Tactical ways to work through the maze.

I am staying with my family at the moment because it is Easter. When I come home, I always revert to sedentary occupations and laziness. I do not complete work, or do exercise or eat well. I am ramifying these one by one. Even my language has gone to pot; is ramifying a word?

Anyway, I have begun going to the student library, which is exciting. It's not quite the same as the one at my university, but all of the codes are the same and the desks, though constructed differently, are of a similar wood. The people are the same; I haven't talked to them, but I can assume. It's a tweaked parallel universe that exists because of homogenity.

And with regards to eating, I am consuming over my allowance. My tactics have changed. I have decided to give up sugar, refined anyway. This means less calories in tea and coffee, which I drink lots of, no more squash in the water and no fizzy drinks, diet or otherwise. I wonder if I will be able to eliminate all foodstuffs eventually? Begin with sugar, end with air I suppose. Elimination wise. Today I have eaten:

two slices of marmite on toast
A bowl of muesli with pumpkin seeds, raisins and banana
Grapes
Quarter of an apple
four sticks and houmous
crisps and houmous
sultanas and pumpkin seeds as a snack
Potato and mushroom curry, cuisined by my father

I ate between a third and a half of the crisps, which is a ludicrous amount, and I have done very little exercise (throwing a ball around a basketball hoop doesn't really count). My skin is a mess; it's pasty and spotty at the best of times, but it appears to have erupted. I have been going without sugar since Tuesday and I plan to give myself a break this sunday to consume some easter eggs before I donate the rest of them to clamouring siblings, or better still the salvation army.

My father indulged in some light character assassination today. He feels we are distanced; he wanted me to know he cares a lot for me. The worst thing is, I know he cares a lot for me, and I care a lot for him. However, I find him irksome. I do not know why; whether this is an overhang from my school days, when he used to pressure me to achieve. I know he did this because he cares so much about me, and that good school marks lead to a good future; he has said so, many times, and I believe him. Maybe it is that he refers to "your mother" as opposed to his wife, or mum, and then attempts to divide his half of the family from hers, it seems to me. Or that I lose every argument we have, scholarly or otherwise. We are both obstinate, I know this much. He said I appear to be fixed on being different to everyone else, and said that, "you don't need to be, because you're a great kid". Which is lovely of him to say, only I don't feel I am trying to be different; I am just me, is all. I asked him why he thought this, and he replied with a vague, "oh, just the way you are sometimes. Don't worry about it, I'm probably wrong". I don't know. I love my Dad, I do. He works hard, and he feels useless if he's not breadwinning. He dotes on us and tells us all how proud of us he is. His father died young, when he was nine, and I know people whose fathers have died that would give their right arm to be in my shoes. It's worse because I get on well with my other family members; but I feel a pressure to be pleasing when I am with him that I don't feel with the rest. I don't know. Pleasing isn't the right word. I am far too old for these sort of angsts.