I'm able to write again!

I just said to a friend on the phone how nice it was to finally have the brain space to be able to write again, after the past seemingly endless yet probably only six weeks of chaos and craziness. Yesterday I feel I finally had the freedom and clarity of thought that allows me to actually properly think and comprehend without that nervous twitching that has been all-pervasive recently. I feel somewhat calm and at peace with my mind. It's a very nice feeling. I know I still have a bucketful of things to do, one which shan't be mentioned but is very much likely to affect "the 2008 plan" quite adversely. Hopefully I will get around to it later on tonight.

In the meantime, I've found three articles I wanted to blog on, but I just remembered another thing I've been pondering today so I will address that first ...

I realised that I cooked for FUN for the first time in months! I had my first creative cooking thought yesterday whilst in IGA - Scotch baps, anyone fancy a fried egg and tatty scone roll? - and today I acted on it; yet berry & choc-chip muffins were the result. And bloody nice they are too. These people who don't like berries because they are too tart are just plain stupid if you ask me.

Leading on from the food thing, I experienced an interesting thought process today when Mum told me about the cuttlefish she saw in the pool this afternoon. I'm sure it was a cuttlefish that Stephen and I were communicating with at some aquarium we went to in 2003, I think it was Singapore, but could very well have been Melbourne or Sydney or even Perth perhaps? I now recall how incredibly intelligent this creature was, waving back at us and swimming up and down in its tank. If cuttlefish aren't terribly different to squid, which I don't think they are, then how can I truly accept eating squid? And I already know how intelligent octupi are, yet the fact that they scare me to buggery is enough for me to consider eating them. Don't know if I could truly bring myself to kill one though. Removing it from the water is easy, but giving it a good bash is probably that step too far.

If you're having trouble following this train of thought, my semi-vegetarianism/vegaquarianism/pescaterianism stems from the motto that "I wouldn't eat anything I'm not prepared to kill". So, all animals and birds are off-menu, yet many sea creatures - fish, crabs, prawns, squid, shark etc. - are all allowable as they either "don't have brains" (an old quote from a probably-not-anymore friend who was justifying his cooking fish whilst he claimed vegetarianism) or I would quite happily remove them from their habitat, which in effect kills them, in order to consume them. Silly I suppose, but it has sustained me being both semi-vegetarian and (mostly) healthy for the last eight-and-a-half years (exactly, today!), so I've been sticking with it. Except I've now had four encounters that have started me thinking otherwise, that cutting out the aqua-life might be necessary too? The cuttlefish story from before is the third. Last week there was lamb (I just wrote meat but even that looks disgusting, such is my persuasion at present) defrosting on the side all bloody and revolting, made my stomach turn. Then I was having a conversation with Dad last night about fishing - which despite saying I would be happy to do, I have not done since I became this vegaquarian hybrid thingo - and I accepted I would have a lot of problems with bashing the fish in order to kill it after I'd reeled it in. Then we have the cuttlefish and as I went into the kitchen just before there was red meat being cut up to be stuffed inside pasties. Again, it turned my stomach. I'm not sure how to progress on this one, like I said to Mum, it seems that there's something encouraging me to step further away from consuming animal products. So, I have just decided to say no to shark and squid for now. Crusteaceans and fish are still fair game, not sure where that places an eel? Surely that's got to be more fish than anything else? Not that I eat eel anyway, but Dan's recommendation the other week made me curious. I wonder how long it will take for this position to be revised again? Probably not another 8+ years, I'm sure. I always thought I'd never make the move towards veganism, I'm sure I will never end up vegan, but I can certainly imagine being a proper practising vegetarian and mostly eschewing dairy & eggs too. One day. Maybe that's all part of the philosophical pursuit, as Plato termed it?

Flip, you'd think I hadn't written for months! Funny that ... Quickly on to those articles as Cynthia has arrived and I must surely become sociable.

Firstly, IMF finally knocks on Uncle Sam's door

Actually, I'm not going to get a chance to expand on these now, will have to do so later instead ...