mishmosh of books, records and meat

Sandra Singh Loh, Depth Takes a Holiday

The Information is going very slowly.  It's very well written, but I lost interest about a week ago, and now I'm having a hard time picking it back up.  I seem to have a total lack of empathy for Martin Amis' characters, and I think this makes some of his books less appealing to me.  Sometimes, they can survive on plot alone.  I read Money, but I didn't really enjoy it.  I did, however, enjoy London Fields and The Rachel Papers.  This is only a 50% hit rate, and this is my second crack at The Information.

I should really go to bed. I said this just now on IRC, and Fedward reflected that he didn't think anyone looked at clocks at GiantMediaCo.  I'm not especially worried about my management. These are my personal standards here.

It's now 10:52.  I've been here for about 30 minutes. If I could just hoist myself out of bed 15 minutes earlier, I could get here by 10:00 and not be annoyed with myself.  Am I lazy or what?  Of course, none of my coworkers are here either, and since I went back up and edited that other paragraph, it's now 11:00.

I'm having a crisis of faith with the vegetarian thing.  I had one back in April or March, and while it's nature was similar, I'm more serious about it this time.  

Whether it's a good thing or not and whether or not it's the right thing, we eat out a lot.  With the exception of breakfast, I don't cook anything in Reston any more, really.  I prepare everything we eat on the weekends, which is normal, I guess, but virtually nothing we eat during the work week.

If I eat as many carbs as Tino[2], I gain weight, but if I limit my carbs, I can eat all the fat I want and not gain weight.  Since fat is more dense, I eat less in general, I think.  This means that when we do eat out, my choices are extremely limited.  I love tofu and fake meat, but restaurants aren't very big on that sort of thing.  You find it at veggie restaurants, yeah, but good ones are few and far between.

If you put these two factors together, we either have a fat Nicole or a chronically pissed of Nicole.  As neither of these things are desirable, I've decided to go ahead and eat meat.  I have to wade first before I dive in.  First, I probably lack the enzymes to digest meat(though with the fish already in my diet, maybe not), and second, I'm just not that excited about it.  I'm afraid to just eat a cheeseburger.  I'm not really sure why.  I certainly have the opportunity.  I even tried a bratwurst on my birthday.  The first bite was good, but the second tasted of liver and set me back a bit.

I never got to the point (in my vegetarianism) where I thought meat was disgusting.  This is not to say that I don't find some meats disgusting, but I found them gross before I quit eating meat in general.  My plan is this:  where there's a good veggie (or fin fish) choice, I'll eat that.  Where there is no good veggie choice, I'll go for the meat choice.  That hasn't happened yet, but I suppose it could happen any day.  I want my first step on the slippery slope to be a firm one though -- it's going to have to be something good and something I really want.

I think I'm going to attempt a redesign.  God help us all, eh?