B12 Flat

Cause the walls start shaking
The earth was quaking
My mind was aching
And we were making it and you

First of all, I didn't proofread this.  So good luck figuring out what I meant to say.

March held a series of disappointments...of the somewhat serious variety.  I actually can't write about them here.  I can tell you that my usual response to these kinds of situations is to do things like make an enormous list of all the things I suddenly need to do, or get a pilots license, or write a song.  Can't do that this time.  Partly because I can't publicly share half of March's stories;  I was supposed to have invented my own super-awesome access-controlled mega blog that is based on a version of mediawiki that has every plugin known to man, including LaTeX, svg, lilypond, and, who knows, lets throw in a plugin for interpreting ancient Egyptian heiroglyphs.  However, nothing in March went to plan.  Like seriously nothing.  Also I have been sick since Sunday.

I started reading some book called "The 7 Habits of..."  shit.  Highly effective people, or something.  Anyway, I was hoping it would help me start being highly effective at getting all 20 things done that I was trying to do at once.  Instead, it started putting me to sleep (literally!  and every time!) by talking about values...stuff like honesty, a trait that I've unsuccessfully been trying to pry out of my personality ever since I heard in a TED Talk that extroverts lie way more than introverts.  Wow.  Maybe this is why I have so few friends here.  I should like...write down everything I plan to say when I'm about to talk to people, just in case there's anything really dumb in there.  Anyway.  So I sped through the boring stuff on "values" in an effort to be effective and get a jump on the next chapter.  Unfortunately, the next chapter was worse.  It instructs the reader to visualize something about their funeral or whatever they wanted their life to be like.  And that is where I stopped.  Because that this point I don't know.  Next I'm going to read Hunger Games, because, just as Harry Potter was the first fantasy book that girls read, Hunger Games is the first science fiction book that girls are reading.  And as a bitter and jaded enthusiast of far, far too many hobbies that girls don't like, I have an extreme interest any time there is a blip that catches their interest.  Sure, Ender's Game may be more important, but if I am chilling in some sports bar, I have a better chance of hearing "Hunger" instead of "Ender" come out of some hot girl's mouth.  So...there's that.  Shit.  I still have not gotten into watching other people play sports.  I need to get that done.  How come no one goes to bars to drink and watch other people write computer code?  It's all the same to me, and I am roughly as interested in watching the one as I am the other.  But, in all of the conversations of my life, any time someone is describing their friend and telling me how he's not a nerd, watching sports is the most common anti-nerd trait that they cite.  That's pretty gay, but I didn't make this world;  I just live in it.  It can't be any sport, though.  Can't be curling.  Or dodgeball.  Or bowling.  It has to be one of the popular boring ones, like football or baseball.  I'm actually a huge fan of women's beach volleyball, but I couldn't name a single player, so we are going to move on to soccer.  So...one of these days, when I'm not busy, I'm going to become a soccer fan.  Oh, actually...I could watch hockey.  I was at a hockey game recently and it was seriously a lot of fun.  I'm not sure Seattle has a hockey team though.  Maybe I should move to Canada.

The good news:  I played in a band.  Not a real band.  Just a couple of guys from work who played instruments like guitar and drums.  It was TEH BEST THING EVAR.  I was unfortunately late to the studio because I had spent all morning learning the songs we had agreed to play that I should have spent all week learning, and then I stopped at McDonalds for 3 cheeseburgers which I scarfed down really fast (and which exited even faster--possibly being the cause of my week-long illness).  However.  Once I arrived and walked inside the hole in the wall and headed back for studio 2, I knew it was awesome.  Everything I know about the world of modern music I've learned from movies, and so far everything was exactly as I suspected, all the way down to hearing the muted drum and bass through the walls.  Then we started playing.  Turns out I had forgotten almost everything I needed, like, you know, a pick, but eventually we did start.  I was playing and singing The Gambler by Kenny Rogers with another guitar on my right and a guy on drums behind me and, briefly, it took all I had to not freak out because I was so excited.  I almost lost it in the middle of the song because the experience was so incredible.

When I first started playing the guitar, I was very conscious about the fact that when I practiced alone I was only playing a fraction of the song; basically one of multiple guitars, no bass, no drums, often not the right vocals either.  As time passed, I didn't feel good enough to play with others.  More time passed, and I couldn't find anyone to play with.  Getting people who wanted to jam with me in Seattle was as difficult as finding Skiing buddies in Philly used to be.  There was a brief blip with the chick I called Hot Lego Girl, but she only wanted to sing gay songs by people like John Mayor and all she did was vocals, so we still lacked most of the band.

This time though...feeling the drums come in behing me...holy shit, people.  Holy shit.  This was the thing I've been missing for a very long time.  I knew immediately that I didn't care who or how:  I had to have more of this.  Then I started forgetting lyrics and concentrated on the song again.  We weren't amazing.  I was the weakest link, but I've been practicing (as much as I can despite being ridiculously sick).  I wish I had discovered this earlier.

Anyway, I've just spent 4 days watching 2 seasons of Tru Blood (long story), way too much Family Guy, and a tad bit of scrubs and a documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead.

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead was mostly stuff I already knew.  The one incredibly and amazingly super-vital information was when someone asked someone else if a puree of fruit/veggie mix left someone feeling full, and that person said yes.  I did not know that liquid food could satiate hunger.  I did know that chugging that gross ass protein shake shit I bought just before running on the treadmill made it really hard not to vomit.  I did not know that anything like that could satiate an appetite.  I have a problem with appetite.

I've been wondering how long I can get away with my current diet, and when its going to affect me, and I've just realized that being tired all the time and getting sick frequently is my diet affecting me.  Not to mention being hungry constantly.  I mean hungry.  Ever since I started going to the gym, I've had dinners like this:  2 waffles, still hungy, a baby carrot, 2 packets of ramen noodles, still hungry...another baby carrot, bowl of oatmeal flavored instant-sugar, and then two more waffles, and then I go to bed hungry.  I'm not even fucking kidding.  I'll watch a documentary or a TED talk about starving kids in Africa, and then reach down and feel my stomach rumble, and then wonder where I went wrong.

What if making liquid fruit/veggie cocktails is the answer?  It seems kind of perfect.  First, I don't have to sort through asshole recipes that claim to be crockpot recipes but then expect you to use a skillet in addition to a crockpot (WTF people?).  Second, I don't have to come home from the supermarket and realize that there is a difference between whole tomatoes and tomato sauce, and that I can't just grab the first red can I see that has the right volume on it.  No.  Everything I need is one section of the supermarket.  How cool is that?  Thirdly, I can make it anythime I want.  Fourhtly, being a liquid that one drinks, it is super easy to deal with leftovers.  It is also easy to transport.  I already have a fridge at work.

Admittedly, fruits and veggies do go bad far too quickly.  In fact, their staying power is piss-poor compared to my benchmark of pop tarts.  However, They do keep for about a week, and if I grind them into a juice, I no longer have to manage the individual expirations ("what am I going to do with these onions?") but instead I only care how long the juice potion will last.  Will this save me money?  Actually, probably not.  But I'd rather have the energy to get one of my side income projects off the ground than keep subsisting on cereal bars, ramen noodles and mexican food.  And waffles and PB&J.  And pasta.  Anyway.

The people in the movie did some kind of all-liquied fast/diet thing.  I'm not doing that.  Here's my plan:

1.  Eat WAYYYYY more carrots.  Only at night though, and when I am home alone*.

1b.  Apples.  Not because I like them, but because they are convenient.  Tomatoes are actually way better, but its kind of a bitch to eat them before they all go bad.  Oh to hell with it.

Starting over:

1.  For dinner, eat carrots, apples, tomatoes.

2.  Start drinking orange juice again.  Seriously I forget why I stopped.  I have no idea.  Experiment with making it fizzy.

3.  Buy a shit ton of Graham Crackers.  This is completely unrelated to the veggie documentary.  I just think it will help stave off the hunger.  Also it has protein and carbs or whatever.  And they keep pretty well...I can probably buy a months worth, and store them at work instead of those breakfast cereal bars that I just made myself sick of.

4.  Buy some fruits and veggies, and a juicer, and choke down one of those disgusting purees.  And then just see where we are.

[Edit]
Parent Conversation Backlog
(how have I never thought of this before???)
1. republican delegate thing
2. sick
3. juicing

[Edit]
Better Lazy Eye tab -- sucks so much less I might actually be able to play the song.

*if you are wondering why I added this condition, go to the store and buy a bag of baby carrots.  Eat the entire bad yourself, and then curl up on the couch with a loved one--preferabbly your wife--for a movie or two.  Even better, right before you go to bed.  Don't ask why.  Don't search the internet.  Just do it.  Be like Wolverine, and leap without thinking.