Day 67: I Am STILL waiting for Curschmann's Spirals

No tobacco of any kind for twenty-four hours, despite the dirty, glorious temptation of a packet of small cigarillos in the public bar this evening.

On a sadder note, still no sign of Curschmann's Spirals. I want to cough and produce* some of the "thick, tenacious mucous plugs", but nothing's happening. Instead, I shall just have to look at another photograph of one of the little beauties, and hope that mine will be as pretty.

Right. That's enough about non-smoking until the spirals come up, at which point I will take photographs and post them on here. Are you as excited as I am? I bet you are, you little tinkers.



* "Produce" is an extremely bad word, particularly when almost next to the words "mucous" and "plugs".

Day 66: I Am Waiting For Curschmann's Spirals

I am not going to re-name this blog "Non-Smokingmonkey" as we shall all die of boredom (if the fags and sherry don't get us first), but EXTRAORDINARY news reaches me via my imaginary friend Johnnyboy, the French Canadian vet.

Apparently (and he has two Imaginary MScs, so he must be right), the grey spiral things in the shape of lung-y bits that (according to my brother), come flying out of your gob like phlegm-encased missiles when you give up smoking are called Curschmann's Spirals. Don't look it up on Google*; you'll be sick on your hands - it's a bit grim, to be frank. (You may have to read words like mucous and plugs next to each other, making mucous plugs**.)

Anyroad up, here's a picture of them/it/one of them. Pretty, isn't it/aren't they? (Imaginary Vet Friend, please clarify). Must say I can't wait. Apparently horses get them when they have heaves. Whatever they are.

Cough.

* I refuse to say "Google it"; I'm sure Google isn't a verb. Come to think of it, I don't think "e-mail" is either. And it's 10 items or fewer, not ten items or less. Honestly.

** Once we start down this route, we are Lost. Moist, moistened lips, moist gusset, soiled linen, thinly sliced, damp - you know where I'm going. Down Bad Word Avenue, that's where.

Day 65: I Am Giving Up Smoking

In three minutes.

Enough already. It never suited me, like being fat didn't (doesn't) suit me. And I smell, and cough, and may die, and all the other stuff you see on the ads on the telly.

I suppose it's like being fat, or drinking too much, or filling your face with coke every day, or sleeping with people you don't like much because you're lonely; common sense doesn't work. You only stop when you think to yourself, as you are doing whatever thing it is you do that may kill you or make you mad, "you fucking twat".

And anyway, my brother says that after you've stopped smoking for a few weeks weird shit comes out of your lungs, like grey spirals in the shape of your lung-y bits. And I'm not missing that for all the fags in China.

Cough.

Day 65: I Provide Further Evidence That My Surviving Cat Is Both Fat, And Stupid.

Good choice of reading matter, mind you.

Day 65: I Hear News Of My Cats (One Dead, One Fat) From Across The Ocean

One night, many moons ago, I dined with my brother, his lady and their friends Dylan and Chiara (as breathlessly European and glamorous as they sound - they own a boat! On the canal! For leisure purposes only!), in my brother's fashionable apartment in the not-capital of The Netherlands, Amsterdam.

Over a dinner of chicken (40 Euro each from the organic market), and chocolate cake (10 Euro a slice, also from the organic market), I tried to describe the multi-dimensional horrors visited upon me every day by the two frankly retarded cats I adopted one night when I was drunk.

Anyway, sometimes words don't come easy to me, so I drew them instead. My brother spat his chicken out, and Dylan asked if he could keep the drawing which is (if I say so myself), quite astonishingly accurate. Luckily for the world of feline art, Dylan had the picture scanned and it was returned to me in electronic form - making it all the easier to share with the world.

And it seems that this picture now has an international audience. My friend in Cleveland, Hot Coffee Girl (and man, is she HOT!), found the drawing amongst the other splendid Works in my flickr thing down there on the right, and wanted to share it with the friends and visitors that congregate daily around her splendid blog.

For this, I will always thank her: for I like to think of Dead Cat admiring my artwork in Hot Coffee Girl's special feature in heaven. And if I know that cat, he'll be expressing his pleasure by inserting his head into the open mouths of sleeping angels, as he once did to me all those months ago on the sofa in my flat in Brixton.