2004-11-04..5:18 p.m.

Jesus, my mum will LOVE M.

He�s trying to get me to quit smoking, if only while I�m getting over being sickly, which is great, because it�s forcing me to come to terms with just how much of a habit it is. HOWEVER it�s a little annoying when I write to exalt how I�ve only had two ciggies and he writes me back with:

I can't believe you're even smoking at all. Without mincing my words you have the most disgusting cough at the moment and all those cancerous fumes you're inhaling into your poor lungs as they're trying desperately to heal themselves is not doing you any good. You wake up every night spluttering and gasping for air and then you get up in the morning and light up a fag! Stop it now! Right now! No more! Please!

I appreciate his concern for me. No. I adore his concern for me, but it's wrong on two levels.

First. since I was two I've had a severe cough that lasts most of the winter. It's obviously partly to do with smoke (mine and my dad's), but it's also because I react to the change in the weather with greater severity than most people (doctor's diagnosis, not something I'm making up)(and even if I were to make something up, don't you think I'd come up with something better than that? Jesus! It's a terrible explanation! But it's the only one they've ever come up with), hence huge shuddering fits of coughing all through the night. The second is puny and weak and I'm almost ashamed to bring it up, but with the small modicum of dignity I have to spare on this issue: I don't light one the second I get up. I just one with coffee. And today I've had just those two. I'm doing good. I mean, not perfect, obviously, but I'm still doing good.

Right. Indignation over, all I have to say is that he�s such a wonderful wonderful boy to be so appalled. I do want to stop, at least for right now while I'm trying to get better, and I'm trying to not smoke a lot, but it's not the easiest thing. It's habitual. It's routine. It's like not having a morning wank when you're seventeen. It would be like not brushing my teeth. It's something I can't help, though I will try (unlike not brushing my teeth because with my cold dead hands you will not part me from my toothbrush)(what a terrible, cross-referenced analogy)

Right. I�m going to see a flat tonight. I�m excited. I�m nervous. Wish me luck.

****meep