1/7

Elimination diet is going pretty good. I haven't been "perfect" because there's been some leftover bits to do away with and I don't like food waste. Like, I made pulled pork with the last of a jar of BBQ sauce and we still had enough for a sandwich each, so we polished it off even though the BBQ sauce is not approved. Also we ate the last of the keto frankenbread we've been getting. I've put the loaf ends into the compost pile before and nothing eats it. Not even the slugs. Probably a sign it's not actual food. No more frankenbread.

I've successfully avoided getting a headache so far. One night I got tired of water and I drank half a bottle of gatorade (after looking up the ingredients, but some things weren't listed). A few hours later, I felt the danger signs creep up, blood pressure, neck tensing up, sinuses getting stuffy, more pressure in the ears. Yeah, guess that's bad. Better stick to water.

I think I messed up a little yesterday because I'm not feeling good today. It was gaming night - always tough for food choices. I made greek nachos for everyone, with the tomatoes and such on the side so I could avoid them. I think I messed up with the tzatziki sauce because it is mostly yogurt, and it has lemons. I love tzatziki sauce, but it's not like I had a whole cup of it. I had water only and none of the brownies or beer or extra treats. I'm trying to think what else it could have potentially been - maybe just an overall combo? It feels like a low grade caffeine/dehydration headache, not my normal headache, but I've dosed myself with all the caffeine and water and electrolytes so far and it's still there. Annoying.

--

1/9

Well, the caffeine headache became my normal headache (right side) and torpedoed saturday and sunday. I'm so frustrated. I just laid in bed with a pillow over my head thinking about how much I hate my headaches and what could I have done wrong. Can't sleep. Pain won't stop. Getting stressed out and angry only amplifies the headache, but I could not stop myself from getting in a tizzy. I thought I'd get points for having started the diet and maybe at least it wouldn't be so bad but nope, regular old headache, same as ever. Just eased up this morning.

Words cannot describe how sick I am of these fucking headaches.

I could have had beer and brownie anyway! >:-( (But then I would have laid in bed howling about how foolish that decision was.) I honestly don't know what's worse, having something obvious to point a finger at or not. Is the illusion of being too naughty to control the headaches preferable to knowing the headaches are beyond controlling and I'm just going to suffer no matter what? Ugh.

I promised to give this elimination diet a good 4-6 weeks and I knew I started it possibly too late to make a difference this cycle. Plus I've been transitioning to the diet, not following it to the letter. How fucking perfect do I have to be, though? Oh I am so angry.

I'm going to be more careful about dairy, and I'm going to have to wean myself down to a smaller cup of morning coffee, black. I don't even like the taste of coffee (I like cream & sweetener), but it's more about the morning ritual. I didn't even have a coffee habit until I worked at the tattoo shop and there was a chain coffee shop a few doors down. I'd drop in on my walk from the bus stop and get something to fortify me before I went to see what fresh hell mentor was cooking up. Eventually I figured out how to cold brew my own coffee instead of paying coffee shop prices. Felt like part fancy treat, part battle readiness. I didn't pick up smoking or vaping or whatever, just coffee. Now the idea of giving it up is about as appealing as someone ripping off nice warm bedclothes first thing in the morning. Uncivilized. I can't replace it with tea because tea is off the menu. We're not eating breakfast anymore due to IF. Like, where's my "good morning bribe" if not coffee?

This really sucks and I am frustrated. I thought the new year was starting off on the right foot and this feels like getting curb stomped. I know I shouldn't have got my hopes up.

Why am I such a fucking hothouse orchid with my stupid hormones. I want the "set and forget" model not this balancing act guesswork bullshit. I wish I could pretend I am some kind of finely tuned luxury performance model ("my brain requires premium octane fuel, not that processed swill"), but fuck, I am not, I just have inferior lemon genetics. My meat sack is garbage and I hope after I die spouse dumps it in the sea rather than waste money on cremation. Let the crabs choke on me.

I try to take a step back and think about the positive lessons and give myself patience, "it's okay to be a useless tree" etc, but I'm just so tired of tripping over myself and falling on my face and doing nothing. It feels like failure, failure, failure. Maybe the big lesson is to accept the limitations and learn to pause naturally when the headaches come and seamlessly pick up afterward without the emotional baggage making it worse, but realistically the larger world doesn't let people do that. That just means you're unreliable and should be discarded and replaced. How am I supposed to carve that niche for myself when the standard is 99% uptime and I'm only good for 85%? You have to be especially talented or rich to be worthy of an exception. It just makes a hard task so much harder.

I'm frustrated, and there's not much I can do besides sacrifice my creature comforts and hope for the best.

I have saturn unaspected in leo in the 11th house. Besides supposedly indicating a disconnected father, it can mean problems with discipline and rigidity, because the benefits of saturn are not easily accessible. Unaspected saturn acts like lead boots, dragging down that part of the chart and making it something you really have to work hard to access and integrate, but if you manage to do it, it can be a hidden strength. The idea being if you wear lead boots, you have to have extra strong legs to be able to walk normally. I think about that lately, when I'm lying in bed with a pillow over my skull full of phantom wasps, considering the sheer discipline I need to stick to this stupid diet to see if it actually works. Maybe the universe is waiting for me to embrace restriction so it will turn off the headache spigot. When you've got a headache all day you start thinking up weird superstitious shit. I wish it were as easy as bargaining. Okay universe, you win, I'll give up coffee and soda and cheese and chocolate and alcohol and then no more headaches ever, right? Deal? Pinky promise? What stage of grief is bargaining?

How much do you really want something? Or do you just like crying about how much you want it and when push comes to shove you weenie out and look for what you can get away with?

What's worse, getting mystery headaches that prevent you from pursuing your talents, or not getting mystery headaches and discovering you're just kinda worthless?

I feel like I just ride on the same train of thought like a drunken carousel that has gone way past the point of fun.

--

I made a batch of what we're calling "fruity oaty bars". Oats are supposedly okay. So I made these bars with pumpkin seed protein powder and canned pumpkin (I'll try to find fresh pumpkin) and rolled oats and ginger and apple and some leftover blueberries. The recipe needs a couple rounds to refine, but it's definitely good, like a homemade breakfast bar. I want to work on a savory version, maybe something more cracker or flatbread like. An oatcake. Maybe folded over a filling.

I'm working on smoothie options. I've been using coconut milk but it's expensive for an everyday thing. The cans I used to be able to get for $1.50 are now $3, and the powdered packets have additives. I think I can make my own oat milk and use that, to avoid dairy and preservatives in the packaged oat milk. Oats are cheap still, right? (Fuck, not even lentils are cheap anymore. I read something about how they use roundup to speed up bean harvest even though they aren't supposed to, so that's why organic dry beans are best 'cuz they don't have added roundup, but that's like $4 a pound for organic LENTILS at the good health food store, yikes.)

I've switched to sunflower seed butter, 'cause peanuts are out. I like it just as much as peanut butter, which surprised me. The only bad part is the cost and I can only find little jars of it.

It's nice to get some options back after having been low carb for years. I had a baked sweet potato the other day and it was so good, it felt like a luxury gourmet meal. Cutting out cheese and limiting dairy is the hardest. Limitations on beverages is a close second. Most shortcut food products are out, so that means more time cooking (and cleaning). If I were working full time it would be daunting to find all the extra time and energy for meal prep and fiddling with ingredients. I am very fortunate to have the spare resources to mess around with my diet like this. Now if it would just fucking work.

--

I dipped my toes back into what's going on with minimalism, since I am "minimalizing" my diet. Sort of "how to be happy with less" kick. I've always been a clutterbug due to arts and crafts interests. Years ago I thought maybe minimalism would help me out, but I came to the conclusion that it's for rich people who grew up privileged and aren't creative. Because creativity means you make messes and try a bunch of things out to see what works. Creativity means you have excess tools and materials. Sure, you can be the sort of creative who only has stuff for the current project on hand and tosses everything else, but that means you need to be rich to re-purchase what you discarded. I also found it to be a little bit self centered and socially cold. Sure, you can downsize to just one plate and a set of utensils and one chair. But what do you do when friends want to visit? You have friends, right, or did you minimalize them too? Do you just rely on your non-minimalist friends to have surplus so you can go to their place and take advantage of their hospitality all the time? Do you tell everyone they have to meet at a restaurant and pay restaurant prices to enjoy your company? I think one of the suggestions was instead of having a lawnmower and yard care stuff, hire a yard maintenance service. It was just leveraging $$$ to get out of owning things. Maybe that's the modern capitalist take on minimalism but it rubbed me the wrong way. Yes, if you have more money you can afford to have fewer possessions because you pay people to do those things for you. You can afford to treat amazon as a "library" of things in storage that you can access and then get rid of the minute you don't see a future use. But it doesn't make sense if you are poor. It doesn't make sense if you are a creative, unless you have already explored and evolved to a point where you are focused on a very specific niche area. Minimalism is for the master, not for the apprentice.

(I did learn how to let go of things easier and I figured out my big problem is good organization because I get stingy about spending the money to give my stuff a proper place that aids work flow. Bins and shelves and workspaces cost money. If you're renting, it further limits what you can do. Like you see these organization porn photos of built in shelves and cubbies and such and ha ha, that ain't happening in a cheap apartment. Get real. I think that's why I am taking so much time and effort to put up nice wall mounted shelves in our house, because I finally have the freedom to create organization and work spaces that suit me. Such a luxury.)

I think our digital world deceives people into thinking minimal physical possessions = minimalism. Then their digital creative work and online footprint is a fucking chaotic disaster. Social media is a minimalism nightmare. Oh, there's people who live out of their van or tiny house with a whole youtube channel of daily videos devoted to minimalism. "Look, I only own twenty physical things," and then they've got six different social media accounts. I'm pretty sure being a social media influencer and a minimalist are mutually exclusive. But this is the state of modern minimalism, right? Anyway, it's kinda gross. Minimalists are to privileged urban liberals as preppers are to privileged rural conservatives, change my mind. Just two sides of the same coin.

So I'm poking about in the minimalism/slow living/simple living/anticonsumption spaces and they're all on the same bent but in different ways. It's a natural backlash to the growing complexity and excess stimulation built into everyday life. It's dealing with the experience of being mentally overloaded on a personal scale, not on a community or cultural scale. Why do we tolerate all this complicated life garbage and pretend it's sane? Like there's so much, from the health insurance circus to taxes to why they can't automatically block phone scammers calling from spoofed numbers. Why do we allow things that should be simple to become a complicated slog that grinds down the most vulnerable and benefits those are the greediest? I know the answer, it's just cruel and shameful.

Money lets you skip the hassle. Money affords you mental peace. Just have money, and you too can live the simple life in your custom van parked by the beach streaming your thoughts and advice on youtube from your 5G flagship smartphone.

I have been listening to Critical Role episodes off and on, partly as background noise, partly out of general roleplaying curiosity. I have problems with this "pro roleplaying/GMing" trend. It's cool to snoop on a table of pro voice actors, sure, but the gameplay then has to meet an outside entertainment standard - they have to artificially suppress the rules lawyering and other boring little arguments that pop up in a natural game. I also don't like the obsessive fandom encouragement, calling them "critters" and such. I'm starting to think if a person/brand encourages a cutesy club name for their followers, they have jumped the shark and lost their way. Critical Role is almost a perfect example of what I think is gross about our current cultural mentality. 1) Taking something that is supposed to be an accessible participation activity and turning it into a spectator sport. 2) Deliberately cultivating parasocial connections. 3) Jamming it full of merch marketing under the guise of "support".

I'm a hypocrite because I keep playing their content out of boredom, yes. True. Kind of like watching a train wreck, but in cool accents. (I started with campaign 3 and THEN figured out that they had player drama in campaign 1, the basis for the Vox Machina animated series, so I got way more interested in the circumstances around the bad player and how they handled it, because handling that bad player is the hardest part of playing tabletop RPGs. But roleplaying sessions don't and shouldn't make for great entertainment unless you are playing in them. The fun is in the participation. Everything else is just poorly done radio drama because it's improvised, so it's impossible to have as satisfying a story experience as something scripted.) Honestly the best tip I have picked up from watching is to slow down and speak deliberately when I am talking in character. They slow down and use the extra time to think about what they will say next. Talking slow probably makes the accents easier, too.

When I was listening to campaign 3 there are deliberate points where Matt the DM will scold people to limit crosstalk, etc, to make for a better audience experience. He prefers to keep technical talk to a minimum and prioritize game flow over rule accuracy - again, for better audience experience. Like, it's not a real game. I felt like the players had a fake energy and exaggerated their responses. Laughed way too hard at things that weren't that funny, etc. I guess that's to be expected from actors but it felt very ... "let's dance like monkeys and give the people what they want". And they're doing quite well so I guess they know what works! But if you're brand new to roleplaying and you think CR is authentic interaction ... No, those people have financial incentive to present a certain image of cooperativeness and agreeableness and it leads to them basically taking turns verbally wanking all over the table and none of the other players or the GM has incentive to rein it in. It's roleplaying defanged and stuffed into a plush cover.

Seriously, all you need for roleplaying is the game rules (a book), some paper & a writing tool, dice, and other people in a cooperative mood. A room with table and chairs where you can make noise and eat/drink without constant interruption is also good (or a good internet connection, these days, though I don't think it's possible for virtual gaming to be as good an experience as meatspace). It's fucking make believe with little geometric pieces of plastic.

Don't get me wrong, they're making some sweet accessories for RPGs, stuff that would have blown my mind when I started playing. 3D printing is astounding. Dice choice is amazing. We saw a DnD books being sold at Target!! It used to be just your local comic store, or a dusty shelf in the back corner of Barnes & Noble, if you were lucky. But I feel like the core RPG experience is getting cancerous with all these extra expectations and decorations. It is turning into a "purchasable" experience with an expectation of return. It is becoming for-profit. They are creating online tabletops and then charging access, so you don't have to make IRL friends and convince them, you just have to have money. It's the modern consumer way.

(I know there's big drama going on right now with DnD and Wizards of the Coast, but I have no attachment to DnD as a system. I didn't start RPGs with DnD (my mom bought into the satanic panic DnD scare, so being able to truthfully tell my mom I "wasn't playing DnD" was a plus). I've played around 15 sessions total of DnD and Pathfinder over the years, which isn't enough to have a good opinion. We have the 5e rulebook because one of our friends tried to get a game going back in the spring, but it fizzled out due to scheduling and real world complications - again, real world tabletop, shit happens and games fizzle. I like fantasy but I just never found DnD setting very compelling. It's kinda "duplo" fantasy when you really want "lego" fantasy. Spouse and I really liked Savage Worlds for a good while, but now we're all about Genesys. Our friday night group alternates between a Savage Worlds: Deadlands game and spouse running his homebrew setting in Genesys. I really like Savage Worlds in general except the combat gets under my nerves. Aside from using a deck of cards (which I do love) SW somehow drains the creative life and tension out of combat encounters. Like a couple of robots just taking turns punching each other until one falls over. Then you roll the dice and it's +1 for this and -1 for that and +1 for this other thing and then how many times does 4 go into that number and it kills the momentum to have to do a bunch of dumb finger math to see if you hit the guy. Genesys is lightweight like SW, but they improved on some stuff in combat that makes it way more fun - you calculate all the dice you're rolling (some are good and some are negative), you roll the handful of dice and figure out what symbols cancel each other out and the result is the result, damage included. No math games. No absurdly low damage rolls. Yes, the dice don't have proper numbers and right now they are backlogged on making the special dice sets. There's a table for converting conventional numbered dice to the symbols but it's very clunky in practice. I suppose there's digital dice apps but who uses those - a phone can't be trusted to roll dice, c'mon. Our gaming group hosts went a little bananas and bought a fucking 3D resin printer and printed and molded and made us all custom genesys dice sets for christmas like the legends they are. Because we couldn't buy any (someone is selling a 3D printed set on Etsy but we ordered one and it's really sad hollow garbage) and we're all dice superstitious and don't want to share a communal set. But the special dice are worth it - leads to a more story focused, narrative result where anyone can toss in an explanation and add to the action, which keeps people engaged. Like, I'm telling you, it's sweet. So anyway, I don't have attachment to the DnD system and it seems like WoTC is just doing WoTC stuff like the corpos they've been for the past couple decades. WoTC were donkeys when they bought TSR and they were donkeys about M:TG and donkeys about DnD 3e/4e and they're basically just donkeys and I thought it was known. So I get that DnD is the "name brand" RPG and where most people get their dice wet, but trust me, you can have plenty of RPG fun without the DnD system.)

But the process of hunting down and purchasing the best RPG experience is getting in the way of just roleplaying. You don't need the nerd accoutrements, the fancy dice bag, the right mini, the four sets of shiny dice and foldable dice tray/tower and gaming backpack. You don't have to do a perfect english accent. I don't think it's a step forward.

You could even argue that even the basic RPG trappings are superfluous for playing make believe with friends. The experience everyone is seeking is just a cooperative imaginative adventure and storytelling. Old as sitting around a campfire, looking up at the stars.

It's like I am watching the roleplaying experience modernize and kind of lose the core experience in the details. The basic concept is simple and cheap and always accessible. The accessories and expectations are what gets in the way.

And I wonder if it's the same way with a lot of other things in life. If you can identify the core of the experience, you know better how to separate what is enough from what you're being persuaded to purchase to enable access to what you desire. Like a secret shortcut on the backroads instead of taking the tollway.

Is the root of the problem when observing gets in the way of action? Like if I read a bunch of articles about low histamine food and looked up a bunch of recipes and watched youtubes and then had no time to clean the kitchen and cook and ended up ordering pizza.

I've got this on the brain as I fix up the house and organize stuff and look to future art projects. And also as I think about this diet and try to cooperate with the food limitations.

--

1/14 - 1/17

Lots of frustrated navelgazing seems to be the theme this week. It was a low energy week and I kinda faffed off on some social stuff because I didn't really want to do it (didn't feel like I deserved it, plus now doing stuff with friends means extra work trying not to eat stuff I really want to eat). Then I got mad at myself for faffing off. Shitty little self punishment spiral. All the stuff you are unsatisfied about comes out of the closet to have a loud tea party in your waking mind. Clean cup! Clean cup! Move down! Move down!

Sometimes I wonder how much impact the "failure" of these headaches has on me. It's like I'm either "bad" for the moral failure of getting the headache in the first place, or I'm "bad" for not being able to toughen up and work through it. I get on the other side of the headache and I'm so behind on what I thought I'd get done, so exhausted and upset, and I want to be able to point the finger at something but the only thing in the sights is me. There's no culprit to punish but me. And then it's, well you don't deserve this or that and if you don't show suitable contrition via emotional upset and "learn your lesson" then you'll mess up and do it again. And then eventually there's another headache, rinse & repeat.

The purpose of discomfort is to prompt real change toward a positive, beneficial end. Change that would otherwise not be desirable because it demands its own risk or cost. Every choice implies loss. When you stand at the crossroads you can hold all possibilities, including the best, happiest outcome. But eventually, if you don't make a decision and commit yourself to real action, however imperfect, you will have gained nothing and lost the opportunity. (This is a big problem I have with art projects sometimes - analysis paralysis.)

I don't know if I will gain any real relief from this elimination diet. I don't know if I will ever figure out how to make myself headache free. I don't know if I'll ever work in a tattoo shop again, with or without headaches. So it is more important than ever to do what I can, when I can, and let the rest go.

I have been thinking about this ai art thing some more. Like, the major reason everyone is upset about ai art is because of the economic impact. It will cause problems for current and future working artists because clients will be happy to save money with "good enough" ai art, reducing jobs for human artists. Who will go get a expensive degree in art when there is no employment available? (That means scholastic study of art will be for the very wealthy, kinda same as it ever was.) Which means the core question is, what good is developing artistry as a skill if there's no money to be made? Why would anyone pull their hair out spending hundreds of hours learning to draw and paint if they can chat up an ai prompt and get a professional quality image effortlessly spat out?

And this dovetails with my own long struggle with art-as-money-acquiring-vehicle versus art-as-expression. Like, are you making art for an audience (to get them to give you $$$) or are you making art for less tangible, internal reasons? I've had a really hard time with this central point and it's been a big ongoing internal conflict. Am I audience focused or self focused - it really changes what you create. Because I haven't had a solid grasp on my own motivations and desires (because I was not allowed to be authentic in my formative years because my family is trapped in abuse patterns and emotional dishonesty) I couldn't make a foundation for my own expression, because honest expression would invalidate the mask-self I've had to live in since I was 12, and there is a certain comfort in that privacy. I would substitute the audience perspective but it wasn't my honest expression, so I'd get deeply frustrated and the process wasn't satisfying. Just because you can draw doesn't mean you want to draw for money, but if you aren't drawing for money, why do it at all?

When you divorce the skill of making art from the $$$ motivation, what do you get? We're about to find out. Creative people are going to have to go through an intense soul searching. Unfortunately, everyone still needs $$$ to stay warm and fed, so that sucks. Gonna be a lot of hungry, homeless people. But with the rate ai is being developed, how much longer until we have ai accountants and lawyers and programmers and scientists and engineers and doctors and whatever else for generic problems. Maybe this is hitting creatives first, but anyone who is employed by a definable system of rules and "if ... then" should be worried. People will only keep their jobs if their labor is cheaper and more available than developing a synthetic equivalent. Real change might happen.

I think there's positive outcomes to be had. I feel liberated by the idea that making art for an audience is invalidated. It just doesn't matter anymore. I don't have to worry about guessing what people want to see and buy. If they want to see it, they'll get the ai to make it for them and then go to a merch service that will make the product. In a way, I am now more free than ever to express what is original to me, because it's the novelty and surprise factor that will be of value. I'm kinda psyched, actually.

I know I've been all over the place in this post - from headache/diet woes to minimalism to gaming to ai art. It's like ... manipulating puzzle pieces and trying to guess the whole. I'm finally a bit more cheerful about everything. I listened to this taoist documentary "the art of effortless living" and it helped me settle down. A lot of things I "felt" like were true suddenly expressed in a more coherent, focused package. Would recommend a listen, especially if you've got internal turbulence. I will probably go back and listen again when I get in a mood.

I made a second round of the fruity oaty bars and they are pretty good. They hit the spot when I need easy no-think food. I'm pondering trying a second version with fresh mashed sweet potato instead of canned pumpkin (not sure where I can get a fresh pie pumpkin this time of year). I've gone to black coffee and I'm cutting down on the amount with the intention of giving it up entirely. Don't want a caffeine headache from stopping cold turkey. I should probably start making cold brew coffee again, because it's easier to measure and limit intake.

Ending this with good news, the universal unitarian church is within walking distance! And there's a bakery nearby (can't eat anything there right now tho, rats). So on sundays, can take a walk and do church and bakery. Or bakery and church. Very civilized. I'm super excited because I had to have the car to get to the UU church when we lived in the land of crab. Being able to walk makes it so much simpler, and I think it's more meditative.

May not want to walk in winter. Major roads near schools have some plowed sidewalks, but otherwise it's dicey. I might do a drive by and see how bad the walking conditions are. But definitely after breakup!

Spouse has reacted to the idea of going to church about the same as a cat reacts to talk of giving him a bath. I guess he has too many bad memories of his parents lending him out to do church chores. So it will just be me. But perhaps if the people seem good and it becomes a solid habit for me (and there is bakery bribery), he'll come along eventually. I think we should put roots in our local community and this is the best "in" I can think of. I know spouse agrees on the theory, at least.