Today I am eating peanut butter pretzels. They sit near my laptop in a glass bowl like hamster feed, allowing my paws easy access. They're not particularly flavorful (apparently these are "unsalted"), nor are they all that peanut-buttery, but I brought them to work as my lunch-substitue because:

1. They're getting old
2. Food I already own is kind of like free food
3. They're in rationable bite-sized pieces
4. I'm trying to watch what I eat

I'd like to draw particular attention to the last couple of points.

I've heard and read much about the concept of eating in "smaller" portions throughout the day, instead of falling off the deep end of binge eating. I suppose a subtle drawback of binging is the tendency to over-eat (think: "OH MAN I'M STARVING"), but the even more subtle drawback is a "slowing" of the metabolism.

Eating a little at a time keeps your stomach or body or hormones or whatever magical, scientific bodily functions on their toes, forcing your metabolism (again, in theory) into a continuous high-gear. So in application, on occasions I've had cereal by my side, or other small snacks with me, not unlike today.

In regards to the last point - while trying (but not always succeeding) to eat healthier and healthier I'm beginning to see a pattern in my thinking that helps me cope and could be paraphrased into something like this: "I don't care about food". Now, I know that I kinda sorta have to, ya know, eat food, to, ya know, survive and live and stuff. That stuff. But it's the desire and love of food, yearning after a particular zing or zest or sweet of flavor, that all pretty much has to die for the sake of:

1. not being groggy on some kind of chronic food coma
2. fitting the pants that I wore when I got married
3. feeling good about having some sense of self control
4. not becoming like a spoiled brat when food isn't "the way I wanted it"
5. being and feeling generally healthy

Combining the two philosophies of frequent food rations, and "I don't care about food" mind frame, I realize that I'm slowly moving towards the retro-future of food. An intravaneous flow into the veins, or tiny, magic all-in-one food pill supplements. Clean, simple, saves time.

For now I'll just keep working on my peanut butter food pellets.

I'm not talking about breakups. Not entirely. Not like that.

I'm talking about the concept of emotional release. Telling your brain, heart, soul, being, "Hey, guess what? I don't care." Pressing a blaring, safety-glass covered red button and ejecting that dead-weight pod of "I care about this person/idea/obligation/assumed obligation/problem/thing I thought was important to me, but now means jack-squat and is no longer worth the mind-blow that it alone is putting me through."

Sure it's cool to care. It's nice to be sympathetic or empathetic or everything-thetic towards each human or problem (or honestly, human-problem) that arises. I get the honor that could be in that.

But there is this moment, this hair-trigger sensing I get when a situation is already destined to sink and implode. Situations where said person or situation is so obviously un-salvageable that the only window of rescue is to carry the whole ball of flames on your own back. Swallowing any common sense, any better opportunities, swallowing any and all irritations and bitterness just to help this thing that may not even survive.

In this case, I'm talking about people who don't want help. People who give push-back. It's like throwing a life-saver at someone and watching them choose to pop it or karate-chop it into the next time-zone.

I hate those situations. So eventually, I stop throwing life-savers. I've deemed it as completely not worth it.

But yes, there is sometimes the unfortunate lash-back that comes from making such a choice. Friendships start to suffocate, walls go up, there's no longer the impromptu spark that says, "Hey! Let's have lunch." It evolves into an exercise of navigating a mental sea full of bobbing mines. It's a painful journey, but entirely necessary to keep some kind of sanity from diving into even more anger and bitterness.

Twang, crunch, bite, warmth, chime, squishiness, woodiness, spank, quack, buzz, fuzz, sizzle, jangle, roar, scream.

All words that I know and feel deep down. A vocabulary that my subconscious mind debates and analyzes with itself, rantingly, adoringly, like a teenage heart flipping out over their latest heart-throb. My MP3s: a trophy collection of tones and searing riffs that I wear on my utility belt of sound. I hold (listen to) each one proudly, polishing and examining them in the most discerning light (headphones). The tiniest bit of dust (sound compression artifacts) is unacceptable.

It's a language that I can't exactly enjoy with everyone I encounter. Few people I know get it, but don't invest, and the rest think I must have a third ear... and think I'm waiting for a mothership to take me back.

Sadistically spicy lunch + milkshake dinner = long rides on the porcelain pony

I wonder if we all yearn for a home?

I wonder if I don't?

If you don't yearn for a home, are really trying to run away from something? Could it be that sometimes "home" is a place of turmoil? Wounds? Is the ideal home a place of comfort? Is home just a comfortable "place"? So if you are constantly running, or moving, but still comfortable, can that be labeled as home?

So are we all just yearning for comfort? Happiness? A place without worry? Are these all subjective things?

Children have family
Adolescents have classmates
Collegiates have roommates
Employees have coworkers

People are inevitably embedded into other ecosystems of people, for better or for worse. Like mahjong pieces pushed across felt. A white noise of swooshing and klacking against one another. Colliding like bumper cars, human cargo emitting uncontrollable laughter, or screams of shock, or silently waiting for the ride to be over.

I shall make it through this.

I have a hard time being anything, anyone other than myself. This is both a benefit, and often a crux. A benefit in that I know I will not deprive my identity. A crux in that in some contexts my identity may not apply, even when I wish it did. Or at least don't wish it enough to change my identity… and would rather just change the context.

Why hold onto a commitment if you cannot keep it? And then if the commitment cannot be kept, blame it on others?

And then take it out on others when this fact is revealed? I'm ultra irritated right now.

I never thought it would come to this, but maybe there are some things that I just cannot reveal to people even when they are so close to me. When and why does it ever happen that people will not take any criticism or feedback? I have to withdraw from telling people the truth, but I don't know how and why other than to keep relationships intact.

So tonight is a bit different.

I usually hang out with friends on Thursday nights, but today since no one took initiative I figured I'd just do my own thing.

So after work I sat in the car in the parking lot for a long time, full of "I dunno" and "Maybe?" as each idea appears in my head. I figure I'll just drive and get inspired, the only real ideas in my head are either going to your usual mass commercial guitar store, or a used CD shop (I'm realizing a trend in my interests).

I'm not exactly sure how or why, but I end up at Osaka buffet in Brea. I guess if you can't make up your mind, what better place than a buffet - if you can't pick any one thing, then just have it all? I can't tell if I ate a lot, but I ate. Afterwards I thought I'd drive to Panera for internet, but for some reason made a right on Imperial to go to Coffee Bean. I park in the lot, start to listen to music the way that I do, trying to hear things I've never noticed before with each pass of each song. Eventually I doze off, and wake up 30 min. later, slightly groggy.

Still time to go surf the net, so I grab my computer and walk into the Bean. As I stand in front of the cash register, there's a piercing pain on the outer part of my hand, near my thumb. It's soft at first and grows quickly more painful. I look at my hand and there's a bee on it.

What the H??!

I frantically shake my hand, the way anyone does when they're immediately freaked out and everything else in the world sort of disappears. I notice a stinger left in my hand (or at least what I imagine is the stinger, based on what I've heard from other testimonies of stingings). I sort of blabber out incomprehensively "Geez, I just got stung by a bee..." I don't think cashier man understands (or knows how to respond to my utter randomocity) as he simply asks me what beverage I'd like for the evening.

"Uh. Moroccan Mint." My voice sounds distant. Where am I? What do I do now? Oh, right, credit card.

I've never been stung before... my hand is pounding. I sort of pinch at the wound, thinking it's like a bad splinter. I wonder if sucking at the wound will do anything, but I tell myself it wasn't a snake.

Fast forward 15 min or so, I seem to be ok. Still feeling a bit out of body experience-esque. Weird. Sooo weird.

Ok. I guess life just resumes from here then.

yeah. I quit.

being at the limit for so long cannot be good for me. there are so few things left i can express my weariness to