And even outside of the cruelty - and it IS cruel, those animals know they're gonna die - it's killing us. The greenhouse gas emissions from producing beef are just too much.

I just can't bloody do it anymore.

But meat is REALLY TASTY and I CRAVE it when I haven't had it for a couple of weeks and I'm a big ol' belly-driven hypocrite

So I figure tomorrow either I kill a deer in one lights-out shot and eat it, or I stop eating meat, that's where I'm at.

I've never killed an animal that didn't absolutely need to die immediately - think birds and small mammals mauled by cats or hit by cars and dying slowly - and tomorrow I'm gonna go kill one, on purpose, so I can eat it.

Or maybe not, and just be vegetarian, but maybe with, like, clarity? Less regret and longing, knowing I gave it the full try?

I did a lot of target shooting with air rifles when I was younger, and I miss it. It's wonderful and peaceful to hold so utterly, perfectly still. I don't shoot firearms because a hideously loud explosion is a crappy way to end a period of Becoming A Stone calmness, but today I spent a long time calibrating a rifle because I'm not confident I could be humane with a bow.

And by humane I mean lights-out, dead before it hits the ground, never knew what hit it.

Because otherwise why bother, might as well go buy tortured animal chunks from costco and try not to think about it. No, the deal is if I think it'll take longer than a second to die, I don't shoot, and if it wanders off and gets no closer then, well, peanuts are a thing, I don't HAVE to eat animals.

My nana and granddad were farmers. It didn't come out until after my grandma died that she was vegetarian, because it would've been scandalous, how fucked is that?