I woke up late today, dragged out of sleep by dreams that felt less like dreams and more like unpaid invoices from my subconscious. The LA Times Festival of Books is coming up next weekend, and apparently my brain has decided to rehearse disaster like it’s opening night on Broadway.
In the dream, I’m at my booth, smiling, making sales, doing everything right. People are tapping their cards, the little machine is blinking like a tiny robot with trust issues… and then nothing. Transactions vanish into thin air. Money disappears like socks in a laundromat. I’m standing there, surrounded by books, art, and confusion, wondering if I’ve just invented a new form of charity: accidental generosity.
The irony? The box with the card reader is still sitting there, unopened. Like a sealed mystery novel where I’m both the detective and the suspect. I suppose at some point, I should actually open it and learn how it works. That might help. Small detail.
Then there’s the whole life situation humming in the background like a refrigerator you can’t quite ignore. I’ve been looking into senior living arrangements. Saying that out loud feels like trying on someone else’s jacket. It fits, technically, but it doesn’t quite feel like mine yet. Mom doesn’t like the idea, and I get it. It’s not just about me moving out, it’s about shifting the gravity of the household. Me. Her. And Whiskey Kitty, the tiny queen of emotional territory.
She doesn’t want to lose us. And honestly, I don’t want to lose her either. But life keeps moving forward, even when we’d prefer a pause button. So we’re working through legal motions, conversations, and all the messy in-between spaces that don’t come with instructions.
And then there’s the smoking.
Yes, I’m smoking today.
But here’s the twist in the plot. I’m not tearing myself apart over it.
That alone feels like progress.
Harm reduction. It’s a phrase that sounds clinical, almost like it belongs in a lab coat, but in practice, it’s deeply human. It says: maybe the path forward isn’t perfection. Maybe it’s improvement. Maybe it’s learning how to fall without deciding you live on the ground now.
People aren’t used to that. The old script says one cigarette equals failure. Curtain closed. Show over.
But I’ve been rewriting that script.
There was a time when going even one day without smoking felt like trying to hold my breath underwater forever. Impossible. Now I’ve gone days. Weeks. Even months in this process. Not in one clean streak, but in chapters. Messy, interrupted, very real chapters.
And when I look at the numbers, not the emotions, not the guilt, just the numbers, something interesting happens.
I’ve reduced.
Significantly.
That’s not failure. That’s math.
If I can reduce it, I can control it.
If I can control it, I can quit it.
It’s not some mystical equation written in the stars. It’s practical. Almost boring in its logic. Like learning to walk by stumbling forward instead of demanding flight on the first try.
So today, I’m not the guy who “went back to smoking.”
I’m the guy who’s still in the process of quitting.
There’s a difference. A big one.
Somewhere between nightmares about card readers, real-life decisions about where to live, and a cigarette that doesn’t define me, there’s a version of me that’s still moving forward. Not perfectly. Not cleanly. But forward nonetheless.
And that counts.
Once again… I got this. 🚬➡️🎨
by Dan and Bonkers
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