Cain, My Brother.

It is not easy for me to form new habits and disciplines; it  simply does not come naturally, and it requires some considerable conscious effort. Even if, however, I do apply myself to establishing a new discipline, that I will succeed is far from certain. To put it simply, no matter how determined I am to see it through, often I just forget, and so my good intentions seldom make it to the habit stage.

Thankfully, this same forgetfulness, combined with a desire for variety in my activities, has also kept me free from many bad, time wasting, habits. I might occasionally binge on video games or internet, but that can be followed by weeks of fast, virtually unbroken; mostly because, I believe, those things just lose their novelty too quickly. Indeed, one of my habits, which might most be considered a time suck, is walking. It is not however, while it is my mechanism for collecting my thoughts and bringing them into some semblance of order. That, accompanied with the relative tranquility, are necessary to my continued sanity, and subsequently, the health of the populace for some distance in every direction.

Although it is nice, and pleasant, and good, and all that rot, that I should not have many entrenched bad habits, the difficulties with forming new positive behaviors kind of balances things out.

I have found one aid in forming new habits: ritual. I recently discovered--through a discovery on the correlation between the regular placement of my things and whether they go with me in the morning--that I am better at establishing new patterns if I get the details exactly so.

For example: my new morning ritual. My alarm goes off at 6:15, I snooze the impudent little tosser. He goes off again at 6:20, I snooze him again, but get up before he can make that horrid noise again. There are half a dozen boring steps in the ritual which follows, but they are fairly specific. For example, I drink my coffee--or drank my coffee--from one of my two union jack mugs.

Another peculiar thing about me; I get very attached to the items which I use every day. Defiling my watch, my bag, my schooz, my ring, my suits, my knife, or my most sacrosanct coffee mugs is a serious thing. Yes, a thing--English has no word for it. These are the items consecrated to my daily ritual, the loss or destruction of which might cast the destroyer/loser from the thoroughfares of righteous good health onto the train-tracks of mortal peril.

It is inconceivable that someone would destroy one of my things; it simply does not register.

Which is probably why Andrew is still alive.

Mutti came into the room this evening--Andrew had found it prudent to hide while I received the news--and told me that Dogmeat had destroyed one of my England mugs: Shattered it on the floor, almost certainly maliciously. Happily, the other mug was not in his reach at the time, or his vile plot might have been complete. Nonetheless, I am going to have to guard the other mug jealously, lest he decide to break that one too, and force a change in my morning ritual...not to mention take out an object to which I am absurdly attached.

That he would offend against my person in such a way simply had not crossed my mind until now. The little Bakunin thinks he is being creative; I think, if that is his style, that I can be more creative than he, oh yes, I will paint a mural to his sketch.

The salt tears of his women will nourish the fruits of my revenge...if he breaks my other mug, that is.