day thirty. month one.

maraming salamat kay jec at pumayag siyang i-host nung una itong kalokohang ito. haha! ayus pre.

maraming salamat din kay lyn at sa excitement nya ayusin ito na feeling ko tuloy di ako pumapasa sa standards nya hahaha! biro lang. pasensya na lyn kung sinira ko yung unang design mo. di ko talaga feel eh. peace.

maraming salamat sa mga nagbasa at nag-reply at nag-suggest dito sa site. pati na rin yung sinabing magaling ako mag-english. natuwa yung typist ko.

maraming salamat dun sa mga tindahan sa tapat ng bftoda terminal sa may amin at sa tindahan dun sa tabi ng petron sa don antonio dahil ang mura ng yosi niyo. pati na din sa lahat ng takatak boys, itaguyod nyo ang marangal na trabaho.

maraming salamat sa mga nanlibre at namigay ng yosi dati pati na din mga nagpasindi. wala pa ako nakatagpong madamot pagdating diyan. may kinabukasan ang mga pinoy.

maraming salamat din kay nathan at ate tetet. kayo salarin. muwahaha!

maraming salamat kay tita fe, tito freddie, tito pete, tito edward, carlos, rio, john2x, kambal, kevin, tita maret, ate bane, beh, dro, makoy, norlan, myk, jerry, richard, ced, cj, onin, julz, subsob boys, mike, tita jo, reden, kat, map, jo, nina, boss dan, mark, jeff, whey, barok, allen, neil, pat, jay, madel, mama jing at sa iba pang ka-yosi ko dati. memories yan. saved them all here.

maraming salamat din sa mga nangonsensya, nagpayo at nanakot. di siya tumatalab dati pero eto tumigil na din. happy u?

maraming salamat kay joh kundi dahil sa birthday mo di ako matatakot.

maraming salamat kay kaibigang magsasaka, tatang na kahit todo yosi, lakas kalabaw pa din. watapwitdat?

maraming salamat kay sister at di ka rin pala goody two-shoes. ako na yun.

maraming salamat kay nanay at laging may baryang nakakalat at mga extra na lighter.

maraming salamat kay tatay at alam kong kaya ng isang tao tumigil manigarilyo at di na ibalik.

maraming salamat kay Lord at minulat ako at may natira pang baga sa akin. pati na rin sa pagbigay nya ng lakas para madaig ko ito. daig na daig na, baon sa lupa. You’re the Man.

yun lang.

i quit.

peace.

day twenty-nine

tomorrow will be the last time i write anything about my former habit and probably would just be acknowledgements to others. because all this doesn’t really end tomorrow, you can get what you could read on this site straight from me. honestly there’s nothing much left to say about it.

i know i’m going to miss this, it has been part of me for the past 10 years after all. nothing that you held for so long is that easy to forget. i probably would have trouble adjusting to the taste of beer during drinking sessions. smoking actually made the bitter taste of beer bearable and helps me avoid getting drunk. i am going to miss the lighters, i really had colorful ones and i enjoyed playing with them. i’ll miss the days where i get pissed off because somebody nicked my lighter.. again. i’m pretty sure i am not the only smoker who automatically pockets another person’s lighter after lighting a cigarette hehe. i would definitely feel left out during yosi breaks with friends, which no good friend should ever miss. the simplest and most stupid thoughts start from these and become something huge like inventing google or something. i’ll get to save a lot more money, cigarettes are not exactly cheap unless you have the sari-sari store near your house which sells a pack less than 30 pesos. i think i might have an abundance of coins from now on, maybe i can make a piggy bank or something. oh, shamefully i did open a little coin bank before to buy yosi. not proud of it, just sharing. it would also mean less storks and halls and mentos and maxx for me. i never really bought those for themselves. i’ll miss the talents of the takatak boys to light your cigarette in 2 seconds. family reunions would be weird now because i won’t be smoking with them anymore. no more waiting for jeepneys with vacant seats at the front. i won’t have to clean the ash inside the car anymore. no more fliter-flicking. no more making O’s from smoke. no more phobia on where to throw your cigarette butts. no more panic attacks on where to get yosi because you forgot to buy replenishments and you are in the middle of nowhere. no more annoying comments and advice from friends that i should stop smoking. a lot of no more’s and nothing’s.

i won’t go back, you can bet on that. i actually made smoking senseless. i’m not sure if writing it here helped, but i do like making a fool of myself when i recall all these stupid stories. less smoking, less stupid. no smoking, stupid still here though. can’t win. anyway, i do feel its senseless now, i don’t regret doing it before though. there was a time when it was fun and if you were having fun then i believe that is okay, if you are not having fun anymore then what is the point? savvy?

day twenty-eight

influences were a big part of this habit. i knew too many people who smoke. i’m not putting blame on them but i do admit it made smoking look normal. i remember the time when cigarettes did not have the government warning, and when that came out i actually doubted it would work. but if the people close to me made smoking seem normal and acceptable, there are others who made it cool.

now these guys, they really had this defiant look even without the cigarettes. they don’t care you’re there, i’d like to have a smoke and i just want to relax. if you were getting to know them at the age of 11 and you saw their image and realizing how big they were, it makes everything they do matter.

then there is this guy, he’s also big and he was also a genius. but he had anger, suffering, desperation while being artistic. i have a poster of another shot of this scene in my room, you could see in his eyes that there was something behind what is seen. he’s thinking and you know it might be something that would turn out great or terrible. the way he smokes, its like he needed it instead of just doing it.

anyway, there is also this band of brothers thing. they basically use packs of lucky strikes as means to trade. it puts value to the cigarette, people demand it in their world, their time. made it a dependency. then there is metallica, love smoking cigars. i always thought of it as something celebratory, but they make it look easily accessible. it’s there, go get one! why not do it?

its very subtle, cause i know this wasn’t the direct cause as to why i smoked before. but its funny because there are all these images in my head, and its there. the cigarette is there.