I gave in this morning and had a cigarette. Mike will not be happy to hear this. Neither will Alex.

I'm sorry, guys.

But... it felt so good. One of life's little pleasures; standing out on the balcony, having the one cigarette, listening to my music, looking around; it's not sunny today, but it's a nice day. Listening to my birds singing, listening to the birds outside, looking around at the leaves and the greenery, the tree just underneath my balcony with the helicopter seeds, the trees just a bit away growing pine cones, the light green and the dark green and the shadows and the light, all of the beauty surrounding me and just feeling good...

Sigh.

It reminded me of the weeks when Jon was here. Some of those days were just so perfect.

This is one of the reasons that it's so hard to quit.

So is driving. Driving in Seattle just makes me want so smoke. Everything's so much more tollerable with a cigarette -- bad traffic, stand stills, sitting there wanting to be somewhere but not there yet and not there any time soon, bad drivers. Bleh.

Alex just called. We're going to go have a late breakfast, and then head over to the computer store. He's almost here, so I'm going to go out and meet him; signing off now.

If you read this before I talk to you again, Mike, I miss you -- I'm looking forward to talking to you again soon.