I've finally figured out what my "breakdowns" are. When I am so infused with anger, sadness, and hate, I become useless, capable only of crying uncontrollably or destroying random things. Lucky for me, I caught mine right before it reached threshold stimulus and ate it away with Chex cereal and soy bean milk. I gorged myself knowing I was eating only because I wanted to drown my sorrows in a bowl of pleasure, the food being pleasure. Theeeen I washed away any remnants of angry feelings with music.

Friday's lecture at UCI was quite interesting. One of the female speakers, in response to the speech given by Aridjis, told a story about orange groves and orange orchards. She was in Spain with her husband, driving through some orange trees which were in full blossom, when she started crying uncontrollably, thinking of her mother. It turns out, when she was very very very young, her late mother had an orchard at home, planted with orange trees. She had subconsciously remembered her past. I found this story irrelevant to Aridjis's amazing speech about his environmental actions against the government, thinking groves to be forced upon the earth, but my father set me straight. I'd forgotten there were no pesticides at the time, no CFCs destroying what they were supposed to be protecting. Thought that was interesting.