Wow, I actually had someone ask me when I was going to update. I'm amazed there is someone out there still reading this. Well here you go, buh-bye now. Just kidding.

Where to start and what to say. I�ve had two revelations in the past four days, neither of them pleasant. The first is that you carry a lot of old ghosts with you when you go to a funeral. It brings to mind entirely too many memories. The second is that it is time for me to stop smoking. I do not want to die from cancer.

Many people would call me dumb for smoking and they would be right. There is no defense for why I do it, why I started. Maybe you could say peer pressure, maybe you could say naivete. I suppose I thought I was invincible. Not really of course, but I watched my boyfriend in high school battle cancer and he beat it. I think somewhere in my head that convinced me I would be fine. I had years and years to smoke before I had to worry. Maybe I could have smoked for twenty years before anything happened. Maybe I would die of a car crash long before it affected my health. But maybe, just maybe, I will wake up one morning with a pain in my chest that wouldn't go away.

I've come to accept that one day I will lose one or both of my breasts. Every female on my mother's side has had breast cancer by the age of sixty. Some of them died in weeks, others lived for years. I suppose I figure if it is in my genetics so be it. I can't fight it, can't help it, so there is no use worrying about it. But smoking, I can help that. There is no reason for me to heighten my chances of laying in a bed somewhere peeing and shitting in a tube, completely oblivious to the world around me. I've watched too many people waste away. I've held too many hands with blank stares behind them. I vowed two years ago when I gagged my way down the hall of a cancer hospital I would not end up some place like that. But I started smoking and I didn't stop. It doesn't make sense. It is nothing except stupid. While I find myself with a craving at this very moment and I know the cravings won't stop for the better part of a month I know I have to quit. I don't fear death. I fear pain. I fear wasting away. It happens to too many people. It robs too many lives. To knowingly add myself to the tally is idiotic--suicidal.

I don't begrudge people the right to smoke. Everyone must make their own choice. I know it pissed the hell out of me when people judged me for it. But it does scare me. I find I worry I'm going to receive a phone call one day, another call where the voice on the other end mutters she or he or someone we both love has cancer. Even as I know nothing I do will change that I will lose the ones I love I find myself scared. That is the true poison of diseases like cancer and AIDS. They don't just kill the people who have them, they kill a little part of the family and friends too. You lose a little bit of yourself every time you smell that smell--the one of rancid sweet corn that fills your throat until you gag. The smell that clings to every pore on your body until you fear you will never be clean again. And indeed, you never really are.

I missed my last chance to see my grandmother healthy and cognizant. She wasn't supposed to look through me, ask my mom if I was marching that day, as I held her hand. I wasn't supposed to see my uncle wheeled away on a cart wasted and dying not knowing if he would be okay. Fifteen year old boys aren't supposed to die. Life doesn't care what is supposed and not supposed to happen--I know that. It's hard and it hurts, there is no denying that. But I'll be damned if I'll keep smoking and give it one more weapon to use against me. I'm too smart for that.