Chemistry is tearing open parts of my brain that have long been boarded shut with scrap wood and stolen nails.

I found myself staring at a spot of rust on the washing machine and imagining the electron exchange in an oxidation. I don't like chemistry but it makes so much sense while still keeping me on my toes.

A sugar glider is an arboreal marsupial native to Australia, Tasmania, and Indonesia. It is related to the kangaroo, opossum, and Tasmanian devil. It looks like a big-eyed grey squirrely-monkey thing with a black stripe down its back and it's about the size of a rat.

Some people really like them.

I'm entering into the fourth week in which I haven't had a day in which I don't have work or class. My drinking has suffered terribly. Even yesterday during the Superbowl, the one time everyone puts aside their differences and drinks on a Sunday afternoon, I was only able to flirt with drunkeness.

It's been difficult. More difficult than the time I didn't drink for three months. That was actually easier because I think I was motivated by some foolish idealism. Now my hold on sobriety is mainly cirucumstantial.

I'm still reading about Miyamoto Musashi. He wrote a short work titled "The Way of Walking Alone." Some of the things he says are "Do not ever think in acquisitive terms. Do not harbor hopes for your own personal home. Do not be intent on possesing valuables or a fief in old age." This is in reference to maintaining a life free of obligations and in the context of feudal Japan but it still applies. I do worry, however, because these tenets can provide the basis for a life in which a person can focus on self-improvement and understanding the world by maximizing freedom in terms of mobility, at least, but this also seems to be a recipe for becoming a real asshole.

I'm going to try to get Fridays or Saturdays off from work.