Friday, January 19, 2007

Bad Medievalist! No Mead!

That's a sort of empty threat, as Mead is perfectly vile even in the best of circumstances. But I'm not sure the medievals had cookie technology, and I've never read "meanwhile, back at the cookie-hall," so it had to be Mead.

Anyway, those of you who are the observant sort will have noticed a Quitmeter counter added to the footer space. So far I have saved myself about 20 dollars by not purchasing tobacco products. Yay! The cheapness, it is often quite strong within me, and keeping track of money not spent is good motivation.

HOWEVER, apparently the end of week one post-smoking gets to be a little hairy, and I needed further motivation. So, as a reward for being such a good girl, I decided to wander around the local consignment shop and see if they had anything in the 20 dollar range with which I could reward myself. That way I would have something tangible and more pleasant than fierce cravings and an ironically worse smoker's cough to remind me of my commitment to stop smoking.

As I was about to leave, empty-handed, because the stuff in the 20 dollar range at a consignment shop is just as crappy as the stuff in the 20 dollar range in any other shop, I encountered a framed brass crypt rubbing of a Knight and Lady with some Latin along the bottom. (I haven't translated it yet) Had to have it, right NOW! before somebody else saw it and stole it from me, the dirty scoundrels. I now owe myself about 150 dollars -- yes, I was gyped -- and I have to decide which room it's least creepy to have a big crypt rubbing hanging in. I'm not creeped out by such things, I absolutely love them, but one must consider the guests sometimes.

What amazes me is how well I can 'reason' myself into following my impulses. I've spent the week mostly battling my inner addict, and all the obviously crazy reasoning that it threw at me, successfully. That seems to have weakened me, though. I had no desire to spend nearly ten times the amount I'd saved, but I saw something I wanted to own and all the tricks of my psyche came out to convince me to buy it. And this time *they* won.

Well, maybe the debt of honor will get me through the next several weeks of not smoking.

On an even lighter note, links to some stuff that made me do the wonderfully attractive laugh/snort found at We Have Pie Charts via Chris at Mixing Memory :

People Who Fight With Swords

Pirate Information

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, those were great. Have you seen "indexed"? It's one of my favorites for a quick laugh often: http://indexed.blogspot.com/

Congratulations on giving up smoking! You go, Heo!

Anonymous said...

At the risk of sounding like an enabler . . .

1) Giving up smoking is waaaay harder than any $20 reward could possibly reflect.

2) Yeah, you have that whole "debt of honor" thing now. But I think you also deserve some smaller rewards, anyway. Like, maybe, ice cream?

Also, I am definitely hearing you on the whole topic of creeping out the guests: I only realized after the fact that putting lots of religious art (some of it quite creepy) up in my bedroom could be construed as rather . . . . odd by others. And the "vampire stake" a friend gave me as a present and the Day of the Dead stuff in the living room might not help.

Still unrepentant, though--about that and about the copies of "A History of Shit," "Merde," "An Outhouse by Any Other Name," "The Vulgar Tongue," and the poster of the Parisian sewer system that reside on a shelf in my bathroom.

Heh.

Heo said...

Bardiac,

Thanks for that link. I love that site!


Ancrene Wiseass,

Your bathroom sounds amazing. I love quirky stuff like that. And I have taken your advice re: ice cream as well. It's actually surprising to me how much extra pocket money $4.50 is.