Some Thoughts of the Day

It's so cold outside. Little gritty bits of snow are starting to swirl around - it's like the sky itself is cracking and freezing and bits are flaking off. How does anyone survive outside? Especially the little birds with their bare legs and feet. How is there enough for them to eat to stay alive? How do they last through the long nights when the air feels almost too cold to breathe?

Guilt. I walk past homeless people every day who are standard fixtures - the woman outside the McDonald's, the man who holds out a frisbee like a serving platter for people to drop change onto, Boombox Man who's often rocking out to his battery-powered radio. I nearly always say "Sorry" when they ask for change, but then I feel bad about it, because of that damn diminishing returns thing - a dollar would go further, and mean more, for them, than for me. So I should give them something. Here I am trying to decide whether or not to shell out $300 for Bradley classes, and thinking it might be worth it, and to them $300 is an incredible fortune, even $3 is not bad - it could mean having a hot sandwich instead of going to sleep hungry. But there is so much misery in the world. How can I possibly try to appease it when really, I could give away all I have and still not make a dent in the suffering?

Raw meat is disgusting. I'm eating meat these days because I couldn't seem to get the recommended amount of protein for pregnancy when I was vegetarian. The other night, peeling chicken skin off a drumstick, the cold slimy layer of fat flopping around and sliding through my fingers, making my chapped hands sting, I thought about antibiotic resistance and factory-farm cruelty, and wondered if I was really doing the right thing. The knife I was using sawed ineffectively against the chicken skin, then slipped out of my hand and skittered across the floor. A piece of chicken fat dropped onto a fork that was waiting to be washed in the sink. Hair fell in my eyes, but I couldn't brush it away because both hands were slimy. I felt like every surface in the kitchen was becoming contaminated. After the chicken was in the broiler, I disinfected everything like a madwoman. Small consolation that after cooking, the chicken legs were tasty.

I am not nearly as down as I probably sound. Perhaps I should call this a clog (complaint log) or wog (worry log) rather than a blog. I think I'm mainly just worn out, working too much, and tired of being sick. Perhaps I will be more chipper in the spring.