Giving It A Good Kick

I'm quitting smoking, after 10 years. It's hard.

It's not physically hard; I'm not noticing the physical withdrawal of tapering daily my nicotene intake, eventually to nothing. As a schooled anorexic for most of my teens, I'm adept at denying physical needs.

I am not adept, however, at conquering psychological needs, which have reigned my brain since those starvation days. I'm not good at overcoming smoking's continual allowance for me to be a Bad Girl. I'm not good at relinquishing the fantasy of being an obsessive writer excessively smoking at a big desk. I'm not good at shaking the notion that it makes me cool.

I walked Central Park yesterday, from top to bottom. I passed a lot of runners, and I crafted a new mental concept of being really fast and really good at doing that. I want that psychological need -- of being beautifully athletic -- to replace the ones associated with smoking.

I'll just have to work. And watch the Olympics. And look at this every day:

Gross

May She Keep It Good

Gawkity-gawk-gawk-gawk.

Good Dog

The subway-riding mutt made all the New York front pages today. However, of equal note are the subway-riding pigeons from Rockaway a few years ago. Not as smart as the dog, who even figured out how to transfer, but somehow more ... mystical.

Animals on trains are good stories.

Unrelatedly, wishes to my stepdad Chris, who's currently in the Dakota Black Hills: Ride Free or Die

And birthday wishes to my sister, Anna, see page five. Twenty-five is a good year.

The Good Word

Flair; unpredictability; off-the-cuff; lively; forthright; imperious; quirky; outspoken; penchant for free association; a multilingual free spirit

Per yesterday's The New York Observer, words used in The New York Times, pert or not, to describe Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Me, I'd use one, sincerely: Poise.
And I'd also buy a shitload of these:

Watch Out