So, the vegetarian experiment goes on. As it progresses, so does the strange non-meat meat products. The other day, my husband decided to try to no-meat bacon. I couldn't eat any because it was made with some rice and other stuff. Also I couldn't eat it based on the principle of the matter.

Anyway, he cooked up this "bacon".

You know those Beggin' Strips you feed to dogs? I'm pretty sure those would be an improvement over this stuff.

This product was apparently created by someone who had never eaten bacon, cooked bacon, much less seen bacon. It was wrong on levels I cannot even begin to describe to you. It was supposed to crisp up- but… well it just didn't. It was supposed to smell like bacon, but it smelled more like chopped up hippie.

We fed it to the dog.

She loved it.

There have been other fake meat products that haven't been so bad. In all honesty, I have grown rather fond of seitan products. Seitan is basically just wheat gluten. But, it has a decent texture to replace meat in various dishes where the flavor comes mostly from the spices anyway. Like burritos, sloppy joes, stir fry. The Boca brand products are probably the best, but the Morning Star ones are not terrible either. I don't know what I would do without cheese and milk, but the fake meat products seem to be a decent replacement for a good many things.

Still, for lunch today I had an all beef hotdog.

I have been reading a lot lately. I've been getting books in pdf or word format and reading them almost compulsively. I downloaded a pack of like a thousand Fantasy and Sci-Fi books. Sadly, I don't really care for fantasy or sci-fi books. Luckily, when I read it doesn't really matter all that much to me so long as I'm at least mildly entertained by it within the first chapter.

Though, honestly, I can't tell you how many of these books I've opened, read two pages and then closed again just saying, "no". I have read a couple that have entertained me- I read through the Incarnations Series by Peirce Anthony in a couple of days and I was amused by them. The idea of being an incarnation as described in those books was amusing. I was trying to think which one I would want to be. Initially, I would say Satan- but really, probably not. I think being Chronos would be entertaining. Living backwards from the end of your life to the beginning would be fabulous. War wouldn't be bad either- or Death. Even one of the Fates would be interesting.

I also read through Orson Scott Card's Alvin the Maker series and am currently re-reading Ender's Saga. I've read other Peirce Anthony series, Stephen King's Dark Tower, Laurell Hamilton's Anita Blake and Meredith Gentry series, countless Star Trek Books, The Foundation series, and on and on. I've been reading between 500 and 1000 pages a day. Seriously. And I can honestly say, most of what I have read is utter and complete crap. I think I need to find a compilation of bad horror novels to read. I've always been semi-partial to those on the entertainment scale of mind popcorn reading.

Now, don't get me wrong. Not everything I've read has been garbage. I've gone through classics as well. I think today I will read Rosemary's Baby and then follow it up with Siddhartha and maybe start Ulysses (yes, I know, there are some classics I still haven't read- sad isn't it). Or maybe I'll read something completely mindless like the Dresden Files. I don't know yet. I really don't, all I know is that my mind will absorb some book because it must.

I don't know if reading is an obsession or not, but I think it is quickly becoming a compulsion. If I don't read at least a book every day, I feel empty.

I have also been writing a lot. Not here obviously- but I have started roleplaying again on Play By Web and I write there a lot. I also have started MUDding with some old school mudding buddies on the game they have recently put together and I have been writing (and building) for that. While I read a book a day, I also find myself writing between 5 and 15 pages a day of uselessness. Most of the stuff I write will never even see the light of day.

Ah well.

An inactive brain is a dead brain. (I think this is where I do some sort of Reading Rainbow thing and burst into song and become a very colorful butterfly while frolicking with Levar Burton in a magnificent library.)

So, I am in the process of moving. I hate moving. I hate it so very much.

This moving however, does not contribute at all to me not writing. I haven't been writing here out of sheer laziness and apathy. Perhaps even a little bit of ennui as well- though mostly laziness. And you know what? I don't give a fuck.

Anyway.

There is a lady at work who was diagnosed with cancer. She is doing the radiation and chemo therapy and still she comes to work. It got me to thinking, if I was diagnosed with cancer, would I really want to come to work? Seriously.

I want to think that I would have better things to do with my life at that point. I'd like to think I would take an extended medical leave (so I could still have health benefits) and I would go out and do the things that I always wanted to. I'd like to think that I would have some epiphany and I wouldn't waste my days at work.

But honestly, I don't know if I could handle being at work knowing I had cancer. I think it would somehow drive my very day, it would consume me. I don't think I would be able to focus on much else. Between the chemo and the radiation I would feel like ass which would make work even more miserable than it already is with me being a perfectly healthy individual.

I want to think that having some horrible disease wouldn't change me and how I think- but I know that that is a lie. It would change me because I would have to think about that disease. I wouldn't be able to avoid it. I don't know if that makes sense or not.

I think it would be like having a paper cut or a hangnail. When you have them, they constantly annoy you and bother you and you think about it because it is there, agitating you constantly. Only, instead of healing over in a couple days, it would persist.

When I think about such things, I don't really think about death or my own mortality. To be totally honest, I'm just not bothered by things like that. I know I'm going to die and I accept that. I don't care about it- but with a disease, I think about how it would diminish my life. How it would change and effect me, how it would take away the things I love to do. About how my routine would change. I think about how I would want to change myself.

I am almost positive that if I was ever diagnosed with cancer, I would not spend my entire time in chemo therapy and radiation going to work. I think I would take that long term disability and I would not let myself waste away in my grey walled cubicle feeling twice as miserable for myself. I'm not making much sense and what I think is rather hard to put into the proper words. That annoys me.

Million Blogs- I am number 1493. Thanks to Binary Blonde for pointing this out. Amusing. I don't think it will take long to get 1,000,000 blogs listed. I suppose it depends on if the "big" blogs advertise it or not. My pitiful readership should get in like 1- maybe 2 people. But then again, I'm not a blog troller. I don't leave comments unless I actually have something to say which means I am a silent reader at most blogs. And thus, not one comes back to read mine.

Which is fine.

I would probably hate them anyway.

It is Saturday.

I am sure most people are aware that Saturdays are the weekend. For those of us in salary jobs usually this means a time of rest and relaxation away from the grey walls of our cubicle. It means spending all day in your PJ's and lounging around doing nothing- maybe popping off to see a movie or get a little shopping done.

I thought I would go see Iron Man or Speed Racer this weekend. Maybe Forbidden Kingdom- I'm always up for some shiny Flying Kung Fu fabulousness. But no, instead I find myself here, in my all too familiar grey cube.

There is no flying kung fu here- though, I am certain the cubicle ninjas are lingering about, trying to suck the one remaining joy out my being here. There is no Mach 5 or Racer X. There is no asshole trying to thwart my plots to take over the world while flying about in a red and yellow suit- no wait, strike that last one.

No matter- just to thwart people- I decided to spend all day in my PJ's anyway.

The cubicle ninjas and I have been having a head to head today. The tea supplies are dangerously low. Things have been vanishing from the fridge. And, to top it off, work keep magically appearing on my desk every time I step away for a minute. I walk away to give something to the head of QA, I get back and there it is- more work sitting on my desk. Not specifically on my desk, but rather on my chair left there to thwart me. I approach all work left on my chair as if it were a bomb, placed there and laying in wait like a land mine ready to blow up should I even jostle it slightly.

I think this Saturday of work the cubicle ninjas have been working especially hard to thwart me. On Friday I was impervious to them because of my pirate shirt. So, they had to do something to get me in on Saturday without my banner of protection.

It is all making sense now.