QUITTING SMOKING AGAIN

Why do I fucking do it?
Now I've got a habit built up, and I can feel the tingle inside me, of all the cells reworking themselves into non-smoking mode. Agh, it sucks: It sucks and yet I like it. I like anything that's different.
Yesterday I got it in my head to take the dog for a run on the beach. That's something I was doing often, just before I left the Bay Area. By my account it's the best environment for running, because you have the option of firm or soft sand on which to run. It's just a question of how close you get to the water.
So I drove out to Santa Monica on the 10, but ran into huge traffic when I got off at the beach. There was not a single parking spot to be found in Santa Monica, because of all the touruists and resident parking restrcirtions.
The thing about resident parking permits that really gets to me, is that not everyone has them. I'm not able to park on your street, but you can park on mine anytime right? I wondered to myself how they'd like to have their cars vandalized, when I remembered quitting smoking, and why I'd come to the beach in the first place.
I finally managed to park down in Venice.
Using my tailgate as a bench I got my jogging rig together, and then walked the five blocks to the beach. It was crowded as hell in Venice, like St. mark's place on a Saturday night. With all the foot, bike and rollerblade traffic, I knew I couldn't run with the dog off-leash. There are no dogs allowed on the beach in L.A. county anyways- with or without leash. I was stumped, stymied... Sphinctered. I wanted a cigarette.
No. I wanted revenge. I wanted to see the destruction of a system that allowed one group of people to park wherever they wanted, while another group is forced to drive endlessly around the block. I wanted to sadistically punish those who had gotten dogs banned from L.A. beaches. My cells continued to sizzle and crackle.
I decided to head home and settle for a walk around my own neigbhourhood. I knew I couldn't run with the dog on the leash, as he invariably pulls ahead, or stops to smell the trace of some other dog.

Hours later, as I rode slwoly along Effie st. on my 12 speed, with the dog accompanying me unhastily, I allowed myself to relax. I hadn't smoked, and I wasn't freaking out. I had forgotten about my earlier disgust with the L.A. motorized approach to leisure. It was what it was.
A passing dog walker had just finished lecturing me about having my dog off-leash, when two strange dogs bolted from a house right at me and Baby. I could hear their owner yelling frantically from inside the house, so I knew the animal's escape was not a good thing. Baby, since he got his ass kicked one or two months ago, didn't wait around to see if they were friendly. He bolted up the steep hill, on a course that would bring him into perilous traffic if he went far enough. The two dogs, a brindled boxer and collie sheperd, gave a ferocious chase but couldn't get near Baby. Within seconds all three dogs were over the top of the hill and out of sight.
The woman who had come out chasing the dogs seemed to be almost on the verge of tears. She could have been quitting smoking too for all I know. There were two other people in her yard, who seemed to be in the midst of a move.

You just can't walk your dog off leash in L.A. At least every other house in this area has dogs in its yard. They're all pumped up and territorial. Anyone who's been chased by a farm dog knows this: A dog's territory begins and ends where HE says it does - unless you can persuade him otherwise - with a stick, a rock a fucking hand grenade - whatever. They never know their own property line. And sometimes they're going to slip out and cause all kinds of mischief.
I went at it with the dog's owners, once we'd all gotten our animals rounded up. They were fucking imbeciles. I really let them have it too - no mercy homes. A neigbhour who watched the altercation told me afterwards that theirs was the house where trouble always managed to show up. There's always one.

But I didn't smoke. Typical first day of quitting smoking that was!