I can't quit this f*$&^ng bad habit

I have a problem, and I swear I've been trying to work on it. Well, maybe I haven't been working on it exactly, but I feel like I should be. I have a problem with cursing. I do it at work, at home, on aim, over text. I just can't help myself - curse words just come out. Mostly it's to express a sense of frustration, sometimes it's to express a sense of amazement and sometimes it's just because I am so used to cursing.

For the longest time, probably until a few years after college, I was pretty good about keeping the curse words to a minimum. And I never, ever cursed in front of my parents. Sure, something would slip out occasionally, like a g*#dammit when I stubbed my toe or dropped a glass of juice on the carpet. But it was a rare thing.

I don't know quite when cursing started to become a regular occurrence. It was probably in graduate school when everything was so g%$damn hard all the time and I was under a lot of stress for two years. And then there was my first job as an intern, where I had to bust my a#$ in hopes of landing a permanent job.

But I think things really went south when I started to work at the paper I'm with today. I had a few coworkers who were under the impression that the newsroom hadn't changed much since the 1950s in that they liked to curse like sailors, tell off-colored jokes and would probably be smoking in the middle of the office if it weren't against the law. I had two coworkers in particular who are no longer at the who were especially bad at dropping the f-bomb. They started a curse jar in hopes of curbing their enthusiasm for off-color language - but just ended up dropping a few dollars a day at .25 a word into the jar. It was enough for a nice gift for our reception when she retired.

Now I've always been a little bit of a mimic when it comes to language, meaning that I often pick up expressions or phrases that other people say without really realizing that I am doing it. So the summer I was home from college and my younger sister and best friend started using the term butt hurt that became part of my lexicon. And when I came home from Ireland I kept saying I was a wee bit tired or a wee bit cold or a wee bit something or other. Or when I refer to freeways, when I talk about ones in Los Angeles I use the native "the" before them, as in "I was driving on the 405 or the 101. But when I refer to the ones from Northern California I say, "I was driving on 101 or 85 or 680." I even started using "hehe" instead of "haha" over aim and text because a good friend always used it as his short-hand expression of amusement.

Most of these little catchphrases work their way out of my everyday use after a while, or some separation from the person who brought them to me. But for some reason I can't shake this f*#$ing cursing. I'd blame it on working in an office full of men, but to be truthful I know I cuss way f%^&ing more than they do.

So what occasions elicit a curse from me? I find a mistake in the paper - the day after it's gone to press - and it's "Oh s^&t." My computer freezes for the 15th time while I am on deadline and it's "G*d$%mit." Someone calls me when I am on deadline - and it's "I don't have f^&*ing time for this right now" - not to them, of course. Someone reads the latest wacky headline from yahoo news - "That's f^&*ing crazy."

I told my coworker this week, right after I had said some sh#$ in the newsroom that I was trying to cut down on the cursing. And then I admitted, I'm really not trying to cut down on the cursing but I feel like I should.

I can stop it, really, I swear. Like if there are kids in the room or my 70-year-old aunt. But mostly I don't try that hard. So for the next week, I am going to make a pact to watch the words and use some alternatives to the salty languge like freaking or goshdarn or sheesh. And I'll report back soon on my f$%#ing progress.