Pretend there's no title

You know the other day I revealed a rather personal tidbit related to spouse and my navel. (I was a little surprised at the disgust level expressed. A little thread balled up in there is pretty clean, it's not like it's in your pits, crack, or .......toenails, now that would be gross) And ever since reading it again a couple hours after posting, I have not been able to stop wringing my hands over my spelling error. Oh, sure, it was a simple "a" in place of an "e", but it is one of those hallmark words that people might use to gauge your intelligence. Having once belonged to the clan of perpetual intellectual superiority, I know of what I speak. I have been working hard over the past decade to extricate myself from the clan, but it has been a hard road. I have learned that "holes" in someone's knowledge or skill in any particular arena does not indicate that they don't have superior knowledge or skill in some other particular arena. I have equal respect (hell, maybe more) for the illiterate guy who can put an engine together without instructions as I do for a University professor, refined in his social habits but who is also scatterbrained. I didn't use to, but now, that is true.

Anyway, I have this policy not to fix any errors in my writing unless I catch it just after posting. I just want to keep it real. Sometimes it pains me to see "the the" or a misspelled word. Most misspelled words are typos (I don't need no stinking spell check) but once in a while I err for real (as in, not on purpose). Like last Friday. And I keep wondering if some small judgement has been passed based on the mistake, and then asking myself why I should possibly care. Anyway, I don't really know what I'm trying to say. I'm not stupid!

Did you figure out the word yet?

Day five of no cigarettes has dawned, and in my experience, this should be the last of the really difficult days, day four was harsher than I expected, just a constant gnawing need grating at the inside of my abdomen, though admittedly, less intense than day one. I just keep marveling at the bad feelings, and I keep telling myself, "You'll never have to feel this way again as long as you don't pick one up." And I remind myself that I'm 40, and what kind of pathetic man am I if I can't be in charge of myself. (The flog oneself with shame method) And finally, I keep remembering what my Grandpa said when he told me how he finally successfully quit, "I just didn't want this inanimate object to control my life, and then it became a war."

A war, indeed.