Uga VI: one last time between the hedges on his way to heaven.

I know people may say this is kind of stupid to be sad over, but I was on the verge of tears when I heard that Uga VI, the beloved mascot at the University of Georgia, died this weekend. He was over 10 years old (bulldogs don't usually live beyond that), and he was a full 20 pounds heavier than his father, so his passing away of a heart attack shouldn't have been a surprise.

But it was. I don't know if another Uga has died while "in office", but I still remember when Uga V passed the reins down to his son. I still stop and pet bulldogs every time I see them on the street, and I came thisclose to adopting one myself before I was lucky enough to rescue Colonel Mustard. Alumni of UGA always take pride in our mascot. Uga V was the first mascot to grace the cover of Sports Illustrated (after being named "Best Mascot" in the "America's Best Jock Schools" issue) and was in the movie "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" (his daddy, Uga IV, was in the book), Uga VI was the first bulldog to wear a black jersey, and Uga III was the first and only animal ever allowed into the athletic club that awards the Heisman Trophy. He was escorting Herschel Walker, after all. Finally, Uga, as well as his Daddy and Grandpappys, are the only mascots that are buried at the stadium for which they served. Funeral is tomorrow.

Uga VI's reign started my junior year of college - I can't believe it's been almost ten years since then. It's kind of the latest of so many things that have disappeared and made Athens nearly unrecognizable to those that remember the Glory Days: things like Vince Dooley, Keg Parties, Blue Sky, the Grit, Alcohol on North Campus on Game Day, Bid Day Insanity...and now Uga VI. Uga VII's got some big pawprints to fill. I know he'll do it.

I feel awful for the Seiler family, as they've always emphasized that above all, Uga is a member of their family. They may get great parking spaces and mentions in books like "Midnight", but they put up with a lot of gawkers and picture seekers - all because of their dog. Now they have to grieve their family member in public. I hope they are getting through this as best they can.

Good night Uga, you were a damn good dog. Go getcha some gator meat up in heaven.

Smoking is a tough boyfriend to dump...

Spurred on by my list of goals to achieve in the next 1000 days, I'm tackling what might be one of the toughest tasks - quitting smoking.

I wasn't always a smoker. In the first 21 years of my life, I smoked maybe a pack and a half. I never actually bought a pack for myself until I moved to Boston - this is a little ironic, considering I grew up in tobacco country and went to school in the South, where smoking is still very much accepted. Boston even went smoke-free a few weeks before I moved there. But while doing graduate school full-time, going through the break-up of the longest relationship I've ever had and other significant stresses, I picked it up. I thought I'd never become "addicted", and to be honest, part of me still believes that I'm not. I've run the gamut for levels of indulgence in the cancer sticks - I've been a "smoker when I drink", a "closet smoker", a pack-a-day moron, a "smoker to kill the appetite" (this only works for a day or two, trust me - it no longer has an effect on my appetite), and even a "just one in the morning" smoker.

I know, it's not becoming. Trust me, I know. It ruins your skin, it causes cancer, it makes your lungs perform at record low levels, and it's just plain unattractive. I don't have to be sold on this aspect of it - I am perfectly aware of the risks to my health, my vanity and everything in between.

But I'll admit: I, as well as many other smokers, just plain LIKE to smoke. If you've never been a consistent smoker, well, good for you, but I haven't quit yet simply because I just like it. When my life sucks, and I'm about to bust out crying at anything, I can go out on the porch and escape everything for five minutes. After reading The Power of Now and realizing the importance of meditation, I've come to the conclusion that to many of us, smoking is an act of meditation. There's an unwritten "no assholes" rule on just about every smoker's porch in the world, and you can either socialize or choose to be by yourself out there. It calms you, helps you slow your breathing and blood pressure, and stabilizes emotions that have gone through the roof. A pack of Parliament Lights doesn't tell me that I'm doing things wrong, a lighter doesn't make me cry, and I don't think I've ever gotten in an honest-to-god argument with someone while smoking. Well, excluding my ex, that is.

That being said, again, I know I need to quit. I don't want to fail, so I'm trying to get a multi-pronged approach to removing that Philip Morris out of my life.

1. The patch. I think I can quit without it. But I don't want to find myself failing at the get-go because I haven't realized the full power of nicotine addiction. Cold turkey may work, but I don't want to make this too hard on myself.

2. Incentive. I'm thinking of setting up an ING account to take a dollar a day out of my checking so I can reward myself for not smoking. If I stumble, the money for that day goes to the American Cancer Society. Given the fact that I have very little money, however, I've got to figure out something else. Any ideas?

3. A built-in response to weakness. My quit date hasn't been established yet (I think I need a specific time built in stone where I just get rid of every pack laying around the house), but I'm kind of taking the weight watchers approach - I just need to recover from stumbles rather than give up on the whole goal. After my quit date, I'm giving myself ten moments of weakness. Ten. That may sound like a lot, but I'm guessing you've never been a smoker if it does. If I'm considering using one of them, I'll think long and hard as to whether or not I really want to use one of my ten.

4. Alternatives. I have to figure out something else to do when I usually smoke - when I'm walking the dog, when I'm driving, when I'm done with a meal, when I'm drinking, when I'm bored, when work is getting to me, etc. This is a lot harder than you think.

5. Figure out how to avoid the quitting-smoking weight gain. I personally don't care if I gain a few, but the reality is that I can't afford to not fit into my clothes. This is also pretty difficult - I'm allergic to chewing gum. I'm thinking about toothpicks, although I know I'll look like an even bigger redneck.

Any ideas? Anyone got an incentive they're willing to stake me to? I'll do the same for one of your goals.

I'm now scared to death to live alone.

Before I begin my scary story, I should warn you. It may be TMI. I have no problem talking about it - please, my roommate is a nurse, talking about bodily functions stopped bothering me a LONG time ago. Unless I hear about poop or periods while I'm eating, I'm okay with just about any story.

That being said, it's actually not that bad in terms of the level of TMI.

Remember that episode of Sex and the City where Miranda throws out her back in the shower and has to wrangle herself to the phone, completely naked, and Carrie sends Aidan over to help her? No, that didn't happen. But after it happens, Miranda suddenly realizes that if she died in her apartment, they'd discover her body, half-eaten by her cat, weeks later - solely because the neighbors complained about the smell. I think this scenario could be entirely possible with me.

I left the house about an hour ago to go across the street to CVS. I have - here's the TMI - a Urinary Tract Infection. No, silly, it's not transmitted through shenanigans. They happen for all kinds of reasons. But at any rate, I hate taking antibiotics, and I avoid the doctor at all costs since Aetna tripled my co-pay. So I went in and talked to the pharmacist (they're as close as I usually get to the doctor) and told her that I wanted to avoid having to get an antibiotic, that I'm healthy and clean and think I could get rid of it via something natural or over the counter. She recommended an analgesic (pain reliever) plus an antibacterial ingredient, which I easily found. As she's ringing me up, she says "take two of these with a glass of water and if it doesn't work in 2 days, go to the doctor." I think I'm golden.

I walk back across the street to my house, opening the box as I'm walking. The pills are in my hand as I open the door, and I pop them while I'm walking upstairs.

Sound like a normal activity?

The pills are apparently the kind that INSTANTLY blow up in your throat. And I've just swallowed two. I start choking on them. Honest-to-god, no coughing, no air, just a feeling like someone's strangling me. Colonel Mustard goes bonkers. Barking like crazy. Great that he knows something is wrong, but unless the people I rescued him from taught him the heimlich maneuver, I'm SOL.

I am panicking. I literally thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head. Went to the railing and threw myself over, desperately trying to recall the lifeguard training that I dropped out of halfway through. I was too short for this railing, and only managed to bruise a rib or two. Finally, I looked over to the coffee table on the third-floor landing and saw a big jar candle from Yankee candle. I turned it upside-down, braced it on the arm of the sofa, and just tried to get it up from the gut like you see the Heimlich on TV.

Second try's a charm. Both pills, now resembling giant pieces of sponge, fly across the room at about 60 miles an hour.

Yes, you throw up when you choke. I barely made it to the bathroom. My face was red, my eyes were bloodshot, and my whole head was swollen.

The Colonel was still barking for about ten minutes until he realized I was okay, and now he won't let me go more than six inches from his stinky breath.

I'm fine now, but seriously, it scared the SHIT out of me. Really, what happens if I fall down the stairs? My roommate and I are rarely at home and awake at the same time - she works nights and is out of town right now. If she found me after I fell down the stairs, it could have been a matter of days...if I'm still alive, I've been laying there for days! The Colonel might have peed on me, like on that episode of Weeds!

I've always liked living alone. I like my Molly time. I was independent from a very early age, and I like doing whatever I want, whenever I want. I am getting to the age where I'm too old to have a roommate that's not my significant other, and everyone I would consider living with is either married, owning their own home, or in a place where I don't want to live. I'm probably going to end up living alone when this lease is up, regardless of where I go. But yes, I'm even more scared now that no one would even find me if I were to die in my house alone. My family and I talk on occasion, but not on an ongoing and consistent basis - my sister-in-law and brother even joke that she could murder him and no one would notice until he didn't respond to an email about Christmas.

Seriously, check on me every once in a while.

I have an agreement with a couple of my friends that should the worst happen and I get hit by a SEPTA bus, they are under orders to break into my house and clean out all the stuff I don't want my mom to see if she had to clean out my house. If you can't get ahold of me, call my cousin Kate and set the plan in motion.

I read the box and found out that yes, you have to drink a full glass of water with it. Stupid Molly.

And finally, yes, I am fine. Actually laughing about it. I won't go dying on you any time soon.

"the innocence of youth is definitely lost among us..."

I didn't write that, my ex-boyfriend did when he told me about a friend of his that had tragically been paralyzed in a tragic accident while attending this year's Daytona 500.

I wish I could say it was the first tragic thing I had heard about someone I've been connected with in recent times. I was trying to get ahold of my cousin for some time today and finally heard from her - she was in surburban Philadelphia with the family of a guy she is seeing, and his sister, Kristin Dickmann, had tragically died at 19. She was a freshman at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, and had simply laid down for a nap and never woke up. Her roommates had found her unresponsive and she was later declared dead at the local hospital.

It just sucks.

A lot of people may remember that my cousin's sister, Laura Begor, died in a car accident on Christmas Eve of 2003. I was supposed to spend the holiday in Boston that year, and I ended up flying to Delaware on Christmas Day, and the funeral was the day after. I was devastated, as was the rest of my family - Laura was just a one-in-a-million kind of girl. Anyone who met her instantly wanted to be her best friend, and she was one of those people that could be a sunshine in the darkest of places. Her on-and-off boyfriend throughout the years said it right - she could be sad about the saddest of things and then you could give her a french fry and she'd light up like a Christmas tree. It was just Laura. I don't remember much of the days after her death - but I don't think I'll ever forget seeing her mom and sister saying good-bye to the casket before the hearse left for cremation. It's literally the worst thing I have ever ever ever seen. Even though I loved her and she was a genuine friend in addition to being my cousin - I can't imagine what her parents and brother and sister go through every day. Every day I remember something different about her, think of something I'd love for her to be here to see, and wish that it could have just not happened.

I didn't know Kyle's sister, and had only met him a couple of times, but it still just breaks my heart to think of what his family is going through and what they've got ahead of them - for decades ahead. I try to help in these situations and I'm just dumbfounded. I picked up my cousin's dog so she could somehow try to be there for their family and then make it through her last semester of law school's finals, but I know that nothing anyone does is enough.

Like I said, it just really sucks.

My ex isn't a man of many words, but after a five-year war, 9/11 and a seemingly endless number of tragic occurrences, his words just hit the nail on the head - the innocence of youth is definitely lost among us.