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Champix
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2152
I'm out of the restaurant and it's time to quit smoking. So I use a friends leftover Champix prescription, enough pills to wean me from the weed, or so I'm assured, and if it's successful I can always get my own.
4 days now, the 1/2 doses morning and night.
Initially I was skeptical, did independent research that seemed to indicate it wasn't so successful. But I never met anyone who didn't have success on it, and those people who failed in the restaurant had the very legitimate excuse of the environment - surrounded 18 hours a day by fellow smokers. And so decided to try it.
Now it's strange, and I'm not yet at the point of quitting, but already I can feel the limited effects smoking is having on my mood. Cigarettes, they're doing less and less for me. They taste different. And I've given up on the afternoon naps, whether this is just acclimatization to civilian life or a side effect of the Champix I can't tell. When I take the pill I - for a few minutes - feel a bit lightheaded, and when I sleep my dreams are strange. They're always strange (dreams, by their nature , are strange, but I mean strange for me...) - shorts, not long dreams but many disconnected shorts, irrelevant, they don't last....
I'm getting more done. There's more energy, slightly, and I'm starting to move through the many lists I've made myself.
I'm hopeful. This might be it, there really might be a magic pill, but perhaps I'm premature....
Revisiting Rome
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2068
Thursday I revisited the restaurant, checking up on how things are going.
Thomas, the older new guy, a new girl, they've all been let go.
"Too slow" he tells me over espresso. "They should be working in a cemetery".
There are new faces, a pretty girl and an obviously gay waiter, they're being shown the ropes, the owner notices the new waiter's wedding ring and so enquires about his wife, he answers discreetly, these Italians, they're slow to notice such things but eventually he'll figure it out.
The Fall of Rome
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2522
**Note: I've not updated this chapter of the blog for some weeks. It's been consuming, I've made notes, but there's been no time. Now there is time and so it's been written, boring, perhaps, because it's past tense, old hat, I've been out of work over a week now and am just beginning to organize my affairs, but it's done.
The decline of the Roman Empire.
I'm done. I've been for a while, been trying to hold out as long as I can, but I'm done and I'm going to give my notice. I'm beat up, my face swollen and bruised, the customers - some discreetly try to ignore it, many are imprudently curious, others joke, the more gangsterish offer me words of encouragement like "you should go for the five hole....", whatever that means. My heel is broken and slow to heal, this 12 hours a day on my feet, on one foot limping isn't helping. And there's the dentist, the mouth full of pain and cotton, I'm done.
The boys, Franco and G, they don't want me to go, we're a team, we work well together, when I'm gone their work load will double, triple, Franco's jealous, he understands but he jokingly threatens to lock me in the cellar only to release me for work and I laugh but it's time to move on, my life is so far behind schedule it's not funny and so I pull aside the owner and tell him that I'll be leaving.
I've been dreading this, but he takes it well.
The Ballad of Ricky & Ronny - A Pop Opera
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Theatre
- Hits: 1751
Saturday night and I'm catching up with the boy. Specifically on Arts and Culture, and so we go to see "The Ballad of Ricky & Ronny - A Pop Opera" at The Grand.
I like The Grand, they do interesting stuff. Modern, artistic stuff.
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