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.

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.

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.

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.

for some reason my house smells like dirty old rotten burnt peanut butter... so that is discouragement enough

Skipped my first class again today because I couldn't decide what to wear in time. Wtf. It's so stupid, but I feel seriously incapable of leaving the house until I feel confident in my outfit. Probably part of my need to present myself to others in a certain way. Does anyone else feel a compulsive need to look 'presentable' before leaving the house?
Since I'm otherwise fairly caught up on my work, I went to the library today and took out some books about disordered eating. Honestly, I'm still hesitant to identify with the term 'anorectic' since I do not fit all the criteria, but the disordered part I'll own up to. Had some interesting tidbits, including that if you go below 25 kcal a day your body will go into hibernation mode and actually bulk up. Good to know.
Continued with the reading material while at the supermarket and picked up this book to carry around as a reference since I can't always have Google at my fingertips. I must have looked like the oddest person, purchasing that, Shape magazine, a diet nutrition bar, protein water mix, and a shitload of Halloween candy. But dammit I am living in a house for the first time in 3 years and I will give children candy tomorrow.


CONSUMED
small yerba mate soy latte - 100
half cup juice + water - 40
cherry coke zero - 0
nutrition bar thing - 230
TOTAL: 390

I was going to fast completely but I didn't want to totally send my body into shock after that fiasco yesterday. Felt so guilty after the nutrition bar and was slightly freaking out and wanted to purge so badly, though. Looking at the empty wrapper was like looking at failure, even though I objectively knew that I needed the protein and stuff in it. I was at a bus stop so I couldn't, luckily. Still feeling bad about it but trying not to.

Tomorrow is Halloween, which means candy and alcohol. Holy shit. Restrict like crazy during the day to make up for the alcohol I am sure will be imbibed later in the night. Maybe some hummus on veggies at work since I'm supposed to eat a meal, but that's it other than liquids.

why

omg So I had to sample pastries for my job because we might be switching bakeries.... holy shit and I didn't know that I had to do that until later in the day so I had already had this cup of really heavy soup, that was going to be all I had today. Well that's fucked.

I feel just so sluggish and nasty and full and it's only 6pm. Like I can feel my stomach bulging out and ew.
And it feels even worse after how strong I felt yesterday. This is so goddamn lame. I kind of want to cry. But this strengthens my resolve for another liquid fast tomorrow. Sadly the calories will probably only just even out to about normal intake over the course of three days.
Maybe I'll try to finish my homework at a decent hour and head to the gym.


On a better note, Hana, Yerba Mate is a kind of tea that basically has all the properties of coffee without the jittery side effects. It's a traditional drink in South America and can be prepared a few ways, but most people in the US drink it as a straight tea or with steamed milk and a bit of honey (I use sugarfree hazelnut).

also I wrote an awesome essay on Shakespeare today

OK, so I ended up doing a more liquid fast than straight juice fast. Whatever, still loads better.

CONSUMED
1 cup juice, watered down - 80
cup ginger peach tea - 0
2 TUMS - 10
big yerba matte latte with soy - 200
TOTAL: 290

I've decided to start introducing yerba mate into my diet. Apparently it is thermogenic even more than green tea. Plus it's energizing and yummy. I was going to make a cup of straight mate (0 cals) but I had a formal talk to attend and didn't want my stomach to be protesting though some of the world's most preeminent scholars talking about their work.
Now I just have to somehow avoid all the food I will be handed at work tomorrow. Hopefully one of the soups is a broth soup; maybe I will allow myself that.
I am also actually getting shit done in my life and it feels great.