Fiction and Other Truths

The worst thing about having a sugar addiction is that the joy for indulging it is always a potently inferior feeling, when compared to the despair of not having it.

Since banning large quantities sugar from my regular diet, every store is a temptation, every candy bar a grim reminder of what I'm denying myself. And yet, what is this snack I long for? A quick tasty treat, gone in a couple minutes. Brief sugar high, one that occasionally makes me erratic, somewhat shaky, and quick to anger. Occasionally brings a taste of euphoria. Possibly affects my sleep. The list goes on as to why these things are bad for me, why I can't stomach them the way I used to when I was a kid (or hell, were they bad for me even when I was younger?)

The worst part about it is that I've wanted to start cutting back from sugar for a long time. I'd promised myself I'd do it someday, right after feeling mildly dissatisfied with munching on that dollar-seventy-five chocolate thing from the gas station. And yet, this is what's behind all of my promises... this is the intent which now makes me seek out sugar-free gum, or lather expensive apple butter, courtesy of my dear mother, onto my toast. I need to fool my brain into thinking it's indulging itself or it doesn't stop - and even that doesn't work very well.

The knowledge of my family genetics has been like a shadow over me - genetic predisposition to diabetes. The thought that the things I deny myself, the things I desperately want are my, to quote a particularly histrionic song featuring Sting, clanging bells of doom. If I don't control my urges, I will kill myself on these things, or put myself down for medication during and after every meal - a breaking down of my bodily functions curtailed only by the advances of modern medicine.

But that's only an echo in my thoughts, a guilty whisper in my head after I've indulged, and sometimes during. It never occurs when I want the bloody things, which I suppose is the point. Hard to think of those pretty litlte round beans as harmful when their very appearance promotes fun and games and tastiness.

As I speak, I'm drinking green tea for my morning brew - a change from my usual cup, black tea with sugar or honey. I've had to cut both sugar and honey from my diet as much as possible - only get as much as nine cups of sugar a day, which is the maximum amount the male human body can absorb before it begins converting it all into fat. Nine cups, when the average person has about twenty-two cups a day. And I'm only beginning to realize how many products have sugar in them...

I am officially in possession of far too many games. More on that later on. Have to get ready to put on the pretense of making myself look presentable for bicycling in the outside world. Talking of which, this article, linked from the journal of my good friend the Hedonist, has been haunting my brain for some time. Right now, I'm at standard social geek-levels of hygeine, which is to say I let myself deteriorate and catch myself just in time so I do not horrify my roommates and the outside world. What would it take to discipline myself? The worth in trying is unquestionable, but would I miss my casually lazy standards in regards to looking presentable? Would I long for a simpler time when I lazed about in shorts and a t-shirt, unmentionable odors wafting into the ether from my person?

...Actually, that sounds like something I would laugh at in embarrassment in further years ahead. Oh dear.

Signing off.

Ironic that my dear mother's trawling through my old entries at a time when my well of inspiration for writing appears to have dried up.

Today's a bit of a catch up day. Catch up on sleep, catch up on laundry, catch up on returning things, catching up on writing. Get myself back together again. Feeling a little bit bleary-eyed and exhausted as I write this, probably due to sleeping in too much. Also have a horny, molting, anxious parrot to deal with - my penance for staying home most of the day.

My university application is in, finally, finally. Now all I have left to do is exercise, find a trainer, get myself into the form I always wanted to be in before going to GIFTS. Feel better about myself that way. Also square things out with Aikido, get on the level there. Maybe try my hand at writing in actual articles, about stuff I want to write about.

And I have to resolve the fact that I'm putting down four years of my life for this, and ask myself if it's something I'm that passionate about. If I were younger, I'd have said yes, unanimously so, but I wasn't in my twenties around that time. I was connected more with my own inner being, and I've drifted away from it ever since. This really is a truly banal age, to be drifting from the things that made me feel magical.

I just want to keep sleeping, in a way. Just lie down and forget the day, but I can't do that. I can't let myself fall into that again. Have to stay productive, if only to keep myself moving, keep myself active in some fashion. Not become stagnant.

Lost the thread. Signing off.