typical.

my life is so predictable. in the worst ways.

my friend keeps pushing back the time i'm supposed to come hang out with her at her college, so i said fuck it. in our friendship, she only has time to be a friend sometimes. unlike me, of course. if she needs to talk to me, i'm just sitting around with nothing to do, waiting to talk to her. obviously. but that's not even a real issue. i've completely given up on the two of us ever being real friends, so whatever.

i've been spending a lot of time hanging out with this one girl from school. we go to her house and we study or we talk about things. her family loves having me over. but every time i go to her house, i feel like i'm using her. to feel normal for a few hours. whenever i don't feel like going home, i just say, "hey, i'm coming to your house today." and she's like, "okay, cool." but it's not cool. so i'm going to cook dinner for her family on monday. just because they've been really nice to me. hopefully, i don't completely screw this up. knowing me, i'd accidentally poison all of them. (i'm joking. kind of. i wouldn't poison anyone intentionally.) she asked me if i wanted to sleep over this weekend. i said no, because i thought i'd be hanging out with my (aforementioned) friend. now my weekend is going to be shit.

yesterday started badly, got slightly better and then fell sharply. i had a small breakfast, and while i was eating, i asked the girl i ride to school with to bring my ipod charger. i lent her mine, since she doesn't have one. for some retarded reason, at 9.45 i told her i'd be out in two minutes and i didn't actually emerge from my house until fifteen minutes later. so i'm pretty sure i made her late for vocal lessons. (way to ruin someone else's day, right?) then i skipped my first two classes to help my friend with her project, which was filming some sort of video project something or another. i made a fool out of myself, and they're going to play it in class. brilliant. so i go to my next class, which is uneventful, but somehow still depressing. probably because of the midterm.
i leave my things with some of my classmates, i ask them to watch it. i go to the store to get a lollipop because i'm totally on the edge of depression and i'm trying to not go there. when i come back, my binder is on a chair behind everyone, they're not watching my stuff, and it looks like all my papers fell out and they didn't even bother to put them back in. so my mood is not getting better. i go to choir (or whatever it's called) and banana (if you remember her) is totally acting like i don't exist. which is her thing now. she ignores me. which is great because i thought we were friends. and when she isn't ignoring me, she's looking at me so i know she can see me, but she just doesn't give a shit. anyway, that kind of turned my sadness into something similar to annoyance, which cheered me up a bit. (if that makes any sense.)

then there was this halloween party at my school last night. green eyes and i ended up being the only two without costumes, so we stole a broom and dustpan and went as janitors. lame, yeah, i know. this girl, who we'll just call the pirate, decided to drink vodka. she's a paperweight. she was completely drunk and she drank like, nothing. so green eyes and i ended up watching her, which was great. no, actually, it wasn't. nothing makes you depressed like seeing a bunch of people having fun without you. even drunk and making a fool out of herself, the pirate had all these guys constantly around her. and green eyes was dancing with this girl who was dressed up as tinker bell. i was dancing... by myself. on the edge of the group. then i had to take the pirate off the dance floor because too many people were trying to get down her pants. i ended up not enjoying myself for the rest of the night, staying late to make sure the drunk girl could get somewhere safely and then leaving with green eyes who dropped me off at the bus stop. at midnight. he told me all about how yet another guy in our class likes the pirate and how he didn't think tinker bell should be going out with the guy who dressed up as peter pan. (which sounded a lot like, "i like her even though i have a girlfriend.")
i called my mother to tell her i was on my way home, she said she would come pick me up from the bus stop. thirty minutes later, she drives past me. and it wasn't like it was dark or anything, plus i was the only person standing at the bus stop. that's when i had this crazy little thing i call a mental breakdown. so i'm basically crying at a bus stop because i hate my life. i'm shivering because the temperature dropped and i was totally not dressed for that shit. and my mother comes back thirty minutes later because she realizes she passed me.

so that was a good day. aside from realizing that i'm the quintessential bro-friend (despite being a girl) and  concluding that i'm obviously hideous because no one likes me, it turns out that everyone either likes the girls who are twenty pounds heavier than me or twenty pounds lighter. i'm just in that awkward place. i don't know.

i'm such a fucking loser.

i'm just going to sit here, wallowing in a mixture of self-pity and self-hate.

i don't want to do anything.

if i get myself to take a shower today it'll be a miracle.

i hate my life.

honestly.

je suis condamnée a l'éclair, la foudre éphémère.

{i am condemned to flashes and brief lightning.}

i want to learn french so badly. i love the way it sounds. and i want to buy gum. a lot of gum.

my friend and i, we had a girl chat the other day on msn. (how often do i do that? hardly ever. women are more trouble than they're worth, especially when they think they know you better than you know yourself. but msn is kind of my thing, so why not talk to her, right? i was already there. ....moving on.) we talked about thigh gaps. she sounded determined. now whenever i'm like,

omgg, i haven't done my stretches in like, a month! school screwed me overr i'm so freaking fat now. we should be exercise buddies again. <3 it'll be fun, we'll both be super thin and cute and stufffs :)


she's all like,

.... oh. yeah? that's cool. so anyway, should i eat milk and cookies or just cook a lot of pasta and eat it with this tuna i bought yesterday?


......you should probably eat the milk and cookies. (bitch.)


so, yeah. she's not really someone i talk to much these days. (she's a bit like a trigger. it's horrible, i know.) although i am (maybe) going to visit her next week at her college so we can hang out and go clubbing and act like we haven't changed since high school. she's always talking about how she has to go exercise, she needs to get on the treadmill, blah blah blahh. but you know what they say: you can hide the food but you can't hide the fat. (i'm not one to talk, i'm the size of a baby whale right now.) anyway, to cut this story short, she sent me a text. a few hours ago, i guess.

hey, do you know any sites with good beginner's yoga poses?


hmm. do i help someone i've known for almost six years lose weight, even if she can be a capricious bitch at times? or do i play stupid, lose more weight than her, and then act like i don't notice that she's larger than life itself?

i'm probably going to hell for this.

hmmm, no. actually, i wouldn't use sites. they don't show you how to do those poses right. you could hurt yourself.

translation.


hmm, no. actually, i do, but i won't tell you because i am really hoping you gain fifty pounds.

yes, i am in total bitch mode tonight. so your hair is thinning and you can't lose weight-- that's no reason to treat your friends like garbage and then try to get their help other times. so that's that. now that i think about it, i've been totally heartless lately. there's a lady at my mom's job who said she had a treadmill she would give us. but she uhm, injured herself (or something) trying to get the treadmill out of her basement (or something) to give to us on sunday. and she was in the hospital. my mom told me. my response was, "oh. so, we're not getting the treadmill this week then?" basically: 

YEAH, OKAY LADY. YOU WENT TO THE HOSPITAL. SUCK IT UP. I NEED A TREADMILL. 

isn't that terrible? i do feel sorry for her. she's out now. which is good. and i'd love to get the treadmill tomorrow, but my mother thinks we should give her time to recover fully. (this lady used to change her dog's diapers. are you telling me she can't hold a door open so i can get a treadmill?) i'm getting antsy from all this waiting. 

i never noticed this when i was younger, but one of my aunts might have an eating disorder. even when i was younger, i don't remember seeing her eat much, and i used to stay at her house for days sometimes. what i do remember is seeing her on her treadmill. like clockwork, every morning and night. she was my favorite aunt growing up (and still is) because she's was skinny, unlike her sisters. my other aunts would be like, "stop being such a picky eater. food is meant to be shoveled into your mouth." and she would just say, "not hungry? want to drink something, then?" SHE IS SO COOL. you know, for someone who's actually related to me. and she's so freaking skinny.

HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THIS. 

she always used to pick me up when i was little and tell me how long and skinny my legs were. good times, those were. good times. actually, when i was little, i hated eating. and fat people, because my mean aunts were all fat. (that doesn't mean all my fat aunts were mean.) haha, my diary from when i was in first grade has a chart where i split the class into skinny and fat kids. incidentally, all the girls i thought were fat were never mentioned again, but all the skinny girls were my closest friends. hmm. this makes me wonder what kind of kid i really was now.

and the concert is in twenty one days. i've been hovering around one hundred and twenty two pounds ALL MONTH. do you think i could fast that long? holy shit, i don't want to be the fat girl at the concert. gotta stop making excuses for myself. (sad fact: started another food journal today. first entry = depression.)

there's a difference between interest and commitment.

when you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permits.

when you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results.

art turock.

(whoever that is. i really don't care, i just like this quote. unless it's someone really cool. in which case, awesome.)

i couldn't have said it any better.

i won't do anything i'll have to find an excuse for. no excuses. only results.

honestly.

you know what happens when you reach perfection? you die.

the lady in charge of the choir said that today. really got me excited for some reason. anyway. today was a good day.

first, i totally aced a presentation and didn't fail my mid-term. i literally studied for the mid-term ten minutes before i took it. thank goodness for that. then after i took the mid-term, i went upstairs and saw the food guy. the crush who pushes food around. today he only had toothpicks. i was so ecstatic. he let me take two. (i think i almost got a splinter on my tongue. that would not have been fun.) then blahblahblah, class, boring.

and then i ran into the friend of this guy i like who's in one of my classes. AND I HAVE THE PERFECT NAMES FOR THEM. okay, the guy i like, we'll call him business. because he's always serious. except for rare occasions when he lets himself relax around people. and his friend, we'll call accounting. because they're best friends. it's much better than the other option, i assure you. (death and taxes.) anyway, i didn't see business today. not that it would matter, because he never says anything anyway, and we usually just make faces at each other across the classroom. accounting, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. i spent a decent amount of time talking to him today, which is sad because i just met him and we're already better friends than business and i. anywho. he asked me what i thought about business while we were talking. kinda random, but whatever. i said i thought he was kind of weird. (i forgot that most people don't take weird as a compliment. but i do.) then, on another random topic change, accounting invited me to smoke pot with him sometime. i spent most of our conversation laughing. i was completely amused. it seemed like he was either trying to find out about me for business or he likes me himself. (EVEN IF NEITHER OF THOSE ARE TRUE, IT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER. FOR NOW. three cheers for being delusional! hip hip hooray...) they've both got their levels of attraction, to be fair. but business is way cuter. however, he's also wayy more uptight.

moving along. all the pretty, skinny girls i admire have accepted me into their circle. there's this one girl, she's so freaking pretty. she's twenty two. i swear, she looks eighteen. (barely.) we're friends now. apparently, i once ran into her and her boyfriend and told him he had a nice beard. she remembers me because of that. (lesson: compliments will come in handy... eventually.)

i didn't run on the treadmill today. but accounting totally got my attention and made me lose track of time, so i guess... i still don't have a good excuse. haha, but it's okay. between flirting with construction workers, flirting with the best friends of guys i like, flirting with guys who push food-related carts around and trying to not roundhouse kick a stupid arrogant bitch in her fat fucking face, i guess i really needed the break. (what? angry? me? about something? pfft. nah. what are you talking about?)

my thoughts are all over the place right now. but i know three things for sure. one, i definitely increased the number of scrunchies on my wrist from twenty two to twenty six. two, i'm probably going to end up smoking with accounting, if only because he intrigues me. and three, if i don't keep myself happy for at least the next week, i'm going to have a mental breakdown.

i probably shouldn't smoke with him, though. especially since he kind of gives off the i'm totally into you vibe. and since i get the munchies. and eat ketchup. (not happening again, i swear.) if anything happens, it'll happen next tuesday or thursday. he said he lives far, though. i guess we'll see. :)

oh, and this is totally unrelated, but i cracked a fortune cookie the other day and the fortune said:

fate happens now, you decide.

think the universe is trying to tell me something?

i think so.

at least, i'd like to think so.

honestly.

enough is enough.

no more procrastination.

i know. it sounds crazy, coming from me. gasp. go ahead. but i keep finding excuses to not do things. things like...

homework, for one. that's kind of important. especially in this one class where there's no midterm. i should probably am totally going to do those assignments.

practice my singing more. also kind of important, since my vocal teacher can tell i'm lying about practicing at home. well, i wouldn't say lying. when i say i practiced, i mean i was going to practice and something else came up. but it's the thought that counts, so i did practice in a way. ya know?

exercise more. i have a friend who's in a few of my classes and i told her tomorrow the two of us are going to work out. for thirty minutes before class. and then i might work out after class, just to get some extra time in. on the treadmill. i've been procrastinating on that one since school started. it's really quite shameful. now that it's raining more, i can't run at night like i want to. (like i've been procrastinating with as well.)

eat less crap food. i already don't eat much, but today something really clicked in my head. see, earlier i was hungry. it was lunchtime and my stomach growled. that's not easy to play off, especially in a group. so i asked my friend (the same one i just mentioned) to walk with me. i bought fries. i'm cheap, yes, so i didn't want to buy anything that actually cost a real amount of money. (chinese stores are the best, when you need cheap fries.) i told her i didn't want to go inside the school when we got back even though it was raining. i have issues with eating around/ in front of people now. i feel self-conscious. so i went inside with her. no sense in acting weirder than i already am. i was nibbling at my food, slowly, when this fat girl popped up.

"do you need help with that?" she asked as she dropped herself into the seat closest to me.

it's like, one fucking meal, dammit. like, i can be normal about eating one freaking order of fries for once, right? i wanted to feel like when i was younger, and i could buy food, sit down and eat it and be okay with it. i already felt like shit while i was attempting to eat because it seemed like every single girl that passed was super skinny and i felt like a whale. so i said no a bit sharper than i meant to. then i felt bad and said i was joking.

"i just want one," she said. but when she reached in, she pulled out three. i guess she said some and not one, i thought. bad communication. maybe i wasn't listening. but seriously. it didn't end with one. i mean, i was still nibbling one fry and she was just eating devouring inhaling destroying all of them. and i could hear her chewing and ugh, it was just awful. my stomach turned. and i was a little pissed. i mean, i did pay for it. right? like, can i eat some of the fries i bought for myself? apparently not. i ended up not eating any more. i gave 'em away. had a cup of tea instead. it made me feel so sick, in fact, that i ended up taking my emergency laxative in school.  but i learned my lesson.

sitting next to her, listening to her eat (because i couldn't even bring myself to look at her), i realized the problem. i keep making excuses for myself. which is just making this procrastination worse. so i'm going to work harder. the funny thing is that one of my crushes actually works in the school cafeteria. (crushes, as in i never have only one at a time. more like six or seven. or thirteen.) whenever i see him, he's pushing a cart of food in front of him. gross food but still food. i'm torn between avoiding him and just being around him. i'll figure something out.

anyway, that's how it is. no more procrastination. it's ruining my life. the only thing i should probably procrastinate with is taking laxatives. can you be addicted to these things? because just taking one can make me feel better. it's weird, right? i know. :(

THAT BEING SAID, i had a wonderful day today. green eyes (not that you'd remember him, with his smoldering eyes and disturbingly sexy smile) and red (who is still super happy that i came to his party and won't shut up about it which is kinda cute) are proving to be really good friends. friends that, for some reason, enjoy talking to me. which just goes to show, just because a guy has a girlfriend, it doesn't mean they'll be with them forever. that's not where i meant to go with that. but it works anyway.

okay. now off to do my homework. and take one last laxative, just for good luck.

i can do it.

it sounds terrible, but, that's honestly how it is.

maybe with a little self control, i can get a little self esteem.
i could probably use some of that.

my cellphone background. good thing i don't let people look at it.

now, whenever i feel hungry, i can just check with my cellphone and see if it approves.

i've already got a feeling about what it's going to say, though.

alright. my procrastination officially ends now.

honestly.

p.s. i love you all. :) i'm still reading your blogs even if i'm not commenting all the time. EVEN IF DOING THAT MADE ME LATE FOR MY CLASS TODAY. you know how it is. <3

feeling for bones.

the winds have changed. (... maybe.)

my luck is improving. (... perhaps.)

i haven't gained anything. (... for now.)

it's a bit hard to stay positive with all those little whispers trailing behind my thoughts. but for the most part, i think all of those are true. i've been trying to get a treadmill in this house for years. and finally, finally, it looks like something's going to work out. one of my mom's coworkers has a treadmill for us. (... supposedly.) 


i thought i was going to visit a dear friend of mine next year so we could spend our birthdays together. but it looks like he'd rather work and earn money than spend time with me. spending time with me, i guess, would ultimately be a waste of time. compared to other things he could be doing. really, though. anyone would rather make money than hang around doing "nothing really" for a week. (... obviously.) 


my mother almost restocked the fridge.i went with her and made sure i stocked up on as many fruits as i could. of course, that didn't stop her from putting a couple of unwanted things in the cart. she was paying, i couldn't stop her. now if i binge, it'll be healthy. like that makes a difference. at least i didn't binge yesterday. (... surprisingly.)


i thought one of my best friends was angry with me. turns out i was wrong. i'm glad for that, he's one of few people i can really talk to about anything. i thought another one of my best friends was my workout buddy. i thought we both had goals we wanted to reach and we would support each other. i guess since i'm actually losing weight and she isn't, she doesn't want to talk about it anymore. whatever "it" is. at least when we hang out in two weeks i'll be skinnier than when she last saw me. i guess morrissey was right when he said we hate it when our friends become successful. (... sadly.)


i think i figured out what i miss about high school. i could buy like, ten dollars worth of candy and blow through it in six hours, come home and not gain weight for days in a row. but that's probably because i'd just burn off all the sugar by moving for six hours straight. anyway, i think i'm liquid fasting today. and tomorrow. for as long as i can. mainly because i kinda finished a whole pack of forty eight laxatives between saturday and last night, and i have to go to school today. fingers crossed, though, that i... uhm, got everything out. but i probably didn't. (... unfortunately.)


it seems like there's a lot of sadness blowing around. if you're sad because the trees are dying, don't worry, they'll grow back in the spring. and don't feel like you're not worth anything, because people who aren't worth anything are like, child molesters and pedophiles. and unless you're one of those, then you're just a victim of circumstance. and things change. i mean, life is like a rollercoaster. sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. usually you're stuck in an endless circle of nausea. ....i forget where i was going with that.

anyway, cheer up. all of you. and go have a lollipop. you've earned it.

(... honestly.)

air is air and blood is blood and no matter what you eat for dinner, it all ends up as shit.

do you know how many laxatives i bought?

one hundred and ninety two. four packs of forty eight. pretty good deal.

anywho, it's been a weird week. as in less normal than usual, which for me means i'm not entirely sure what happened. i vaguely remember books, fire, disturbingly chewy tic tacs, and flirting with a construction worker. but i can definitely highlight a few things.

like thursday. i haven't smoked cigarettes in a few months and i did on thursday. my friend (the same one i was with on sunday) said she didn't know i smoked. i said only on occasion, and when i do, i smoke a lot. she laughed and said, "binge, purge." i said she had no idea. red invited us to his party, where he was stoned, wasted, and out of his mind. got to meet his girlfriend. she was just lovely. although, i'm not entirely sure how they ended up together. (small victory: i'm skinnier and less awkward than her. but so were most of the girls at the party.) it got boring pretty fast, though. came home almost three in the morning and my mother never asked where i was. i think she's given up on me. finally.

i've also decided to never smoke pot again. on thursday, after a bit of smoking, we went to a diner.

it was terrible.

i think i ate a bottle of ketchup. no, you didn't read that wrong. and possibly two plates of fries. and i went to visit my only fan yesterday--the one i ran into in august who's the coolest cat in town-- with a friend of mine. he gave me a hug and then played the guitar. good times. except for the part where my friend was hungry every five minutes. that wasn't as much fun. in fact, that wasn't fun at all.

on the bright side, i still have one hundred and sixty two laxatives left. and i'm definitely going to that concert.

i feel a bit melancholic after this week. maybe it was the rain. or the gray skies that refused to allow sunlight.

i've got my fingers crossed for next week, though. october's completely breaking my heart.

honestly.

promises like pie crust.

yesterday, i hung out with another female without becoming homicidal. that's a good sign. at the beginning of this year, i promised myself i'd try to have more female friends, but i just ended up with more guys as friends. (i promise myself a lot of things. i'm still waiting for a peter pan plush.) but this girl, i think we could actually become good friends. maybe it's because we talked about things that were interesting.

we talked about socially awkward people in our school.

it's like, i feel bad for not wanting to be around him, so i try to spend more time with him. but then i just end up liking him even less. then i'm overly nice to make up for it.

we talked about our siblings.

if i  had money and she needed some, i'd help her out, ya know? but what do i get? nothing. family, huh?

we talked about classes. 

i love that it's always the same faces in my classes. it feels more close knit that way. and i swear, some days i'm so tired and i just feed off of your energy. how do you do it?

we talked about one of her patients.

she's fucking crazy, i swear. she's like, sitting on the bed, screaming that we're making her obese and  crying for laxatives. her legs are like, the size of my arm. i don't even know how she has so much energy.

up until that part, i had been smiling and laughing. but that was everything but funny. it was really weird, because before i met up with her, i went to the drugstore to buy some laxatives but it was closed. so instead i went to the grocery store and bought two gallons of water, which i'm still drinking. i was listening to her, but at the same time i was thinking to myself, i am really screwed up. seriously. if i could describe the little voice inside my head, i'd probably say she's fucking crazy. she's screaming that i'm making her obese and crying for laxatives and diuretics. i don't even know how she has so much energy. 

it was the most uncomfortable conversation of i've had this month. and i've been having some pretty strange talks lately. but then the topic changed to boys and i loosened up again. i told her about red. she said she completely understood. but then we had to split because she had to go to work and i needed to go home. 

basically, this is how my life has been until this point.

saturday-- hmm, maybe i should do my homework now while i'm thinking about it.

nah, i'll just pratice the guitar until my fingers and joints are aching.

sunday-- i have like, nothing to do... maybe i should do my homework now and get it over with.

or i could pratice the guitar some more, since i can still feel my fingers somewhat.

monday-- WHY HAVEN'T I DONE MY HOMEWORK YET.

that being said, i'm probably going out again today for laxatives.

yes, i am insane. but i think this is the first time i've ever felt bad about it.

honestly.

talk about unproductive.

well.

i'm glad that's over with.

that whole 'cycle of depression' was starting to get to me. i guess i just needed to get away from it all. whatever that means. you already know what happens when you binge for days in a row, you can imagine how disgusted i was with myself when i stepped on the scale. but i'll be alright. for now, anyway. for me to say i did nothing but binge this week would be beyond inaccurate. i have been practicing the guitar so much. i think my fingers are dead. but that's okay. because i can play garota de ipanema now, which is like, one of the classiest songs ever.

i pretty much spent this week fiddling with the emotions of one of my classmates. it wasn't until he invited me to get drinks that i realized i should probably stop. but now i'm completely sure he likes me and i can easily avoid him whenever i have to. (he's not a bad guy, i'm just shallow.) plus i think i ate so much that i completely dispelled all of my mother's suspicions. so there's a positive to everything. this week wasn't a total loss.

you know what cheered me up?

it was the most beautiful thing i ever saw in my life.

the 'skank'. (apparently it's some sort of dance. people don't do it in public very often. for good reason.)

but it was beautiful. my friend did it. i'm laughing so hard while i'm typing this, it's really quite sad. but i am in love with this dance. if more people danced like that, i'd never be sad again in my life. (there are tears of joy falling down my face. you have no idea.)

anyway, next week. i have to demolish the numbers on the scale one by one until i'm back to where i started. and next friday, i have to visit my only fan. maybe play a song for him. probably manhattan. (think ella fitzgerald.) since i don't have many fans, i have to hold on to the ones-- i mean, one-- i do have. and i have to finish reading some books. and make up some homework. a lot of homework, actually. and practice some songs. and catch up on blogs. and....there's a lot on this list, apparently.

damn.

what have i been doing all week?

good thing i have monday off.

honestly.

the fine art of making it out alive.

i'm confused.

i'm in a stupor.

i went for a run last night, to clear my mind. i hear running does that to you. my mother objected to it; she said it was too late outside for that. i went anyway. when i got home, chest pounding, my breath coming out in gasps, sweat trickling down the sides of my face, she was ready for me.

"you're so out of control these days."
"yeah, mom? since when. six years?" i asked her because that's when i started noticing the distance between us, something normal mothers and daughters don't have.
"no." she responded quickly, as if she had been waiting a long time to say it. "we always knew you'd be trouble. since you were eight."

we? who do you mean by 'we,' mother dearest? she can't mean papa, i tell myself. papa and i were the best of friends. she's a liar, i decide. then i go to bed.

my dreams were haunted by ghosts. when i woke up in the morning, i was curled in a ball and shivering. chilled to the bone. the icy grip of my nightmare wouldn't let go of me. the feeling followed me to school. i walked around, not completely there. some people noticed. they tried to cheer me up. nothing worked. then suddenly, red was in front of me. tea with honey in one hand, a cigarette in the other. he tried to give me a hug. i backpedaled, fearing human contact. he started talking to me, as if unaware that i'm wasn't responding. he made jokes, he talked about his life, his job, his weekend. he has a cold and it's chilly, i notice. he's standing outside to cheer me up. i felt myself smiling. i pulled it back quickly. then there it was again, a smile on my face. where did it come from, i wonder? how did he know where it was? when he couldn't take the cold anymore, he opened his arms again. "hug?" he asked carefully. i gave him a quick one, then we went our separate ways.

it was as if all the kindness in the world was in that hug. it warmed me up. i noticed it first by the spring in my step. then i noticed i was happier because i was checking out random guys on campus. i couldn't let this good deed go unrewarded. i found him as soon as i could and gave him the biggest hug i could manage. i smiled into his shoulder. "thanks for cheering me up," i mumbled into his jacket.

i had never loved him more than i did right then.

if only the mood swings had just stopped there. my day would have been perfect. but life isn't fair. and i haven't felt like being strong lately. i've just been weak. (food? oh hell yeah, just shove that crap down my throat.) my insignificance is overwhelming. i actually wrote that on something in my school. i hope no one finds it. not that it matters if they did or not. my name isn't on it. i'm covering mirrors, i avoid the scale, i wear my baggiest clothes to school.

i'm so cold. and i've eaten too much. and i need to stay happy. i'm trying so hard.

i've been holding on to that hug all day.

i love you all, too. i read your comments and i just felt worse (i'm sorry) because i didn't deserve it. i don't. and you're still  so kind. i'm trying to stay happy, though, i swear. i'm just so ashamed of myself. but i'm trying. i hope that's good enough for now.

honestly.

a lot of parents will do anything for their children except let them be themselves.

i want to puke.

these friends of my mother's, they think i don't eat. i eat. i just don't eat as much as they do. fat asses. so we went to this event of some sort-- i don't even know what to call it, a celebration kind of thing?-- and they're serving lunch.

"did you eat?" is all anyone can ask me, apparently. 


"she never eats these days," my mom sighs, as if that was the hidden part of the question.


"i eat." that's me, attempting to defend myself. staring at food and counting the calories. a girl sits nearby with a plate full of macaroni and cheese. i'm calculating the servings. how much she's eating is suddenly very important to me. i'm focused so hard on it that when someone pops up in front of me to ask me a question, i jump. "four hundred eighty." my eyes flash from the person back to the plate.


a girl i know. sucking her teeth, she's quick to catch on. "oh gosh. don't tell me you're still doing that." i read all sorts of messages into that. what she meant to say was, why don't you just quit, it obviously isn't making any difference. what she meant to say was, you'll never be as skinny as me. what she meant to say was, you're so fucking weird. 


a boy is next to her. i didn't notice him. "doing what?"


her eyes are always big. they remind me of the girl from a little princess, although i'd never admit that to her. they're really lovely, except for times like now, when she's rolling them in disgust. "counting calories." 


as if that isn't how weight watchers makes so much money. as if that isn't why they make calorie counting books. as if that were a bad thing. i just smile, airily, in a slight daze of sorts. i fought myself to stay happy. i wasn't about to have her ruin it. i decide i'll eat, just to prove to them that i do. to show them that i'm as normal as the next person. 


but now my plate is piled too high. or maybe it's as much as a normal person would eat. i'm unsure. the servings are all wrong. something's been done to the vegetables, my pieces of cauliflower. they're tinged yellow and i'm not particularly excited about eating them. the rice is brown and dry. there's some sort of vegetarian meat product separating the vegetables and the rice.  there are bits of red pepper sprinkled carefully throughout the entire dish. i hear them whispering about me. i'm not even that skinny yet and they're already giving me hell. i take the first bite.


god, how i regret it. it's never just one fucking bite. because if people were satisfied with seeing you have a bite, you wouldn't have to hide. my stomach hurts. eating hurts. psychosomatic? most likely. but it still hurts. i drank so much prune juice i feel nauseous. i miss my ex-lax. i want to cry, punch my inner thighs. they're still sore from the unicycling. i can feel my muscles aching where the seat pressed into them. i want to go outside and run. but it's raining lightly. but it's midnight. there are too many excuses for my mother to lock me indoors. i already know i won't be pleased with the scale tomorrow. i feel like not getting on it. but i already know that tomorrow morning, i'll get off the floor-- yes, i will sleep on the floor tonight because beds are for people who deserve comfort-- and i'll step on the scale and hate myself completely.

i'll hate myself and i'll write lengthy letters to myself in metaphor. and i'll cry if it rains because the world doesn't need to be punished because of my failure. and i'll cry if it's sunny because i don't deserve that kind of beauty.

this lady had a huge discussion today about suicide, and how it doesn't make sense for people to commit suicide over such small things. and i wanted to defend those poor people, but i couldn't. (it isn't small to them. to them, problems are massive and there's nothing they can do.) that would cause more unease than my irregular eating habits. she ended up telling a couple of teenagers (including me and her big eyed daughter) that we should be careful what we say and do because we don't know how it affects people.

a few hours later, as i'm on my way home, she calls out, "bye ugly." as i walk past her car.

i try to laugh it off. i try so hard. "what? who do you think you're talking to?" i giggle, pained, as i shuffle over to her car window.

"you, ugly." she repeats, something similar to a smile creeping across her face. but it couldn't be a smile. because smiles make people happy, and she ruined my day. so i went to the car. i went home. now here i am, fatter than ever, with no one to blame but myself. as if i needed to prove anything to anyone. complete failure on the first day. i don't even want to imagine how many calories were on that plate. they were way over five hundred. i don't know when, how or if i'm getting to sleep tonight. i just hope tomorrow is better.

this is not how i planned to start october.

honestly.