I spent a lot of years never touching any meat. Not once. Eggs, dairy, that was it. I ate all the food I wanted at my parents’ house, and filled myself up with all the nutrients I needed. I even took vitamin supplements a few times to make sure I got all my B’s and 12’s and whatever other vitamins are rare in a vegetarian diet. But once I moved out and left on my own, my diet became bottlenecked by my financial situation. I don’t know if you know this, but living on a vegetarian diet can be expensive. And for me, it was. Too expensive.

One day I discovered a small red spot on my stomach. I wasn’t sure what it was, and while I didn’t remember it being there, I figured it was just an irritation and let it be. Over the next few weeks the spot would grow to be about the size of a silver dollar, and then another one showed up on the direct opposite side of my stomach. The spots didn’t hurt, they didn’t itch, I didn’t feel them, but they were there.

Later, I would find myself tired, not eating more than once a day, and while I always cooked terrific meals, not taking any pleasure in the food I ate. I also just kind of felt that I needed something, consistently felt dissatisfied and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I was continuously reminded how cheap meat was, how healthy it was (in quantity and quality), and how much I wanted it. I decided to trust my body and forgo my lifelong diet. After eating meat for the first time in my life, the next morning came, and I felt terrific. Within two weeks the red spots (which had lingered for about 3 months) began fading, and they are no longer present.

I decided that eating meat, while an unpleasant thought for me for a number of reasons, was necessary at this stage in my life. I still maintain a mostly vegetarian diet, and might return to a wholly vegetarian diet in the future if I’m ever able to afford the supplements and copious amounts of produce I would require to allow healthy living, but for now, this is another choice I’m making for me. Thank you, fish, poultry, for these gifts you give me. I promise I understand your sacrifice more than most, and hope that through me your living conditions can be made amends for.

In other news, some of you might notice my little animated walk cycle was removed from my site. I decided that the load time and memory drain that flash plugin required probably wasn’t worth the effect (and also I like being able to click on a header image to redirect me back to a homepage). And I replaced a couple other little graphics with some text links so I can more-easily edit them and change them around when need-be. The first change is, rather than having an ambiguous “store” that doesn’t link to anything important, to have a link to a page where I’m selling the last 60 copies of my Allan Volume 1 book. Now that the other books have been shipped out, I can focus on sending out weekly orders to a handful of people, without it becoming overwhelming. I’m still a college student, and any sort of income is helpful to my immediate survival, so I figured I’d get that up.

I recorded another “season” of Minecraft with my little rag-tag group tonight, which was a lot of fun. I don’t know when it’ll be up to be viewed, but I’ll be sure to link to it once it’s available! Hope your weekend is going as smoothly as mine is, and thank you for all your comments and reassurances. Sometimes I don’t respond, because I often don’t know what to say other than, “Thank you,” and that never feels like enough, but I want you to know I read them all and appreciate every one.

Thank you.