Something's gotta give

I. MUST. Do something about my life. Seriously.
Maybe if I put down on cyber-paper exactly what I need/want to do and then outline a plan and daily check off what I've accomplished.....BWAHAHAHAAAaaaaahhhhh...yeah, that's totally not me.
I'll at least do this:

I need to quit smoking. I HAVE TO. I'm 36; I've been smoking off and on since I was 19. The little sticks of joy control my every waking moment. I love them. LOVE smoking, which is absolutely disgusting, right? I'm terrified to quit, which is something I've done about 452 times over the years. I did do one thing right: I quit when I found out I was preggers and didn't touch 'em for three years. Almost didn't even miss them, amazingly enough. Then, you know the story, I go to a party, my best friend is smoking, I'm out for a rare evening of freedom and I"m drinking and BAM! Next thing I know I'm sucking on those coffin nails like a starving man. Woman. Whatever. The point is, I'm so hooked on the nicotine that every little puff I take is simply a burst of happiness in my brain.
The worst part? Well, not the worst maybe, but definitely the most annoying. I'm a secret anti-social smoker. I don't want anyone to know that I smoke. My parents and I have this lovely dysfunctional little dance that we've done my entire adult life where I pretend I don't smoke and they pretend they don't know that I smoke. My raspy voice? Allergies, obviously. Bad breath? Musta been the pound of feta cheese I eat every day, mum, I dunno. WTF? And forget about telling friends, unless I know they're not going to judge me for it. I mean, let's be real, smokers are the new lepers. Nobody wants to be around them and look on them with a mixture of pity and disgust. So, I huddle in my back patio by the garage, in a corner where no one can see me, running into the garage if a neighbor happens to come out and might smell it. Pathetic. yup, that's me.
The other worst part? My daughter is now old enough to know what I'm doing, since they do the whole anti-tobacco thing at school. She keeps telling me to quit, I keep telling her I will, she keeps busting me, and Ta-da! She gets a few years in therapy as an adult because her mom lied to her. Or died early of cancer. I should probably not do that to the person I love the most.

So.

I need to feel the fear and do it anyway, or some such new-agey crapola. I'll bust out the last of the nicotine gum I bought 2 years ago and occasionally munch on when I attempt to quit. That stuff is fairly nasty, but better than being a screaming banshee. I'm a nightmare when I'm coming down from the nicky. What I really need is to hole up in a cabin in the remote woods for three weeks and have no one to yell at but myself. I'll just stock it with books, my laptop and about 94 bags of cheetos and I'll be fine. Fat, but fine.

Ok. That's that. One down, sort of, I just need to set a date. Okay....my quit date will be....hmmmm, when is my period? Uh, I'm going to go with SATURDAY. This Saturday, November 1st, 2008. Look, I've written a big Q on my calendar. I'll just tell my mom that it means that I'm renting the movie "Quigley Down Under" that day. Loves me some Tom Selleck.

Yup. Doin' it. Yes I am. Wish me luck.