110607 The hardest part of quitting smoking is accepting that there is no replacement. You simply can’t have that part of your life back. There’s no way to not feel that ache, that hole. 111607 I read this from Judith Warner’s NYT blog, talking about the insularity of certain political expounders: “What they don’t do all that much is venture outside of a certain set of zip codes to get a feel for the way most people are actually living. They don’t sign up for adjustable rate mortgages, visit emergency rooms to get their primary health care, leave their children in unlicensed day care or lose their jobs because they have to drive their mothers home from the hospital after hip replacement surgery.” And then I thought about, you know, how everything’s been going, where and who and how and all that stuff that we look back on later and forget all of except the magic-markered, taped-up scribbley bits we call “life,” and I came to this conclusion: Ann’s really, basically, a good person. She can be petulant, petty, sullen, superstitious, uptight, and all those other things that I am even more of, but, yeah. Basically, yeah.