Friday, January 21, 2000

I am in a temporal anomaly. It's Friday, I mentally know that, but physically, it feels like any other day. This is striking me as odd, because any other day, save Saturday, does not hold the promise of staying up so late that the sun is rising as you hit the sheets, and then waking up a couple of hours before the sun sets. Knowing this, my body should believe what my mind tells it: this is Friday evening. In fact, it's the first Friday evening of the semester. This is where further disorientation sets in: although I've only been here for a week, it feels like it has been much longer.

I am also out of touch. I completely forgot about the lunar eclipse last night. I'm not extremely heartbroken about missing it, but it would have been nice to see. I had to settle for the description contained within the news copy I was reading on WAIH this morning. It's just not the same.

I really think I should stop eating. No, I'm not suddenly convinced that I'm fat and I need to diet or some other shit like that, I'm referring to the effect eating has had on my digestive system as of late. I'm omnivorous, but to look at my diet, you'd believe that I'm carnivorous. I like meat, and I generally leave a cutting remark to anyone who gives me shit about "the immorality of eating animals."

Since going to college though, I've encountered food with an excessive amount of fat and grease. While this didn't leave me with "the freshman fifteen" (or even the "sophomore sixty" at this point), it did course through my digestive system with a vengeance. About five or six times a week, I eat a meal, and feel sick afterwards. This isn't nausea in the least, but a varying degree of abdominal cramping that usually lasts for about half an hour then subsides. Still, it's not exactly a pleasant half-hour, especially if one has a class to sit through right after a meal.

I know what I have to do: cut back on meat and greasy foods. The glitch comes in the actual practice of doing this. I haven't the time to be picky about what I eat. I also, actually like the taste of these foods, which leaves me at a further disadvantage. I suppose I could continue suffering, and just stop bitching about it, but I'd rather not suffer any more than I have to (I prefer my suffering to be caused by things more worthy of my pain than a fatty entrée). I'll simply have to find a suitable compromise between my time limits, taste buds and my body's griping.

I imagine that some are still hating me from two paragraphs ago because I evaded gaining weight when entering college. The fact is that is all a matter of genetics. The combination of my mother's and father's sides of the family left a DNA legacy where the males are generally gaunt (like yours truly) and the females are more rounded. Of course, the same genetics that make me thin also leave me with a spinal curvature, and the potentials for mental illness, malignant melanoma, diabetes and a few other nasties.

Even if I'm not completely healthy, my computer is. I finally hooked up the printer I got for Christmas, and it works perfectly. No more "over the network" printing for me! I can make photo-quality color prints now, in the comfort...well, in my own dorm room. So, the burning question remains "What was printed first with this marvelous new machine?" Well, when you first enter The Project, you are greeted by Tina The Troubled Teen, among other things. I have a habit of saving her image file whenever she says something that particularly catches my eye, and I decided to print one of those files. I now have a picture of Tina posted on my door saying, "Why must love hurt so much? Not that I'd know." Awww...