quitter

The second day at work during Ramadan was really hard. I'm not surprised that, as I read in the paper, people just stop showing up to work. It took forever to get a taxi this morning (30 minutes) and the whole time we were driving I saw taxis, empty, parked on the side of the road. People are too tired to work, especially in this heat.

Even though I ate two things of oatmeal this morning, I was really hungry around lunch time. I'm sure some of my clients may be a little shocked that I wanted to eat something during the day...I guess not drinking tea and not smoking gives me an appetite. I found myself staring at the Wahoo's web site, contemplating how many fish tacos I thought I might be able to eat. It was kind of sad.

Worse, though, happened this afternoon. I was ready to knock off around 3 (our quitting time during Ramadan), head back to the hotel, chain smoke a billion cigarettes, and then work out. But N, one of my colleagues, called and asked that I stay in the office for 40 minutes and wait for him. I was like "but with this nicotine headache I might beat you up when you finally show up". Instead I said I would wait.

So, not being able to smoke on the streets (you get arrested - ask me how I know that), and not being able to go home and smoke, I decided to sneak down to the bottom floor of the building, a parking garage. As soon as I walked off the elevator I could smell smoke. I snuck off behind this huge metal structure and was happily smoking when suddenly a car started coming down the parking lot ramp. I quickly killed my cigarette and ran back over to the elevator. I was panicking that who ever was in the car was going to yell at me, but then realized that HE was smoking in the garage.

Quitting smoking, while also quitting eating and drinking, sucks.

When I got back to the office I waited 45 minutes and then N called to say he wasn't coming. Traffic was bad heading back to the hotel because everyone leaves work early during Ramadan. But I'm not mad at N, that was the lack of nicotine talking.

The good thing is the gym hasn't been crowded at all.