been dreading...though come to think of it, how many people can quit smoking while reading James Joyce and still remain sane? Forster it is.