So I have fallen off the wagon already. On Saturday I drank one beer and smoked one imported cigarette. Ahhhhh Gauloises. I felt guilty and recommitted to the goal. But then today I really started to try to do my Application to Candidacy, which is a really friggin' lame paperwork nightmare that you have to go through in order to begin working on your MFA thesis project. Paul I'm sure wrote about what a positive pain in the ass this is. For me especially, since I transferred from another Master's degree program at UB, I have a ton of classes outside of Media Studies. And for each one I have to find the syllabus and write a justification of why it should count toward my degree, and for some of those, I have to get the signature of a teacher who may have moved (out of the country) or who I have possibly pissed off and never want to speak to again. That's so me. Anyways, I called our advisor, a man many know and love but who has always told me encouraging things like I'll never graduate and maybe I shouldn't even be a graduate student. Which is so ridiculous. So today he told me the same thing again, that despite the fact that I have completed everything except the actual thesis project, I shouldn't have "gone out on my own" and yes, I still won't graduate. Well, I might just follow the lead of some greater minds than mine, like say, T.S. Eliot, Getrude Stein, Bill Gates, and complete all my course work, at a cost of $25,000, and tell them to file their formwork where the sun don't shine and let me go my merry way, with no degree to show for all my hard work. Needless to say, it was either break down in tears or break down and smoke. Since I won't give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing me cry, I begged someone for a Marlboro Red. And then I smoked it. WHY! WHY?! WHYYYYY!!!??? I got a lot of nice and encouraging comments from people who read my Quitter post, but the best and most honest one was, don't say you've quit until 2 years have passed.

Day 6 with no cigarettes. The (e:strip) party was my last hurrah with the smoking. I think it was an appropriate way to end it all; after 10 years of partying and puffing, to toke some last rollies with my old crew. I smoked a smorgasborg of borrowed butts that night, and since I had been cutting back for two weeks before that, they made me dizzy and kinda sick feeling. The next day I think I was more hungover from cigarettes than anything else. This week has been intense with rehersals (one of my ideas was pretty over-the-top and I got grilled by the whole troupe and in the end I had to just cut the skit) but I have still managed not to give in, even though people around me are smoking. Really what I feel like is I've lost an old friend (I almost typed 'fiend'), My Tabaccy, and though I miss it now it's gone, it was time to move on. There just weren't any surprises anymore. Puff puff butt, over and over. The good news is, according to everything doctors have told me, now that I'm not a smoker, I'll live forever, right?

[size=l]Hello Strippers![/size]
[size=xl]This is an invite to the
Real Dream Cabaret's[/size]

[size=xxl]Super Intense Decision Show

at Squeaky Wheel! [/size]

Thursday
August 4
8:00 p.m.

Friday
August 5
9:00 p.m.

Saturday
August 6
2:00 p.m.

Sunday
August 7
4:00 p.m.

The Super Intense Decision Show is part of the Infringement Festival. All performances held at Squeaky Wheel 175 Elmwood. Admission is your hourly wage.

I will be performing with the group, in case you are my friend and would like to see me. But even if you are not my friend or would not like to see me, you should come and just close your eyes during my parts!

More Info:
Real Dream Cabaret Webpage:
Infringement Festival (Buffalo):