COLD!
It is achingly cold at the moment. Even though the official temperature is a "balmy" -5 degrees F, the wind chill has it feeling like it is -30 degrees F. As I drove to the indoor track this morning, my clutch was feeling the cold as well, as it was slow and sluggish to respond and slow to return after the pedal was depressed. The pneumatics that hold up the trunk lid of my vehicle when opened were also weakened by the cold, and the trunk lid would only stay open perhaps 2/3 of the way due to the cold's decreasing the pneumatic pressure. My vehicle's thermostat never even ventured into beyond 10% of the NORMAL homeostatic engine temperature even after all the travel to the U. Staying that cold results in about a 20% loss in the miles per gallon my vehicle obtains as well (highest MPG is at normal operating temperatures.
PipeTobacco
PCS - 9.... dreaming about pipes, thinking about pipes all day long. Feeling a deeper YEARNING for a pipe than I have had in the last few weeks. I am feeling more tempted to say to hell with my pipe fast than I have been the last few weeks as well. It is oddly exhausting at times to keep refraining.
Contentedness Score - 6..... things seem reasonably even-keeled at the moment, and it feels just like I am in a bit of a "robotic" work mode.
3 Comments:
Professor, upon noticing that you called your ongoing abstention a "pipe fast," I have an idea. It's really none of my business, and I hope I'm not being presumptuous in what I'm going to suggest, but perhaps you'll hear me out.
Your posts make it clear that your Roman Catholic practice goes deep to the core of your being, not unlike your love of pipes. But you've made it clear that if you just "fall off the wagon" to return to your pipes you'll beat up on yourself and probably stew in lots of unnecessary guilt. So, here's a suggestion:
This year, for Lent, why not resolve to give up your pipe fast, knowing that you can choose to resume it after Lent if you choose? You've maintained an extended pipe fast before, and if abstention turns out to be so genuinely important and preferable to you, you can do it again. But why not, for Lent this year, return to your pipes, knowing that at the end of Lent you can then make an objective comparison and decide whether your life is better with them or without them?
No "falling off the wagon" -- instead, an objective examination, in harmony with your faith. And if you need to frame the exercise in terms of Lenten mortification, maybe you could also think of your "fasting from pipelessness" for Lent as a way to set aside any pride or willfulness that may have crept into the "abstention" project. Surely as a Catholic you're better off as a humble pipe-smoker than a self-willed pipe-abstainer, yes? But if, after a full Lent of pipe-smoking, you discern that you should resume your pipe fast, you can then do so with deepened resolution, without the doubts that now pull at you.
Anyway, if you can refrain from your pipes until Ash Wednesday, just six weeks from today, until then getting by with just your weekly Retiree Group cigar, maybe this would be a workable way for you to break your pipe fast in a way that honors and even bolsters your Catholic faith and practice. Just a thought.
That is bitterly cold! Since I live in a temperate climate, I've always wondered what kinds of things are affected by the coldness. I vote that you have a pipe once in a while, once a week perhaps? A celebratory one that you've gotten through the week.
Almost identical weather here. We chose a path that was fairly protected from the wind, so our walk was pleasnt enough.
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