Notes From the Fire

Chantix Diary: Day 17

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction, sleep on September 28, 2009 by sethdellinger

Days without smoking: 10

This weekend, I worked dayshift (just Saturday and Sunday). These were my first dayshifts since quitting smoking, and for some reason, they were especially difficult. I think it was a combination of my need for coffee during the still-dark early morning drive to work, the vast amount of breakfast foods and coffee smells at work, the crisp quality of morning air, and my own extreme lack of sleep which caused me to have cravings just about as bad as during the first few days after quitting. This sucks for lots of reasons:

1. Once you’ve been quit for more than a week, people are less forgiving of your moodiness.

2. The dayshift at work is made up of mostly adults. Hence, about twice as many smokers as PM shift. Lots of temptation, and lots of smoke smell.

3. I was tired (more on this in a bit), so I needed coffee. Coffee makes me want to smoke.

4. I am really tired of sucking on Dum Dums.

But, I clenched my teeth and made it through. Everything is fine once I’m home. I still feel what I’ve been calling “time voids” when I’m at home–moments where you feel as though you should be spending 5 minutes doing something other than what you’re doing–but I get little to no physical cravings at home. I’ve also taken to eating pretzel sticks. Very effective.

Now, the sleeping: the pharmacist has OK’d the use of OTC sleep aids. Too bad they don’t do shit. They’ll knock me out, sure, but I wake up exactly three hours later. So Friday night (my alarm being set for 4:30am Saturday morning) I took a sleeping pill at 7pm. I fell asleep around 8pm. I woke up promptly at 11pm, and was then up all night until my alarm went off at 4:30am, at which point I got ready for work and left. I got home around 5pm Saturday, wasn’t tired, took a sleeping pill at 8pm, fell asleep at 9pm, and woke up at midnight. I was once again up until my alarm went off at 4:30am. This process was nothing short of torturous. Finally, last night, my body collapsed of exhaustion and I slept about 11 hours. I was so tired yesterday afternoon that when I fell asleep, it felt like I was sinking into a coma.

So you can imagine how much my weekend sucked. It caused a major spike in my irritability factor, so I apologize for anyone I’ve been curt or discourteous to. This is why you haven’t been seeing nearly as much of me online the past few days. I’m avoiding contact while I’m cranky. At this point it’s caused much, much more by the Chantix than it is by the withdrawal. I’m also experiencing some brand new side-effects which are very annoying but which I won’t go into (don’t worry, it’s not the suicidal thoughts).

And I’m much better today, anyway. Slept well, ate well. Finally did the post-smoke cleaning on the apartment: dusted all surfaces so there’s no trace of ashes left, deodorized the carpets, even wiped down some of the walls around areas where I smoked the most. I’m sure to a non-smoker who’d never been to my apartment before, you can probably still smell a bit of the old smoke smell, sorta like in a hotel room which has been changed from smoking to non-smoking, but it’s gotta be a vast improvement!

Six Picture Sunday, 9/27

Posted in Photography with tags photography on September 27, 2009 by sethdellinger

Slackspacer: Why Pearl Jam’s New Album is Unnecessary

Posted in Rant/ Rave with tags culture, music, pearl jam, rant on September 25, 2009 by sethdellinger

Hypothetical situation: one of the most successful rock bands–at a time when rock is the biggest-selling genre out there–decides they actually have too many fans and makes a conscious decision to evolve their music away from the mainstream. With each subsequent album, they go in a slightly different, unexpected direction, with varying degrees of accessibility. They shed millions of fans, but those who remain are devout, as their musical tastes just happen to have evolved along the same unexpected lines of the band’s. Now, what happens when that band, some twenty years into the grand experiment, stops evolving? Not going backward, per se, but they just stagnate, make the same album twice, and seem to have run out of new things to say? Well, for starters, most of those faithful fans are going to remain just as faithful, as by this point being a fan of this band is practically a lifestyle choice. Also, we’re left to deal with Pearl Jam’s completely unnecessary album Backspacer.

It begins promisingly enough. The opening track, “Gonna See My Friend”, features Eddie Vedder’s signature growl, and is thematically the opposite of the opening track on their previous album. That song, “Life Wasted”, was an uplifting, life-affirming anthem. This lead track, however, is a depressed, angry rant. About what, we can’t be sure. This turnabout in tone is thrilling because it’s unexpected. And the song is a fist-pumping rocker, but far from anything new. The old standby formula of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-breakdown/bridge-chorus which Pearl Jam have used so well in the past just feels forced here. I’ve worn these shoes before. The song isn’t bad, but it’s completely unnecessary.

The second track is the standout on the album. “Got Some” is a musical marvel, as McCready and Gossard layer guitars over each other with ever-increasing intensity, Matt Cameron drives the start-stop-start-stop stutter of the song along until it finds it’s dramatic footing when Jeff Ament pops in a Spy Hunter-esque bass line about halfway through the song, and at that point we know something special really is happening. Vedder has found a great refrain for the song in “I got some if you need it”, but we’re lucky we can’t understand the rest of the lyrics, because they’re pretty inane (“Precipitation, which side are you on?/ Are you on the rise?”), but they’re still highly sing-able once you know them. This song feels fresh, new, kinda a little daring.

Third comes “The Fixer”, the first single off the album, and to this listener’s mind, the first true pop song the band has written. And it’s great. It’s the yin to “Gonna See My Friend”‘s yang. It’s positive, uplifting, a joyful noise, and highly addictive. Not new, really. It’s another list song, and Vedder loves writing list songs (“Wishlist”, “Sometimes”, “Rats”), and he’s good at them.

Then the album takes a downturn. There is one failed experiment (“Johnny Guitar” bumbles to its unsatisfying conclusion) and lots and lots of rehash. The songs aren’t bad, exactly. Just not exciting or compelling, and most are unoriginal. The quiet, tinkly “Just Breathe” is a nice enough song, but I liked it better the first time, when it was called “Guaranteed” and it was on Vedder’s Into the Wild soundtrack album. “Just Breathe” also utilizes a string quartet, which displays a shameful lack of creativity, and dare I say, a bit of audience pandering. The closing track, “The End” (an early fan favorite, and I apologize to the faithful here) is one of the worst Pearl Jam songs ever put to record. It, too, shamefully uses a string quartet instead of the band conveying the feeling from the instruments they actually play, as well as containing the absolutely most annoying vocal rhythm Vedder has ever contrived, and some of the worst rhymes, too. Most of it reads like it was written by a fourth grader: “Don’t leave me so cold/ or buried beneath the stones. / I just want to hold on/ and know I’m worth your love.” Ug. Is this really where we’re at, Pearl Jam?

And the rest: “Amongst the Waves” is the second surfing song in two albums. It’s a shame it’s so sonically pleasant but lyrically inaccessible to me, and I liked it before when it was “Loveboat Captain”, “Gone” and “Marker in the Sand”–songs from previous Pearl Jam albums.

“Unthought Known” is the first Pearl Jam song that comes right out in the open with being pretentious. I was more comfortable when they were a thinly-veiled pretentious band. It is also a sonically pleasing song, but I liked it better when it was “Inside Job”.

“Supersonic”, “Speed of Sound” and “Force of Nature” are all regrettably forgettable and, something deep inside me fears, attempts to appeal to the masses and sell records. I can’t blame them. Everyone wants a come back. But I just have to ask: their last album didn’t sell incredibly well, so if they’re trying to break through to a mainstream audience, why did they make it a second time?

11 Comments »

How It Doesn’t Happen

Posted in My Poetry with tags history, poetry, women on September 25, 2009 by sethdellinger

This is how it doesn’t happen:
you’re on a train from London to Paris
and a woman in red sits down
across from you. No need for talk,
the distance exactly what you both need
on this fog-chilled morning,
the 70-year-old scent of siege still in the air,
the sunrise damp thick in your overcoat.

This is how it doesn’t happen, how all you do
is offer her a paper-thin wafer of chocolate,
bittersweet as monochrome,
how nothing happens,
how the train churns on to Paris,
how in Paris you leave the compartment,
walk your separate ways,
how the sharp smell of grease is perfect,
how the steam is absolutely perfect.

That is how it doesn’t happen.

19 Comments »

Chantix Diary: Day 12

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 24, 2009 by sethdellinger

Cigarettes smoked today: zero

Smoke-free days: 5

I was wrong about one thing. In my first Chantix diary post, I claimed quitting smoking was going to be harder than quitting drinking. Wrongo. With the help of Chantix, this has been a walk in the park.

Not that I’m out of the woods yet–I’ve only been smoke free for 5 days, but I never, ever could have gotten to day 5 this easily without Chantix. Of course, as you know if you’ve been reading my blogs, it has been hard (mainly from the Chantix side-effects, really), but there were just as many times when I thought to myself, “Wow, this is easy.” Especially today. Today I finally found myself doing the famous and much-sought after “forgetting to smoke” aspect of Chantix. I wasn’t freaking out while driving, which has been one of the hardest times. At work, I didn’t need to suck a lollipop every twenty minutes to fight the urge to join the smokers outside for a quick breath of stress relief. I sucked two lollipops all night. On the way home, I concentrated on the music (the new Pearl Jam, which I am still making up my mind about–review coming soon) and barely realized I wasn’t smoking. It was bizarre. There are still plenty of moments, however. Like right now, sitting at the computer writing this. I am going nuts for a smoke right now.

In addition, my eating has already slowed down. I bought a 12-pack of granola bars at the outset of my adventure. The first two days, it seemed I was eating one constantly. Now, between yesterday and today, I’ve had only one, and there are still three left in the box, which I have no intention of eating tonight. The box of Cinnamon Apple Cheerios I’d bought and had been voraciously eating (straight out of the box, with my hands) the first two days now sits ignored and stale by my coffee table. Frankly, it’s almost a little too good to be true. The craving I’m experiencing now isn’t even an intense craving, but more like the craving I might have gotten when I went, say, an hour without a cigarette. Just a little whisper in my brain, not a scream.

I called the pharmacy today and they told me I can take OTC sleep aids on Chantix. Hopefully that works, because a combination of Valerian Root, Kava Kava, a long hot shower, and three orgasms didn’t even illicit as much as a yawn out of me last night, and if I don’t get real rest soon, I’m just gonna fall apart. But at least I’m not smoking, and these Chantix side effects are only temporary. And consider yourselves lucky I don’t tell you about the digestive problems.

I’m continually shocked by the amount of people who are telling me they started taking Chantix, only to stop because of various side effects. I mean, they got as far as Chantix. That means they made an appointment with a doctor to quit smoking. That means they really, kinda sorta at least, want to quit. They’ve elected to stop the nonsense. And yet, a few unpleasantires and they’re out. Back to smoking because their vision got blurry, they got a little sad (hey folks, you get pretty damn sad going cold turkey, too), they got a little constipated (or the opposite), they got a little rash, they had trouble sleeping, etc etc. The only Chantix side effect that would make me quit taking it is the suicidal thoughts, and I’ve got nothing close to that. Sigh. People are weird.

I did some math last night, and assuming I’ve averaged one pack of cigarettes a day for 16 years, I’ve smoked 116,800 cigarettes. And, in all actuality, I think a better average would be 1.25 packs a day, which would bring my grand total to 146,000 cigarettes. Sometimes when I think about that number, it seems smaller than I expected. Other times, it seems astounding, almost impossible. That is a lot of times to do one thing. No wonder the habitual nature is so difficult to shake. A lot of it is deeply ingrained muscle memory. I pass the Cumberland County Prison on my way to work–I reach for my cigarettes. I didn’t even know that’s when I normally light my first one, but in the past five days, I’ve learned that I must have. And when your body and mind instinctively reach for something they’ve done automatically 150,000 times, the urge to follow through with that action is strong indeed.

It’s not just the absence of the action that gets you, either. It’s a feeling of loss, like you’ve lost a friend, a confidante, a companion who was with you always. Luckily for me, I’ve experienced this exact kind of grief once before and I knew it was going to happen this time. It’s still hard, though. I miss smoking. I sure did love it. But knowing in advance how this would feel has made it ten times easier to cope with it (especially the knowledge that it would pass, and sooner rather than later).

My body continues to feel better every day. Everything I’ve heard about for years is finally happening: senses of smell and taste are improving, lungs are cleaning themselves out, and just a general sense of wellness has overcome me.

And that’s where I’ll leave you. I’ll have periodic updates from now on (and definitely I’ll immediately let you know if I slip up). More timely, brief updates will happen on my Twitter. if you don’t have Twitter but still wonder how I’m doing, you can see my Twitter updates right here on my blog, on the right hand side about halfway down. And thank you all so much for all your support, you helped me so much!

Pearl Jam, “No Way”, Seattle night 2, 2009

Posted in Uncategorized with tags concert, pearl jam on September 24, 2009 by sethdellinger

Pearl Jam Unleashes “No Way”

Posted in Uncategorized with tags pearl jam, setlist on September 23, 2009 by sethdellinger

I had no plans to post this setlist tonight; I was going to lump the next few together to avoid filling my blog up with Pearl Jam sets, and besides, there are only 4 or 5 PJ fans still reading my blog anyway. But then they had to go and have an amazing set. First and most importantly, they played “No Way”, which you’ll only know how badass that is if you follow what they’re up to. We’ve been asking for it for a loooong time. And then, without using any more rarities, they strung together an incredible set through some genius song order, and it’s tough to impress me with song order anymore (yes, I admit I’ve read every single Pearl Jam setlist–ever). For instance, this five song sequence to end the main set is a master stroke: Comatose–>Insignificance–>Present Tense–>Got Some–>Go. Go ahead. Put that sequence on your iPod. You’ll see. Also, that is a rather unique first encore. And also quite notable: there is no “Even Flow” or “Alive”, which would upset me a bit (which other hardcore “fans” are cheering the songs’ absences), but it’s quite odd for neither of them to appear. The only thing that really bugs me about the show is the “Ledbetter” closer. How tired am I of this? Real tired.

Main Set: Sometimes, Why Go, All Night, The Fixer, Dissident, Johnny Guitar, Faithfull, Lukin, Not For You/Modern Girl, No Way, Unthought Known, Unemployable, Comatose, Insignificance, Present Tense, Got Some, Go

Encore 1: Just Breathe, The End, Black, In My Tree, Spin The Black Circle

Encore 2: Supersonic, Do The Evolotion, The Real Me, Porch, Yellow Ledbetter

Tour stats:

Openers:

Why Go (3)
Long Road (3)
Sometimes (2)
Small Town (1)
Release (1)
Of the Girl (1)
Hard to Imagine (1)

Main Set Closers:

Do the Evolution (2)
Alive (2)
Go (2)
Got Some (1)
Rearviewmirror (1)
Blood (1)
Spin the Black Circle (1)
MFC (1)
Life Wasted (1)

Closers:

Yellow Ledbetter (7)
Indifference (1)
Rockin’ in the Free World (2)
Fuckin’ Up (1)
Alive (1)

Click here to see the poster. It’s rad!

A video of tonight’s “No Way” isn’t up yet, but here’s the last time it was played, in 1998:

Chantix Diary: Day 11

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 23, 2009 by sethdellinger

Cigarettes smoked today: zero

Days without a cigarette: 4

I had a really long, awesome blogged planned for my first fourth day ever, but apparently all my insomnia of late is finally catching up to me, and even though I just got home, I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open. So, suffice to say, I have made it through day 4. Had some rough spots, but it was still easier than yesterday. I’ll have more of a blog later.

Pearl Jam setlist: Seattle, 9/21

Posted in Uncategorized with tags concert, pearl jam, setlist on September 22, 2009 by sethdellinger

Songs in bold made their live premiere.

Main Set: Long Road, Corduroy, Gonna See My Friend, Got Some, Hail Hail, Amongst the Waves, Daughter(no tag), Evenflow, Johnny Guitar, Unthought Known, Worldwide Suicide, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Off He Goes, Down, Save You, The Fixer, Life Wasted

Encore 1: Just Breathe, The End, Inside Job, Rearviewmirror

Encore 2: Given To Fly, Do the Evolution, Betterman, The Real Me, Indifference, Alive

Tour stats:

Openers:

Why Go (3)
Long Road (3)
Sometimes (1)
Small Town (1)
Release (1)
Of the Girl (1)
Hard to Imagine (1)

Main Set Closers:

Do the Evolution (2)
Alive (2)
Got Some (1)
Go (1)
Rearviewmirror (1)
Blood (1)
Spin the Black Circle (1)
MFC (1)
Life Wasted (1)

Closers:

Yellow Ledbetter (6)
Indifference (1)
Rockin’ in the Free World (2)
Fuckin’ Up (1)
Alive (1)

The poster:

Chantix Diary: Day Ten

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 21, 2009 by sethdellinger

Cigarettes smoked today: zero

Days without a cigarette: three

Much less irritable today, but that’s probably because I limited my exposure to other people as much as possible. Physical cravings are much diminished, while the habitual aspect is still pretty tough. Getting out of the shower was especially difficult for me today. I really wanted a smoke right then.

Actually got some sleep last night, but pretty much because I didn’t have to work today and I was able to sleep far into the afternoon. Have bought some Valerian Root on the advice of my friend Zack. Hopefully I’ll get normal sleep tonight.

I’m pretty sure that at this moment, this is the longest I’ve gone without a cigarette since I picked up the habit 15 or 16 years ago. It feels pretty good! I know it’s only been three days, but I swear, my body is feeling…better. Somehow better, crisper, fresher. Of course, that could just be the 8 hours of sleep I got last night.

I’m getting the post-quit cough, where your lungs start to clean themselves out and you actually cough more than you did when you were smoking. I like it, though. It’s physically unpleasant but mentally rather reassuring.

I’ll keep everyone posted intermittently of my progress from here on out, but daily updates will stop. If I’m bored writing them, you’re bored reading them. Well, I’ll update at least once more yet tomorrow, since tomorrow will oficially be my first fourth day without cigarettes since I started. Thanks for your support, everyone!

14 Comments »

Seth Reacts to the Emmys

Posted in Prose with tags 24, Big Love, culture, LOST, mary, media, rant, rave, television on September 21, 2009 by sethdellinger

The Emmys were last night, and though I didn’t get to watch them and I don’t watch most of the major winners, but a few of my horses were in the race, and thought I’d just bounce some feelings off my blog here:

“30 Rock” is still deserving of the Comedy Series win, but I can’t wait until “How I Met Your Mother” starts getting some golden statues. It’s the best 3-camera sitcom in a decade.

Three of my favorite shows were nom’d for drama–“Lost”, “Big Love”, and “Dexter”, as well as one of Mary’s favorite shows, “Damages”, only to be trumped once again by “Mad Men”. I think this just means I should probably watch “Mad Men”.

Huzzah for “Grey Garden”‘s two wins! This made-for-television movie was outstanding and I would probably be on a plane to somewhere to hurt someone if it hadn’t been recognized. However–and this is a big however–FUCK them Emmy voters for giving the acting statue to Jessica Lange instead of Drew Barrymore. Barrymore had a much harder job in “Grey Gardens” and actually did her job better than Lange. Guess people still want to go with the safe vote.

It would have been nice to see Jim Parsons win for “The Big Bang Theory”. Alec Baldwin has won enough shit in his lifetime.

Call me crazy, but I still root for Julia Louis-Dreyfus every time I’m able, and not just because of Seinfeld. Have you seen “The New Adventures of Old Christine”? It’s a good show!! And has anyone ever even seen this “Untied States of Tara” show that Toni Collette won for?

Fuck the Lead Actress in a Drama category entirely, since not a single of the amazing women from “Lost” were even nominated.

JON CRYER wins for “Two and a Half Men”, are you fuckign kidding me?????!! EVERYONE knows that show is an unfunny piece of douche written for the lowest common denominator (and acted that way, too). And Cryer wins over Neil Patrick Harris from “How I Met Your Mother”, two worthy “30 Rock”ers, and Rainn Wilson from “The Office”???? Poo-poo!

Michael Emerson wins for “Lost”!!!!! Thank goodness someone’s still paying attention to how good this show is! And especially Emerson–it’s nice to see the exact actor who deserved it more than the rest to actually get it.

The Supporting Actress in a Drama Series: I only watch one of the shows nominated, and it won, and it was “24”, the show that awards have forgotten! Yay for Cherry Jones, who just does a passable job of playing the nation’s first female president on the show, but I’m thrilled she won anyway!

I wish Jeanne Tripplehorn would have won her supporting statue for “Grey Gardens”, even though she’s barely in it, but you know she’s never going to nominated for “Big Love”! However, Shohreh Aghdashloo did win it for some movie I’ve never heard of, but she used to be in “24”, so it’s all good!

Of all years, how did “Saturday Night Live” not win the variety category this year? I love Jon Stewart as much as anyone else, but c’mon! SNL was swingin’ this year!! They influenced public thought more than any other non-news show, in my opinion.

“Intervention” wins over “Mythbusters” and “Antiques Road Show”=just plainly ridiculous.

Pearl Jam’s very own end cap at Target!

Posted in Uncategorized with tags pearl jam on September 21, 2009 by sethdellinger

Chantix Diary: Day Nine

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 21, 2009 by sethdellinger

Cigarettes smoked today: zero

Days without smoking: two

Yeah, sure, great, whatever. I made it another day. Hoo-ray. I’m also completely miserable in every way. I hate everything right now, including you.

13 Comments »

Chantix Diary: Day Eight

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 20, 2009 by sethdellinger

Cigarettes smoked today: zero

Days without a cigarette: one

If you want the short version: I didn’t smoke today, but it was damn hard, and I want a cigarette very badly right now.

If you want the longer version: It seems that the Chantix is working, but not as much as it does for some people, because this feels surprisingly like I am quitting smoking. I’ve had a few friends quit this way and say it was like they just forgot to smoke, but that is certainly not the case with me. I am definitely remembering to smoke, and there are physical cravings aplenty. However, the cravings are most certainly less than when I’ve tried to quit before. (for the record, I have tried to quit cold turkey a few times in my life, never making it past day 3, so if and when I make it to day 4, that will be the true landmark day).

The oddest moments are those times when I would ritualistically smoke, like getting in the car, after a shower, after a busy period at work, after eating, etc etc. At those moments, my body instinctively reaches for the smokes, and I am momentarily confused. Even now, while writing this blog, something feels quite unnatural.

And the Chantix is making me feel like serious dogshit. I now suffer from just about every side-effect except suicidal thoughts, though I do have a spot of depression. Not to worry though–I feel as though I am monitoring myself rather clinically. Being aware of why I am having thoughts and feelings serves to offset them. The more I catch myself being aggressive, angry, or sad, the more I’m about to bounce back to a temporary feeling of elation.

What bothers me the most is that I’m almost certainly going to gain weight. One of the big reasons I wanted to quit smoking so badly was so I could get in shape; I’m sick of being this out of shape guy when at my core I’m a physically active guy who’s just been grounded for a decade by the limitations of his lungs. And this will still happen, but now there’ll be even more weight to lose. You really can’t help but eat. I can’t fully explain it; something to do during cravings, something to reward yourself when you’d normally reward with nicotine, or more ethereally, something to “fill the void” left by smokes. I’ m doing a pretty good job of eating large amounts of healthy stuff, but I’m fairly certain that four pounds of grapes and granola bars is still going to enlarge my gut. Oh well. Everything in time.

9 Comments »

Chantix Diary: Day Seven

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 19, 2009 by sethdellinger

This is it. My final few hours of smoking (notwithstanding some setbacks, which I am emotionally allowing for, though I am quite confident here). When I wake up tomorrow, I will not smoke. I have bought my sugar-free lollipops, a bunch of frozen berries to chew and suck on (I routinely do this already…frozen raspberries and strawberries from your grocer’s freezer section. It’s great), and all sorts of other things to keep my mouth and hands busy. Immediately before I go to bed tonight, I’m going to throw out all the ashtrays. I’ve continued smoking like normal all day today, but have consciously monitored my cravings, and found them to be minor at the most, and often non-existent. I seemed to be smoking out of habit alone. Of course, this could be a much different story when the cigarettes are not actually there. I won’t really know how it’s going to go until tomorrow.

Notably, the Chantix side-effects are really kicking in. I have been a mean, mean man all day–which is dangerous when you’re the boss at work. This is not the nicotine-withdrawal sort of crankiness, but rather, an aggressive anger. I think I’ve done fairly good at keeping it in check, because the moment I noticed it, I knew it was the Chantix. I fought it by essentially not doing much speaking.

Also, last night I only slept two hours, which is notable when you take into account that I didn’t have to wake up until NOON–meaning I didn’t fall asleep until 10 am this morning. I was awake all night. And when I did finally fall asleep, I had one of the famed “Chantix dreams”…a dream so disturbing, so graphically violent (I wasn’t the one being violent, it was a bear) that I won’t actually recount the dream for you. But suffice to say, I don’t ever, ever have dreams like that naturally.

Hopefully things balance out soon. But if this is the life I have to live for a few months in order to not die of horrible, humiliating, painful cancer, then so be it.

Also, I hate everyone today. Grrrrrrr.

4 Comments »

The Hurt Locker

Posted in Prose, Rant/ Rave, Uncategorized with tags art, movies, rave on September 18, 2009 by sethdellinger

Just got back from seeing “The Hurt Locker”, and I’m still a bit smitten with it. Sure, it has some pretty glaring flaws–three different denouements, a few forced devices (the Iraqi soccer kid, the obvious and clunky metaphor of the ‘blast suit’) but its problems are more than compensated for by at least being the very first film about the Iraq war to both show realistic, dramatic battle, as well as having believable, relatable characters in a story worth caring about.

If you haven’t been watching the slew of Iraq war films in the last few years, they have been anywhere from passable to awful, and almost none of them have qualified as a “war movie”. A majority have seemed to focus on the effects of the war on people at home, which is all well and good, but would be better if the actual war in Iraq had already been amply explored. And it hasn’t. The few films that have tried–“Redacted”, “The Marine” (ug) and “Stop-Loss”–have failed terribly for different reasons. And the films which choose to stay here on American soil have turned out some decent movies (“Grace is Gone” and “In the Valley of Elah” spring to mind), though I’d be hard pressed to tell you how they are about the Iraq war, and sometimes, how they are about war at all (I’m looking at you, “Conspiracy”). It should be noted here that I’m talking specifically about Iraq war movies, not War on Terror movies, so I don’t have to talk about how unnecessary “Rendition” or “The Kingdom” were.

Well, “The Hurt Locker” not only shows up all those movies in the arena of story and action, but in craft, as well. Sure, “Valley of Elah” has some beautiful camera work, and “Redacted” is as visually ambitious as…well…everything else Brian de Palma has ever made. But “Hurt Locker” trumps them by using smart and seamless methods to not only wow the viewer, but to advance the story. Director Kathryn Bigelow and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd elect to use multiple methods of filming for various aspects of the plot, all woven together so fluidly that a viewer not watching for such things could remain blissfully oblivious. By my count, Bigelow and Ackroyd employ three different methods: the standard, stationary camera working on a master shot/coverage system, professional-grade handheld steadicams, and Best Buy-quality handheld video cameras. The effect is to give the viewer a sense of immediacy commensurate with the level of intensity and anxiety the characters are going through at that particular moment.

While there are some minor characterization problems, screenwriter Mark Boal (who also penned “In the Valley of Elah”)gives us an intriguing enough trio of main characters to cause their peril to seem truly perilous to us, and Boal keeps his characters in peril more than 50 percent of his movie. The action scenes–mainly focusing on main character Sgt. William James disarming bombs planted by Iraqui insurgents–draw out to almost interminable lengths, with director Bigelow ramping up the tension even more with long, uncut shots, jumpy hand-held cameras, and a stark, nearly silent soundtrack.

And here’s my first complaint: it is actually too quiet. Like a vast majority of war films (set in any war, not just Iraq) the film pretends there are no civilians in the invaded country. As Sgt. William James disarms his bombs on the streets of Iraqi cities–cities–the silence and lack of movement in the periphery is haunting, but completely idiotic. It’s easy enough to look past this, however, but it was the only glaring problem I found in the first two acts.

“The Hurt Locker”, however, really misses the boat when it comes to its ending. At the start of the third act (which I had perceived as the end of the third act) our three main characters chase what amounts to a ghost into the pitch-black night of the Iraqi desert, for mixed and mostly bad reasons. The following ten minutes are a cinematic descent into literal and figurative darkness, a sequence not incomparable to the final moments of “Apocalypse Now” . To end the film here would have catapulted “The Hurt Locker” beyond “good Iraq movie” to “great film”, but alas, it probably would have made the film a bit too intellectual. And Bigelow does have some very neat and worthy moments in store for us after this sequence; a jump cut that takes Sgt. James from a street in Iraq to a shiny, elevator-music-infused grocery store when he’s back stateside is a gasp-inducing moment, if only for it evidencing the incredible contrast between the two worlds (and forcing us to think of him as a person, not just a soldier). And the final shot of the film is also worth getting to, and the music over the credits is expertly chosen.

Despite its flaws, “The Hurt Locker” is a film that needs to be seen, no matter how you feel about the war. Like all good war films–but unlike any Iraq war film to date–“The Hurt Locker” shows us that actual people are fighting this war, as well as what the experience is like for them.

Chantix Diary: Day Six, Part Two (last minute pictures of me smoking)

Posted in Chantix Diary, Photography with tags addiction, photography on September 18, 2009 by sethdellinger

Chantix Diary: Day Six

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 17, 2009 by sethdellinger

Today, I woke up at 1pm (this is not a sign of laziness, folks, I was at work until 12:30am and didn’t get to sleep until the sun was out), rolled out of bed, answered a few texts I had got while asleep, wandered into my living room, shut off my “Gettysburg” DVD, which had apparently been playing on repeat for about 8 hours, took a Chantix, started some coffee brewing, took a huge gulp of water, and sat down at my computer to see what happened on Facebook during my hibernation. Alot had happened (I had 25 notifications! That’s too many!) and before I knew it I had whittled away close to 45 minutes on that damned website. I finally pulled myself away from it, went out and got my mail, and spent about ten minutes paging through my new issue of Esquire. Finally, I got up and headed toward my bathroom to shower. Halfway toward my bathroom, I realized I hadn’t smoked. Not only that, I hadn’t even thought about smoking. This is odd. I typically smoke within ten minutes of waking up.

Now, the trouble is, the moment I realized I hadn’t smoked, I immediately needed one, like when a cut doesn’t hurt until you see it. But I did proceed to shower, and dry off, and brush my teeth, and shave, before I had a cigarette. But now, throughout the course of writing this, I’ve had two more. But still: a good sign, methinks.

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Chantix Diary: Day Five

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction on September 17, 2009 by sethdellinger

Still not experiencing any of the more famous side-effects (nor any decreased cravings) but am experiencing some of the more “minor” side effects which, when added up, equal more than a small annoyance. Following is a full ist of Chantix side-effects, and in italics are the ones I’m experiencing. The links are residual links from copy-and-pasting from wikipedia, I did not create the links.

Nausea occurs commonly in people taking varenicline (Chantix). Other less common side effects include Headache, difficulty sleeping, and abnormal dreams. Rare side effects reported by people taking varenicline compared to placebo include change in taste, vomiting, abdominal pain, flatulence, and constipation.^[5] In May 2008, Pfizer updated the safety information associated with Chantix, noting that “some patients have reported changes in behavior, agitation, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions.” ^[6]

In November 2007, the FDA announced it had received post-marketing reports that patients using Chantix for smoking cessation had experienced several serious symptoms, including suicidal ideation and occasional suicidal behavior, erratic behavior, and drowsiness. On February 1, 2008 the FDA issued an Alert to further clarify its findings, noting that “it appears increasingly likely that there is an association between Chantix and serious neuropsychiatric symptoms.” It is unknown whether the psychiatric symptoms are related to the drug or to nicotine withdrawal symptoms, although not all patients had stopped smoking. The FDA also recommended that health care professionals and patients watch for behavioral and mood changes.^[7]

Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) conducted an analysis of post-marketing adverse effects reports received by the FDA. According to this analysis, in the fourth quarter of 2007 varenicline accounted for more reports of serious side effects than any other drug. Suicidal acts and ideation, psychosis, and hostility or aggression, including homicidal ideation, were the most prominent psychiatric side effects. Multiple reports suggested that varenicline may be related to the loss of glycemic control and new onset of diabetes, heart rhythm disturbances, skin reactions, vision disturbances, seizures, abnormal muscle spasms and other movement disorders. ISMP noted that the reports do not establish causality and only identify potential causes, and concluded that further research and a priority review of the data by the FDA is necessary.^[8]

A study conducted by Group Health Center for Health Studies, SRI International, and Free & Clear, Inc., published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine on February 24, 2009, concluded that people with a history of depression are not qualitatively more susceptible to the reported psychiatric side effects of varenicline than people with no history of depression. ^[9]

On June 4, 2009, the FDA announced it was evaluating varenicline for additional potential side effects, including angioedema, serious skin reactions, visual impairment, and accidental injury. ^[10]

On July 1, 2009, the Food and Drug Administration required varenicline and Zyban (bupropion) to carry a black box warning, the agency’s strongest safety warning, due to side effects including depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicidal actions. ^[11]

In summation, I am experiencing:

1. Nausea
2. Difficulty Sleeping
3. Flatulence
4. Agitation/ aggressive behavior
5. Drowsiness (yes, as well as difficulty sleeping!)
6. Skin reactions (rash, though minor)
7. Vision disturbances (night vision halos, daytime blurriness)

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Chantix Diary: Day 4

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction, memoir, women on September 16, 2009 by sethdellinger

I’m writing this in a very cranky state of mind, as I’m damn-near exhausted in just about every way a body can be exhausted. I’m going to try to not let my crankiness show, however. Which I suppose is ironic, since I haven’t even quit smoking yet.

I’ve now taken four Chantix pills. I haven’t noticed anything different yet. No decrease in craving, no repulsion by cigarettes, no “forgetting to smoke”, which of course concerns me, even though it shouldn’t. There is nothing in any of the literature, or anything the doctor told me, to suggest I would be able to notice these things happening at this point. I suppose I was hoping this would be ridiculously easy. I also haven’t experienced any of the bizarre side effects yet, such as the crazy dreams, which if one more person tells me about as though my own doctor and the extensive literature they give you to read would not have clearly already clued me in to, I’m going to smash them in the face with a urine-soaked sponge.

Tonight I take a second pill before bed. On days 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Chantix, you take 2 pills–the only time during the treatment this occurs. This is to ramp up the build-up of Chantix in your brain, where it is slowly blocking the specific pleasure receptors which derive pleasure from nicotine from experiencing that pleasure and producuing the requisite dopamine. I am writing poorly at the moment–these setnences are confusing, but I will not edit!

All this talk about smoking in my life lately has gotten me thinking about the genesis of my own smoking. Addicts of the more socially maligned drugs, including alcohol, always get plenty of chances to wax romantic, poetic, and dramatic about the first time they encountered their D.O.C. (drug of choice), and heavens knows I’ve done my share of said waxing when it comes to my history with alcohol. But smokers, they rarely talk about the experience of the first cigarette. Sure, at any given moment, we could tell you almost exactly how long we’ve been smoking, and how old we were when we started, but that moment of the addict’s first nicotine seems to not be the rite of passage that a drunk’s first drink is, or a crack head’s first hit.

If there were scholars of my life, who made a living off of writing articles and books dissecting all the minutiae of Seth that there is to be had (such as, say, the cottage industry of academics who make a living writing about Thomas Pynchon), then there would almost certainly be a huge battle of ideologies as to when I smoked my first cigarette.

My first real girlfriend was B___, and I dated her from when I was 15 until I was 18. Early in our relationship, when I was either an old 15 or a young 16, B____ and her best friend B_____ (yes, their names both started with B) started smoking. At first, I was appalled…no girlfriend of mine was going to be a filthy smoker! Of course, she just laughed off my pleas; I’ve never been much of a “do what I say” boyfriend, and on the few occasions I’ve tried, it just sounds like a joke anyway. And, lo and behold, after a few weeks, I even began to find it pretty sexy. She was good at smoking. Just the right tilt of the wrist, just enough of an audible exhale to make me think of kissing her and her hot breath, a demur, nonchalant ash flick. And so, at some point in time which I can’t remember, I, too, put a cigarette in my mouth and lit it, sucked the warm smoke into my mouth. And I did this with B___ and B_____ quite a few times over the next few weeks. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me.

Until, one night as the three of us were hanging out at a local pizza joint, all smoking, when my girlfriend B___ looked at me odd and started laughing. “What are you doing?”, she said. I probably said something like “…”, to which she said “You’re not even inhaling! You can tell the difference in the way the smoke comes out of your mouth.” Of course I was highly embarrassed.

So a few nights later, I was riding around with my friend Mike in his white Ford Mustang, which at the time made him really cool. Mike had also been smoking for more than a year at this point. Marlboro Reds, he smoked. I told him of my predicament. I didn’t understand how I wasn’t inhaling. It sure felt like inhaling to me. And I’d felt foolish in front of my girlfriend. I wanted to be as cool and attractive as B___ (who I had not yet talked into sleeping with me). This might sound like an after-school special, but it’s the truth: I started smoking to look cool for a girl. It certainly wasn’t her fault, or Mike’s, or anyone’s but mine, but there it is. Some of you certainly disagree, but I still think smoking looks cool, and I’m far from alone.

So anyway. Mike parked his car in the big empty church parking lot directly next to my house, probably sometime around midnight on a weekend night, and he taught me how to really inhale. And boy howdy! what a difference. To all of you who have never smoked: your first cigarette fucks you up. It is as euphoric a high as any drug I’ve ever done. It’s called a “cigarette buzz”, but for about 20 seconds that shit is more powerful than crack.* Some “social smokers” will claim to have never experienced this, and it is my opinion that they, too, do not know how to inhale.

Of course, one could extrapolate a fair amount of foreshadowing of my alcoholism by my attraction to the cigarette buzz, but the fact is, millions upon millions upon millions of people around the world and throughout history get addicted to that buzz, and then it is cruelly taken away completely by your 40th cigarette, to be replaced by an unshakeable deadly addiction. But that first cigarette, with Mike in his car, before I had ever had sex or drank a beer or smoked a joint–as my vision faded, my face went numb, my hearing subsided, and I lost myself swimming in the ether somewhere, forgot who I was or where I was and forgot damn near everything, if only for a few moments, I knew not only that smoking was for me, but that life was going to be entirely different from that moment on. And I was right.

*I’ve never done crack.

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Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction, snippet on September 14, 2009 by sethdellinger

Chantix diary will be postponed due to a work trip to Pittsburgh, which I didn’t think about until just now. I don’t have time to do a proper entry. Diary will be picked up again on Day 3.

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Chantix Diary: Day One

Posted in Chantix Diary with tags addiction, life, recovery, smoking on September 13, 2009 by sethdellinger

Sure, at one point in time, I was physically addicted to alcohol. It was ruining my life. I drank day and night for years. I drank in the shower. I drank during sex. I probably drank in my sleep. Quitting entailed going through delirium tremens–the name for alcohol withdrawal–and from the name, you can imagine how much that sucked. I went to rehab twice, for a grand total of 41 days. I emotionally injured just about everyone I knew, probably should have gone to jail, and am lucky I didn’t kill anyone.

Quitting smoking is going to be harder.

Just because you quit one thing doesn’t mean you can just miraculously quit anything. I could probably quit smoking just as easily as I quit drinking (which, of course, wasn’t easy) if I could go to some facility where they essentially lock you up for a month and don’t let you smoke at all and make you sit in an endless string of group therapies every day where everyone talks about their history with smoking. Smoker’s Rehab.

But there is no smoker’s rehab. And I need to quit. And not because of my recent scare with the mole on my foot; I actually had the doctor’s appointment before I noticed the mole–it was going to be an appointment just about quitting smoking. No, it’s time for Seth to get in shape, and that can’t happen until I quit smoking. The smoking was a crutch I used during my early alcohol recovery period, and that period ended long ago.

I took my first Chantix about 16 hours ago. I have six more to take until I actually try to stop smoking. I’m going to document this process, mainly to keep myself accountable to my plan to quit, but also because I imagine it might be interesting (there are notoriously interesting side-effects, such as bizarre and vivid dreams). And although I have no plans of failing, I’d like everyone to keep in mind that failing is certainly possible. It can be part of the process. Remember, I went to rehab twice.

Nothing out of the ordinary is happening yet, of course. It takes a few days for Chantix to build up in your system. In the next few days, however, I’ll probably blog a bit about my thoughts and experiences with smoking in general. It’s an addiction that’s so widespread and common, the drama and seriousness of it is mostly written off. (OK, so there’s not a lot of drama when it comes to smoking, but I’m sure I’ll dig up something interesting until the Chantix kicks in).

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From the Police Log in today’s Carlisle Sentinel newspaper

Posted in Snippet with tags Carlisle, humor, media, snippet on September 12, 2009 by sethdellinger

A resident of the 300 block of Bahama Circle reported that on Sept. 5 or 6, someone broke into his home and made a cheese sandwich in the microwave. Nothing was reported stolen.

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Me with my hand in a coffee pot. Don’t ask.

Posted in Uncategorized with tags photography on September 11, 2009 by sethdellinger