What Day Is It?

Day seven. That's 210 cigarettes I haven't smoked - and $100 worth of pot. Who am I kidding, $150 worth.

The terrible depression of day 4 and 5 has stopped. That was hard to deal with, even if I have dealt with before, when I have given up smoking, previously. But, the intensity was much stronger this time, I’m sure. Or, it might just have been that I had Josh around to reflect my mood, rather than simply hiding away in my room unreflected, on my own. Whichever? I seem to be over it now. Yah!

Exercise has helped.

I rode over to Lottie's on Saturday and got another flat tyre, the back tyre, would you believe. I got a flat tyre on the front last weekend when I rode over to her place. Fuck, I was annoyed. I could barely hide it from her. She's been calling me ever since to see if I'm okay.

I so wanted to get into an exercise routine to coincide with quitting. I wanted to ride my bike every - second, to be realistic - day. But how can I when the universe is against me, so?

Lottie and I ate lunch together and then I chopped down some branches that were coming over into her place from the neighbours. She has such a thing about over-hanging branches now a days. I think she thinks they are going to slither threw her window, like snakes and get her in the night, if she doesn't keep on top of them.

It had rained a lot and my clothes were still damp when I caught the tram to come home. The aircon on the tram was freezing, so I got off at Barkers Road and just started walking. Fuck it, I need the exercise, I thought. When the rain started again, I thought, Great, you picked the only road around, to walk down, which has no public transport. So, I walked in the rain from Burke Road to the Kew tram terminus, on Church Street. It was fantastic, the day was warm, humid and it washed away all of my worries. A tram took me the short distance from the terminus to Victoria Gardens, where the driver declared that the tram was broken and that if we all got off and waited he’d go back to the terminus and get a replacement. So, I ended up walking home from Ikea. The beautiful Stuart drove past me in my old Mk2, but he didn't see me, thank goodness... the state I was in, it was preferable. I was soaked through by the time I got home, but it felt glorious. Freeing. Liberating. I think I exercised all my smoking demons… on that walk in the rain. So yesterday, I thought fuck it! Who needs a damn bike? I pulled on my running shoes and went jogging for an hour - which turned out to be forty minutes, but hey, who's counting. I can build up to it.

I met up with my mate G, I'll call him Big Boy, just by chance, who was jogging around East Melbourne, heading to the Yarra. He's big and solid and hairy and flirty with a great smile. He was just wearing green running shorts and nothing else; hairy chest, hairy stomach, hairy legs, in true Greek boy style. (What is it with me and Greek boys?)

"Hey Christian, you still want to look down my pants?" He pulled the front of his shorts out and flashed his killer smile.

"Just run, you dumb fuck," I said. "And stop making promises you are not going to keep."

"If you can catch me... you can... you can," running backwards, big smile. "You can suck it," he said. And then he flipped around and his big, thick, hairy, thighs took him sprinting away from me.

I ran hard, but had no chance of catching him.