So, i haven’t hung out with a single person in about 26 days. I’ve had a few chance encounters with a couple of strangers out in public places, but that’s only amounted to maybe an hour of conversation before we parted ways, and never spoke to eachother again. I’ve tried to talk to friends to see if they were interested in doing anything, but they’re all busy.

About 4 weeks ago I decided to stop smoking marijuana by myself. It’s come to the point where it’s just a bad habbit, it’s not doing anything for me, if anything it just makes me feel less stable. I’ll still smoke with other people if they’re interested, and I am more comfortable smoking with other people, I just don’t see the joy in smoking by myself.

About 2 weeks ago, I became a vegetarian, with most of my home-made meals being strictly vegan. I can’t really be a full-time vegan, because it’s next to impossible to eat takeout food whilst living on a vegan diet, and working 12 hours per day, I don’t have enough time to prepare a vegan meals after or before work.

It’s hard to trust restaurants to be honest about being vegan. Vegetarian, that’s pretty easy, because you can see meat. However, it’s the dairy products that you need to watch out for. I don’t know enough about cheese to tell if something is soy cheese, or normal cheese. I always hated cheese growing up, and i don’t even see why i’m eating cheese now. I guess it’s kind of good, but I think my main motivation is to just eat as much as I can, because my meals are so spread out.

There’s a restaurant in Chicago called Leona’s which serves what they call a “big fat vegan burger”. If you google around for it, you’ll find a lot of people claiming that the restaurant’s preperation of it isn’t properly vegan, and does in fact contain several dairy-based ingredients.

Why veganism? Well, there are two reasons. First, I’ve been wanting to change my diet around, and stop eating so much junk food. As a vegan, I’ve managed to do that. Second, I’ve been a proponent of animal rights for a while, and always felt the dependency certain people have on the meat & dairy industries was unnecessary, and dietarily irresponsible.

A couple of people told me “God put animals on the planet for you to eat!!”, and I find that to be the most absurd statement I’ve ever heard. Our lives are not more important than the lives of animals. They have just as much of a right to life as you or I, and just because the animal community hasn’t built skyscrapers, and made trillions of dollars selling services & products to other members of the animal community doesn’t mean you are more important than a cow. Of course, the cow does have a slower brain, and more limited capabilities in life, but so do the mentally challenged members the human race. You aren’t processing their carcasses through slaughter houses, and serving them with ketchup and mustard, are you?

I understand that not many people can live on vegan diets, or don’t have interest in doing it themselves. I won’t go out and paint their homes red, and i’ll happily eat my vegetarian/vegan whatever while sitting at a table with them. I just get bothered when people go out of their way to yell at me for not eating animals.

Last week I bought a bike, and rode on the September critical mass ride. The ride ended somewhere around Wilson street, on the far north side. Riding back south to 33rd was remarkably quick, and didn’t take any more than 1.5 hours, with a 10 minute stop in at whole foods on the way back home.

So, most of my motivation this past month has been directed towards cooking, and classic rock. I’ve been listening to a lot of Steely Dan, and also Chicago this month. I’ve lost interest in searching for love, friends, and people to provide validation for a sense of self worth. That kind of codependency is bad anyway. It’s best to find it in myself, and continue to work towards a self-sustained sense of self-worth.