2/15/2023

Driving back from Toms River today I realized how much I protect myself from the world. Thirty minutes to an hour before waking up, I actually feel like I could be personable and freely share my thoughts and emotions.
Mentally I feel good.
Happy.
Thirty minutes later after doing Wordle, Hurgle, bidding good morning to my friends via text, and eating my oatmeal I feel my psyche preparing for today, drawing back in all the sensitive crap or anything with potential to convey I might be a human being. By the time I park at the office, I am quiet, polite, and taciturn. There's no way I'm going to open up to anyone nor express any real emotion.

This is really sad.

I am terrified of showing who I am to people. Always afraid they're going to leverage it against me, get me fired, or worse. These fears lay on the spectrum of narcissism, are baseless, serve no purpose except provide the illusion that I matter somehow somewhere in society when I really do not.

Sent out four Valentines Day cards. One was received, uncertain about the others but I don't care since the cards were for someone else not to get an ego rub that I thought of someone.

Found out that I potentially have room in my living area to have an easy chair. If I move the nightstand under my west-facing window out of my room then I'll have 34 inches to play with. The big comfy easy chairs at work are 33 inches wide. Only issue is trying to get the fucking chair back home in my car. Reckon I could ask my landlord if he'll help me, but he's a capitalist and won't do anything for free. Good on him. I just don't know anyone else who could help me bring it to the 'hood after I find and buy an easy chair. Having an easy chair in my room would make things so much more comfortable, even though it'd be a bit crowded in here.

On Tuesday night I made meatloaf and added hoisin sauce to the mix then glazed the meatloaf with the remainder of the hoisin sauce. I was going to make it in my slow cooker but time constraints conspired against me and using the oven was quicker. I was looking for recipes to make in my slow cooker and found one could make meatloaf in one.
What the recipes had in common was using a glaze on the meatloaf, and I decided to use one of the store-bought asian sauces instead of the abhorrent ketchup mixes suggested by the recipe.
Most important tip was not to overmix the meatloaf because then it'd come out dense and dry. The past few times I made meatloaf wound up overmixing, being naïve, and getting turned off to the only good thing I know how to cook. Reckon the overmixing happened since the chopped spinach was not thoroughly defrosted and I was trying to break up the spinach bits so it'd be evenly distributed throughout the meatloaf. This time I left the frozen chopped spinach out for a day and it was perfect by the time I returned home.