None of the vices/alterations work anymore and it is annoying. Sleep deprivation is impossible to handle, and incessant wakefulness is unpleasant. Any weed I've had my hands on lately gives me anxiety, and the few times it hasn't, I'm like, "Well, that was unnecessary." What the fuck? I love that shit. In the past, if I had it, I'd smoke it anyway, and now I have some that's mostly just been sitting there for months. That's not a bad change of behavior, I'm just pointing stuff out. I've never truly been a drinker, though there have been short periods of more consumption here and there, but that one almost has an automatic shutoff - if I merely witness someone out of control, then I'm on prohibition for awhile. In the last couple years I had some unfortunate incidents, friendly relationships amplified and shredded by the stuff, and I've watched adjacent people try to quit and fail, babysat one friend the morning before she went into detox, had another friend celebrate a year sober after partaking during a party at my house... so maybe those things combined have resulted in my response to alcohol in the last year or so. Either I'm uninterested, it gives me a headache/sleepiness, or it completely backfires on me. There have been few occasions where I've been "successful," and I've started keeping track of drinks, on paper, if it's an occasion where I will have more than one. Because I have a low tolerance now, and I've never known what time is.

I'm still smoking cigarettes, but I'm less interested in those too. Perhaps the cold helps (both the temperature and this never ending public-induced sickness, luckily today I finally went to the doctor, though I had to miss an event I was very much looking forward to in order to do it) but I have days where I don't smoke at all, and in general I'm just... not interested. I think I've had one today, maybe two? And now I want one because I'm talking about it, but I otherwise haven't thought about it. This is absolutely a good thing, but it is definitely unusual.

I can also note that I'm feeling a non-purposeful drawback from meats, specifically the red stuff. Y'all, I fucking love cheeseburgers, okay? Up until recently, I would have eaten them every day, and now, out of nowhere, I'm like, nah, I'm good?

I guess none of this is stuff that inherently warrants a complaint, but what the fuck is up? What are these changes, and who is making them? I still hate working, so gosh, at least some of my nonsense remains...

But I also kind of don't know what to do with myself. I'm beyond missing weed, and onto missing the desire to do it, which feels. weird... except for the part where it makes sense, because it was not all recreational. I'm mad about sleep deprivation, but mostly because it means I'm unable to function when I legit can't sleep. If I decide I want to make a kid with my body (because that's a thing I guess I've decided I need to decide, now that I'm nearly heckin' thirty-seven), I don't know what I'll do about the part where they keep you awake for years. (Rely on somebody? I guess?) I digress. I'm mad. I don't especially care about alcohol, except it's nice sometimes to enjoy a cup of something I couldn't really appreciate until I aged. And I usually don't mind, but it can be annoying to be around people who are intoxicated when I'm not.

"I'm boring now" hasn't crossed my mind in a long time. "I'm better now" isn't appropriate because, if I'm being perfectly honest with myself, the things I have done have never been that bad, and the amount of guilt or shame I've felt over them has been entirely disproportionate.

The point is, I don't know what to do with myself. In the moments I want to "relax, let go, have fun." In the moments I need to get out of my mind, or into it - that is an issue, that I have falsely equated creativity with some of these things. And I definitely don't know what to do with myself in the moments I'm looking for some kind of... I don't know what to call it. Comfort? Catharsis? You could say self-destruction, and if you did, that could sum it all up, but I don't know if that's correct. It could be. Or that could be a cultivated attraction to guilt or shame. Maybe you'd be right about that.

I just don't know, I say!

In other news, my social separations, while they are not without some pain, are continuing in an agreeable way. It is time to review, set straight, and renew.