Work,

and work-related stuff: that's what I've been doing lately. Things will shift a little when I get used to my new job. For now, though, I'm reading a soon-to-be-released book about alternative approaches to cancer prevention, and you wouldn't believe how many fruits and vegetables I've been eating as a result. That, and I'm drinking an awful lot of green tea. And walking approximately four miles a day.

Other than working and doing all that stuff I have to do in order to keep myself alive, I've spent a little time with Matty, who dragged me to the beach last weekend. Thank God! I hadn't been to the beach in about a year and had nearly forgotten what a beach was supposed to look like. I know I shouldn't be this way, but I have a tough time making myself go out and do things if I know I'm going to be doing them alone.

Tomorrow, with any luck, UPS will finally deliver the roller skates I ordered. Even when I'm alone, I think I'll enjoy skating through Golden Gate Park, though I'm sure I'll do some of this with Matty.

Which, I've been having a tough time figuring out the things I can do solo, if I need to be solo. I DO NOT like going to restaurants and bars by myself. There's something so disconcerting about taking sips and bites in public. I guess it's because the public aspect of eating out is supposed to distract me from the private tragedy of ingestion (I find eating, unless if it's done at a party/feast, generally sad and utilitarian), but when I'm alone what's really distracting is the idea that there isn't much distraction from the act of eating: all the chewing, the swallowing, the furtive little fits of choking. In other words, I get distracted by the idea that nobody's providing a distraction, and I see myself all the more glaringly, as if projected on a large screen at the front of the bar or restaurant, as I commit the sad act of inserting morsels of food between my lips. Don't most of us feel slightly self-conscious about eating or drinking in public? So much so, that we're most comfortable when there's this small element of us-as-spectacle while we're eating out? Meaning, we kind of feel better in front of a benign audience, usually meaning a friend or acquiantance or relative? But the thing is, when I'm alone and eating/drinking in public, I'm largely ignored by the public in a way that feels worse than simply being alone in a room with the curtains shut and the door bolted.



When you're all alone, what kinds of things motivate you to get out of your living space? What have you done all by yourself that has resulted in joy? You tell me yours, and I'll tell you mine.