Flush

My wife worries about me when I'm alone.  I rarely sleep ( being around people is about the only thing that seems to make me tired. With complete solitude I can go on 1-4 hours sleep every 26- and that's weird in itself because it seems that my natural sleep cycle is set to a 26 hour day). I don't eat much or often, just when I'm both hungry and not absorbed in something else, which makes perfect sense to me, but since it comes out to eating once every other day (plus whatever I graze as I hike along) she worries.

Then she finds out what I am eating (currently a ramen noodle soup with leftover ham and kangaroo) and worries more.

These tendencies don't come out much around people.  Left to myself I eat to refuel or for fun, and cooking is more fun than eating.  Sleep is a form of time travel for when there is nothing else to do.  Around people, it's different.  There are meal times, and people seem to get seriously grumpy if the schedule is off by much.  Social eating- which I understand, hospitality was a big piece of my family's moral culture- but people over time do notice if you don't eat and act concerned, which leads to caring conversation, which makes me tired.  Or they act hurt if they notice you aren't eating with them.  So I eat and I smile.

Conversation for conversation's sake is a grind. When there is something to talk about, I enjoy conversation.  Even debate and arguing, but especially exploring someone else's mind: What do you think?  What do you believe? Why? How does that affect this?  But conversation just for it's own sake, just for bonding is an effort and makes me tired.  If I spend time in your presence, I already like you, OK?  There is no need for mutual babbling to confirm the fact. C'mon.

Half a day alone today and I could feel the psychic human gunk of a very long week flushing away.  That's good. Now I'm going to eat my kangaroo (seriously, how could you have an opportunity to eat 'roo and turn it down?)