I went walking tonight, as I do most every night. I'm sorry I did.

Yesterday I was so proud of myself. I mean, it may not be a lot to a lot of people, but I managed to increase the distance I walked by a half-mile yesterday. I thought this was pretty good -- I felt "the burn," as it were, and all day I've felt a little tight in my legs.

Well, I got out there this evening, and once I had gotten around to about the half-mile mark my legs and lower back were on fire. I would have probably packed it in right then, except for the fact that there was this lake intervening in the space between me and my car. I was pretty-much committed by that point. (Not to mention that it was getting dark, and so I felt as though I was on a Baatanese forced death march to get through before it was totally dark.)

On the way back, especially when I started to attack the final hill, I was starting to wonder if I was going to lose all feeling below my mid-calf. The muscles were stiffening, I wasn't sure if the joints were bending properly, and I started pumping my legs with the muscles in my upper legs almost exclusively, just so I was sure I'd make it back on time.

I was speculating as to what was making me feel this way, feel so tired and worn out. I was wondering if it was because I hadn't had any of my pills yet. No, I wouldn't think that would have anything to do with it.

I had hardly had anything to eat all day at that point, but what I did have was standard fare that Moogie generally fixes, and I fix, too, because she's who I learned to cook from: things made from sugar, flour, meat and various forms of textured animal fat. Yummy.

I wondered if this is why I feel like crap all the time. Maybe I'm getting crappy circulation to my legs, so they're not getting enough oxygen, or maybe my blood is thickened from what I do eat.

I have decided to start eating more healthy things, but it's hard to do that, because Moogie won't. To her, cooking is so-called "comfort food," that's what she learned to cook, that's what everybody in her family ate all her life. If I don't eat it, she feels insulted. Maybe eating "meat and potatoes" is what makes everybody in my family big strapping warrior-sized people or something, but it's probably what gives them all heart disease and cancer a little ways down the road, too.

For example: she made a pork roast and we ate as soon as I got back from walking. She was literally watching at me picking the fat off the pork on my plate, as if it was the strangest thing she'd ever seen.

She is afraid of change. My grandparents reject change at every turn. In fact, they're being dragged kicking and screaming into the 1980s, almost. [grin] I am their tech support for any extreme-tech item they acquire, like, oh, a TV set sans knobs, or a cell phone, or an answering machine. (I'm done for if they ever get a computer.)

Could this be why, my whole life, they've always resisted my interests in science and technology? Why they have always been so hostile to me when I talk about doing something new, or bringing in some piece of equipment, or even when I wanted to go away to school?

Can I be related to Luddites? Are they afraid of change? Of progress, even? Is that why they don't want me to do what I know I need to do?

I hope this isn't the case. This means they're going to end up making my cousins into Luddites, too. I always thought maybe I could instill in them the hacker spirit, surf the waves of change, bust through The Singularity into... whatever lies beyond. But apparently this won't be the case.

I need to dump my family. In the worst way. Just get rid of them. Maybe I feel like crap all the time because I feel like my white trash heritage is holding me down.

restlessmind