Robert Manners

Well, Obviously...

I finally talked to my sponsor yesterday evening, and I am so glad I did. We got a lot of things sorted out that I was worried about in my last entry. Like the tiredness thing... my sponsor has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and so knows a lot about fatigue and its multifarious causes, chief of which are sugar and caffeine. Although my coffee intake has remained the same, it is inescapable and obvious that my sugar intake has at least tripled in the last two months... ever since I went completely off my diet in honor of the Holidays. It's been all about candies, cookies, and pie every day for two months, and at the same time it's been all about not sleeping at night and feeling generally tired most of the time (except immediately after eating).



What masked this quite obvious explanation was the fact that I have eaten huge amounts of sugar for most of my life, and my intake of holiday cookies and Christmas candy this season has not been any more or less than I used to eat all the time. But what I wasn't taking into account was the fact that I had been eating right and exercising for the previous few months, detoxing my body from its accustomed sugar-processing activities, while I was losing that famous twenty pounds. My body got used to having protein and vitamins in it instead of sugar and starch, and is now reacting to the resurgence of sugar as if I had never been a big sugarfiend before.



So obviously I've been suffering from sugar burnout these last few weeks, and that's why I am so tired all the time, and yet not able to sleep at night. Unfortunately I still have a lot of cookies and candy lying about the house and office, and I don't know what to do with it all. Maybe I should have a Carb Party and make everyone else eat it all. But in the meantime, I can remind myself that just because the cookie is there doesn't mean I have to eat it.



We also discussed the various possible causes and single possible solution to my feeling of stagnation, which we think may be the symptom of a crisis of faith. My belief in God as an agent of growth in my life seems to have waned somehow, and I will be revisiting my first three steps before getting on to my last three steps. More on that later, when I have had time to stew on it. Really important writing is usually left to ferment at the back of the closet, like a jar of pickles, before I start chewing on it in print.



In other news, television has been sucking so much recently that I started playing one of my nephew's video games in order to keep myself entertained in front of the idiot box... Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which is quite definitely the most aesthetically beautiful video game I've ever seen. I watched Matthew playing it when he first got it, and was mesmerised by the gorgeousness of the architecture of the sultan's palace. A lot of thought and expertise went into building this game's sets, and the game itself was exciting and fun to watch. Of course, this attention to detail steals disk-memory from the game-play, and Matthew got through the entire thing in only ten hours, much to his disappointment. I was there to see the very end of the game, which was so horrendously anticlimactic that we were both sitting there with our mouths agape when the Evil Vizier unexpectedly just dropped dead in the middle of a tirade. We were sure he was going to turn into a dragon or something, kick it up a notch to really challenge the player, but you give him a good slash across the ribcage and he flopped down dead and that was the end of the game.



But anyway, Matthew finished the game, and I figured I'd give it a shot, even though I know perfectly well that I won't be able to win. Thing is, I have no hand-eye coordination, and there are a number of places in the game where you really need it. Like this one move where you climb up a narrow walled-in space by leaping from one side to the other and back (the Prince of Persia is quite the gymnast, and apparently has no fear of heights); you have to hit the A button the very second the controller vibrates, or else you plummet to your death. And then there are the sheer numbers of buttons and sticks and triggers on the X-Box controller, I get so confused with the A and the B, the X and the Y, the white and the black, the action-stick and the view-stick, the left trigger and the right trigger... all of which do entirely different things. I could barely manage my old N-64 controllers with the one joy-stick and one trigger and four buttons, the X-Box controller is completely beyond my managing.



The coolest thing about the Prince of Persia, with his gorgeous blue eyes and glossy black hair and fabulous cheekbones, aside from his ability to run alongside walls and turn somersaults in midair and go flipping from rope to rope over bottomless pits and to take off portions of his shirt as the game progresses until his rippling torso is quite bare (tell me there weren't any fags involved in the development of this game) is that he can turn back time when he makes a mistake. You take a flying leap that turns out to be the wrong leap to take, and all you have to do is squeeze the left trigger and you back right up again to the safe spot. That would be really cool to have. Suddenly wish you hadn't said something? Get in an accident that could have been avoided if you knew it was going to happen? Just push the little button on the Dagger of Time, and voilà, you get a do-over.



So anyway... life beckons, I must go now and do work. I haven't done any of the things I was bitching about not doing in the last post, so perhaps I ought to see about doing some of it. Miles to go before I rest, and all that. And I'm going to the movies with Caroline tonight (we will see Big Fish), and tomorrow I'm meeting with Angelique about Court matters, and on Friday I have to take the Grandmother down to San Jose for a family birthday party.



One thing after another until you get to the end. And really, am I in such a big hurry to get to the end? Especially since I know the Vizier just drops dead without turning into a dragon or doing anything remotely cool? Enjoy the scenery and flip from flagpole to flagpole while I can.



Toodles!