Paradigm Shifts and Meat

The majority of people who know me know that I've been a pescetarian for a couple of years now. My decision to cut out land animals came from an Ethics class taken in my Freshman or Sophomore year of college when I looked logically at the factory farming industry and thought rationally about whether I'd ever be able to kill an animal for its meat. I realized that I've never had the chance to slit an animal's throat to gain access to its tasty bits of muscle and arteries and blood, and even if I did, I didn't know how comfortable I would feel killing another sentient being. I had tried being a vegetarian once in Middle School, but it hadn't worked out because I was dizzy, weak, and obviously not getting the right nutrition. I wasn't getting nearly enough protein and my body was suffering for it, so I went back to eating meat, but sparingly.

What was I going to do about protein this time to make sure what happened before didn't happen again? Yes, this was my question, too. The protein factor is why I continued to eat fish for years, rationalizing that a fish can't really feel pain or suffering the same way a cow does. Also, I was taken on a fishing trip when I was younger, and I watched my mother behead a wriggling fish on a table before barbecuing it. I'll admit, as a child, I was very frightened by how quickly life could be taken, and how red the fish's blood was, and how it just seemed to gush out like a river once the head was removed. Anyway, graphic and beside the point.

Another factor in my continued consumption of fish is a cultural one. I come from a Russian family which, while surprisingly liberal compared with other immigrant families, still has certain cultural traditions and habits in the kitchen. My grandfather eats meat with every meal, and my mother likes eating chicken legs because of the bones and marrow contained therein. Russians put meat in almost everything from pirozhki (stuffed rolls) to stroganoff (duh) to potato salad to sala (basically salted lard; the unofficial national food of Ukraine) to soups. Everything has meat, and it's considered very unhealthy to forsake red meat.

The way my mom describes it, there are certain cells available in red meat that are good for your body that you can't replace by eating beans or tofu or lentils or quinoa. I completely dismiss this argument because I think the science that backs up her ideas is either outdated or completely based in some kind of Soviet post-poverty propaganda that has to do with the inversely proportional relationship between high-calorie diets and freezing to death, and if there's one thing you CAN find in meat, it's a lot of calories. Also, something about me having type O blood and therefore needing lots of meat because that's closest to what the cavemen ate. Forget that the blood type diet has been completely debunked as utter hogwash and cavemen ate more raw grains and fruits and nuts than meat because a caribou is freaking difficult to chase down on only two legs.

Suffice to say that I didn't take my mother's advice on dietary matters but made up my mind to keep eating fish and cephalopods to avoid arguments and okay, they're pretty darn tasty. Seriously, I love some calamari and squid and delicious rubbery things and sushi and lobster (even though it's not kosher and breaks the hearts of my grandparents a little every day) and the taste of spicy tuna. Can't get enough of them. I thought that a land-animal-free diet was good enough, ate mostly tofu and seitan or yogurts as protein, and often indulged in fish.

More recently, I saw a video one of my friends had linked on the facebook to a speech by a very persuasive vegan activist. His name is Gary Yourofsky, and reader, if you haven't seen his video yet, you really should. In fact, I'll imbed it below, at the very bottom of the page. If you want to watch it immediately, go ahead. I'll still be here when you get back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After watching the video, I did a little research, and decided to go full-on veg. My reasons for this are pretty much outlined in the video, but here's a quick (SUPER condensed!) recap if you didn't feel like watching through the whole thing.

1. I completely and utterly oppose factory farming. Even if humans were intended biologically to eat meat, and even if you support the Biblical idea that God created animals to be used by man, there's no need for senseless cruelty, and that's all that happens in factory farms.  If you're not convinced of this, do some research or go to PETA's website. While I agree that each factory farm is different, a chicken's life is already over when it's transported there, and the workers don't care much if they tear a wing or two out when grabbing chickens to be placed in the assembly line. Industrial milking is disgusting, and have you ever seen a cow that's been injected with Bovine Growth Hormone? Plus, milk contains a large amount of pus, and it's weird to drink the lactation that comes from another animal's teat.

• Parenthetically (and this will sound a bit crazy for people who don't know me, but indulge the insanity for a moment) I strongly believe that IF there are aliens waiting to make contact with human beings, they won't come near us with a ten-billion-lightyear-pole (completely official and scientific figure, I swear) provided they see the way we treat other animals. If we can't live peacefully as a community regardless of species on our own home planet, how the hell can we expect to live peacefully with some Interstellar Beings we have no ties with? Like I said, simply a parenthetical point.

A cow that's been injected with rBGH.

2. Personally, unless it were a dire emergency, I doubt I'd ever be able to kill a large animal. I mean, I get squeamish about spiders and bees, and always release them rather than squashing if I have any control over the matter. I just don't condone violence towards animals. Seriously. Children are like this too when they're first born, and only become accustomed to the idea of eating meat and killing animals because of cultural indoctrination, very much like my reluctance to part with the training wheels on my attempted vegetarianism because I was SO indoctrinated into the cultural aspect of meat-eating.

3. It's unfair to select certain animals we like (cats, dogs, parakeets) and certain animals we don't (cows, pigs, sheep, salmon, etc.) and systematically destroy one group while punishing those who would hurt the other.

4. Producing meat on the scale we produce is unsustainable and, ultimately, simply bad for the environment, not to mention expensive and a poor allocation of our resources as a planet. I'm sure you've heard the statistic about 500 gram of meat versus 500 tons of grain, but this argument never seems to convince anyone. I included it anyway because it's a contributing factor.

5. Humans were not biologically designed to eat large quantities of meat. Truly, the human body wasn't designed to eat any meat. Our jaws are designed for grinding and chewing, and while canines can be found in any number of herbivorous animals (most obviously, primates), the ability to move one's jaw side to side, as necessitated by eating vegetables, fruits, and grains, is found only in herbivorous animals. We also can find all the necessary nutrients in cruelty-free products and in fact eating meat contributes to hypertension, clogged arteries, heart disease, and cancer.(http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html for information about the human body and herbivorous animals, http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/risk-factors-heart-disease for information about lowering heart disease. Right underneath smoking? Reduction of bad cholesterol, which is found in fatty foods like meat)

6. Non-meat or -dairy based products simply TASTE better. I'm serious. They do.



This is a round-about way of getting to my actual point, which is one part of my initial inspiration for creating this post. I watched the Yourofsky video with my boyfriend, who enjoys a steak every once in a while. I'm not the type of person to shove my ideals down someone's throat, but I was bored and wanted someone to watch the video with me.

Gary advocates a full-on vegan lifestyle for all people for the non-personal reasons I stated above. I know a lot of them are personal, but a fair-minded reader could easily read between the lines. Anyway, as a result, I decided to cut back on my consumption of dairy products and completely remove meat. We started buying dairy alternatives for milk.

I won't lie, a big contributing factor to buying the non-dairy milk is cost. When you start comparing side-to-side, you'll find that an average gallon of milk costs waaay more than the same amount in soy or almond milk, but that's another digression.

So David and I went out and bought our first carton of almond milk. It was cheaper than soy, and I'd never tried the store-bought kind. When we got home, we each tried half a glass and I think at that moment, David was hooked. It's hard to describe the taste of almond milk to someone who's never tried it, but the vanilla kind tastes exactly how you'd expect a melted marshmallow to taste. The milk is creamy, delicious, and refreshing. Personally, I prefer the taste of plain soy, but that's definitely something you have to acquire. Both alternatives have the same amount of calcium as cow's milk (or more!) and neither almond nor soy leaves you with the phlegmy feeling in the back of your throat that is the hallmark of cow's milk.

The other morning, David let me know he was out of almond milk and mentioned off-hand that he didn't think he'd ever go back. I started going off on how much better I felt about not drinking cow's milk and how great it was for the environment to have our household abstaining from dairy when he interrupted me before I could start waxing poetic about the joys of liberation from the cow's teat. What he said completely floored me, because it characterized the dearest hope of almost every vegan on the planet.

"Yeah, that's nice, but I don't care about any of that stuff," he said, dismissing all my elaborate, iron-clad chains of logic and appeals to higher reasoning. "I just care about the taste."

And there you have it.

Part two of this epicly-long rant will have to wait until a more fortuitous time. For now, enjoy the video below!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An Ornithologist's Guide to Life

I've been having trouble reading, writing, and paying attention to anything at all recently. It's been cartoons from childhood and intermittent yoga, along with Almond milk and avoiding all the healthy food we buy at the grocery store. Long story short, I've been in a kind of blue haze; a funk that's an indescribable blend of all the things that are wrong with my life and an attempt to do something about it. I celebrated my birthday with my family, and then my grandmother's birthday, and can't believe how little I've accomplished for my age. This sounds like a complaint-fest, but it gets better, I promise.

After serious emotional downs, I had nothing to do but attempt the things that have made me happy in the past. Over the last day, I've knitted a Boba Fett hat and finished a book of short stories by Anne Hood, the title of which is also the title of this blog post.

Let me begin with my personal opinion on the short story. I think it's a little bit more true to the form of life than novels or poems. A poem describes a moment, a novel describes a lifetime, and a short story describes the condensed essence of a phase in life. There are always exceptions to every rule (including this one, I would hope) but that's the long and short of it. Novels, when in a series, also tend to describe large phases in a character's life--like the short story--but novels in a series always stay in my mind as if they were an entire novel. In a way, they are. I think life is made up of a series of phases, but you never remember every detail. The details are important and add a sense of verisimilitude, but you never remember every moment of every day in the stark shades painted by novels. Short stories are a series of impressions collected over a period of time, and when the details and nuances of prose and thematic elements of a novel fade, every novel turns into a short story whose synopsis can be given in a space of time shorter than waiting for your meal to arrive in a restaurant.

Hood's stories almost invariably take place in or around Providence, Rhode Island. Her protagonists are (with one or two exceptions) women at different points in their lives as they grapple with heartbreak or stagnation and emerge cleansed. Sometimes, the cleansing process only just begins, but Hood's sense of dramatic irony and heart-achingly poignant resonance is unparalleled in my experience. Even when the ending of the story isn't necessarily happy, it's logical, neat (in an emotionally messy way) and realistic.

These stories are stark but gentle, tender but firm, truthful and absolutely haunting. It's impossible to choose a single favorite story, but I very much like "Total Cave Darkness," the very first story in which an alcoholic who's trying to stay dry runs away with a pastor. They escape for weeks, sleeping in cheap motels and enjoying free HBO and each other. Finally, they decide to explore caves together, and the protagonist finds something in the struggle she's been undertaking. "The Language of Sorrow" is about a grandmother who has her grandson thrust upon her unexpectedly after he gets a girl in trouble, and it made me cry. It's all about the people we love, how they sometimes leave us, and how there's no language for the pain it brings. These stories are about relationships, about emotions deeper than language, about mourning, naturalism, and forgiveness.

Highly, highly recommended for anyone with any interest whatsoever in humanity.

Blindness, Jose Saramago

I first picked this book up at one of the liquidation sales Borders gave before it closed every location within driving distance. I was saddened at the loss of the book store in the mall, but being a poor college student, I can't turn my nose up at any cheap texts, no matter the reason for the reduction in their prices.

Blindness was recommended to me by my old manager at the retail clothing store where I worked. The book was recommended to him by his roommate, who is apparently an avid reader. I was skeptical at first, but I decided I needed a more serious read after The Hunger Games, so I decided to give Blindness a whirl.

The story takes place in an unspecified city in an unspecified country at an unspecified time, which can't be too far off from modern times. There is a red traffic light, and there is an overabundance of traffic, as in any big city. The difference here when the traffic light turns to green is that a car at the very front of the line hasn't pitched forward because the driver has gone inexplicably blind.

The blindness spreads virally and infects almost anyone who comes in contact with the initially-blinded man including his wife, ophthalmologist, the man who steals his car, and three other patients who had the misfortune of being in the ophthamologist's waiting room when the first blind man was observed. Oddly enough, the doctor's wife resists the blindness throughout the text, and remains the only person to bear witness to all that follows. The strange thing about this blindness, too, is that it showers the world in a blinding white, which is the opposite of the usual darkness experienced by the blind.

The government, in a well-meaning attempt at order, decides to seclude this first batch of blind people in a disused mental facility, where they can be provided-for at a relatively-low cost and high return. The hospital is monitored by soldiers with orders to shoot anyone who attempts to escape or, indeed, comes too close to the walls for comfort. Thus begins the exceedingly hellish portion of the novel.

Honestly, I had a lot of trouble getting through the middle to end of the novel. Saramago spares no horror and reports everything faithfully, including details of disgustingly squishy floors due to lack of plumbers and overflowing toilets, carnage, rape, starvation, sexual deviance, senseless violence, and the oppressive misuse of military force when confronted with a real emergency of pandemic proportions.

Throughout the text, Saramago stays very Naturalistic in his narrative style. Nowhere does he condone or villify the characters, no matter what lengths they go to or how degraded they are. He comments on human nature as a reporter, and allows the reader to come to their own conclusions about what should and should not be seen.

One of the most striking scenes for me occurred near the end of the book, when the doctor's wife stumbles into a church with her husband and the dog of tears (wonderful name!) only to find all the saints with their eyes covered. Someone, prior to being blinded, double knotted the blindfolds over the statues and went over the paintings with two coats of white to insure that God, too, would be blind.

Sight is obviously an allegory for something else, though Saramago doesn't specifically say what that something is. In my opinion, the book is very political, and discusses atrocities humans allow worldwide. Genocide, famine, and unreasonable living conditions abound in the impoverished sections of the globe and people who live in the city just can't be bothered to see.

A good book, but a very difficult one to read through.

Relaxing Weekend = NONE motivation

So yesterday was Labor Day.  David and I slept in a little (9:30 or so-not too bad), packed the Ergomatic, and set off on a Mountain Adventure in Rocky Mountain National Park.  A few omissions from our packing list: napkins, any form of toilet paper, and sunscreen.  Whoops.

There will be pictures forthcoming very soon, but we had a very nice time hiking, listening to the Avett Brothers, getting lost on the winding roads, and eating a cold lunch packed last-minute by yours truly.  It was very nice to get out of the house and enjoy the wildlife, though there was never a place on the trail where we were completely out of sight of the road.

The mountains were breathtaking, and the day was slightly cloudy with intermittent sun, so it was hot and cold in turns.  Hopping from rock to rock on the trail took most of my attention, but there were some legitimately beautiful moments, and the drive up was full of magical mountainy things like cozy cottages, babbling brooks, and the craggy cliffs found only in Colorado.

After lunch, we hiked back, and somehow made it out of Rocky Mountain and into Estes on less than a gallon of gas.  Possibly because the ride back was downhill.  At a gas station, I removed one of the under-layers of my clothing, and felt much better about life and the human condition as a result.  We purchased pink and blue Powerades and started on the drive to Denver for my course books, which finally arrived.

We stayed at Dad's for an hour or two, during which I realized exactly how much the disadvantage of lack of Russian literacy prohibits David from speaking with my family.  My dad and I spoke almost exclusively in Russian, and every time I remembered David sitting there, I had to backtrack and translate everything that had been said.  In the car later, he said that it wasn't too bad, but I know he's understating the truth of the matter.

Now that I have the majority of my books, I'm more intimidated by my classes than ever. In fact, that's what this post was initially about.

I'm terrified that all of my professors will soon discover what I've suspected for years: that I'm not actually even remotely as intelligent as the impression I give others, and that the majority of my wit is simply smoke and mirrors.  I'm evasive and stupid and very, very impulsive, and I have terrible retention in spite of the arguments of people like David, who insist that I remember things for a much longer period of time than the Average Bear.

Traditional and Modern Grammars is simply a nightmare in another language.  Fantasy and SF is too much reading, and no time to process it.  195 is perhaps the only class I stand a chance of passing, and even then, it's only because the class is supposed to be a Freshman level.  I ordered the wrong copy of Letters to a Young Poet, and now I'm screwed royally for my Thinking about Art class.  At least we read Maugham.  That was nice.  Shakespeare is hellishly difficult, and I'm not a Shakespeare scholar.

I don't know if I can do any of these things, and I'm so frightened and intimidated that all I want to do is curl up into a ball and watch the new Doctor Who episode.  I have a paper due tonight and I'm intimidated.  And I need to study for Grammars, but I don't understand 75% of what the professor says, and he goes at a lightning-pace.  Catch up or mess up, and neither would particularly bother him.

Is it too late to enroll in Accounting school?

The worst part about all of this is, of course, that the material is legitimately interesting.  I'm honestly engaged and enjoy every moment of the discourse.  Why are things so damned difficult?

And now, the pictures!  Sorry they took forever.

Why I'm a closet masochist

Living with someone who doesn't share your eating habits is interesting.  Not only does David eat meat, he's NOT on the Dukan Diet with me, which means that his lunch can (often does) consist of toaster strudels, and I get to watch.  It's different, especially since I do the majority of the cooking.

For example, yesterday I made garlic butter for pasta and a cookie recipe his mother was nice enough to provide for me when I asked, exasperated, what he actually eats.  The answer was meat and cookies.  Since I'm morally opposed to the former if it isn't provided under very exact specifications, and have never made the latter, his mother took pity on me and gave me a recipe.  I can't explain how depressing it was to cook cookies and not be able to sample anything, or how difficult it was to prepare the garlic butter judging by smell alone.  Apparently, it turned out well enough, because he ate three of the cookies, and all of the pasta before leaving for his second job.

This morning, I sent him off with more cookies, secretly hoping that he would take all of them and I wouldn't have to look at them any time I pass the dining room table during the day.  Every time I see the delicious, fresh, homemade cookies, I can't deny the irrational desire to stuff one in my mouth, but I know I should resist, and I often do.

Out of sheer frustration at the diet yesterday, I ate entirely too much yogurt, and gained .3 kg overnight.  Roughly a pound.  David said that all of his coworkers enjoyed the cookies, which is encouraging, since I substituted karob chips instead of chocolate chips, because we shop together and chocolate chips would've been a dead giveaway as to my intentions.  I had no idea how it would taste, and I'm glad it turned out decently.  However, I swear, the cookies taunt me every time I pass them.  If I weren't on this stupid diet, I would have eaten all of them by now.

Can I do it? Yes, Dukan! Well, maybe Dukan't.

Bad pun.

Anyway, the past two days have been devoted to getting as much inspiration as possible for continuing with my weight loss regime.  For the past month, I've been devoted to the Dukan diet.  Apparently, it's a big celebrity diet right now, reputed to be much more manageable than Atkins, and it doesn't limit any sorts of portions whatsoever.  I first heard about it at one of my jobs, bought the book, and started the first phase the next morning.  Probably not the smartest idea, because it was right when David and I were moving in, but there's never a really good time for a diet, a baby, or exercise.

There are four tiers to the program:
1.  Attack
2.  Cruise
3.  Consolidate
4.  Stabilize

The first phase lasts anywhere from 3 to 10 days, based on how much weight you need to lose.  I completed the first phase in 8 days about a month ago now.  During the first phase, you are only allowed to eat lean proteins, drink lots of liquids, walk 20 minutes per day, and eat one and a half tablespoons of oat bran per day. 

During the Cruise phase, you alternate days of just protein, and protein with vegetables.  You aren't allowed all vegetables (for example, starchy veggies high in sugar like corn and peas are strictly verbotten) but for the most part, you aren't very limited.  Some people do the cruise phase alternating five days of pure protein and five days of protein and vegetables, but the book recommends the one-one ratio for lasting weight loss.  How long you stay in the Cruise phase depends on how much weight you have to lose.

Dukan's website offers a free service wherein he calculates your "true weight," which takes into account your habits, bone structure, past weight loss and diet plans, previous pregnancies, and spits out a number that's supposed to be attainable and manageable for the rest of your life.  Dukan doesn't recommend that you lose weight beyond your "true weight," but let's face it: with a history of encouraging dieting behind you, when you finally reach your true weight, it's superhuman to expect anyone to stop. 

I've been in the Cruise phase for over three weeks now and I'm honestly getting sick of eating the same thing over and over.  At first, I was excited to try new recipes from the book, but now I'm just sick of losing maybe one pound per day, three or four per week.  If this keeps up, I'll be in this phase for another two months to reach my true weight, and of course my goal is lower.

I'm about 17 pounds away from the true weight set for me by the website, but the fact that my scale now tells me my weight in kilograms means that my weight loss is much more mystical than it was previously.  Also, I'm not fitting into my clothes as well as I was hoping I would at this stage.  He does prescribe exercise daily, which I was getting pretty good at until I sprained my foot biking to the grocery store.

Now, I'm crippled (dramatization, but valid, I swear), and eating my feelings, and protein isn't very good at keeping away the sad.

I've already lost almost half of the weight I wanted to lose, and with another two pounds, I will be solidly at the halfway point.  However, I'm definitely losing a bit of focus, as well as motivation.  There are just always so many things to do, and so many people to do them with, and food is almost always included in activities, and it's just difficult to say no.

I feel like I'm always obsessing over food, one way or the other.  I'm either obsessed with eating as much as I can, or as little as possible to punish myself for the times that I indulge.  It's important to find a balance if I want to maintain the weight I lose.  I suppose that's what I should work on above anything else.

Made crab cakes the other night, which turned out very well.  I've also been exploring the wonderful world of Boca burgers and tofurkey as alternatives to omelets every single day and fish when I can afford it.  I also go through epic portions of nonfat yogurt, and I've been to frozen yogurt more times than I care to count.

It's a small indulgence, but it means a lot, especially when I can't have sugar added to anything.  Not that I'm complaining; Stevia is pretty delish; but I'd like something normal.

Last night, David and I went to his mom's to pick up bandages for my foot, and she made me a boca burger without the bun and hesitatingly gave me a tiny glass full of a smoothie she blended especially for us.  I ate the burger even though it probably isn't on the list of approved burgers, but sat with the drink in front of me for the entire night.  I can't believe I didn't even sip it; she must think I'm one of the craziest people she's ever encountered.

With Nanowrimo lurking around the corner, I'm also getting a little terrified of the challenge.  50,000 words in a month.  I did it last year, but who's to say what I'll do this year?  Maybe I can make it, but the amount of ideas I've had have been dwindling.  Aside from a pretty terrifying dream I had about the Demonic Male Theory last night, my creativity has been limited to color schemes for the kitchen and bathroom.  Maybe that'll change within the next few months.

Somewhat frustrated,

Maria

An update on life, or something like it

Due to full-time work schedule at one job, part time at another, and moving things, I've been unable to update anything like regularly.

That's untrue.  Instead, I found it inspiring to sit on my couch, read lots of diet books, and completely change my lifestyle to account for an extra person.  And consume what must be an unhealthy amount of non-fat dairy products in the form of yogurt, both frozen and simply chilled variety.  But due to a very recent change in my work life and increasing internal/external pressure to update people on my life, I've decided to take a few minutes today to jot a few impressions down, and possibly provide insight into the last three months since returning from Europe.

First things first: Best Book Read in the Past Month
While it was a close race between my first Agatha Christie book (Murder on the Orient Express; phenom!) the diet that changed me for the next year of my life (The Dukan Diet, which is going swimmingly, thank you), and the entire Harry Potter series as I was gearing up for the last movie, the prize must go to Chocolat.

Let me begin by saying that it's almost nothing like the movie.  While I've never actually watched the movie version, it's my understanding that the female character seduces Johnny Depp, and he ends up falling in love with her and her free-spirited drifter hippy child after moderate unpleasantness with the townsfolk.  A decent movie, possibly quite good considering the cast, but overall played and seen before.

The book, however, is in its own special category for excellence.  The setup is parallel first-person narrative, and only half of it is from Vianne's perspective.  It's a modern tale of living as a single mother, the daughter of a gypsy, whose internal compass led her all over Europe and eventually to America, constantly running from "The Black Man," who seeks to force women to conform to society's steriotypes.  The road is no life for a child.  One must go to church every Sunday.  You must live as your neighbors do, and respect your priest, and not indulge the senses.  The story is a champion of freedom within society instead of slavery to one's social milieu.  Oh, and there are deliciously-crafted scenes during which Vianne cooks her chocolate, almost as intricate as the confections Joanne Harris depicts. 

There is a sequel, which I will be picking up as soon as I get the chance.  The style is earthy and realistic and fragile.  A lovely read.  Highly, highly recommended.

On Gainful Employment
I am now the proud employee of two companies, both of which are located very far from my current living quarters.  Armani Exchange, which is a two-hour drive away, and ESM, which is also two hours away.  Luckily, ESM allowed me to work from home, since the majority of my work is simply sitting at a desk and answering a phone.  Also, being an insufferable know-it-all, which is one of my many natural talents.

Work interferes with a lot of things.  I am grateful to have the jobs, and I do enjoy the autonomy the money allows me, but I still feel as though I'm wasting a good portion of my life.  I'm exchanging valuable hours of my time and energy for meagre wages that would be lower if the company could get away with it.  It's better than the limbo I was in before ESM hired me on, of course, but there are positives and negatives to any situation.

On Living, and Relationships
David and I moved in together lyke offichul this Monday.  Looking back, I really have no idea how it happened, but we just get along really well.  Also, as I've concluded, this was the only way we could stay together during the school year.

Long distance doesn't really work.  It can, as long as the understanding is that the situation is temporary, and you have a very solid base of trust under the relationship.  If the timing of long-distance is undefined, you end up going crazy like the pidgeon in the Skinner Box that keeps getting shocked with no sense of control over the pain.

At least now, when we say "hello" or "goodbye," I know that the standard is the former.  Since I work from home, I can go into his closet at any moment and see his clothes.  His pictures are on the wall (something I've just come to accept, in spite of our completely divergent opinions on design) and his movies are in the DVD rack.  His shoes are lined up next to mine on the shoe rack.  We share a bed.  It's unbelievably strange to look back on our awkward courtship and countless misunderstandings with the perspective of today, but there it is.  I'm now living in Greeley.

School
I'm at the school here, but I have no time with work.  I'll need to ask for at least one more day off per week in order to get anything like a normal schedule, but it's nice to be registered for at least once class, and an interesting one at that.  All about literature and art.  Not something that will techincally help me with my degree, perse, but it's fascinating, and I look forward to learning a lot.

Other things
My diet's doing pretty well.  I've been on it for about a month, and have another two months or so to go.  It's difficult for me to work on controlling portions, but luckily, this diet doesn't restrict quantity.  Just type.

My life is consumed with a million little household dramas that resolve themselves in due time, of course.  When are the dishes going to be done?  Who's going to make the bed?  Where do I put all of my shoes?  Do we need a drying rack for dishes?  What about clothing?

Time passes quickly, and I always intend to contact people, but it doesn't always happen.  I need shelves for the books and I need more time in the day.  Possibly less time working.

Till next time!