Wednesday, November 26, 2008

lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate

Well, as soon as I stepped into my parents' house there was a bagel and cream cheese on my plate. Avoided lunch by napping, and then had to have deep-dish pizza (damn you, Chicago) because that's what was ordered for dinner. And dessert because my mom was just looking at me in that way.
Being home is like a constant war between my two greatest impulses, that of pleasing others and that of avoiding food. Guilt motivates both, but, odd as it is, pleasing others will always win out even if it makes me hate myself for days afterwards. I probably had over 2000 calories today; I feel like hell and I want to cry, but I didn't disappoint anyone. Self-loathing and punishment delayed are acceptable consequences to accommodating others.
God knows I may feel differently next time I step on our scale, but right now I'm trying to rationalize by saying if I can get through these next few days I can fast/restrict like mad next week. Besides, now that my parents have seen me eat (oh lord, how they saw me eat) maybe they'll get off my back and I can actually do better the next few days. Eating at home, I guess, is a game of chess; today I sacrificed my pawn so tomorrow I can move my king out of check.

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

forget-me-now

Trying to pack to go home for Thanksgiving, and failing. I am so indecisive and needed to pick out what I'm going to wear for nearly a week is hell. Not looking forward to my family's incessant nitpicking at my eating habits, either. I think I've mentioned that before.
Besides the loathe of that which is to come, today went fairly decently. Stayed around 250 calories, and didn't purge. Sad that that is an accomplishment, but right now I'll take what I can get, honestly.
What are (for the Americans) everyone's Thanksgiving plans? Right now I'm planning on surprising everyone and becoming the life of the family get-together, helping cook and serve and all of that. It will be helping out my father, and keep me occupied. And then "sampling a bit of everything" at the meal and "saving room for dessert". It's so odd to have to plan this out; so much easier to live away from home.

OK, time to go pack up books so I don't forget anything and ruin my chance for catching up on schoolwork whilst at home.
Oh, and I actually put up a user picture. Of me with a plate of food and a beer at a party, because goddamn if I don't love the ironic.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

grey

Melancholy must not become me. People keep asking me what's wrong, and look expectant. "Nothing," I say, straighfaced, "school's just a bit, you know." And they nod, like they do. Because, of course, they can't know what it is. That's it's like everything's gone a bit blurry. I can't get to sleep, and then when I do I just want to stay in bed forever because getting ready to go out of the house is an exhausting ritual. I feel ridiculous, perched next to the toilet vomiting or shoving spat-out food into the trash or evaluating the value of each bite in my head. And even with these things I've still had about 500 calories today. Everything seems an exercise in futility.
But since melancholy must not become me, I smile when people look.

I figure Thanksgiving will be a kind of hell, so that 500 calories is overwhelming. But if I stay below 200 the next three days, maybe it will be OK. Most likely not, but I'll pretend for my own sake. The lack of progress just gets aggravating, though, since I know that my goal is extremely obtainable, and it's my own failure getting in the way.


Lately I've turned to my comfort poetry, C.P. Cavafy. There is something of a pervasive yearning in his poetry that is just so entirely sad and beautiful. I found my copy during a charity booksale, so it's a 40-something year old, stained and yellowing paperback that I now cherish. This is one of my favorites, something of the sadness of time and the ignorance of youth:

    An Old Man
In the inner room of the noisy café
an old man sits bent over a table;
a newspaper before him, no companion beside him.

And in the scorn of his miserable old age,
he meditates how little he enjoyed the years
when he had strength, the art of the word, and good looks.

He knows he has aged much; he is aware of it, he sees it,
And yet the time when he was young seems like
yesterday. How short a time, how short a time.

And he ponders how Wisdom had deceived him;
and how he always trusted her — what folly! —
the liar who would say, "Tomorrow. You have ample time."

He recalls impulses he curbed; and how much
joy he sacrificed. Every lost chance
now mocks his senseless prudence.

...But with so much thinking and remembering
the old man reels. And he dozes off
bent over the table of the café.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

what an oink oink pig

Haha oh my god my roommate just bitched at me for walking up and down the hall ONCE with my heels on. Are you fucking kidding me? She blasts her music all the time while she knows I'm sleeping. Seriously she is the most uptight stoner I've ever met in my life.


Anyways, I'm a little drunk but I feel like a fucking pig. I've been eating too much for all the alcohol I've been drinking on top of the food, like, holy shit calories in alcohol. And purging when I get a chance which I know is a stupid goddamn thing to do but it's comforting. I really want to right now but if a few footsteps woke up the roomie...

So starting tomorrow I'm going to have to begin to severely restrict, working my way down to low calories to not shock my body. Only one meal a day is my plan, if I'm working, and then just a salad because that bakery bread is a deathtrap. I'm supposed to go to the farmer's market tomorrow with this girl I'm kind of seeing so I'll have to buy fruit and stuff there, so that can be a meal too I guess? I'll map this out in the morning when I'm less disgustingly tipsy. Maybe a rice cake, an apple, and an americano or two for caffeine. Something like that. None of this disgusting shit I've been doing for the past week. For god's sake I drank beer tonight. If it hadn't made me so tipsy I'd probably be having a bigger panic attack.

Speaking of tipsy and parties and all that, I feel so awkward when people check me out, is that weird? I wore a dress today which is a new thing I'm trying out even though I hate my legs, and my friend was like "hey, this dude in the corner is totally checking you out right now." That makes me feel so weird. People always think I'm just fishing for compliments, but I seriously hate my body so much and think my legs are absolutely disgusting so I kind of hate when people pay attention to them. Whatever.

Oh and thank god I am a fast thinker/talker. My friend came into my room today as we were getting ready to go out and I had forgotten that I had my books about disordered eating on my desk. She started looking at them and in a moment's time I thought to tell her that I was thinking about doing my senior thesis on body image and eating disorders in modern literature from a feminist perspective. Thank the lord the feminism book was on top of the pile.

Monday, November 3, 2008

all kinds of ridiculous

For real, I need to get ahold of myself. The other night I got so drunk I don't remember bits of the night. That has never happened to me before. I guess I told one of my good friends to fuck off when he tried to help me. Man I am one classy broad, right?
Last night I stayed decent amid the chaos of this other party (seriously, it was Factory-esque). Went into caretaker mode when aforementioned friend took his turn at getting sloppy. It's almost sick how comfortable I am in that role, probably in no small part due to my tendency towards co-narcissism. Comforting other people is one of the most comforting things for me. How fucked up is that?

Ended up purging today. Disgusting. It seems to be directly correlated to how much I feel overwhelmed by schoolwork. Still feel like I consumed far too much though, and the scale reflects that, since it's not budging; my body, however, feels so much bigger, especially my stomach, which is pretty much bulging. Apologies for the image of nastiness there.

Basically, this weekend was a disaster and I need to crack down on myself. No more than 1000 cals this week ever, and preferably much lower than that. Also need to schedule me some gym time amid all the work I need to do. I'm such a slacker on that.