Today I take a chemistry midterm, and I have made a resolution associated with that: I will not drink any caffeine before, during, or after the test. I usually feel like my regular speed of thinking is just not good enough for test taking, that my brain operates at too leisurely pace. So I load up on caffeine beforehand, to give me that extra edge. The result? I tend to get really agitated, stressed-out, and panicky during tests. I tend to overlook small details, and make obvious mistakes, that don't reflect how much I understand the material or the process, but just my ability to do things thoroughly and properly. After the test I am strongly in the grips of insania, which leads to staying up too late, and usually to copious acting-out. The next day I tend to feel really worn out, and even slower than before. It's not worth it to feel that bad, just to do well on a test, especially when my test performance doesn't seem to go up at all anyway.

Wish me luck!

Even though I haven't smoked a cigarette since September 05 (about nine months ago), and haven't even be tempted to do so, I still have this feeling, on an almost daily basis, that it's time for a cigarette. After class, or after I accomplish a semi-difficult taks, or am about to begin a project, my fist thought is "time for a cigarette." For a micro-split-second my whole being is in total agreement on this, that it is indeed time, without a shadow of a doubt, to have a cigarette. I can actually see myself going outside and having one, and can feel how my mood would change if I did smoke one.

The funny thing about this is that I don't actually want a cigarette. It's not like I'm fighting myself all the time, saying "No, Sammy, No. Cigarettes Bad! Please Stop!" Another micro-split-second after I get that time-for-a-cigarette feeling, every part of my being recoils into the opposite feeling, like the last thing I would want to do would be to have a cigarette. They're really gross, and while there are nice feelings associated with them, they totally do not out-weigh all the really negative things about smoking. Chewing nicotine gum (which I still do very frequently, and plan on continuing to do for the rest of my life) is not the same, but it is nice, and is certainly preferable to smoking.

The thing is, is that after a mildly stressful experience I feel like I have to do something to restore my peaceful equililbrium, to bring me back to a pleasant plateau. The thing that I used to do most frequently, which was quickest and most effective, was smoking. It's very convenient: instant equilibrium, sitting in my pocket. The instinct to go to that source for pleasure, while not something I want consciously, is still embedded within me. However, my repulsion towards cigarettes is also embedded into me on a subconscious, instinctual level (they're really bad!), and because that side of my subconscious has my conscious mind on it's side, and because the part of me that does want a cigarette is more-or-less placated by the promise of nicotine gum, my desire to not smoke wins out, so far very consistently.

But then the question comes up: what the hell else am I supposed to do? I get this feeling of panicked desperation several times a day, because I don't know what I'm supposed to do to make myself feel balanced. Meditation always makes me feel more imbalanced, not less. Jerking-off or engaging in other sexual activity sort of works too, but there's so many negative consequences associated with that as well. Oh, I know what I should do: I should just listen to some nice music.

I'm totally in a rut today.

If I wrote the above statment 100 times, it would perfectly describe how I'm feeling right now. Nothing is getting my energy up. I think taking a walk would help me. But I also need to study, I need to study online. I don't have computers to bring with me. What am I to do? I don't want to drink some caffeine, because that usually causes more problems than it solves. I think maybe I just need to get something to eat, but that seems to be my answer to everything these days, and I'm worried that I'm slowly developing some kind of eating disorder, where I eat to solve my problems. But the truth is that I usually don't feel like I can really get going until I'm had a little bit of food in the morning. That's not an eating disorder, that's just me recognizing that I need to eat to function properly.

Ok, so I'll take a walk somewhere and get some breakfast. Then I'll study.

Learning new things is changing the way one thinks. Changing the way one thinks is difficult, and somewhat threatening. So learning is difficult, and somewhat threatening. What I am doing is difficult, and a little bit scary. It takes effort and courage. I think that if I start my studying each day knowing that it is going to be difficult, and be a little unsettling and disruptive, then it will actually become a little bit easier to deal with, because I'll be prepared for what's coming.

By the way, things are pretty much over between me and The Bartender. He seemed fine with the no-sex thing at first, but then he seemed to get rather frustrated when he realized that this meant we would not be having sex. He hasn't called me yet. I haven't called him either. I'm using the excuse that I initiated the last contact between us, so he has to do it this time. I don't want to be one of those annoying people that keeps bugging people that want nothing to do with them. Sometimes I suspect that my friends are all people who are just too nice to say no. I sometimes think "If I stopped calling everyone, how long would it be before any of them noticed?" but I don't want to do that, because I am very needy, and I don't really want to know if my friends are real friends. I'm just thankful that they tolerate me.

But not with the bartender. Relationships are hard work, and very exhausting. If he wants me, he can have me, but I'm not making any especial effort to make it happen.

Last night I dreamed that I was in a relationship with an average sort of guy, not fat or skinny, or especially fit, just a little taller than me, and just a little bit older. He had average good looks, and, like me, he didn't seem to know what to do with his hair. I was very happy with him. The sex wasn't great or anything, but I felt very secure with him, and loved him very much. I felt like maybe I had found "the one". Strangely, every once in awhile he would turn in to a woman, which was fine, except I was slightly less attracted to her (I did feel some attraction though, which was unusual, and doesn't really reflect how I feel in waking reality). Though I was pleased that we could have kids, he being a woman and all.

But mostly he was a man; a nice man, who cared alot about me and the rest of him family, who worked hard to provide for them, and enjoyed his work, and knew how to have a good time; who I loved, but who was imperfect, with surprisingly skinny legs (I was clutching my arm in my sleep), and not the nicest tasting mouth (which tasted pretty much like my own did when I woke up), and a slightly boorish, simple-minded attitude. I wanted him, and I wanted to be with him for the rest of my life.

Strange, because right before I went to sleep I was thinking about how happy I was to be single, and how I'd like to stay that way for awhile, like a few years at least. And I was thinking that I was really just going to wait until I met someone that I was really, really into, and that if meeting that person never happened, and I died without knowing love, then it would still be better than running around trying to force love to happen, and being in relationships that I didn't really care about, or didn't really satisfy me. So why I had that dream?

On a different note, some of my "friends" from high school were in my dream, the ones that pretended they were cool with homosexuality, but in fact hated it. One of them puked upon seeing me and my man sitting close together. The puke flew out of his mouth, almost vertically, with great force. "Ah yes" I said to myself, "Projectile vomiting." I used to love the idea of projectile vomiting when I was a kid, and would often think about it. It still comforts me, and makes me smile, to think of projectile vomiting, even to this day.