My soul wants less meat

At some point in the past month I accidentally became a vegetarian. I don't know why, but I never feel like eating meat anymore. Like right now, I'm munching on hummus and pita bread. I went to a restaurant the other day and ordered a veggie burger and at Pink's last week I got a veggie hotdog. I have no idea why.

That's kind of dangerous since I work out so much so I'm going to have to start forcing myself to eat more meat or drink some protein shakes for breakfast. Maybe I should learn to make smoothies.

Fruit and vegetables are a good thing, but too much of one thing and not enough of the other is not good for the soul.

Speaking of "soul", a Friend and I were having a debate the other night about the use of the word. He writes songs and every single one of his songs includes at least one mention of how his soul is doing. I told him he'd used up his quota, like people who put exclamation points on the end of every sentence.

His songs are great and he's a good singer, but it's just the constant use of this one word that bothers me as a writer.

This did not make him happy, probably because I said it like an asshole when he was in a really good mood. "It's my trademark," he said. "I use that word for a very specific reason."

I guess it's a personal thing. There's only so many times you can talk about your heart and your soul before you run out of ways to describe it.

He has one song that includes a line in the chorus about things he's dying to say to a girl: "In my lungs, on my tongue". I think that's gorgeous. He could have said something like "There's so much I want to say to you" but chose an image instead. Much more effective and I haven't heard it before.

"Black" is a brilliant song. The whole song is told through metaphor. But my favorite line is this one: "I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?" Wow. Sear? That's unexpected and vivid and sums up his emotional pain clearly. And Fiona Apple's "Never is a Promise". Hell even the title of that song is poetic. But that line "The shades and shadows undulate in my perception" is amazing. First of all, what 15 year old even knows what "undulate" means? But it's a perfect word to describe her emotional state, and something about the way that word sounds together with the alliteration of "shades and shadows" fits the tone of the song beautifully.

Maybe it's because as a screenwriter I'm constantly tweaking and changing my words and taking time to find the most interesting way to say something so the reader doesn't get bored and throw my script out, whereas a songwriter just wants to find something pretty that rhymes. But I guess I respect his music more than that. I expect Friend's songs to be really amazing because he has that potential. This is what I tried to tell him.

Alas, in true Emily style, I made a compliment sound like an insult.