On Saturday, some pals and I embarked on a three-hour tour whose destination was Philadelphia—to see The New Deal. The concert was positively amazing, but that's for another time.

Walking up and down South Street easily gave the impression, this place is really quite indie. A flash of manic longing temporarily burst through the cloud of my current depressive state, wishing that somehow life could be as basic and uncomplicated as participating in the scene, life being defined in terms of what music you listen to and having sufficient credibility to wear a given band's name on your shirt without being a poseur. They really do have decent fashion sense, but as much as I'd like to dress like them, somehow I know it just isn't me.

I'm in fact having terrible trouble defining who I am at the moment. At one point in my life I was the guy in the corner at the party, eavesdropping on the conversation of the moment and interjecting astute observations to the appreciation of those who understand my extra-dry brand of humor. But the party seems to have dried up, the audience is gone, I work for a living, and I have very little to show for it. My current conclusion is that because of all the positive reinforcement I've gotten in my life, I never developed any sort of work ethic, and around 2001 or 2002 I experienced some personal trauma, in the process dropping the glass statue that was my sense of idealism and instead taking up jaded apathy. My social consciousness is gone, most evenings I stay curled up in my room, not even watching TV, and the only long term goal I really have anymore is investing enough money that I don't die broke.

As harmful as I know it can be to gauge one's performance against others, other people around my age and from my own high school are going out and doing things that exceed initial expectations. My best friend has written an influential senior thesis that could help change the way the U.S. military thinks about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". Another became a grad student at Harvard, another is going Peace Corps. In high school, I was supposedly the smart one, the one with promise. But what have I done? I trudged through school, certainly, but I haven't proven myself. Haven't done anything special. Haven't earned any of the special styles bestowed upon me when I was younger.

You may call me "Peter S. May, ex-genius".

I know, I just know that at some point in the past I had ambitions. It's hard to remember what they were; all I really remember is that, one by one, they were shot down as being impossible, improbable, or generally unnecessary. Right this moment I have something that my naive elementary-school self, my angsty middle-school self, and my idealistic high-school self lacked—means—but at some point I completely forgot why I needed them, or possibly decided that such things weren't worth pursuing anyway. My life has finally stabilized, but the innate need to do something important or notable has yet to be fulfilled.

For the first time in a long, long while, I've rediscovered the problem of where within myself to look for this glowing grail of ambition. But unlike times before, where I was sure that I had drive and creativity that I'd simply forgotten, from my current vantage it's more clear that if I ever had these things, it wasn't in a form that was worth having.

I'm frustrated and have no idea where to go from here.

Bottled Crystal Light seems to be the closest thing available to a sugar-free, dextrin-free, aspartame-free, saccharin-free source of the sweetener sucralose. Splenda in packet form has maltodextrin to add volume and create a synergistic effect. In bottled Crystal Light, the sucralose is instead complemented with acesulfame potassium, also carbohydrate-free. Upshot: 2 Strawberry Kiwi Crystal Light + 1 lemon juice + 5 water = Delicious pseudo-lemonade. Yeah, there's mixing involved. Straight non-lemonade Crystal Light tends to be a little heavy and not acidic enough, and that makes it perfect for use as a sweetener instead of a drink in and of itself. Strawberry Kiwi is decent for the purpose, but Raspberry Ice is perfect—it's ridiculously sweet and has almost no tartness. Meanwhile, water and lemon juice are both virtually free of sugar [edit: Lemon juice contains about 15g of non-fiber carbohydrate per cup, but who would use a cup at a time? 2006 Feb 24 1417 -0500], and tend to be much cheaper. This is of some importance; bottled Crystal Light is a little on the expensive side for a beverage, but its price is more tolerable when it is considered as a sweetener.

(Powdered Crystal Light is sweetened with aspartame, which sucks.)

My dinner tonight was a salad made out of two beef franks sliced into pieces and sautéd in olive oil with minced garlic and onion and other green stuff labeled "Italian Seasoning"—all told, it was more or less a vinaigrette without the vinegar—until everything was slightly browner than initially. Once I got the meat and oil back down from the kitchen on the second floor to my room on the first, I added a pre-packaged romaine salad mix and some shredded cheddar, and doused it all with cider vinegar. The result was more delicious than one would typically sign on for with a hot-dog-based meal.

I have no idea why I felt like saying all this. But I'm down to 247 pounds (245 before dinner). 18 days ago, I logged my weight as ten pounds more than this. 38 days ago, after a ridiculous but intentional binge intended to precede my first workout, the figure was about twenty more than now.

A few days ago, Marina, a castmate, asked me in jest if I was "manorexic". The answer is no—I'm just eating really, really strange stuff and exercising an hour every day, averaging about 630 kcal a go. A spreadsheet tells me I'm right on my set schedule to be down to 210 by commencement.

I'm also doing a fairly good job trying to break the nail-biting habit.

I don't know where the motivation for any of this is coming from. Why not? has never been particularly effective for me, and yet right this second it seems to be working. And then there's the old line from Fight Club, "Self-improvement is masturbation, not self-destruction." That's been true for me before, but how true it is tends to be a function of how much of the effect I notice. The fact that Marina and Roxy noticed something was up indicates that what I'm doing is probably working. But I see myself in the mirror regularly, and any change that isn't instant is something I get used to before I notice. Of course, today I stood there and stuck my gut out, and I could reasonably believe that it seemed to stick out a little less than last time I tried to do the same. And at least one pair of pants that was getting tight seems to be returning to a less ridiculous-looking fit.

And now I think back to how all this started. I saw a couple of pictures of myself from over the summer. A little after high school, I was at my peak of physical form; at the low point I'd actually gotten down to 199, and it showed. But pictures of me from this summer's visit to Michigan and to the shore of Lake Michigan were images of a middle-aged man with fewer wrinkles and marginally more stylish attire. I'd regressed, and that bugged me.

It still bugs me. Because here I am, all of 23 years old, almost done with college, nearly ready just to start my real life as a young, relatively financially-unencumbered professional—the type that tends to be in high demand by intellectual young ladies—and there I was on camera, already looking like I was at the end of that phase, sloppy gut, love handles, probably only a moderate amount of adipose tissue away from what might be considered a roll.

There was a mind-over-matter approach in play that last semester of high school, and it was effective. Between then and now, there were pieces of that puzzle that got lost, and I slipped. But it appears that I have them back, at least for the time being.

I intend to make the most of it.

It's February 14.

I celebrated waking up this morning by eating a king size Reese's Fast Break, a vending machine bag of Baked Ruffles, and a machine-size can of Pringles. I followed that up after class with two California rolls, a box of Crunch 'n Munch, a whole Chocolate Orange, and some peanuts.

I don't know how that all fit. I also don't know how my weight at the end of last night and my weight at the beginning of tonight were the same. I also don't know how I maintained over 60 rpm for most of my ride tonight without hitting the wall.

The weather seems to have gotten warmer from the icy chill that descended upon us this past week. I never thought the low 40s Fahrenheit would ever feel so damned comfy.

Almost immediately after tonight's gym visit, my sinuses started oozing. Being newly ill might explain the eating binge today. Burning 668 kcal without dying on the bike, after not being able to do the same for about 4 days, cannot be explained away so easily. However, I will use that, and various other circumstances, to explain that I'm not going to present in Senior Design tomorrow.

This is a week of crazy shit getting done. By the end of last Friday, I had been scheduled for an appointment to be fitted for contact lenses—this will happen in March. By the end of Sunday night, I'd ordered a load of groceries to be delivered Thursday, relieving me of a responsibility to deadlift a large cache of food over many city blocks, probably obtaining a nice hernia in the process. By the end of Monday, I had scheduled with a dermatologist on another March date. Not much later, I had a job interview lined up on Friday with a defense agency. I'm very excited about this. It happens to be not quite within reach of my public transportation system, so I finally got to explore what car sharing-based rental was all about. Thus, for the duration of Friday, I have a car.

I closed up Monday's constructivity with a visit to the library at the medical school here—there would be a quiz on reserved readings there the following morning. These readings said interesting things, one of which I may quote later. The girl from the circulation desk who got me the materials happened to leave work just after I left the place. She actually made an effort to catch up with me and talk me up for a minute. This is somewhat unusual behavior from a pretty girl, and I'm not sure whether or not I screwed up the encounter horribly, but I would guess that the next time we meet, if ever, there will actually be some meeting taking place. Perhaps I should think of an excuse to return to the library.

Historically, I would say that in my life I've had much less success with things I have tried to make happen than with things that just happen. I hope I'm not jinxing anything by saying this, but this job interview sort of just came up to me without me really going out of my way at all, and that girl caught up to me instead of the other way around. Perhaps I can expect some interesting results.

The thought crossing my mind right now is that once, a long time ago, I read an article in Electronics Now that described how to create some sort of induction-based combination of electronic components which would act as a resistor with negative resistance. I distinctly recall a diagram. On the left side was an almost unwieldy configuration of interconnected symbols representing the parts involved, in the middle was an equals sign, and on the right was a schematic symbol for a resistor marked negative one kiloohm.

This idea of negative resistance is pretty intriguing to me. Instead of expending great effort for a decent payback, your status or your nature is in a sufficiently high position that someone or something else actually owes you effort.

I'm very tired, so I think I will sleep now.

Happy Valeualuealuealeualentine's Day.