what lunch can tell you about a person

well, i've sacrificed ideals again. had a cheddar-dog for lunch. i'm drunk on a monday afternoon. the dog hasn't been walked and i've got homework i haven't done.

it wasn't a new years' resolution that brought me back around to ideals. it was the break. christmas break lasts a few weeks. i thought with the extra time i could think a bit more. and it fell over a "first-of-the-month." firsts are always good for new beginnings. instead, i've drank a bit more. i have a plan. we'll see if it ever gets implemented.

i don't want to eat flesh. i didn't for awhile. then things went awry. i deviated from the diet. i left the path. why?

hmm.

last year around this time - or was it two years ago? - i think it may have been two, actually, anyway - i had to leave minot for awhile. things were too rough for me. then i left and things were a little less rough in the abstract and a little more rough in the concrete. it was hard for me to face all of the talk - the rhetoric - when i didn't have a dime in my pocket and food was being given away and the food was meaty.

it was tough to deal with all of the questions. i was my biggest critic - and i've still got questions - how does a leftist reconcile his advocation for sentient beings with a workers' struggle that is at least partly composed of dealing with the meats industry? in the event that what you hold to be our only humane future - an absence of meat and animal byproducts - is to pass - where and what will have happened? nothing i've read maps out the future; it only criticizes our present. hypocrisies abound. i dunno.

i used to live by a sort of "platinum rule" - do unto others as you would wish they would do unto you. error on the side of good. and i think i may be gravitating back towards that. sure, the questions aren't answered for me, but does that mean i should participate apathetically in the slaughter of beings who, however speculatively, may share my emotions and dreams?

well, the cheddar dog. jaz bought 'em - i'd said i wanted to be vegan for a month. she still brought the shit around, trying to help. i think she'd thought i meant just no dairy (it gives me, and about 30-50 million other americans the badness) - but i still don't get the purchase. maybe she thought it was minimal cheese? it is one of my favorites. anyway, i just eat it. and a month is nothing. i should be able to do this. i used to do this shit for a long time. in fact, when i asked josh plogue about it all and he'd said, "i've been vegan three times." i didn't know what he was talking about. really? he'd fallen off?

at the time i was new to it and a would-be martyr for it. how could he have changed?

well, now i think i get it. some convictions can't hold and while you're busy dealing with the realistic the idealistic takes backseat. my real problems are family and friends and insecure-chips-on-the-shoulder - what can i do?

i'm also trying not to drink (strike against me right now) and smoke (if i could break this without buying a pack, i would).

but none of it's working much. i'm tired and lazy and things are hard. not harder than other people have it - far from - so fuck you and your guilt-giving. i understand where i'm at. it's not a hard life, but i don't deal well regardless of this evidence of leisure.

what to do? i cannot justify my diet. i cannot justify my vices. in fact, i know better. i know that for the fight a clear-headedness is important. i'm an avid fan of proactive living. i'm an activist of sorts.

but goddamn does it feel nice to just lay around and drink and smoke and eat some pizza.

how to reverse the cycle?