100 can be a lot of things, but today it is the number of days I haven't smoked

1. The number of days Rome wasn't built in.

2. The number of birds in a bush that are equal in worth to a bird in hand.

3. It is company, too.

4. How many stomachs a cow has.

5. It's five!


6. ...then the devil is 6

...and god is seven, or

7.


8. How many men were out in the 1919 Black Sox scandal.

9. The number of stitches saved by a stitch in time.

10.


11. How many time zones there are were in the Soviet Union.

12. Come on, you really need me to tell you one for twelve? How about this: it is the lowest number that is evenly divisible by two, three, and four.

13. I heard it's tattoed on Glenn Danzig's neck.

14. How many gold medals Michael Phelps has. Ever heard of that guy?

15. Jim Edmonds' restaurant.

16. My favorite beat on my little brother's old keyboard was called "16 beat." It went like this:

  HH|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-o---|
  S |--------o-------|--------o-------|
  B |o-----o---------|o---o-----------|

Also, the number of dollars that go with a bottle of wine in a song penned by the very same brother.

17. Sorry, Kip, that really is all the older she is.

18. A song that's kind of hilarious if you listen to it while reading the lyrics in Comic Sans.

19.


20. How many questions you get to ask in the game called twenty questions.

21. Used to play it at recess. Other places it's called "tip-in." Remember?

22. The caliber of the first gun I ever shot. At a milk carton. I missed.

23. The number of flavors in Dr. Pepper. Is that what Jim Carrey was talking about?

24. What Chingo Bling and Kiotti are rollin' on.

25. My first birthday where I started getting depressed instead of excited.

26. My second birthday where I started getting depressed instead of excited.

27. The age at which all those famous singers died.

28. It seems like a lot of girls I know get real bitchy and unreasonable every 28 days or so. What is the deal with that?

29. What I'm rollin' on.

30. How many years the Thirty Years' War lasted.

31. This is my age in years.

32. I can't believe I'm gonna be this old next year.

33. How old Jesus was when he got crucified. Also, by amazing coincidence, the year he was crucified.

34. Sometimes when I buy pants I buy them with a 34 inch waist.

35. Used to drive it all the time between Minneapolis and Des Moines.

36. If spoken twice, with 24 in between, then only if she's 5'3".

37. How many feet tall the Green Monster is.

38. Small Change got rained on with his own.

39. In the year of '39 assembled here the volunteers, in the days when lands were few.

40. The age at which my mom decided to start youthening rather than aging. I think I'll do that too.

41. Put an 11 in front of it and it's the address of my first house, on Madrid Drive, in Akron, Ohio.

42. Isn't there some book where this is featured prominently?

43. In the year of '43 Albert Hoffman took what I gotta imagine was a really fuckin' weird bicycle ride.

44. This great baseball number will always belong to Hank Aaron. No, wait, Willie McCovey. No, hold on, Reggie Jackson.

45. How fast to spin'em if you got'em.

46.


47.


48. Number of hours in which this movie and this movie were made.

49.


50. How many ways there are to leave your lover.

51. The Area where all those aliens and shit are.

52. Wanna play 52 pickup? Let's talk.

53.


54.


55. To get from St. Louis to Chicago and back.

56. The number of consecutive games in which Joe Dimaggio got at least one base hit.

57. How many channels there are, but nothin's on.

58. The poem of that number.

59. The street on whose bridge Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel felt groovy. (Looks like some of those fans are feelin' pretty damned groovy themselves).

60. There are this many seconds in a minute. There are this many minutes in an hour. There are this many hours in two and a half days.

61. Now the fifth daughter on the twelfth night
Told the first father that things weren't right
My complexion she said is much too white
He said come here and step into the light he says hmm you're right
Let me tell the second mother this has been done
But the second mother was with the seventh son
And they were both out on Highway 61.

62. One more home run than Roger Maris hit in 1961, without steroids or HGH or all that.

63. That's how many chromosomes a mule has.

64. Will you still need me? Will you still feed me?

65. At three score and five
I'm very much alive
I still got the jive to survive with the heroes and villains.

66. It is a route you may have heard of. Also Sergio Mendez and Brazil I think may have something to do with it?

67. Our nation had a summer of love this year, as I understand it. I wasn't born yet.

68. In Lincoln Park the dark was turning.


69. How the past Bill and Ted knew the future Bill and Ted were themselves.

70. A concept that is apparently so confusing to the French that they have to call it "sixty-ten."

71. Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls.


72. How many names they say God has. (I'm still gonna stick with "God," though.)

73. How many men sailed up from the San Francisco bay on that ol' Mystery Ship.

74. How many episodes of Jeopardy! that Ken Jennings dude was on.

75. If you are over 75 years old, you can just forget about being a senator in Canada.

76. Well that was the year I was born.

77. The branches of faith number 77, so some say. I am not a terrorist.

78. Those old records would have to spin this many times a minute. What a pain in the ass. Plus they were so easy to break.

79.


80. (see below)

81. (see above)

82. times three, is how many toothpicks fell on the floor.


83. How many kids died of the flu last flu season.

84. There is a town called this in Pennsylvania. For real.

85. Man, and I hardly know one of them.

86. It is a number, but it is also a verb.

87. Fourscore and seven years ago... (and then there is the matter of this, as well...)

88. Number of millimeters in the name of a production company I am proud to have worked with.

89.


90. How far, in feet, you gotta run to get from a base to a next base in the game of baseball.

91. If you take one each of a penny, a nickel, a dime, a quarter, and a half dollar, you got yourself 91 cents. If you take the squares of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and add them together, you got 91. Coincidence?

92. The number Peter Greenaway is obsessed with.

93. How old Strom Thurmond was the last time he was elected to the senate. He was the oldest senator before he died. Man, it's like that title is cursed or something.

94. How many floors there are in the John Hancock Center (that huge building in Chicago with the two big white sticks coming off the top).

95. '95, '95, let's hear it for the class of '95...

96.


97. How many pitches Don Larsen threw in his perfect game in the 1956 World Series.

98. The number of degrees specified by the name of the boy band called 98 Degrees.

99. How many problems I got but a bitch ain't one, oder wie vielen Luftballons.


99.9 The number of degrees Suzanne Vega thinks could be normal but isn't quite.

100. The number of days I haven't smoked.

Eating is the new Smoking

Example: breakfast.

Positive effects of not smoking

I'm not the type to idealize something like quitting smoking. For the most part, it sucks. I've never minded the smell of cigarettes or the taste of people's mouths I am kissing who smoke, so I can't take any comfort in smelling better or not 'tasting like an ashtray.' Long-term health is something I can get behind in theory, but does not affect my day-to-day feelings. I'm pretty sure it is a scientific fact that smoking makes you look cooler, and I got this dorky-ass haircut to boot.

But now that I've made it a month and a half, I have noticed the following positive results:

1. Longer trumpet phrases. I had adjusted how I thought about trumpet to my shorter breaths as a smoker, so a lot of times since I quit I will get this mental thing where I think "hey, better wrap this phrase up, you're gonna run outta breath," only it is a vestige of my smoking self, and it turns out I can go another four bars or so. Which is good, because usually an idea gets better as it unfolds, since there is more already out there to react to. Also it is good because I don't have to be as careful about planning out my breaths in written-out lines.

2. $$$, $$$$, & $$$$$. I think I was about a five-pack-a-week consumer. That's twenty packs a month, at about $3.50 a pop, so $70 a month right there. But it is more complicated. Having more breath makes me more likely to ride my bike longer distances, so I buy less gas for my van, so I think I'm probably saving another $50 a month on that. That's $120 a month I can use for stuff like replacement phones and trespassing court fees and drugs and strip clubs. And wheat thins and twix bars and cheez popcorn. And peanuts. And beers and also whiskey. Avocados. Assorted fine cheeses and meats from reputable Italian delis. Low-odds investments in shady venture capital firms. AIRA's (anonymous individual retirement accounts). CDs, stocks, and bonds (that is the kind with music on them, and the other two kinds for S&M activities). Personal enrichment programs. Assorted domestic and imported salves and poultices. Haircuts, medical screenings, petty cash disbursements. Tropical snakes, macrobiotic health shake mixes, historical reproductions of compasses and sextants, tube socks, outdated pre-formatted 3.5" floppy diskettes, prescription sunglass holders. Also self-healing cutting boards, projector alarm clocks, graphite lubricant, shoelace repair kit, picture frames, club soda, and sunscreen. Not to mention a bronze and leather letter opener, an RCA converter, blank VCR casettes, gourmet mustards, a beginner's set of marbles, an Idiot's Guide to Metallurgy, sock darners in all three usual sizes, piano scores to the complete Mozart piano concertos, crocheted doorknob covers, noise-cancelling earbud headphones, lead-free solder, electrical tape, two (2) packages Hanes Perfect T's (M, assorted colors), 12 rollerball blue ink pens, one ten-gig SCSI hard drive, 3 packages Hebrew National kosher franks, and a year's subscription to the Utne Reader.

DABDA

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief apply remarkably well to my recent loss of Smoking. Here's how it's been for me:

Denial that I needed to quit just yet at all. (thanks, mystical understanding of the human body)

Bargaining that I'd quit tomorrow, or cut down to a limited amount. (thanks, vast powers of rationalization)

Accepting that I had to quit. (thanks, Great Uncle Don)

Depressed about how much it sucks to not smoke. (thanks a lot, past self)

Angry at people at the drop of a hat because I don't smoke. (sorry, friends)

always something there to remind me

It seems like everywhere I turn I see your face. I miss you. I miss the times we had. Remember? Nowadays I see you with so many other people, and I just want to grab these other people by the shoulders, and look them in the eye, and tell them to cherish you. I want to tell them, "you have no idea how lucky you are." I want to say, "no, you have no fucking clue. Cherish, for the love of God, cherish every second you spend together."

And you know what's the worst? God help me, but the last time we said goodbye, I said I hated you. I said that, and I have to live with that forever. I know you knew I didn't really feel that way, but I have a lifetime ahead of me to think about how that was the last thing I said to you before the Lord took you away from me. If there was some way I could get in a time machine, or harness the power of lightning to bring you back, just for one moment, I would do anything. Anything. But you're gone. You're gone and soon enough I will think about you less. Eventually I won't even care about you anymore, and that is the saddest of all.

Don't go softly into that dark night, Smoking, don't you dare!