i'm sure my story's not that interesting, but that's never stopped me before!

i had a friend go vegan in high school, probably 2002 or 2003; i thought she was nuts. we lived in Iowa which is hardcore meat and potatoes territory. but this was my first real-life exposure to that ideology. Alice, if you're out there, i hope you're still vegan and know that while i was not cool about it then, it affected me!

anyway, fast forward many, many years of loving animals but never thinking about where food came from. i ate the standard American diet, drank too much, lived a sedentary life; by the time i sort of "came to" i was over 400lbs (180+kg), a pack-a-day smoker, a heavy drinker, etc. shortly after i realized what i was doing to myself i got diagnosed with diabetes and moved to Colorado. the more active lifestyle out here combined with some other choices helped me get a bit healthier, stop smoking, and some other things. i think this was the first time i tried going vegan myself, maybe 2011 or 2012. it was really difficult and my complicated relationship with food made it not work.

around this same time i began practicing Zen Buddhism, which i continue doing to this day. i tried going vegan several times over the years and never lasted longer than about six months - the Buddhism strongly encouraged the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, but it still didn't click.

in 2022 my wife and i bought a house and got two cats. they are an absolute joy in my life, and it was that which made me realize ever buffalo wing or hamburger i ate came from a creature with as rich an internal life and as much feeling and personality as my boys, and i couldn't do it any more. in 2023 i became a vegetarian, and in 2024 (April-ish) i became a vegan and have stuck it out since then. the kitties, the zen, and the internet have all helped.

additionally, going vegan made tremendous positive impacts on my health. for the first time in my life my diabetes is under control, my depression is moderated, my gout isn't flaring up, and i'm almost 100lbs lighter than i was when i started all this stuff.

so... yeah! tofu is amazing.