Santa died for our sins

I went home for the holidays. Usually my family tries to cram as much family fun activity into the brief time we spend together, but this year we all seemed to agree that chilling out and lazing around the house seemed a better idea.

I've probably taken more naps in the last three days than I have all year. Utterly delectable.

But oh my stomach. I simply cannot believe the shear amount of food that I gorged myself on while at home. Its like there's something in the air in my parent's house that just wrecks my sense of fulfillment. Must eat more. There's also quite an array of cookies, snacks, mixed nuts, plentiful dinners, and especially the Doritos, the sacred holy Doritos I can never justify buying for myself, that I destroy night after night. Can't stop eating that shit. So bad, yet so, so good. Not to mention whatever chips I do not finish seem to come home with me in the form of the generous bag o' food my mother gives me to take home.

Best Mom ever.

Though I still haven't quite got my system regulated from the worst, single dining experience of my life, our trip to a new buffet style restaurant that opened up in town.

I won't even mention the name of the establishment, as that would give them power. No. I dare not say it. I would like to suggest that having an open kitchen (that means there's no walls, so you can see inside the kitchen and see what the cooks are up to - never a good idea) is a very horrible idea.

Now, I'm no food service snob. I know my place in the culinary world, and its quite near the bottom. But I'm sanitary, and clean. Unlike the cook who wasn't wearing a hat, and then ran his fingers through his hair, and then wiped his nose on his finger, which he then wiped on his apron.
Or the guy who cut the roast beef and used his bare hands to deliver the slab o' meat onto my brother-in-law's plate. While I'm unclear if its mandatory, latex gloves should be used when handling any food product. At least that's how we do at my place of business.

Probably the thing that grossed me out more than that, if you can believe, was the clientele.
I know all-you-can-eat buffets mean exactly that, but that's not a challenge people. You will not win anything, except for maybe a premature heart attack.

I stuck with the steamed vegetables, and mostly deep fried fare. Yes, deep fried. Mainly cause those deep friers will, hopefully, kill most any kind of bacteria that may have been lurking around there.

I was too grossed out to even utilize the soft serve machine, of which I have fond memories.

...

Gift wise, I did receive some nice loot. Namely socks, underwear, and a new pair of shoes. These are really the only things I wanted. Oh, and a new wine bottle opener and a neat little device that seals up an already open bottle, as well as some wine glasses. Thank you family for recognizing my drinking problem. And encouraging it.

...

So now its back to work, back to my apartment, back to my life...

Its still a little odd, living in this apartment still. I sometimes find myself going through old motions like opening the basement door slowly with my leg in the way to guard against cats that no longer live here. Or crossing the kitchen to throw something out, and then realizing the garbage can is now on the other side. I then snap a little, a brief pause, and say, "oh yeah..."

But those moments are fading.

And slowly, awkwardly, I'm coming into my own again. Does it make sense to say that I haven't felt like myself for a very long time... (How am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am...) And that its coming back to me? I don't know. It doesn't quite make sense to me either, and I'm living with it...

Lots of thoughts now-a-days on what to do, where to go, what step to take next in life...

I feel like the life blood of this town is wearing thin, people leaving, more people having left...

I feel like that is the mantra I've been repeating in my head for the last month or so...

I feel like, I feel like I feel.

blah.

blah, blah.

blah.


...

Now I really need to set up some vacation plans. Depending on cheap flights, I'm aiming for end of January for a nice stint in the fair city of Austin. Make it so!