I think I have figured out what is up with my appetite disappearing, and for once it’s not something with dire implications for my current and future healh.
It’s these sunflower seeds I have been eating. Well, pumpkin seeds, technically.
They are more or less interchangeable because they taste exactly the same. When I got myself a bag of Spitz brand sunflower seeds, I assumed they would be something new and different.
Nope. They look different – for some reason the shells are a kind of bleached bone off-white, for one thing – and the seed inside is bigger, but flavour wise it’s the same deal.
And the thing is, I know for a fact that it doesn’t have to be that way. When I was a kid, part of our Halloween tradition was to roast the seeds from the pumpkin we’d just eviscerated to make our jack o’lantern.
That’s the sort of wholesome, natural homecrafty type stuff we did in the Seventies.
And so I remember what they tastes like, and they did not taste like sunflower seeds. They tasted much nuttier and a bit like pumpkin, unsurprisingly.
So I can only assume that the people at Spitz had a meeting like this :
CEO : Any more new business?
Exec : Well there is this one last thing…. we are thinking about adding pumpkin seeds.
A few moments of silence.
CEO : That’s brilliant! Do it immediately…
Exec : Wow, okay, fantastic, I’ll tell the…
CEO : BUT ONLY IF THEY TASTE EXACTLY LIKE SUNFLOWER SEEDS!
Exec : What? No… the whole point is to offer something different…..
CEO : DIFFERENT? Look, buddy, we’re Spitz. We do one thing and one thing only : we sell sunflower seeds. The last thing we want to do is surprise people. So go ahead and sell your crazy pumpkin seeds….
Exec : But only if they taste exactly like sunflower seeds.
CEO : Exactly. Glad we understand one another.
Exec : Can we at least make them a weird off-white color?
CEO : Uh sure. Knock yourself out
Exec (to the camera) ) That’s all I really wanted, anyway.
Or something like that.
I like the whatever kind of seeds because they are the perfect grazing food. You get a hell of a lot of them for your money and they are impossible to eat quickly because you have to get them out of the shell first.
And I got them specifically so that I would have something to graze on in order to keep the demon hunger at bay.
Guess it did that job a little too well,
So I will have to cut back a touch. Maybe cut myself off an hour before the time I intend to eat. Something like that.
Or just get used to not being ravenously hungry when meal time rolls around.
Whatever. I will work it out somehow. I want to keep eating them because it’s been so nice not being ravenous all the damned time, but skipping meals because my appetite didn’t show up for work is Bad.
I am sure a reasonable compromise can be made.
More after the break.
Until I stood up, part deux
Once more, I was fine until I stood up.
This time, I was in the car as we held yet another McDonald’s Parking Lot summit and when Felicity asked if we would be doing randomage at 11pm tonight.
Translated : would I be too sick to watch stuff and have to rest until midnight in order to be able to watch stuff then, like last time?: Or would I be okay?
“I’m fine!” I said breezily. After all, I felt fine. What could possibly go wrong?
Standing up, for one. When I got out of the car to get some stuff at 7-11, I immediately got all dizzy and nauseous and tired again.
So right now, I feel like I just spend a hard night on rough seas. Every time I move my head, stuff sloshes around in there and spins me right round, baby, right round.
Like a record player. Round, round, round, round.
And I am getting weird random pains all through my body. Which is no fun. It’s like I am being tortured by a torturer who is small and weak but very capricious.
It all makes me want to turn the lights out and take a nap. Hide from this uncomfortable reality in sleep and hope that by the time I wake up, things will have settled down inside my head and I can go back to totally ignoring my serious health issues.
I mean…priorities.
I know I have a ton of serious issues. The slow destruction of my nervous and circulatory systems by diabetes and sleep apnea for one. Whatever this crap that keeps forming on my scalp is would be another example. I smother in my sleep, I get so little physical activity I am now filed under geology, my mental and emotional states are so unstable it’s a wonder I can find reality in the phone book, and I often feel terrible psychological pain as well.
I am not healthy. I am likely in terrible peril. This should goad me into swift action. Scare me into taking care of myself. Chase me to the hospital or whatever.
But what should be unleashing a roaring lion of determined action onlike produces the sigh of a very small ghost.
Even the thought of Future Me cursing me for a fool for not taking care of myself now and ensuring his life sucks hard does not motivate me much.
Because my biggest health issue is depression, and it blocks all motivation from leading to action no matter how good the reason might be.
I mean,I suppose if there was a runaway train heading toward me I would probably get out of the way.
I might even get scared by it in the process, and feel a genuine adrenaline surge.
But if it;s anything more abstract, I will continue to do sweet fuck all to prevent the disaster clearly heading my way.
Depression doesn’t kill you.
It makes you kill yourself.
And sometimes it takes its sweet time in doing so.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow,