Dear Diary,

Maybe it's wrong to have high expectations of a vacation... especially when so much depends on others. I have friends here but they all have their various quirks: this one takes forever to get moving, this one can only talk about himself, this one never comes through, this one can't have a serious conversation. I am limited by the personalities of my friends and dependent upon their generosity.

Keith is a good friend and he is not the most stable person to spend a holiday with. He has a myriad of health concerns, real or imagined I'm not sure. He is easily distracted and basically in a constant state of fear. In particular, with current world events, he has been almost unmanageable. I know what's happening in the world right now is frightening, and there is also a limited amount of actions we can take. So we take those actions, then we must wait and see, but meanwhile stressing continually does not help. It is indeed a terrible time in the world, I can't imagine the intense fear of the people in Japan, combined with loss.

I don't know why I am here- part of me just wants to go home and crawl into bed. I feel overwhelmed staying with Keith and his constant flipping out. I realize I may have been better off if I had divided my stay among a few places, or at least gotten a car. But I'm not really in a financial position to rent a car. Anyhow it doesn't matter now.

Yesterday I took the bus and went to the beach by myself, because Keith said he had to stay home and work (I found out later that he didn't actually get any work done- he was stressing and on the Internet all day, and went to meet that girl he'd been obsessing about. The positive aspect of meeting with her again was that the reality of her didn't match with all the fantasies he'd been having, so at least that calmed his fantasies a bit). In any case, it was good for me to get away by myself. I lay in the sun, went in the ocean, and waddled around looking in all the shops.

That's another aspect of being here... since it is a beach town, most people are pretty in shape and all about the beach... I am so damned out of shape... my legs are still hurting from the hike we took two days ago. I am just fat right now, and even though I haven't eaten sugar in probably a month now, my exercising hasn't increased, really, and I haven't seen much of a difference as far as weight loss. I know I can change, and I know the eating is a big part of that, I've done it before and it takes time... I'm just in a miserable place right now, having only recently realized how much weight I've gained and started to pay attention to it. Maybe I should start eating half sandwiches and whatever? Cut down to eating half of what I normally would? That is, providing I don't contract radiation sickness and die. My weight being a stupid thing to worry about at this time, but I'm finding it difficult to not hate myself for one reason or another.

So, I don't know what to say at this point- complain about my unfulfilling vacation while the planet is on the verge of collapse? What else to do? There is the notion that all my attention should be on the people in Japan, but then do I cower in a corner here, or do I keep moving and doing things? What is right?

Love,
Duck

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