Health Insurance, Steppin’ Out, Work Time

I’ve struggled with qutting smoking.  I’ve tried quitting I don’t know how many times, and it’s actually rather impotant to me.  But I always fail.  I’m really not good with failure.  I tend to fail at failing with grace 😉

So, I’m breaking down and doing this the “Modern Medicine” way – you know, where they give you a shot and the problem goes away.  I make fun of this, because it should be easy to quit.  Just, well, stop smoking.  Problem is it’s got a damned high addiction level, and is socially acceptable.

Tuesday evening I’m going in for the shot (technically, 3 shots and a two week perscription).  I read up on the process, and well… it’s kinda bizzare what’s being used, but it does make a wierd sort of sense.

It’s not cheap either – $415!  Ouch.  That takes a hunk outta my budget.  But I pondered this for a while – the various factors behind me quitting are important enough, and it’s preventing me from getting my ass back in the shape I want to be (I’m not good at “taking it easy” when I’m winded.  I tend to just keep going – I’m a smoker and have been for too long, so until my body cleans out for a month or so, the two problems are not compatable for getting into shape.)

If I don’t get into shape sometime soon, my risk levels for heart disease, etc. go up considerably as you reach the 40 year old mark (and the same with smoking – qutting smoking around 35 negates most of the damage done by being a smoker.  After 40, you’re fucked and stuck with the damage you’ve done.)

Currently I don’t pay for health care.  I don’t get sick and need to go to a Dr., so, problem solved, right? ;-)  If paying $415 for this makes me quit smoking (and I have a really high confidence level that it will), then basically what I’ve done is payed to insure my continued good health for the next couple of years baring accedents involving saws, cars, or marshmallows.

I’m nervous about this – the logical portion of my mind had read up on this, and presents a very high confidience level of success.  MUCH more so than other niccotine based solutions (It’s gum.  You just chew it.  Now… wean yourself off the gum.  IT”S STILL FUCKING NICCOTINE DEPENDANCE ASSHOLE!  No wonder it doesn’t have that high of a success rate, same with patches.)  But that part that gets burned when I fail at something is nervous about it – amazingly so.  I could easily throw $415 out the window.  That’s a lot of money to me.  But the worst thing that could happen is I let myself down.

Yeah, well, with all good stories there has to be a fucking twist.  My father is thinking about paying for it now.

For some people that would be a cause for celebration.  For me, it’s a cause for angst.  If I pay $415 and I fail, well, I’m out $415 and I feel like a failure.  If someone else pays for it, then THEY are out $415 and I feel like a failure AND I let them down.  *SIGH*  I guess the up side is it gives me extra incentive to not fail!

Yeah, I’m just quitting smoking.  I’m probably imparting too much drama into this.  But it’s something I’ve failed at over and over now. For me, it’s a big deal.  I’ll feel better when this is done, on multiple levels and for multiple reasons. 

As an added bonus, gonna give up my Soda addiction at the same time.  There’s some weird connection between smoking and soda that I can’t identify.  When I restrict myself to tea, the amount I smoke goes down.  I have no idea why – it could be that I’m trying to stave off one addiction, which forces me to think a little more about the other one.  But doesn’t matter – gonna give the shit up, which means removing my nearly 1700 – 2000 calorie a day habit (actually, it was higher than that at one point.)

With the stress from the projects I’m working on and the stress I’m causing myself over quitting smoking, it’s probably a good time to get out a bit.  And I have 🙂

Last weekend I played WoW over at Brandon’s house until about 11 PM, then caught up with Cassie over at a friends house (we were the only two sober people in the place).  I used to party with Cassie every weekend at one point in my life, but, there aren’t that many parties anymore. 

We chatted for a while, and came up with a plan – I was gonna be her roommate (long story, but, her and her husband are separating.  And by roommate, I mean a very plutonic setup.  Just thought I’d cover that.  Cas and I haven’t ever messed around, and never will.  Not that she isn’t cute – she is, IMHO, ‘specially since she’s lost the extra weight – just that’s not the sort of thing between us.  Plus she’s the one that used to grumble at me that “Friends Don’t Fuck Friends” in relation to another female in my life :-)  Ends up we’re not gonna do that (bummer – back to living on my own again when I get moved out), but I promised I’d be over frequently to chat and drink 😉

When I first walked in the door, Bobbie introduced me to everyone, and one older gal wanders over (more like a drunken stagger) and introduces herself.  Then hugs me.  Then hugs me again.  Then has ahold of me by my lapels of my trench coat, and give me a look.  Aw HELL no – I know that look, and there’s no damned way lady.  Luckly Bobbie picked up on that I think, and removed her friend from me.  Thank ye gods for that before I had to actually SAY that.  (Come to find out, she’s married to someone she wants a divorce from.  He’s unemployed, and she can’t afford the divorce.  I feel for her there, but, that doesn’t change that HELL no answer 😉

I wasn’t particularly comfortable there – Bobbie is a nice gal, but gets on my nerves something fierce after a while.  Then the drunk gal who kept taking an interest in me over and over (I just blew her off.)  And one guy who was a bit of a prick.  Fuckin’ wonderful combo to party with.

But had fun chattin’ with Cassie, and when everyone else left Bobbie calmed down a bit and it wasn’t bad. 

This weekend on Friday Cassie txt’s me “Whatcha up to?”  Ends up she’s at Horns (a bar) drinkin’ with friends, and wants company. 

Bars are…. interesting for me.  My paranoia kicks in (‘specially because they sat in the middle of a place that has people coming and going through three different entrances, that’s two more entrances than I like to have to watch), and it takes me an hour to unwind and get into things unless I’m with a large group I know.  Just about any sort of party I can get into (hell, I was at a BDSM party 30 minutes, and started chatting it up with people, talkin’ to the guy who was doing needle work in some gals back.  BDSM is far from bein’ my scene, but, it doesn’t take long for me to adjust.) 

This was no exception.  Took me a while to loosen up and get comfortable. 

Honestly, there were some funny as hell stories from that night.  Example of how over the top Bobbie can be:  there was this guy we were all making fun of who danced like… I’ve never seen someone dance THAT spastic before.  Anyway, she eventually calls him over, and says “I’m gonna guess your age”, and explains that he has to hold very still…. and grabs his balls.

To her credit, she managed to guess his age within one year.  (This of course eventually lead to me eventually getting tested too – she pegged me at 3 years younger than I am.  I also got a “Wow!” out of it, which I thought was both embarassing and funny at the same time.  Nope, someone grabbin’ my nuts doesn’t embarass me.  Someone complementing me on my nuts, that embarasses me.  My brain is weird.)  She almost gets into a brawl with some drunk guy who wanted to know what was going on.  A good time was had by all 😉

I don’t dance.  Well, that’s not accurate – I RARELY dance.  But I decided to step outside of my normal comfort level.  I danced quite a bit with Bobbie and Lana (some gal with the group I hadn’t met before), and basically tried to loosen up considerably.  And had fun doing it.  

Lance and Meredith go out to parties a lot more often than me, and have invited me a couple of times.  And, well, I turned ’em down.  It’s not that I don’t like Lance and Meredith – far from it.  I just spend all my day with ’em, and I don’t think they should have ta’ put up with me at parties too.  Everyone needs to have “space” ya know.  Anyway… since I’m planning on moving out at the end of February, I told ’em the next time they got something going on that they can invite me to, I’m in.  I’ve reconnected with a lot of my old friends, now it’s time to expand my social circle and meet some new people.

Oh, and I said I was gonna eventually get fed up with the whole dating thing and cancel my account?  Well, my eHarmony account has expired, and I didn’t renew it.  Fuck it, I’m just not that interested.  Yep, I’m lonely, but I just don’t see myself getting into a relationship again.  Who I am and what I want to do with my life isn’t conducive to it, and it’s just gonna be more problems than anything else.  Someday I might run across someone who fits the life I want, but, fuck it if I don’t 🙂

So I’ve been out and about both weekends, but, I’ve also been working like hell.  One project is now ready for startup in Indepenence, Kansas.  Good.  Now the bad part – two of the projects I’ve been working on got “respeced”.  They were being developed in a modern version of RS Factory Talk Supervisory Edition (who fucking comes up with these god damned names?!), but the customer decides nope, they are going to use the older 4.0 version instead.  You can’t back-port the work I’ve done to an older version.  So I’m doing it ALL over again from scratch.  The upside is I’m being paid for it, but now I’ve got shitloads of work to do and not a whole lotta time to get it done in.  Originally it had to be done by the end of January, but I MAY have gained a little extra time because of delays in other areas of the project.  But I’m not risking it – I’m working pretty good hours trying to get ahead on the projects again, just in case any other projects get slipped in the middle of this.

I gotta admit – I’d like to have this sort of work for about the next 6 months straight.  Sure, the pace sucks a bit (not a whole lotta WoW playing going on, though I did play a little), but the money is good.  Like, really good.  And the more of that good ol’ green stuff that comes in, the quicker I reach all my goals (bills paid off) and have a big pile o’ cash laying back gaining interest somewhere waiting to pay the montly and yearly bills.

Well, off to bed.