These are going to be follow-able resolutions. Next summer, I will make a sincere effort to go to Burning Man. When I get back "home," I'll start going to the gym at least every other day and practicing the guitar a little every other day. While I'm still away I'm going to start a regimen of good eating and I'm going to stick to it when I get back home. That means very few carbohydrates and sugars. And nothing fried. No potato chips. No french fries. No milano cookies. No tootsie rolls. No caramels. No dinners of just rice. I think I'll have to allow pizza in moderation. And sushi rice, in moderation. No bread while waiting for food at restaurants. Just lots of water. No cookies when I'm feeling a bit hungry, I'll have an apple or something instead....

Just came back from dinner. I had some mozzarella and a small bit of salad and then a caeser salad. I feel okay about it, except maybe that I've eaten too much. But I did manage to not eat any bread, which is really an exceptional acheivement. And there aren't any sweets for me to eat in the apartment, so I'll be spared that. A successful day: an apple, a salad, and some mozzarella. And a few pieces of gum might have contributed to that, but that's absolutely allowed if it helps.

It doesn't help that I'm thinking about still more dietary restrictions at the same time.We had planned to go to a restaurant specializing in duck which I had been perfectly fine with. And then I spent the afternoon by myself, sitting by the river. I brought a junky women's magazine with me as a sort of academic study, but when it got too boring I started to watch the swans on the water. And then the ducks that came by. I find birds simply fascinating. I love to watch them eat or swim or walk around. And it suddenly clicked in my head that I couldn't eat this animal that was swimming and quacking in front of me. This may prove to be my vegetarian moment. Let's see how long it lasts, I guess. I might desperately crave meat and give in to it, but I'm not making any pronouncements yet.

This is turning into a properly long blog entry, but I find myself needing it, so I'm okay with blabbering on here. I think I need to re-frame my new regimen. It could be a strictly healthy regime as opposed to a weight-loss regimen. (Notice the use of "could" instead of "should") And I think that's exactly what I'll do. If my body doesn't get slimmer over the course of it getting healthy, then that just isn't what's meant for it right now. And I'll have to get used to that. 

Walking around today I got a few looks that I found unpleasant. Real stares. Probably because my haircut and my clothes along with my breasts screams "dyke!" to anyone I pass. And that may not be very okay here. Of course it's less okay here than where I'm used to. I had an even weirder and more unsettling experience when this guy, sort of dirty, carrying beads like a rosary or those counting beads, brushed by me very deliberately. There was plenty of room to walk on the sidewalk and he stared pointedly  at me while he walked by and even as he went down the street that he was turning down. He sort of bumped against me and it felt like he was trying to make a point. But I tried my best to attribute this discomfort to his personal issues and not anything that I had done wrong.

Every time I have to address that issue, I have a real problem. If it really is just him, then there's very little I can do to stop it happening again. But if it's that I've done something wrong, I can avoid the uncomfortable situation. Personal blame makes room for a pleasant sense of control that is hard to let go of in favor of more objective attribution of blame.

This computer is a pain in the ass because the cursor has a mind of its own and clicks when you haven't done anything or doesn't click when you repetitively press the button. So it likes to select and delete large bits of my text or move the cursor to another part of the screen. But I have more to say that I'll keep for tomorrow. After all, I'll have to come back and report on how the eating went. I am so fucking hungry right now. I just want some bread or some chocolate or some cookies. But I will be strong. I will be healthy. I will finally see if I can lose weight and recover my sex drive. And I will feel so damn proud of myself when I keep this up for an extended period of time. Plus, I wrote about it here, so it's recorded when I started.

At the same time I've been trying to stick to this acne regimen. Once a day I use a cleanser and a toner and a cream. I might think of switching to twice a day soon. There's nothing you can tell so quickly, it hasn't even been a week, but I'll keep it up while I'm away. That'll be all of three weeks, a good beginning. Okay, really to bed now, as hungry as I am.