I will be thanking you very much for not putting vegetables in my digestive tract

So, I know I’m still slacking on the blog. I even submitted an old post from the cove to FTTW for Tuesday’s column. This course has me up to my neck in the one thing on god’s green earth that I just cannot figure out-MATH-O-MATICS. It doesn’t help that I also HATE anything that is so cut-and-dried. You know, only right or wrong. I need a little wiggle room once in a while and math just doesn’t allow it, so it sucks in my book. (Sorry Wendy) The opposite of that is ironic in the extreme. How I apply all this math to effect the results I am looking for, is so totally an art form as to be also beyond my reach. I am not an artist, and lack the creativity, or perhaps the “feel” of things to be able to paint a work of art with the rigid brush that is math. I fall in the middle and flail around a lot at both ends of the spectrum. OK, unless you’re a geophysicist, that probably makes no sense to you, so suffice to say I kind of suck at what I’m trying to learn. That is not to say I suck at my job, just all the theory and mumbo-jumbo behind it. I make up for the lack of brain cells by working my ass off, most of the time.

In another area that I’m not doing so hot in; I’ve been trying to shed a few pounds. My latest gig at sea has me sitting at a computer for 12hrs/day, exclusively. No hauling gear around, working in the small boats and the kind of things that require a person to stand up; other than to eat, or replace the I.V. bag of coffee that keeps me alive for five weeks at a time. This has caused a sort of love-hate relationship with things like the small package of Dolly Donut Gems (430 calories) to my immediate left; sitting here taunting me. It has also caused me to wonder how vegetarians survive in the long term as well as deal with the day-to-day issues.

During the past week, I have managed to survive on; yogurt, spinach salad, raw vegetables, popcorn, fruit and water. It has not been pleasant, in every aspect. For instance; when a vegan travels, do they just starve, hoping to make it home? You can’t find much in the way of veggies at fast-food joints and chain restaurants. Worse, um, this whole veggie thing is having some disturbing effects on my, um, digestive tract. Vegetariots can’t walk around like this day in and day out. No freaking way.

The last 2 nights I have broken down and feasted on a bit of meat and other goodies. Friday night, after a particularly rough day of lecture and testing, I went out with a fellow inmate from India, for dinner and a beer. We devoured mostly veggies, beans and rice as he just happened to be a life-long vegecrat, but I snuck in a small amount of animal flesh-just enough to sooth my aching soul. Not enough to sooth my aching digestive track, however.

On a side note, we had a great, if difficult to follow, conversation on culture and society and the differences/similarities of our two nations. You ever play that sort of gambling/drinking game that involves stretching a napkin over a glass, putting a quarter in the middle and burning holes the napkin with the tip of a cigarette? No? Well I did and they do in India, too, "Let me tell you, you would not be believing it, my friend..."


Anyway, that, laundry and Jack in the Box have been the sum total of my existence outside of hardcore geophysics, lately and Jack is a post all by himself, the freaky bastard.