veggin' out

So I’ve been thinking about changing my status from wanna-be vegetarian (or as the Vegetarian Times cookbook politely—probably too politely—calls us, “flexitarians”) to lacto-ovo vegetarian. The title essay of David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, which I read last week, served as a good wake-up call, as he discusses the Maine Lobster Festival and the public killing of these lobsters via the "World's Largest Lobster Cooker":

Why is a primitive, inarticulate form of suffering less urgent or uncomfortable for the person who's helping to inflict it by paying for the food it results in? I'm not trying to give you a PETA-like screed here--at least I don't think so. I'm trying, rather, to work out and articulate some of the troubling questions that arise amid all the laughter and saltation and community pride of the Maine Lobster Festival. The truth is that if you, the festival attendee, permit yourself to think that lobsters can suffer and would rather not, the MLF begins to take on the aspect of something like a Roman circus or medieval torture-fest.

Foster Wallace wrote this essay in 2004; I just checked out the MLF's Web site--the 60th anniversary this year promises a new, updated Lobster Cooker. In the context of the above quote, the new, updated LC plan seems bizarre:

The World's Greatest Lobster Cooker is getting a makeover!
You can be a part of the fun and excitement by purchasing a personalized brick that will be used to construct the new cooker. What a great way to have your name or message carry on forever. It's also a great way to pay tribute to someone you love, "In Honor of..." or "In Memory of..."
from http://www.mainelobsterfestival.com/release.php?ID=15

I’m not sure--actually, I doubt--that Foster Wallace is a vegetarian himself: he muses about the inhumane deaths of lobsters, but also critiques alarmist techniques of organizations like PETA. But I like that he seems to be honestly weighing these options: he claims that he hasn't succeeded "in working out any sort of personal ethical system in which the belief [that animals are less morally important than human beings] is truly defensible instead of just selfishly convenient."

And there's the rub. My biggest fear in becoming a vegetarian is that I will eventually be unable to understand the decision of those who eat meat, which includes (will always include!) P. And this seems (a) highly hypocritical, as I’ve been a fake-vegetarian for so long, and (b) unbelievably selfish, as P does most of the cooking in the household, though that of course would have to change. So we'll see. I’ve cut out all the meat in the past week, but I have to admit that I’m finding it difficult to do. Feeling a bit spacey, but that's likely more psychological than anything.