Oh those twisted, tempting, evil, masquerading things known as....

I'm not going to go into preaching mode about the hazards of cigarrette smoking. Most people are aware those health hazards exist, without my having to say a word about them. Most of us so called "adults" don't generally learn much from the mistakes others make before us anyway. Many of us are still stubborn or stupid enough, that we end up having to learn it all the hard way ourselves anyway.

When I first started smoking at 19 years of age, there were no cautions on the packs and cartons of cigarettes back then. There were no indications of just how addicting tobaccco can be, and how hard it can be to quit smoking. There were no dire indications, no warnings from the surgeon general back then as to what kinds of future health problems smoking cigarettes could cause anybody.

I'm not even sure I knew who the surgeon general was, when he did make his presense known to me, or what his words of warning exactly meant to me anyway back then. I wouldn't have listened to him, or to anybody else either at that point, if someone had told me back then the things I'm paying the price for now! So now I'm one of those who is having to go through all of this the hard way. The very hard way!

But maybe I'll say one thing here that will somehow reach somebody out there! Maybe somebody, some young person, someone out there, might read this. Someone might be thinking about trying cigarettes, or maybe someone wants to quit before they reallly get started and get addicted to them, will read something I'm writing here, that gets their attention, that strikes a responsive chord with them. That at least gives them serious "food for thought" about this addictive substance.

Speaking of "food for thought" maybe someone will decide it's better to trade that phyical demanding need for nicotine, for something like a banana, a tangerine slice, or even a chocolate chip cookie, instead of the chemicals that cigarettes provide.

Oh the amazing cravings I'm having now. Cravings for truly "exotic" foods, like baked potatoes, with sour cream, cheese, and green peppers, or apples dipped in carmel. A junk food junkie like me? Suddenly having these cravings for things that might actually have vitamins, minerals and other good things in them, that might actually be good for me to eat? What in the world is going on?

I guess so many years of smoking on those twisted, tempting, deceptive, masquarading little cigarettes must have left my body having these strange physical cravings for all those vitamins, minerals and nutrients, my body must have not ate for way too long a time.

Who knows what will happen if I should start going through some kind of green pepper withdrawal, or I just can't seem to get quite enough of those little cherry tomatoes, that I just want to keep popping into my mouth and devouring. There might be even more "exotic" foods I've never even tasted before, that suddenly sounds good, or even just tempt me to give them a try for the first time ever.

The grocery stores are on alert now! They have been warned! Security is standing by, armed to their eyebrows with avocados or lentil beans.

I might be seen browsing grocery aisles, I never dared to venture into before. I hope those stores can supply with me some kind of lesson plan? Because I might now find myself having to learn for the first time ever, how to actually cut a kumquat, or the only proper way to participate in eating pineapple.

It boggles my mind, at the foods I might have some kind of craving for, that I've never had before, and don't even know how to eat it, let alone how to cut it.

My Cats Know

My cats know. I don't know how they know, but they know, that something's different. Something's changed with me. But I've often felt animals were smarter then people to begin with.

Skitzy seems like she's gotten her fur trimmed up somehow. And Cole doesn't seem to protest so much if he's left in only the one room with me. Neither seem to protest as much now that they don't get to run through as much of the house as much as they did before. Now it's becoming a daily rotation of what cat is left in what room, instead of an hourly rotation. Somehow they seem to know that's the best I can do for them right now. They don't complain. They just know. I don't know how they know, these things but they do.

Skitzy seems to have more different kinds of protests, as if to say to me, if something happens to you, what happens to us? Maybe it's her way of pleading with me, to try to get better, healthier, stronger. To do what I'm supposed to do, even when I don't want to, don't feel like it, when not doing it seems easier, or not worth the fight ahead for me.

Cole seems to accept it. Sometimes only wanting to put his dignified black head upon my knee, and to watch me carefully and often with his ancient and wise green eyes. He watches me close. They both share their cat blinks with me, guardingly and lovingly.

And I cannot control the splash of angry messy tears, that so often now needs to fall upon my face, unbidden, unasked for, but I certainly cannot say these tears are uncalled for or unwarranted. And not from even a point of needing to feel sorry for myself, but just to get the pain out, the tears out. Because they are there too, and they need to come out of my eyes, to be communicated like so many uncontrolling splashes on my face, just like my words need to pour out of my brain and my heart now. So I write, so I cry, so I blog, and sometimes I smile and laugh, and sometimes there's a glimmer of hope, no matter how small or insignificant it might now seem

My two cats, they know all this. I don't know how they know, but they do.

My Birthday Blog Message

Today is My Birthday. Today I'm 55 years old. Today I don't take it for granted any longer that I'll make it to 56 or 65 or 82 years old. Today I'm just happy to have made it to 55 years old so far. Anything beyond that might just be icing on my birthday cake of 55 years old or young depending how you look at it.

In some ways I think I was born to blog. I wrote poems, short stories, and various journals of my thoughts, long before it was popular to call it blogging. Starting at about 16 or 17 years old. I still have those notebooks. Can't bear to throw them away.

Some of those life laments I had at 16 seem so trivial now. I wonder why I was bothered by those things at all back then, but I was. Some of the writing seems poor and trite, and certainly needed growth and development. Has my writing improved in 39 years? I'd sure like to think so. :-)

But my writer's ego probably won't let me view it any other way, though, even if my writing hasn't improved with age, like fine wines and words are supposed to with time.

Here's a poem I wrote about this need to write, to "blog" through the years as I've done, before "blog" was even a recognizable word.


OLD AND DUSTY NOTEBOOKS

Old and dusty notebooks
That I took down from the shelf
My old forgotten writings
From my younger, yearning self.

Scribbled penciled musings
Of what my life had been about
Words faded now so much with time
That I can barely make them out.

Words in inks of different colors; black, green, red and blue
I’d used to write at different times
Notebooks filled with colored words
To write my youthful prose and rhymes.

Stories and poems from so long ago
The times I felt so misunderstood
Before my older eyes, they seemed so trivial to me now
Back then I must have thought those poems were good.

I look back on those writings
And a pattern now appears
Loneliness, heartache and loss
How often love had left me through the years.

The people that I once had known
In time we grew apart
Reflected and forgotten in those notebooks
They held the secret writings of my younger heart.

Angry letters I’d written
Rants and rave I never sent
Accumulated years of worn out words
I read in awe, surprised, amused
At all the time I’d spent.

My life’s recorded episodes
heartfelt musings, angry feelings, even wit
Pages filled with badly sketched out sweaters
That someday I had planned to knit.

Classroom notes and cartoon faces
Lists of things I’d planned to do
Written reflections that time erases
Were captured in those pages too.

The things I’d forgotten, the names and the places
How my writing had changed over time
Like a lost treasure found, those notebooks held
Forgotten gems of my prose and my rhymes.

Old and dusty notebooks
That I put back on the shelf
Years of written memories
From my younger, yearning self.

Remaining Unlisted

In Affiliate Marketing, one of the things many people recommend doing, is building a list. In fact they say to build two lists. People keep telling me the money is in the list.

One list is supposed to include my prospects. Those people who have expressed in interest in some of the products or services I'm trying to sell and promote. The other list includes those people who have moved from being prospects, or potential customers, to becoming actual customers. Those who have actually decided to part with their money to buy one of those products I've worked hard to promote.

So far both my lists are rather small. In fact they don't exist at all. Maybe I'm missing something here. Lots of people say, building those lists is a requirement, but I don't have specific details how I'm actually supposed to go about doing that.

I've joined two different safe lists. I've unsubscribed from one, and may soon unsubscribe from the 2ND one. In both cases I could only send out my promotional email one time a week.

I can't put these people on my two lists of prospects or customers, because they come from those original safe lists to begin with. Their email addresses, have something like "no reply" behind them. Or they have something that includes the safe list's name in their email address. So it isn't a direct email address, for me to be able to send them anything at all.

The same problem exists from the classified ad and community site that I joined, as a free member there. The people who paid to join that website, can much easier send me and many other people, email marketing messages about things that they're promoting. But as a free member, I don't have the same options as the paying members there have. And the same problem applies. Their email addresses come internally from that classified ad and community site, so I can't add those people to my lists either.

I tried to send something out manually to a number of people. It took some time for me to do that copy and paste thing, and I only sent it out to a small number of people. While I've looked at auto responders, I haven't gotten one yet. I'd prefer getting a free auto responder right now rather than paying for a service, I may later find, I'm not using or seeing any financial benefit from. What's the point of my having an auto responder, if I don't have anyone on my list to send anything to?

I'm not yet ready to develop my own newsletter or email course, to send out to other people. I have enough problems staying current with this blog or trying to write more articles, let alone doing even more writing of on ongoing newsletter to send to all the people on my non-existent lists. See my post about Disappearing Time. Well not yet having an auto responder, will save me time, not having to figure out how to use it.

Where are those names and email addresses supposed to come from that I'm supposed to be placing on my two lists?

Maybe if I had been more aggressive, I should have added the email addresses from the few inquires I received, about the products I'm tried to promote. Those inquiries came from the free classified ads I placed.

How excited I was to open those emails, when the subject line told me, that someone was actually interested in learning more about a product I was promoting. Only to find out those emails were from other affiliate marketers trying to promote their own products to me.

Or how about the few comments I've received on this blog so far? I guess I could have added those names to my lists. But they were also coming from a similar place that I was. One was an affiliate marketer, who recommended a good site for me to join, which I haven't done yet. The other was from a brand new blogger, just as I am. That's been the extent of my prospective customers so far.

It's nice to meet up with people I have something in common with. It just doesn't help my list building skills very much. There's an area, that doesn't seem logical to me at all, to be sending my email marketing promotion to other affiliate marketers or web site owners.

The affiliate marketers are trying to do the exact same thing that I'm trying to do. So while we might make each other aware of new products and services, the chances that we will actually buy anything from each other seem to me to be slim and none.

The web site owners, who are members of those safe lists or that classified ad and community site, are promoting their own web sites and products. Once again I'm on a shoestring budget, so it's highly unlikely I'll be buying any of their products. At least not until I actually make some money doing this, which hasn't happened for me yet,

I don't want to add my friends and family to my lists. My family might start asking me questions I'm uncomfortable answering. Such as how much money have you made? Or how much time have you spent doing this so far? Or they might make comments like, you're doing what? What about all the decluttering you're supposed to be doing? When are you ever going to get a real job? Then their next comments to me will probably be something like, don't email me this stuff anymore. So I'm doing my part to avoid potential family conflicts.

I don't want to email my friends about products, they probably don't need, won't use, and can't afford to spend the extra money on anyway. I also don't want them to feel obligated to try any of the things I'm promoting, just because we happen to be friends. I think that will be a real good way of my losing their friendship or at the very least, having them get good and aggravated with me for emailing them with my promotions in the first place.

Some time back people were commenting, on how you could input your own or other people's phone numbers into Google's search box. Other info would come up, from that telephone number search, like the person's full name, address, etc. The people I learned about this from, weren't too happy, that Google, had put this into place.

Their concern was that the address could then be entered into map quest, and the less desirable people of the world, like criminals, perverts, child molesters, could obtain exact directions to people's houses, from map quest.

My phone number is unlisted, but sure enough when I entered it into Google's search box up popped my full name and address. My phone number is unlisted for good reasons, and I want to keep it that way. It should be my choice, if I want to give it out to anybody, rather then Google deciding they're going to do it for me for anybody in this vast Internet world to look at.

The reach of Google is far greater then my local phone book, where my name and phone number don't appear. Fortunately there was an option to have my phone number removed. Now when I enter it into Google's search box, no information appears about me at all and I like it like that.

With that being said, my phone number remains unlisted now. As for my attempts to be able to place anyone, on my prospect list or my customer list, in those areas I also sadly remain unlisted as well.

Disappearing Time

It's amazing to me that 14 days have passed by, since the last time I wrote anything to this blog. I find myself thinking about Judy Collin's song, "Who knows where the time goes", and how did this last two weeks go by me so fast? It seems as I get older, each year, flies by faster then the one before. I feel time slipping away on me, and I know I waste a lot of it.

So what was I doing the last two weeks? Well occasionally I do need to do things like dishes, laundry, pay bills. Sometimes I just want to relax by watching TV. Often I find myself reading all kinds of things that catch my eye, and before I know it, I've spent several hours doing that.

And of course my game addiction kicked in. There's only one game I tend to play a lot. It frustrates me, that I can only get through 3 or 4 levels each time, before I run out of time (there's that word again). But I keep playing anyway, hoping one of these times, (and again) I'll actually be able to proceed through several different levels. I can't figure out how some people have such outrageously high scores there. I guess I have to accept I'm just an average player and probably will always be an average player. But I still like playing it.

I've also been trying to declutter around here. Don't really want to do that, but I have to get rid of stuff for various reasons.

Why haven't I posted anything at all in those two weeks? Sometimes my writing runs dry. New ideas to write about, seem to be taking a break from popping into my head. I keep a list of articles I hope to write for Helium someday, as well as a separate list of things I want to blog about here. It's a scary thought that my list of topics to blog about isn't growing as large or as fast as I'd like it to. Some of the topics I've already blogged about here.

I'd much rather have a longer list of potential blog topics, then feeling like I'm catching up with it. I think part of the problem is the name of this blog. Since my blog posts are no longer only about affiliate marketing, my blog title of The Affable Affiliate doesn't seem to fit my blog anymore. I'm still working on coming up with a catchy new blog name, that would be a better fit. Eventually I'll come up with something that fits these wide range of topics. But your ideas, or suggestions, comments and feedback are always welcome.