Alternatively, I’ve been having a reasonably good amount of success with it, and have felt like I could go to actually fasting or near-to-fasting on the low days. In fact, this morning when I got up, I weighed only 189 pounds; this is the closest I’ve been to my goal (188 is the maximum weight not considered overweight, by BMI, for my height) in the ~2.5 years since we started. I also seem to be at the lowest body fat percentage I’ve been since we started, holding steady for several days at about 16% (according to my Tanita scale), or about 30lbs of fat. Plus, two days in a row I managed a set of at least 10 pushups in a row – this is a major improvement, and the first time I’ve ever been able to do 10 pushups. This morning I very nearly managed to do two sets of 10 pushups in a row. Maybe next time. At this rate, I figure … by this time next year, perhaps I’ll reach that 100 pushups goal!

Oh, and with Mandy changing her plan, I’m changing mine, as well. I’m going to try actually fasting (or very near to it) on my alternate-day fasting plan. Based on my experiences so far with fasting, I’ll probably fast roughly 24 hours at each stretch, and have a light supper in the evening of the “fasting” days. I’ll probably come in at around 15% of my “maintain” calorie count those days (as opposed to the 50% I’ve been aiming for) and I’ll still be aiming (roughly) for 100% on the other days. I’m really close to one of my actual goals, of being 185lbs and 15% fat, which gives me a little margin between myself and “overweight”, though I’ll certainly be doing some more research in the next few weeks about how to redefine my goals for more general fitness, now that I’m within spitting distance of my original goals for more generally losing weight.

I’ll update again, when I see how so much fasting actually goes – both in terms of health benefits, and of the difficulty of living with it.

Well, it isn’t as though we didn’t know this was coming, I suppose. Six or nine months ago, we were having intermittent problems with the oven taking a long time to pre-heat. As in, we would check the oven when we thought it ought to be done warming up, and would hear a small explosion upon opening the door, as the gas which ought to have been heating it finally lit for (presumably) the first time. I talked to my father about it at the time (he has more experience, of course, not to mention he bought the oven and probably moved the gas line at some point in the 15+ years since he bought this house, and I’d guess he’s probably done quite a few repairs on gas appliances (ranges, ovens, heaters, et cetera) in his lifetime) and he looked at it, looked up the parts, and was sure 1) it was probably the thermostat, and 2) changing the thermostat on this model oven is more expense and hassle than it would be worth, especially for such an old oven. Then it started behaving normally. For six (or was it nine? I didn’t mark my calendar) months or more. We started looking, noncommittally, at replacements, and finding them to be quite expensive. I decided to continue putting it off, as long as the oven was working, until I had more information.

So over the last few months we’ve had ovens on the mind. We’ve popped into the occasional Sears Outlet store to take a look at what sort of features and prices things were going for, but until this week there was no urgency about our shopping. The oven has been working fine; I’ve actually done a fair amount of very successful baking, lately. Cakes and cookies and pies, of course, the occasional odd thing, plus roast chicken and we’re just finishing the leftovers from our huge Easter ham. I believe we had the first problems before Thanksgiving (perhaps right before Thanksgiving? I recall discussing not wanting to attempt a repair on the oven the week of the holiday), and I know I roasted a turkey in it. Plus: New ovens aren’t cheap.

This weekend, the oven finally went over the line. I’m not sure what caused the problem – maybe using the broiler, last week, to toast a bagel sandwich for a few minutes? Maybe God just gave us an extra six months to get used to the idea of buying a new oven, or to do it on our own, and because we didn’t take the leap, He pushed? I don’t know. I know on Friday it took over an hour (with plenty of small explosions upon peeking inside, along the way) to preheat the oven just to bake some stuffed, bacon-wrapped hot dogs (I have some ideas for improving from my first attempt; maybe I’ll take a bunch of photos & blog it if/when I attempt that again.) for dinner, and the house ended up smelling like a gas leak in the process. It was frustrating, but just seemed like maybe the oven was having a relapse. Saturday my sister couldn’t get the oven to warm up at all, the house had hardly cleared from the previous day’s gas smell and after an hour or more without it even getting to 200, she gave up in frustration, threw out her food, and went out for food. I felt I was to blame, for not replacing or repairing the oven sooner. This stressed me out a little more than a merely-failing oven would have or should have; I’m a bit prone to anxiety.

We didn’t have anything going on Friday night, and it was early enough, and at Angela’s suggestion and Mandy’s seconding, Mandy and I drove over to Stardust to see whether they had anything wonderful. Stardust is a nonprofit which basically carries … used (major) household items – things recovered from houses; a lot of cabinets, doors, and windows, plus usually a reasonable selection of decade-plus-old toilets, sinks, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, and much much more. Being used items, the only way to know what they have from day to day is to go in and see; we probably ought to have been going in every couple of weeks for the last six months, looking out for something nice to come in. Most of the stuff they have is mid-level but, for example, Mandy and I bought an old (but still working well) Sub-Zero refrigerator there for $300, and have been pretty happy with it for the last several years – as long as I remember to vacuum the dust out of the intake over the coils a couple times a year, it’s a very reliable fridge.

Alas, Stardust didn’t have any ovens that looked any better than what we needed to replace. As long as we were out, we stopped by a K-Mart (yes, there are still a few of them around), the Sears at Metrocenter (where we met a very friendly and knowledgeable appliance salesman, and had a good look at a wide selection of gas ranges (apparently, despite the bigger part being an oven, and the stovetop/range part also being a thing people buy independently, they call freestanding ovens “ranges” – not ovens), refreshing and re-confirming what we’d observed in our casual browsing during prior months), then at the Sears employee’s suggestion (since he would gladly price-match – and they were having a “friends and family” sale Sunday night, where he’d probably have the lowest price, anyway) we also stopped by Lowes and Home Depot (plus Fry’s Electronics, since we were there – which may be the only place we saw an LG range), then did our grocery shopping, too, since we were already out. Then at home I did more research and shopping online.

Sunday, I tried researching to repair the oven at home, since our research had determined that 1) we couldn’t get a new range for less than $400-$500, without buying something which looked like it would fail within another six months, and 2) if we were going to spend a big chunk of money (extending our debt payoff horizon), we wanted to get a high quality machine with all the features I’ve been wanting, which seemed to be in the $900-$1200 range and higher. Not to mention 3) the next tier, of $1700-$2100 ranges, seemed only incrementally better than the $900-$1200 ranges, with no features we thought justified the expense – unless you’re a professional chef, going $2k+ seems laughable, to us. If I could figure out how to repair it within my level of skill, it would certainly not cost us $1k (see also: about a month more time in debt). Based on my research, including taking the oven half apart, probably one or both of the ignitor and/or gas safety valve was faulty, and probably just from being old and worn out. I spoke to my father about it (since, again, he knows a lot more about this particular oven than I do), did a little more research, and determined that trying to repair an old oven, from a brand which no longer exists, which was manufactured exclusively for Montgomery Ward (which also no longer exists), rather than buying a new range, was probably a waste of time and money, and potentially dangerous. Plus, while I figure I could have tested and/or replaced the ignitor with little trouble, I was pretty sure testing and replacing the NG valve is currently beyond my ken – and that hiring a pro to do it would cost more than the oven was worth.

Sunday afternoon, upon deciding for certain that we needed to simply replace the thing, and that our target price range was near $1k, I did a little more Internet shopping, review-reading, et cetera, and determined that there were 50-100 makes and models of gas range, by reliable brands, with all the core features I was looking for – with little to differentiate one from another, on a spec sheet. I had some idea of what I wanted, I’d certainly narrowed down the minimum features in my mind, but I wanted to see the ranges in person. We set out on a bit of an adventure, to try to find just the right range, at just the right price, with just a few hours before Sears’ limited-time sale.

This time we were shopping on our own side of town, so we went by the big, local Sears Outlet first. They had a particular LG range I’d seen quite highly-rated online (and with a strikingly-blue interior Mandy was fond of), which had all the features we wanted and for about $100 less than it was going for anywhere else (including Sears) – but then we learned it had been converted to LP, and we’d need to convert it back to NG. I couldn’t quickly/easily determine how much that would cost or how difficult it would be while browsing from my iPhone, so we looked over the other models they had in stock, and moved on.

We went to PV Mall next, to stop by the Sears there, where we discovered they had a much smaller selection of gas ranges and a much less friendly major-appliance sales staff. Disappointed, I pointed the car North, remembering an independent appliance store used to be at Desert Ridge (apparently no longer in business), and thinking the Lowes on Bell and Scottsdale was our next best bet (esp. considering their free delivery & 10% off sale). Then I spotted a small appliance store across Tatum on Thunderbird, did a bit of a loop-de-loo to get turned around the right way from the wrong side of the store & we ended up going in to “Home TV & Appliance” about half an hour before they closed for the day. According to Gary, our friendly (if not intimately familiar with the features of all the gas ranges he sells) salesperson, they’re a small, locally-owned chain. They had nearly as many gas ranges on the showroom floor as we’d seen anywhere, and they were having a sale which brought the prices on the models we preferred down below … everyone I could find. Including Amazon. Including Lowes, who had free shipping, even including their moderate delivery charge (half of the Sears delivery charge).  (According to their web site, they’ll price match any local, advertised deal their prices don’t already beat.) I did about 15 minutes of online research (while Gary helped, pulling out his books with all the details when Frigidaire’s website refused to serve meaningful pages to a mobile browser) and review-checking, then we paid the man and set up for delivery today. We walked out happy, and a significant part of that was in having stumbled upon a local business to support with our purchase, without having to pay a premium to do so. (Oh, and the delivery today was quick, efficient, friendly, and on-time.)

Here is the range we bought. It is a Frigidaire FGGF3054MF, which is a model-level up from the best Frigidaire I thought I could get at the price I paid (and I’d probably have either settled for the lower model at Lowes, or paid closer to the MSRP for the one we got, some place else) and is one of the better value-and-features-for-the-money ranges on the market, right now, even at full price. The key features I didn’t want to buy a new range without included sealed burners on the range, self-cleaning oven, at least one 15k BTU burner, and convection cooking. The nice-to-have features I liked the look of were the a “simmer burner” (5k-6k BTUs, for cooking things low and slow), a continuous cooktop (preferably with optional griddle), and a feature I only saw mentioned on the Frigidaires, an integrated probe thermometer.

This oven has all of those features. One of the five burners is 17k BTUs, another is 15k, and a third is 5k. As you can see in the image at right, it’s even got the optional griddle for the center burner (though it seems to interrupt the continuous cooktop by being just a little too tall, so either someone measured wrong, or it wasn’t designed to be left in place – I’ll call their CS people to find out) which I look forward to trying some pancakes out on, soon. It even has features I may have to try some new recipes and techniques to take advantage of. Did I mention it can “quick pre-heat” in 5-6 minutes? Much nicer than the “an hour-plus, and a house full of explosive poison gas” we had before. I’m eager to see how the convection cooking changes things, too, though I don’t have anything urgently needing to be baked or roasted… But give me a couple weeks, and I’m sure I’ll have put it through its paces. Surely we need some ginger/molasses cookies around here, right? And maybe a couple loaves of French bread?

Next up, though, I need to re-start my wok research – the big draw of the high-power burner, for me, was being able to properly cook food in a wok. It’s time to retire the old Teflon-coated wok (since Teflon becomes a toxic gas at proper wok temperatures) and get a (probably) carbon steel wok. Any brand/store recommendations are welcome.

Update: I ended up ordering this wok, from Amazon.

By summer of last year we’d both plateaued, and by December 2011, largely due to depression, I was rapidly re-gaining weight. When I hit 210, I started a crash diet (which overlapped Christmas, unfortunately), and got back under 200 within a couple of weeks, and I’ve been struggling again with the last of my stubborn belly fat since then. Normal “eat less, move more” wasn’t quite cutting it (or I wasn’t really moving enough), and when I saw some science backing up an unusual sort of diet I’d thought about before, I figured what they hey, let’s try it … Actually, I just showed it to Mandy on a lark, not intending to try it, but she suggested trying it … And the week of March 26th we started doing a version of an alternate-day-fasting diet.

There are a few ideas about this sort of diet, ranging from full-on fasting every other day to eating 20%-50% of your “maintain” level of calories on the alternate days, and from normal to 150% (or just “whatever you want”) on the non-fasting days. Different people swear it has different effects, ranging from “helping get rid of that last 15 pounds” to curing asthma & allergies, and possibly to postponing the onset of diabetes or MS. Who knows? The science isn’t in, yet. Give it a few more years/decades. Since we were still trying to get rid of the last of our excess fat (I was still at/above 18% body fat) we decided to aim for a reasonable 50% on “fast” days, and 100% on “high” days – this keeps us losing weight, but confuses our bodies. (We also re-started our attempts to complete the 100 pushups and 200 situps challenges (we didn’t succeed on our first six-week attempt) three weeks ago.) In five weeks I’m down 10 pounds to 190, and down 2-3% body fat, as well. (Plus another inch at the waist; it’s a bit frustrating to be between pant sizes, but I just ordered a new pair of suspenders to hold them up, at least until I lose another inch and buy some new pants.) Mandy, unfortunately, has not been having as dramatic a success… but she’s sticking with it.

It’s been interesting. With alternating days being so low-calorie, the days we eat at our “maintain” calories are like cheating days, or feast days. If I’m having trouble sticking to the low-calorie limits, I usually only have to remind myself that the next day I’ll be able to splurge, eat what I want, and then I can more easily control myself. I can definitely say that having the relatively-high-calorie days (versus most of the last two years, where I’ve been eating little every day, first to lose the first fifty pounds, and then unsuccessfully to try to lose this last 15 pounds) have been very liberating. Also helpful since I’m still frequently overcome in difficult situations with an urge to emotionally overeat – the trick now is to control the urge, if possible, on low days, and keep it near my maintain calorie level on high days (which feels like plenty of leeway after years of running 1,000 calories lower than that every day).

I’m still a bit away from even my initial goal (technically, my BMI is still a bit into the overweight, and my body fat percentage is a few points higher than I’d like) though I hope after another few months of this unusual diet I’ll be there. I also hope I’ll be able to do 100 pushups at some point; progress on that isn’t going well, though it is going, a bit. Getting back to a point where I can do a lot of situps would be good, too – I’d love to actually have some abs worth looking at, once this obscuring fat is worked away. Not that my abs would be visible in it, but I’ve been putting off getting a new author portrait (née headshot) taken (or having my wedding ring resized) until I reach my weight goal; I’m most of the way there, and look very different from the photo I’ve been using most places, but there’s something psychological about actually reaching the goal… if you’ve been wondering why I don’t look like my photo, this is why.

So, that’s a sort of a general update on what’s been going on with my dieting. Mostly success, mostly by eating less and moving more. I didn’t mention that it also involves eating generally whole foods, plenty of fruits and vegetables, with most meals cooked from scratch – because that is for another post (or series of posts), and predates any attempts as weight loss, since eating real food is awesome, anyway.

Fry’s, this week, is having a “case lot sale”. You don’t have to buy by the case to get the low prices, but you can. We went to Sam’s Club, first (where I’ve been starting my bulk food purchases, in things like 25lb bags of rice), and compared the Fry’s sale prices with the Sam’s normal bulk food prices, and on everything but oats Fry’s prices were better. So we bought the big box of Quaker Oats at Sam’s Club and then went over to Fry’s. They were sold out of one or two items I wanted to get, so I’ll probably go back to try to get them (they stock after closing, so early morning is the way to go), but we did pretty good. We got 195lbs of food for about $90. 40lbs of flour and 40lbs of sugar will go a long way toward baked goods. Yes, there are fresh ingredients like milk, eggs, butter and the like that I can’t buy up in bulk, seal up in Tupperware, and put in the cupboard (Did I mention Mandy and I are also about to make a large order of Tupperware? There’s a lot at the house, but we 1) need more, and 2) want to be sure we have our own stuff, in case at some point we want to separate off from the rest of the family. We went to a couple of big “container stores” (who knew there were multiple competing chains of big stores specializing in only container sales? Huh.) and compared sizes, prices, and quality, and Tupperware wins, hands down. Oh, and yes, we bought evaporated milk.), but barring that apocalypse/depression I mentioned, that’s not much of an issue. Will probably go back and buy another 50lbs-75lbs of food for another $35-$47 before the sale is over.

Oh, and if the economy doesn’t look to actually be collapsing further, we’ll probably put a huge dent in this stuff before the end of the year. Otherwise, yeah, rationing, eh? Gotta remember to get a couple gas cans kept full all the time, too. Hmm… Maybe I should call dad and be sure we have plenty of ammunition, while it’s still cheap. Leave your suggestions for other items I should consider buying in bulk, whether because I’m poor or because the end is near, in the comments.

I was working in the kitchen today, slaving over a hot stove and a cutting board and hoping my improvised recipe would delight and nourish and it occurred to me that all the time I spend every week, not just cooking, but also thinking about it, shopping for it, studying cookbooks and recipes on index cards and online, and all this time and effort and energy… It isn’t wasted. It never felt wasted, but it occurred to me today that spending an hour or more a day, most days of the week, cooking for my family is one of the most valuable things I contribute. Not (just) because cooking real food reduces costs, but because it adds value.

Whether because of the failing economy or because I’m failing to market myself effectively, I’m not bringing a lot of financial reward into the household right now. Yet when I’m able to put a good meal in front of my wife after she’s had a long day at work, I know there are more important rewards in life to invest yourself in, and that I’m a success in the areas that matter to me most.

My mom taught me -she tried to teach me- how to make her spaghetti sauce. If I’m able to remain a househusband, if I’m able to continue investing myself in showing my love through food, maybe in another couple of years … Maybe I’ll have the skill required to share what made her sauce so special, in making a sauce that my family will associate with love, happiness, family… We’re Italian, it’s all in the sauce, right?

I was reading someone’s webjournal this morning… or maybe it was a forum post… the context is unimportant and forgettable. Someone said something like “break me off a piece of that…” and all of a sudden, moments after eating a filling (almost sickening) Sausage McMuffin with Egg, I felt like eating a Kit-Kat. I almost got up that very moment to see if there were any in the vending machine. Sure, you can say that that was a result of latent marketing. That all the Kit-Kat ads I’ve seen over the years were effective because they increased my brand recognition and the mere mention of their popular slogan not only reminded me of their product, but influenced me to desire it. That may be true, but what I’m commenting on is my pliability to such suggestions. After lunch, I did in fact go to the vending machine, and seeing that there were no Kit-Kat bars, purchased a Twix, which I deemed the most likely choice to assuage my desire. Yum.

Last night I was watching Murder In Small Town X, and although I had not eaten supper, I was not hungry. At one point, during a meeting between the players, there were cups and wrappers visible that I recognized as being from Taco Bell, and although the words “Taco Bell” were not visible, seeing people eating what I knew was Taco Bell made me want to eat Taco bell. It is a kind of weird feeling to not be hungry and want to eat at the same time. Especially while I want to lose wight at the same time. I mentioned that I wanted to eat Taco Bell as a result of seeing it to the person I was with, and we did eventually end up going, hours later, when I finally got hungry.

See, the cravings don’t seem to just fade away; they stick with me for hours or days until I take care of them. These aren’t the crazed cravings of someone with a real deficiency, these are just mild, frequent reminders that I want to eat a certain thing. Which is nice, because then I can usually subdue them until a reasonable time comes along that I can consume those calories without it being overeating. Like the Taco Bell. I have found that a very important thing in not gaining weight (and losing weight, as well) is to stop eating when you get full, and try to avoid eating when you aren’t hungry. Balancing that against getting plenty of food and numerous meals provides a challenge, but I think that is where weight loss comes from. If you plan on eating 5 times in a day, and also only eat when and while you’re hungry, you can’t eat five big meals. You can’t even eat three big meals. There simply isn’t room.

Of course, there’s plenty of room in my clothes, so … I COULD go ahead and eat again. And again and again and again and again and again. Maybe I’ll even feel better afterwards.

Is that what you are doing now? Sighing, trying to pay attention as I type miles of text about my own trivial experiences? I thought at first that the idea of an audience would just encourage me to write, but I think now it scares me. Some of the people who know that they can find me here… I don’t know… I just feel like I can’t be myself when they’re around. I have no way of knowing whether they’re around, either.

Look, if you don’t really care, why are you still reading? Is this some form of rubbernecking? Are you hoping to see a glimpse of someone else’s pain, and willing to wade through everything else I spew out? If you do care, why did you let them remove the nearby Taco Bell?

Apparently, kissing me is very satisfying. I am glad to know that even without regular practice the deep understanding of the kiss remains a powerful force between any two people. I remember when I was young I used to use the secret to more fulfilling kissing as a gateway to solving the mysteries of the universe and unlocking the secrets to life itself. Ask me someday about it. Or just kiss me deeply a couple of times and I think you’ll begin to be on the right track. It’s all about letting go and giving up.

So, from one idea to the next very quickly, and back to Taco Bell. Mostly because I’m hungry. If it gets to be too bad by the time I finish up here (or really, really bad and I stop in the middle, wracked with hunger), I’ll probably go melt some cheese into my belly. Not the burrito I had in mind, but it will have to do. Silly body, needing fuel to keep running all the time.

So, some of you are aware of a very sweet little project I’ve been working on for Sara, where I read The Princess Bride aloud to my computer, and it reads it aloud to a magical disc of plastic, which in turn reads it aloud to Sara. I read three entire chapters to my computer tonight. Two of them were very short chapters, I will admit, but the next one is nearly 100 pages long. Luckily, it is broken up into several distinct parts. I plan on making separate tracks from each of the different parts of the chapter, and splitting it between two CD’s in the most appropriate fashion. I find the experience very fulfilling for many reasons. First, because I love Sara very deeply, and I know that this is something that she will be able to appreciate not just this summer, but as years go by. I have long promised to read to her, and this book in particular deserves to be read aloud; we have simply not had the opportunity to sit together and read the book before. Additionally, I am making use of software and technology that I have long been interested in, and I have already learned quite a bit about how to manipulate audio digitally to get it to behave the way you want it to. Heck, I love The Princess Bride. I’ve read it many times before, and in order to do this, I have to hear every chapter no less than twice, often three times. I am not getting sick of it; it is well written, and I am loving the story while picking up William Goldman’s writing style a little more.

Of course, picking up and thinking about the writing style of a well-known, widely published and appreciated author is one thing. Actually beginning to write is another. I am trying to create an interface that will make it as easy to write a page or a chapter or whatever of a book I would like to write, as it is for me to post here. In fact, for those of you familiar with my monkey-related religion, you know where it will be kept. I’ve even already set up the visual style of the thing. I’ve just got to configure the back end now to work more easily with writing a single, coherent work of fiction.

I like the idea that it will be there for me (or the people I invite to look at it) to give me feedback about whenever something occurs to me. Not limited by the width of the margin for making notes, I can go back to a particular passage or page and make comments forever, re-writing as I see fit. (I hope. Traditionally when I write, by the time the words reach the first draft, they are the final draft. I realize that this is not really the best way for most people to write, and I would like to see if I can benefit from this weird “re-writing” thing that everyone seems so fond of.

A week or two ago, Iain said that He was going to Fry’s electronics and asked if I would like to go along. The normal answer for this is yes, but I am always interested to know what Iain is going for, so I asked him. He said he was interested in picking up a copy of Quicken so that he can keep track of his budget easier. So, since I’d been designing spreadsheets and coming up with intricate plans involving whiteboards and cork-boards to try to get myself organized and get all my financial information into one place, so I can see where my money is going and what I can afford (especially with the increased upcoming expense of living alone), I did a little research about Quicken and its competitors. Since its competitors basically comes down to a Microsoft product, and because Quicken does everything I need and some stuff I’d like to learn to do (that being the business side of the program), I decided to pick up a copy of Quicken 2001 for Mac.

When Iain and I went to Fry’s, I picked up Quicken and he decided not to. Whatever. I installed it and tried to get it to automatically get my account information online, with varied success. Actually, the software on my laptop doesn’t seem to be able to get ANY information over the internet, whereas the companion website (which is supposed to integrate with all the information I put into my local copy of quicken, but I can’t seem to get that to work yet either) quicken.com is at least able to get all of the information about my Discover Card account. Not that it can share it with my Quicken software, but I’m sure that if I can figure out how to get the help files installed I’ll be good to go in no time.

So, I spent all afternoon today manually entering information about all my various accounts and all the transactions and interactions between all the accounts between about mid-February and the present (I’ll keep entering data pre-Feb as time goes on. With some of my accounts there is no way for me to have complete historical data, but with others I will be able to show every transaction from day one. Mostly my recent loans.) and it all seems to work pretty well. The more data I have already entered, the easier it is to enter more data. The more closely I follow the guidelines for how to use the various fields, the more information I can get about my accounts, and the more tightly they integrate. It seems to be quite a powerful program, with thousands of features I hope to learn about over time. Again with me, it is all about ease of use. Because it is easy for me to post here at any time from basically any location, I am more likely to do so and for it to occur to me to do so. The same with accounting; if it’s easy, I’ll do it.

When I started typing this, it was just after midnight and I was a little hungry, and I thought the title “Midnight Snack” was cute and appropriate, since I though I would basically be giving you a little something to chew on. Who know what it’s turning out to be,though. My mind is getting pretty drowsy. I was up a little extra late last night (definitely not regretting that) so it thinks it should get the chance to sleep. As far as I’m concerned it can just fuck itself to hell for all I care. It didn’t respond appropriately to Caffeine. I didn’t get a chance to go back to the grocery store to pick up more dMD, so i accidentally quit caffeine again on saturday. I actually complained on Sunday and Monday about not getting any ill side effects. Then again, when I got up to consuming 3 times the dose considered an overdose without even getting jittery, and still wanting to sleep eight to twelve hours a night, I was complaining about that, too. I guess my body just forgot what caffeine was after not seeing it for so long. Oh well. I guess that will save me some money.

But it means that I have to decide to sleep less and be more active without the use of drugs. Fine, I can do that, obviously. I think sticking to it is the hard part. Like, some people who are aware of my mild cyclothymia (like bi-polar disorder, except it is the difference between a square wave and a sine wave) thought that I have been on the “Up” part of the roller-coaster lately. Nope. Been melancholy lately. Really down in the dumps. Trouble coming up with motivation, feelings of desperation, feelings of loneliness and isolation; all that fun stuff. I just don’t let it stop me from continuing to live my life. I figure that if the preferred method is to be happy and live your life at the same time, then being depressed and living your life shouldn’t be any more difficult. (Yes, I realize most people who just live their lives aren’t as happy as the depressed are sad, but you get the idea I’m trying to get across, right? Feelings should be a part of life, not instead of life.)

Okay, obviously getting a little too wacky in the head there. I guess this is where we part ways for a little while. Looks like my stomach has found a way to digest its own liner, so I should be able to make it until morning. Unless you stop by with a Burrito. I’ll get up for a delicious burrito.

Mmmmm…. Burrito….

Not close enough!

Damn Taco Bell. Damn to Hell.