What I'm Missing

I HATE DOING THIS.

I want to scream, cry, bang my head against a wall, throw things, yell at people who are not even remotely at fault.

Two lorazepam a day, that's how I'm getting through this. Barely.

My body image is shit. It's been ages since I've actually thought I looked legitimately *fat* in something, and now I find it happening.

I'm working at an office for the next few weeks. That means a dress code. My eating disorder hates dress codes, because it has its own dress code, which changes daily (per body image rating) and typically conflicts with other dress codes. Anything that conflicts with the eating disorder's given dress code does so because the ED dress code is designed to keep me from looking fat. Therefore, if it's not ED-approved, it makes me look fat.

Oh my God.

I miss being alone and able to not eat in peace. I can't believe I have to do this for three more weeks. Fuck trying to maintain in England. I feel like a damn whale. I mean, yes, I still have been keeping my calories low, but the mirror evidently does not know that. I do all my body checks every day and nothing's changed. But I feel I look different. Fat now. Actually fat. Noticeably heavier than when I arrived.

I get so fucking short with everybody. Everybody pisses me off. It doesn't help that I hate my damn job. It's not quite Motherfucking Courage revisited, but it's a similarly miserable situation. I have a bloody desk job and nothing to do for 7 hours but monotonous computational activities and feel my ass engorging by the second.

I'm supposed to be enjoying my summer vacation. Every day I want to cry because if I can't settle down around food, I should at LEAST be able to wear the cute clothes I want (yes, my ED says it's okay to wear the current trends as long as it shows that bone/covers that lack of bone) and have fun and laugh and shop with my mom. But I can't do that either. And that makes me more anxious, and more distorted toward food/body/weight, and brattier/shorter tempered by the minute. Does nobody fucking understand that, aside from these three weeks, I HAVE no fucking vacation? I mean, don't get me wrong, I really am excited for Oxford, but that's not vacation. That's work. I want SOME vacation. That's what I do. I work and work and work and don't stop and then I need like a month of down-time where I get to do my own pet projects and then I start working again. Lather, rinse, repeat. That's a year. Now I don't get my month of down-time because I'm trying to make money so I don't feel like a total financial drain on my family. Instead, I'm no fun to any of them. I'm not the daughter they were looking forward to seeing. I'm a grouchy, overworked, brooding, isolative bitch. I was that former daughter for the first three days, before I started the desk job of doom. Not so much anymore. I don't know if I'm making enough money to compensate for the emotional burden I am to them. We'll see.

This lorazepam isn't doing jack shit and it should be kicking in by now. It's my second dose of the night, plus half a beer. I don't feel drunk. I don't feel relaxed. And no, I'm not some fucking idiot that's going to have another beer or pill to see how that works out. I'll just suffer through the rest of this. I deserve it.

I wish I could go to rehab.

I wish I wanted to go to rehab.

I wish I could afford to go to rehab.

I wish my school would force me to go to rehab.

If I wanted to get better, I would go to Monte Nido. My miraculous dietitian used to work there and it's kind of perfect for me. Long-term, loads of aftercare and step-down options, great location, very near my life, their philosophy with regards to therapy, causality, and nutrition is in line with mine, there are a few holistic and woo-woo treatments but not so many that it's too hippie, they take a small group of women at a time, and while they don't take weight gain entirely at the patient's pace, they'll go slow if they think that's the most effective way to have the patient adjust and work through it (that's my method). They're also very individualized with goal weights.

Why am I talking about Monte Nido? It's okay; I can fantasize about it. I'll allow it. It's not the same thing as going. Hell, I'd never go to Monte Nido. I'd never go to rehab period; but if I were forced there, we're talking Rader or Casa Palmera or some easy ass fucking shit where I can get away with murder.

Sometimes I do think about this stuff. It's good to be prepared. Good to know what's out there. Good to know what I'm not missing.

I'm fat and I hate everything and everything sucks and this is bullshit.

My dad is here, helping me move out.

This means I have to eat, and I don't get to eat nice little calorie-controlled perfectly portioned frozen meals and measured out servings of Boost and grapes.

It means I got to have a panic attack -- literally a panic attack -- over a tofu sandwich today.

Let me give you a second to let that sink in.

A tofu. Fucking. Sandwich.

I had to go to the bathroom and hyperventilate so he wouldn't see. I wanted to cry. I felt like a three year old. I wanted to throw things. It's ruined my entire day, that fucking tofu sandwich. I've been an emotional wreck since noon.

This is why people in 12-step programmes have sponsors. I wish I had someone that I could call and say, "I ate a tofu sandwich. I feel like shit. I feel like I gained a million pounds. When I look in the mirror all I see is fat now. I can't do this."

I really just wanted to put the damn thing down and run away.

And now we're about to go to dinner. I just, I seriously cannot do this. I have no idea how I'm going to.

He has no idea I'm struggling, my dad. No idea at all. If he knew I couldn't go to England. That's why I have to keep lying to him. Plus it would break his heart. I mean really.

I hate food. I hate my body. I'm on the verge of tears but I have to go pretend to enjoy myself at fucking dinner now.

If you pray, pray this gets better.

Nothing Else I Can Say

Things with Michael are heating up... again. And I don't know how to feel about it. Honestly, I'm so hot and cold about the entire thing. I don't know if it's hormones or the eating disorder or something else or what, but it's like half the time I'm really excited and giddy about the prospect of having a romantic relationship with him, and the other half I'm like, "this? Again? Really?"

I feel it's not fair to him, but I don't want to go move forward or backward with anything between us when I still have no idea of how I feel. But the guy is so boyfriend-y it's crazy. We fuck, we do date stuff, and then we do random couple bonding-type shit, like texts just to check in and domestic monotony. He threw a housewarming party last night, and we set it up together, made drinks together, and did the dishes together. Very frequently we'll shower after sex (one of the best things in the world, p.s., if you're doing it right). And he likes to cuddle. Who the fuck likes to cuddle? What have I gotten myself into here?

Sometimes I'm incredibly happy and excited to see him; other times it feels like a chore. Sometimes I'm physically attracted to him; other times I'm not so much (and it's nothing he is or isn't doing). I will say this: I think he's a really cool guy. He his his romantic streaks and his nihilistic streaks, he digs good music, he plays good music, he writes good music, he reads a lot, he's a political dork and, like me, finds talking politics to be a huge turn-on (again... if you're doing it right). He thinks it's brilliant that I'm so into Machiavelli and geeky things. He's definitely infatuated with me. Crazy about me? He certainly acts like it. In love with me? Probably not quite (fortunately). He's always wanting me to stay the night. I've only done so once, because honestly, I've got to be pretty mad about you if we're going to take the whole "sleeping together" thing literally. I've only ever spent the night with three guys; I was in love with two of them, and the other one I was well on my way to loving.

So yeah. I'm not sure what I should do. It's not just so cut-and-dry as "I like him but I don't want a relationship with him." I really like him, and half the time I do want this to keep going deeper. And I don't know whether the fact that I'm so on the fence is ED-related, and if so, I don't know whether the ED is what's making me want to leave or making me want to stay. I just don't fucking know.

I've been maddeningly tired all day. It would be awesome if my body could re-learn the concept of insulin. Yayyyy, bringing this all on myself.

This Is Harder Than It Looks

So far, RF (yeah, it's that fucking time again) has been an epic fail. Well, maybe not an epic fail, but it definitely ranks towards the more heightened end of the fail spectrum.

Whenever I finish eating, I feel about ready to jump out of my skin. I'm anxious, I can't sit still, I can't stop thinking about what the extra calories are doing to my body, I start to panic. I take Lorazepam -- if it's night time and I can afford to be drowsy. It calms me down a bit, but it also makes me say, "fuck that shit, I don't really need to eat, do I? I'm not hungry, nothing terrible is going to happen if I don't eat. I'm just going to bed."

That's the other thing. I'm not hungry. Not really, anyway. At first my body was really confused and exhausted (even though I only increased by, at most, 100 calories a day -- usually less). It does that when my calories go up. The way I've had it explained to me, it has something to do with insulin. My body gets all "OMG WTF I DON'T EVEN" and then has a big insulin party, and afterward my energy levels are depleted for the rest of the day. I've let the anorexia convince me that gluten makes this worse, so I won't eat white flour even in re-feeding. Keep in mind that when I'm not re-feeding, I'm a "raw foodist" who only eats, like, five things, so I'm not used to white flour or anything that's not rabbit fare anyway. But no, it's totally better for you to limit gluten, everyone says so. Uh huh. Who is this "everyone?" Um, some commercial I think.

I also still try to eat as many un-processed foods as possible. Which makes things difficult, seeing as most of my RF calories in the past have come from Lean Cuisine. You can't eat that it's got sodium and it's soooooo bad for you! Sodium's good for me. You'll feel really bloated and gassy and sick. You might even get an intestinal obstruction. Wait, from sodium? Uh... yeah. Besides, your body image will get even worse because it makes you retain water. Okay, well, I've gotta get these extra calories in somehow. How about Boost? It's low in sodium, and nutritionally balanced. Ah, Boost, the re-feeding anorectic's manna. No! Boost is processed too! Can you even pronounce half those ingredients?

I'm not saying I never drink the Boost or eat the low-calorie gluten-free organic vegan frozen entree. (And, by the way, I can only imagine what everyone else at the grocery store is thinking when I spend half an hour hyperventilating in the frozen foods aisle because THIS HAS 10 LESS CALORIES BUT A 2% HIGHER DAILY VALUE OF SODIUM AND MORE NET CARBS I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.) I do win, sometimes, but it's a long and exhausting battle in my head. Fortunately, I've managed to find something higher-calorie that my anorexia, masquerading in the guise of "just doing this the healthy way," can approve of. They're fruit and nut granola bars whose only ingredients are raw fruit, raw nuts, raw granola, and raw honey. They're scary because they're calorie-dense, but they have no sodium, just a few carbs (most of the calories come from fat and protein, which really don't scare me), and it's kind of fun to pick them apart and nibble on them granola by granola.

My calories are still "too low" but they feel too high. I never surpass that pleasantly-gnawing hunger, that hunger pang "sweet spot," and I don't like to eat because then it goes away. It's not just feeling full that gets to me. It's not feeling hungry. Or not being somewhat aware that, hmm, my body could really do with a bit more food. Stress makes me lose my appetite. Being busy/distracted makes me lose my appetite. Being anxious DEFINITELY makes me lose my appetite. As of right now, it's 8:45 and I definitely don't think I'm going to meet my calorie goal for today. I'm way too far under.

I really need to pull all of this crap together because my dad comes to help me move out very soon.

Willing and Working Together

The past while has been okay. It's finally starting to sink in that I'm going to the England, and I don't think I could be more thrilled -- I went to apply for a passport today and on the line where it says "intended destination" or whatever I wrote "United Kingdom" and I got all giddy like a schoolgirl. It's actually happening, I thought. I'm actually going to the U.K.!

Again, I've been before, but I was 14 then, and did not enjoy it at all because I was so ill. This time, my BMI's a little lower than back then, but I don't feel as terrible and I'm going to do my best to be sensible when it comes to food while I'm over there. I told my therapist what my calorie plans were and she said that wasn't going to be enough, and then I freaked out on her because "if I'm already having panic attacks when I try to eat an extra cracker, how the hell do you expect me to eat X calories?" I'm just as angry with myself for all this, you know. I have a lot of shame when it comes to the eating disorder. I'm so pissed off that I can't "just eat" like a normal fucking human being. And that I almost didn't apply for my passport because the photo "made me look fat." I don't think that's actually possible, AJ. It is possible, because the photo's only from the shoulders up and I have a thick neck. I thought yesterday you called it one of your "acceptably thin" body parts. That was yesterday; I've clearly gained 5 pounds since then and it's all gone to my neck.

(This is what I have to live with.)

*

Anyway, I've been doing more work on third-stepping. Not because I actually am a stepper, but I like to pull from different addiction/recovery models and see what works. When I've been forced into 12-step work in the past, I've never surpassed numero trois because the thought of "turning my life over to [insert name of higher power here]" is terrifying. It's like the third step prayer literally gets caught in my throat. I can't say that, I think. Thy will, not mine, be done? What the hell? I thought I had free will. I thought this was my fucking life.

Then it occurred to me.

God's fucking will is going to be done anyway. It's God. It's called the third step prayer, not the third step spell. If I don't say it, or agree to it, there's no magical force barring God from reaching into my life and doing whatever He wants. If I do say it, He doesn't gain any special ability to fuck up my shit that He didn't have before. (Don't you love this? I'm talking about God "fucking up my shit." I'm sure He's thrilled up there.)

The third step is just a way of saying, we're going to work together now. I'm not going to fight You. I'm not going to try (in vain), waste my time and energy fighting Your role in my world. In my language, it's sort of like saying, "let's merge our powers for good and for awesome and then things will really take off in my life." Things move a lot faster when you let God in, because He's going to do His thing anyway, and instead of spending your time resisting that, you could be communicating with and letting Him help you instead.

The secret of the third step is that it's actually not about your higher power at all. It's about you. It's not about giving your higher power "permission" to enter your life. He/She/It's already there. It's about giving yourself permission to focus on other things.

Is there any guarantee that God's will for me is the same as my will for me? Career-wise? Money-wise? No, but there's a damn good lot of evidence. I've been tallying up a mental list of all the things that have happened in my life, outside of my control, that point to God wanting the same things for me as I do. And let me tell you, the list is long. It's a lot longer than the list of things that indicate otherwise -- which is really, really comforting. In fact, some of the things that I used to want, because I thought they would get me closer to my ultimate goals, but that I didn't get, I now see would have hindered me in my pursuit of those same goals if God hadn't stepped in and made something different happen. Made me mad, for a little while. Because I thought He was ruining everything. Instead, I learned later... He was fixing it. Allow me to explain this concept algebraically:

If my ultimate goal was Z, then I wanted A to happen because I thought A would be the best way to get to Z. Instead, despite all my best efforts, A didn't happen -- but by "chance," B happened instead. Looking back, I realise that B is a much more direct, much surer route to Z than A was/is.

So maybe -- maybe -- God wants the same things for me that I want... and maybe, just maybe, He has a better idea of how to set me up for the opportunities whereby I can succeed.

Underlying Thoughts and Beliefs

Note: For a short (I promise) summary of what the fuck this is all about (which is probably critical), read the post below.

Things to Keep in Mind: My mother, at the time of these formative beliefs and until a couple years ago, was an emotionally/psychologically/physically sadistic, abusive alcoholic. My sister was -- and still is, coincidentally -- seven years older than me.


Underlying Thoughts/Beliefs
(What made AN easy to adopt as a solution and hard to let go of):

1. It is bad to want and need. I should neither want nor need.
- Because... When I want it is not usually given. When I want, I stand out, and when I stand out I am an easy target for Mom. When I want it is ignored at best, belittled in between, and punished at worst. When I want it makes me The Baby. It shows I am immature, stupid, and incapable.

2. I must always be perfectly mature and capable.
- Because... Then I will be grown up and responsible and Mom will be proud of me like E. I will have a happier, freer life like E. I will be a better, more talented person like E.

3. Something is defective about me and I have to hide it from the world.
- Because... I can't do anything right.

4. I am inherently flawed.

5. I demand too much and give nothing back. I am The Baby, I am helpless, and that makes me a drain on my family. I am spoiled. I take and take and take and give nothing satisfactory in return. Mom shows me this.

6. I am melodramatic. I over-play EVERYTHING. I overdo my emotions and difficulties of my circumstances. Mom tells me this when she yells at me and hurts me and I cry.

7. I am a bad daughter.
- Because... I am always making Mom yell at me. When I do something good, it never seems to be received as "good enough," and it is quickly forgotten. I am scared of my own mother, I try to avoid her, sometimes I wish I could live without her, and I rarely make her happy.

8. I am annoying.
- Because... I am too needy and Emily looks down on me. She does not like to have me around. I am constantly WANTING something and that is bad.


My Solutions/Survival Mechanisms, Based on These Beliefs...

- I have to nurture myself. I have to be my own mother.

- I rely on myself and myself alone for protection and survival. I will fix all these problems all by myself; I will never ask for help.

- I will be Perfect. I will make myself happy and please myself; I will soothe myself by being Perfect.


Later in Life, I Also "Learned"...

9. My eating disorder is the only part of my identity no one can take away from me.

10. When I try to recover, I always fail and things get SO MUCH WORSE SO FAST.

11. Attempts at recovery bring misery.

*

I think my next step will be devising baby steps to challenge these beliefs, but I'm not exactly sure what those would be.

A New Angle

Note: Please read the links provided in this post, or at least skim them. They're brief, helpful, and an incredibly good explanation for what I've chosen to focus on therapeutically.


There are two things I want/don't want in terms of my eating disorder. First, I want to understand its pathology -- its roots, why it continues to have such a profound and inextricable hold on me today, and how I can arm myself against these beliefs and triggers when I decide I'm ready. Second, I want to keep losing weight. (Shocking, I know.) Not being in hospital or residential allows me the capacity to pick and choose what elements of recovery I want to work on, so I figure I should take advantage of this while I still can and attempt a psychological, emotional, spiritual recovery without actually, um, eating.

(Yes, I know this isn't possible to do 100%. But I figure I can at least get my foot* in the door as far as mentality is concerned. And who knows? Maybe my insights will prompt me to find more motivation.)

So with this goal in mind, I've been trawling the web for treatment professionals' recovery blogs, taking my cues from therapy, and journaling on things that might hold some value to me. Having explained that, I went and made a list of underlying thoughts and beliefs that make it easy to cling to/difficult to let go of the eating disorder. (Inspiration: therapy topics and this.)

Bullet points one and two on the link, as well as their "solutions," are of particular relevance to this assignment. (Further explanation here.) It actually helps to think of my anorexia as the product of some very well-intentioned survival mechanisms that I devised in the first few years of my life, rather than some parasitic demon named "Ed" or "Ana." Possibly because the first is much more, well, scientifically accurate. Start talking about my evil abusive boyfriend and I feel like we're playing make-believe. Personification of things that aren't actually people creates impenetrable cognitive blockages between the metaphor and the reality of the situation. That's just how my brain works. (I understand that for many others, the result is the complete opposite. To each badger his own cheese, as they say**.)

So on to my next post -- the list itself.


*Originally I typed "food." Freudian slip much?
** "They" = I.

Qualms, Questions, and Quotes

The qualms --

Today is a low day.

I don't know what it is. I don't really have a reason for it; you can never guarantee what days will be shit and what days will be worse. Sometimes, like today, you can't even predict it.

I woke up tired. I nap so often now, and sleep through the night. My naps don't even occur at their expected times. The past few days I've been napping at around seven, eight o'clock and going to bed for good a few hours later. Today I took a nap less than two hours after I woke up. I was itching for another one about an hour ago, but when I laid down my body wouldn't let me sleep.

These naps are punctuated, every fifteen minutes or so, by cyclonic jerks that make my legs kick and my eyes snap open. Fortunately, my efforts to sleep mostly through the night aren't thwarted by these same muscle twitches. Instead I wake up, once or twice a night (usually twice) with the intense urge to go to the bathroom. This isn't anything new; it happens every time I restrict and I like it because I look at it as my body getting rid of the weight it lost that day.

So, yeah. I was even more lethargic than usual today; I couldn't focus on anything not related to the anorexia. Not even the fun little pet projects I have to keep myself entertained when I've too much (read: any) idle time. I read, I write (a number of different things), I compose and arrange music, I do crossword puzzles, I play tetris; hell, I even collage. Today I couldn't do any of these things because my mind was just not cognitively there. It couldn't sustain a task that didn't have to do with thinking about food or weight.

This kind of shit always frustrates me because it makes me feel stupid at best; like I'm losing it at worst. Going brain dead at the ripe old age of 21. And I had such a good little brain to start out with too. Now it's all shrunken and wheezing and unmyelinated and sleepy.

What really makes this unbearable is the increasing feeling of abject helplessness. "Oh God I need help," this tiny voice in me says. "Oh God I can't do it. Somebody... somebody needs to save me. Somebody needs to drag me kicking and screaming into a hospital -- and yes I will be kicking and screaming because I have no conscious motivation to recover -- and save me."

"Oh God shut up," says a less tiny voice. "It's less than a month until your dad comes to move you out, which means less than three weeks until you have to start fucking eating again --"

"I'm so afraid to eat," says the tinier voice. There is no part of me, psychologically, that wants to eat. A tube would be preferable -- and don't tell myself I said that.

Of course, my eating disorder thinks this is all quite lovely. I've successfully trained myself to be nothing but repulsed and terrified by the thought of being fed. There is no temptation to "indulge," even a little bit, when I'm with my parents. I have firmly resolved to eat as little as possible with less of an effort to conceal it all than I've made in the past. Not because I want to get caught; because I don't think I will get caught. So I can stop trying to put on a good show for my parents -- and, as a result, eating much more than I would care to -- and just restrict while not actively, imminently dying. In the past year, nobody in my family has said a damn thing about any concerns or doubts they have about my recovery. Even as I've lost 25 pounds in a matter of a few months, and paraded around in tank tops and skirts. Even when, before I lost those 25 pounds, I was right at the borderline between "underweight but not technically anorexic" and "anorexic." Even when countless other non-relations (and non-specialists) have been perfectly vocal about their concerns with my weight.

So I think my parents might be almost as blind as I am. Which is real good, speaking from my eating disorder's point of view.

*

And now, courtesy of my inability to write in paragraph and/or complete sentence format by hand, I would like to share some random musings I've jotted down in my little "evil plans and stuff" notebook these past few days... as well as some "inspirational" quotes. Some of which I found online and some of which I made up myself. First, the questions that REALLY hold me back big time:

What if I recover only to find that all of my friends have moved on and I am alone?
What if I recover and find that I am no good at making new friends?
What if the eating disorder is the only thing about me that makes me interesting?
What if the eating disorder is the only thing about me that makes people care?
What if the eating disorder is the only thing about me that makes people notice?
What if I recover and yet am unable to function in this world?

"What if I'm nothing without this? What if it's hopeless?" I wrote below this list. "I need someone to talk to. I need someone to tell me that none of this is true."

And then I started crying because I feel so fucking alone and desperate and needy and shit. But it feels good, it does feel good, just to get all of this out on paper or on a computer monitor. It's not much, but it's something.

*

Now, the quotes --

It's not recovery. It's DIScovery.
^ Cheesy as all hell and, yet, strangely comforting.

Just because my eating disorder defines my life right now DOES NOT MEAN that it defines ME.
^ So what does define me? And how do I prove it? I need to write some kind of lame "I am" paragraph eventually. As I try to do group therapy with just myself.

What makes me feel like I am the exception to recovery? Why do I think it's harder for me to recover than it was for everyone else who has?
^ Again, I feel like I should make some kind of list for this.

The anxious mind has a certain comfortable familiarity with the act of worrying. Anxiety feels familiar, comforting even. The mind doesn't always know what to do or think in every situation, but it does know how to worry about it -- that it can accomplish without breaking a sweat.
^ Also applicable to why we're so often overwhelmed by the urge to engage in our ED when things get tough, confusing, or painful.

If things go wrong, don't go with them.

If you're going through hell, keep going.
^ Thanks, Sir Winston.

EATING DISORDERS DO NOT GIVE YOU A VOICE. THEY STEAL IT.
^ I put this in all caps because, particularly lately, I've been using my eating disorder as a way to make myself heard. It actually takes a lot more time to get the message across this way than it does just to say, "hey, something's fucked up here."

The mirror is not you. It is you looking at yourself.

These feelings won't kill you. The eating disorder will.

I have a right to eat.

LAZY = L.etting A.norexia Z.ap Y.ou
^ One of those Gary Busey/A.A.-inspired aphorisms. I so frequently beat myself up for being "lazy" and a slacker who doesn't have the responsibility to get anything done, and then I remember it's because I can't really move or think very effectively.

He conquers who endures.

Go as far as you can't.
^ Voice professor said this once. I dig it.

When you wrestle a gorilla, you can't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.
^ Problem is, my gorilla seems to be composed entirely of brute force, methamphetamine, and adamantium.

The time will pass anyway; we might as well put that passing time to the best possible use.
^ I could remind myself of this when I whine about it "not being the right time" to work on recovery/not dying.

You have within you right now everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you. You also have everything you need to fuck it up.
^ I threw that last bit in. To me, it makes it feel more empowering. Oddly.

When people trip, they trip over pebbles. Nobody trips over mountains. They climb them.
^ I think I modified this from a Japanese proverb because it seems like all proverbs about mountains are Japanese. And ones about butterflies are Chinese. Flower proverbs are shared, 50/50. Anyway, basically it means that the things that make relapse seem tempting are actually very small matters, and the important thing is to overcome the huge-ass matter. And not my huge ass.

Don't abandon what you really want for what you want right now.
^ Credit goes to a rehab buddy for this one.

Stand up and walk out of your history.
^ To keep me from feeling trapped in my cycle of relapse just because that's what's always happened before.

Neither is this the life that I want.
^ Came from my "talking to God" thing where I was like "well, if I turn my will over to You how do I know that You'll lead me to the life I've planned for myself?" and He was all, "um, is THIS the life you've planned for yourself? And is it going to get you anywhere NEAR the life you've planned for yourself? Don't make Me come down there."

We acquire the strength of what we have overcome.

To be powerful is to use my strength in the service of my vision.

I will carpe the fuck out of this diem.

Just because you have a reason to doesn't mean you should.
^ Sort of one of those DUH moments for me that I've strangely never put in the context of my eating disorder. Just because I have a motive to restrict, just because it's understandable that I would, doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.

The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
^ I imagine a Gandalf- or Dumbledore-like figure saying this every time I read it. I think it's the "grey twilight" bit that cements it.

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves. We must learn to respect them. We must learn to listen.
^ This resonates with me more than just hearing "listen to your heart" repeated ad nauseum. Like, the heart is an organ. What does that even mean?

The impossible can always be broken down into possibilities.
^ The best aphorisms, or the ones that are the most helpful to me, are the ones that I still agree with even after I think about them for a while. Case in point, above.

If it is necessary, then it is possible.
^ Again, this makes sense, if only from a scientific standpoint.

More powerful than the will to win is the courage to start.
^ So even if I'm not entirely motivated to recover...

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
^ A good argument for when I start whining about wanting for there to be a "lightbulb moment" that jump-starts my recovery. I've had potential lightbulb moments. Guess what. The filament popped. Which, now that I think about it, gives me this guy:

You can have a lightbulb moment, but it's still your responsibility to change the lightbulb.
^ Uninterrupted motivation gets challenged. It's up to you to find new reasons to keep moving forward. ...And make sure that you keep the light switch on.

In Which I Wax Spiritual and Possibly Reacquire Some Sense of Responsibility But That'll All Be Gone Tomorrow Anyway.

I have come to the realisation that I use the "total and complete control" my eating disorder has over me to avoid taking accountability for my actions. Because if I'm not in control, I can't be held accountable. And if I can't be held accountable, I can't be expected to change.

I can't recover. It's not my decision. I'm a chronic case. I'm addicted. Physiologically, my brain is too starved and shrunken anyway to be able to change. It's pointless to try. It's not my fault. I don't have the cognitive capacity to recover. The only way I'll obtain that capacity is if I eat. And I can't eat because my eating disorder is in control. And I can't change that because my brain is too starved and the neural pathways are too ingrained. And I can't change that because my eating disorder is in control. And I can't change that because my brain is too starved and...

Circle circle circle circle.

People talk so much about acknowledging that you're powerless over your *insert personal demon here*, as though that's some huge fucking monumental step forward. This confuses the hell out of me, though it used to make sense I think. How can anyone see acknowledging powerlessness as an incentive to action? Powerlessness is a crutch for me. It's my diplomatic immunity license plate. "You want me to change? Sorry, I can't help you there. You can take it up with my eating disorder; it's in charge around here. But it won't listen. What's that? You want me to give it up? Kick it out? Oust it? Rebel? Mutiny, you say? I already told you, I'm powerless. I can't."

And then we've got step 2 -- "came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Well then, if a higher power could restore me to sanity, then I wouldn't be powerless, would I? I'd have my higher power to call on. And even so... hi. I've called on my higher power. He didn't pick up.

Step 3 -- the thing about turning your will over to your higher power.
Oh wait.
Fuck.
Step 3 is always the step I get fucked on. So maybe my higher power did pick up, but I wouldn't "surrender." I wouldn't "turn my life over." But what the fuck? I've never been one for that.
Oh.
Except that I am.
Except that I already did.
To my eating disorder.
Um.
Well, God, this is awkward.

I guess... ideally, I'd want to be in charge of my own life. My will, my rules. So if my only two options are the eating disorder, and God... well then, I at least know the eating disorder gives me something that I want.

Okay.

I'm gonna do something funky and if you want to pass judgment on it, well frankly, I can think of a lot of better things for you to judge me for on this blog. I feel like this whole post might "help" me a little more if I addressed God directly. So you can stop reading now, unless you're God, in which case...

What if Your plans for me don't match up to what I want? Yeah, I know that sounds selfish, but You already know that about me. You already know that this is what I'm worried about, so I don't know why I'm explaining it like it's some big fucking surprise. I want what I want. I just... I don't know. I've always relied on myself to give myself what I wanted. People around me couldn't, or wouldn't, provide, so I made my dreams come true on my own.

*
But You helped.
I mean, if You didn't want me to have all these things... and they were already so seemingly impossible. Get into this university. Be one of 20, 25 people selected for its acting programme. Get into BADA.
*

Yeah, and You had me going on the BADA thing, by the way. That was a nice little touch.
But okay. What about the stuff I haven't done, that I want? Like winning an Oscar? What if that's not in Your plan? It's in my plan.

*
Well, it's not in my eating disorder's plan either, is it?
*

Okay, so no, it's not. But at least being skinny and skeletal is in my eating disorder's plan.

*
But what if... being skinny and skeletal isn't in my plan?
*

Holy fuck.

*
What if that's just a lie, just... I mean, I've always thought I wanted to be emaciated. Not skinny, emaciated. Literally a stick figure. Ever since I can remember. But maybe that was just a means to an end. Maybe that was just because, as I've been exploring in therapy, of some twisted messages I received about need and nurturing and satisfaction.
*

...

Okay. Whatever. Mind-blowage via illumination of mass cognitive distortions aside, none of this changes the fact that I feel like I want it now, and I just am not ready to let that go.

*
My choice, then. But then I don't get to blame God for why I don't trust Him to "restore [me] to sanity." He's doing everything He can to help me make that leap. But it has to be me who decides to let Him in. He gave me the free will to do that. And until I say that stupid fucking "thy will not mine be done" bullshit, the eating disorder's will is going to stay in the driver's seat.

Maybe I can't do this whole life thing on my own. Maybe I don't have it figured out. Maybe that's okay. Maybe that's the point. Maybe asking for God's help makes me even more mature, more powerful, more independent.
*

I want a guarantee. I want a guarantee that things will turn out the way I want them to if I turn my will over to God.

And that's not how life works.

Denouement, Parte Deux

All right, so now I'm sort of over my mini-OhmyGawdI'mgoingtoEnglandbutohmyGawdIhaveaneatingdisorderhowwillthisfadge freak out and am ready to continue my little end-of-semester wrap up series.

UPDATE, PART TWO: TALK-BACK/BACK-TALK

As soon as classes were over and out for reading week, the sophomoric sophomores were all asked to convene for a post-show "talk back" discussion with Herr Direktor, our Movement professor, and The Dean. In real life, I've been referring to the guy as "Oilspill" because, in the words of a sonnet I once wrote, he is "initial'd like to that which once did drain/ the life and beauty of a nearby sea." So let's just call him Oilspill here too and make it blog-official.

Anywhore, the purpose of this talk back (which I insisted on calling a "back talk" and excusing it as a slip of the tongue) was to give everyone a chance to share their experience in the play. Now by this time, I was really looking forward to watching the lions turn on the ringmasters, because within the final two weeks leading up to the show, the Kool-aid had started to wear off and everyone was beginning to loathe Motherfucking Courage and Her Toxic Rehearsal Process, save for maybe three people. The smelly, cramped joke of a coed dressing room backstage turned into an aerator for the cast's dirty laundry and I delighted in it. A lot of people are against complaining; they think it brings everyone down, but honestly, having a sounding board (or a listening board to hear all my gripes echoed back to me as I sit quietly) makes me feel SO MUCH better about my situation. It's out. Nothing's pent-up. I can get on with my life because I feel at least partially understood. It's very therapeutic.

So there we were, sitting in a circle with Oilspill and Herr Direktor and Movement (whom I really dig for the most part), and, my friends, the dogs were hungry. I was pumped, contempt coursing through my veins, and couldn't help but turn my own reactions to the experience into a sort of case study. I had spent the semester hating hating HATING Herr Direktor, but the second I walked into the room all of my rancor and rage turned, with laser-like precision, to Oilspill. Herr Direktor was but Mark Antony; Oilspill was my Caesar.

And so it began. One by one the actors, particularly actresses who had been forced to play men in the "ensemble," switching characters multiple times throughout the show, not spending more than one scene on a character, voiced their truths -- very diplomatically but powerfully nonetheless. I must say, Herr Direktor was quite cooperative about taking her beatings. I will give the woman this: she has integrity. In her own odd way. In fact, I even began to feel for her when, at one point, she spoke up and said that she'd honestly had no idea of the pain this show was causing all of us until one of her freshman students brought it to her attention via hearsay. When she spoke the words "I had no idea," her voice cracked, she put her hand to her heart, her eyebrows furrowed upward, and she became teary. The fact that all of these things happened simultaneously leads me to believe that her sadness was genuine, and what was more, I saw some significant indicators of guilt as well. Oh, there now, I almost forgot you were human, I thought. I don't really hate you as a person; you piss me off and I hate just about everything you do but you have a good heart. For Oilspill, I could not say the same.

"Well let me tell you what I'm hearing right now," he barked in. "I'm hearing two things: negativity and expectations." The 'expectations' jibe was a nod to me; earlier I had put in a very respectful motion of support for a student struggling for words, saying that blah blah blah niceties blah blah this level of training programme blah blah we should all have the opportunity to work on a show that is suited to us and have a chance to spend a significant portion of the show honing and developing one character blah blah blah more fitting for the actors to be cast in roles they might be called to audition for; say, roles that are at least compatible with their gender. So...

"negativity and expectations." He even looked at me when he said it. Oh, you have just engaged a willing and capable foe, sir. If it's a repartee you want, then it's a repartee you shall get. "And what I want to know is, just where are these expectations coming from? I'm actually wondering why you believe you should have any expectations of what this training programme should be at all --" stay intact, jaw, stay intact -- "or why you think you're more qualified than we, who have been at this since before you were born, to judge what should and should not be included in a training programme." You pompous, bloated toad. Civility, AJ. This is your game and he's playing it just so. I could see, within my peripheral vision, that nearly all heads had snapped toward me. The sophomores knew I hated Oilspill. They hated him, too, albeit with less passion than I did. I had backup. Oilspill went on for a moment, and then turned his argument to the members of the "ensemble" who had complained. I wish I could remember this bit verbatim. I can't. But what I say in summary, I say with full confidence that this is as near to a concise paraphrasing as I can come. I am not exaggerating, nor am I twisting the space between his words to infer something he did not say. This man, I tell you, and all the sophomores concur, placed the ensemble's negativity squarely on the fact that they were bitter about having small parts. They were angry, they did not commit to their roles, and they had a bad, unprofessional attitude. Immediately, one of the ensemble actresses retaliated, with increasingly tearful shock, that she was floored by the suggestion that her experience of the play had anything remotely to do with her feelings about not getting the lead -- "I didn't even want the lead," she said, quite honestly. And then she went from being hurt to being angry, angry that he would assume she and her colleagues were so immature, angry at the notion that this was about cast rivalry or anything else.

"I don't believe I was addressing you directly," retorted Oilspill.

You *insert expletive of choice here*. When you address one of us, YOU ADDRESS ALL OF US! Wait, what the fuck. Did I really just think that? Careful. I'm trending towards the edge of misanthropy.

"If I may," I said politely -- collective headsnap -- "If I may address your point about expectations, I guess that as Jack [our acting professor] would say, this is why they make chocolate and vanilla..." smile, let the class chuckle, I'm so fucking amiable, "...because I actually think it's very healthy to have expectations about this programme. Given the fact that we put so much time and money into it -- I mean, tuition's not cheap -- one can look at it as an investment of sorts, and it's quite reasonable to expect that your investment will unfold in a way that's agreeable to you." I could see the wheels in Oilspill's head turning, trying to formulate an argument that would make me look foolish and petty for comparing the programme to an investment. Let him try. I was ready and capable to defend myself. I could take him with half my brain tied behind my back. Which it pretty much was, at this stage of the starvation game. "And as for your question of where these expectations have come from, I can only speak for myself, but while I don't have a lifetime of experience teaching and directing, I do have a lifetime of experience with, well, myself. Knowing my needs, learning by trial and error what I can do to get those needs met, and knowing how and under what conditions I work best. So that's what I think" -- now invoke the army, make eye contact with a few of them -- "and I don't know whether you all agree with me or not, but..." the rest of my speech was drowned out by the aforementioned "you all" clapping. They actually clapped for me. Yes! Yes, children; it is your revolution and I am your Jean-Baptiste Lamarck! Your Marat! Your Robert Bruce, to whom I am actually directly related in real life!

(Note to readers: please take all of these self-reverential internal monologue bits with an air of tongue-in-cheekery.)

"I have to wonder what you yourself invested in this play, then," said Oilspill.

"Really everything, professor," I said truthfully. "I mean, at the very beginning of the semester I resolved that no matter what play I was cast in, no matter what part I got, I was going to commit fully and completely to that story and to that character. It didn't matter how I felt about the play or anything else; that was irrelevant in my exploration process. It had to be, and honestly I think that was really my saving grace throughout this play. And I really have to say, I think that goes for everyone. I don't believe there was a single person in the cast who didn't give everything they had to their work in this play. Everyone in this room, I was with them, I saw them work, and there wasn't one who didn't give it a hundred percent; I can say that with confidence."

More applause! This is out of a fucking movie, I tells ya. You could almost hear the Newsies anthem "The World Will Know" swelling in the background. Oilspill and Z., they think we're nothin'! Are we nothin? NO!

Oilspill was quelled. For a moment, he seemed eager to jump back on the attack, but an even more diplomatic "yes, fuck you" from Movement was issued, and he fell silent for good. Oh Movement. I really do love you.

After the back-talk-back was adjourned, I felt compelled to give Herr Direktor a hug. I wanted to ensure that she didn't believe there was any bad blood between the two of us, and I think I was successful. The woman is powerful when it comes to casting decisions. I'd best keep in her favour, which I do find it odd that I am. I think it's the hair.

More anon! (As Movement would say)...

Bulletin

So I was going to continue writing out a categorical update of my affairs (not sexual... for once) since classes got out, but then my life was interrupted by some breaking news. (The good kind. See, this is what I wish O. would have done when we killed Bin Laden. "Stay tuned for an important message regarding national security"? What the fuck, man. That's terrifying. At least tell us what kind of message it is. Like, "I have a surprise for you! Wait here!" or "I have some important news -- but don't worry, it's really really good news. Stay tuned.") ANYWAY I'LL STOP STALLING.

I just got an email that notified me of my late acceptance into BADA. Remember that old ghost? The British-American Dramatic Academy's Midsummer in Oxford programme? Well, it's 29 July-August 20, and I just got off the phone with my dad re: finances, and I CAN GO!

See, I auditioned back in March, running on fumes, knowing I hadn't showcased my best work, but thinking that it went pretty well considering that according to the professionals, I was nearing hospitalization territory. I got wait listed, but was literally the "next" person right under the chosen few. As in, if they accepted their top 25 people (I don't know if that's even remotely accurate but for the sake of explanation let's assume it is), I was number 26.

Not bad for a dying girl.

So apparently a spot just opened up. And obvi, I'm planning to go. But... um...

FUCK.

MY.

EATING.

DISORDER.

DAMN.

IT.

Okay. I have to do this right. Or at least half-ass it. Whatever I weigh when I leave for BADA, I'll try my damnedest to try to maintain it while I'm there. I can't be fucking having heart murmurs while Alan Rickman's teaching me Shakespeare. No fainting. The last time I went to England, improper-use-of-the-word-ironically enough, I let my eating disorder run wildly out of control and came back with my nutritionist threatening to put me in the hospital unless I gained weight RIGHTFUCKINGNOW. I was also miserable. I don't remember much aside from being terrified of all the weird food and eating out, scrutinizing every menu trying desperately to find the lowest-calorie option (shrimp and lettuce, shrimp and lettuce, where the hell is the shrimp and lettuce), crying because they had no skim milk anywhere and my dad forced me to drink the 2 percent, being freezing cold, and curling up on cathedral pews, shivering. Seriously. When people ask me, "how was England?" all I can say is, "really cold."

I would not, needless to say, like a repeat of this. UGH, why can't I just get better? No. No no no. No summer weight gain. But maybe I can just... try... to maintain wherever I am when I leave. That would be nice, if I could do that.

As long as I lose more weight first.

Denouement

In the last episode of "What AJ Tries to Pass Off As Her Life," our hero had just completed all classes of her "junimore" year and was preparing for finals, the end of the semester, and summer school. How did this fadge? Let's find out.

UPDATE PART I: FINALS AND... SUMMER CLASSES!
Finals went super well. Like insanely so. I made that political psychology exam my bitch. I will be shocked if I don't get an A. And this is coming from an anorexic perfectionist who is always her own worst critic. The others caused me less anxiety leading up to them -- I directed the gravedigger scene from "Hamlet" for my Movement final (our finals were group scenes, self-selected under a very specific set of parameters, and the professor said that if there weren't enough parts in our scene for everyone we could have a director/costume designer/etc.). I hate directing; I don't want to do it as a career ever at all in a million years if it was the last job on earth, but acting takes a lot of precious energy, the which I was trying to apportion out in appropriate measures for each final. Extra acting would mean less energy spent on other finals, and if I could get just as good a grade (if not better) for much less effort, well then, why the hell not? So Movement went well, too. For Voice, I recited what's probably my favourite poem, "The Raven," which I've known from memory since seventh grade, and that was all quite nice, and for Acting I performed a scene from "Measure for Measure." I was quite happy with how it felt. My two other finals were both wickedly easy. All good. And tomorrow... I start summer semester!

Okay, so it's not *that* exciting since I'm only taking one class this summer. But let me explain why I dig the situation.

I may have mentioned before how I find summer school the ideal vacation. See, I have this dirty little secret: I actually really enjoy general education requirements. So much so that I hate taking them during the school year because I never have time to sink my teeth into them. GEs are a joke; something to push aside and not spend any time on. The information doesn't get retained past the final, if at all. People aim for a C minus and get the entire matter out of their hair.

I have never been one for any of that. A hardcore dilettante, I revel in the acquisition of any type of knowledge (one exception: visual arts. STOP PRETENDING TO MATTER, PAINTINGS). So I get crazy jazzed about being able to devote my entire semester to one or two "throwaway" classes. Last year, as you may recall, it was a class on ethical theory, followed by cultural diversity and the law, with a bit of jazz dance dabbled in. I loved it loved it loved it. Even the stress of final assignments and all that. I always need some stress. My sister calls it my "Sherlock Holmes Complex." Give me chaos, or I will create it for myself. (The times when I've either relapsed or gotten worse in my ED have ever and only been when I've wanted for cognitive stimulation.) Do not send me back to my parents to do nothing for three months after rehab. Do not go easy on me my first semester back in. Do not deprive me of a challenge. Make me work. Give me projects. Give me puzzles. My mind rebels at stagnation.

So this summer, I'm taking an anthro GE called "The Origins of Humanity." From looking over the syllabus and required reading, I think it's a lot of stuff about monkeys. I can dig monkeys.

More updates on other topics are eminent.

Closer

Yesterday was the last day of classes. I'm not calling anything finished yet. It's not over until the end of finals and I've handed in that last blue book. I learned that the hard way last time. One semester lost turned into a year that way.

And today... today I did nothing. All day. I've had do-nothing days in the past, but they've always been full of a nagging sort of anxiety, the knowledge that I'd still some assignment waiting for me after my little day off; that there was something I could be working on now and was just too lazy to focus on. None of that today. I sat in bed, watched a shit ton of "Lie to Me" on Netflix, and went for a drive. I love "Lie to Me" because A) that's the kind of shit we just finished studying in my Political Psychology class, and B) I'm mad good at detecting micro-expressions. I solve the cases and know who's telling the truth and who isn't way before the plot unfolds. Yeah, I'm tooting my own horn here. It's my day off. I do what I want.

I've been sick for the better half of this week. Immediately after the show closed (we're talking Monday morning), I developed a horrid sore throat and cough. No, it wasn't anything I did onstage. It was my body entering the second stage of the stress response. During times of severe physical stress, your body expends all of its energy trying to keep you looking and feeling normal. Once that threat (the stress) is gone, it completely collapses. It's exhausted -- not just from the stress itself, but from the added stress of masking any physical duress. So I lost my voice about 16 hours after curtain, I ran a fever, and I was in agony until I finally decided to bite the bullet and get some NyQuil. I wasn't sleeping, and that was only making me sicker. Even if my liver isn't in the best of shape, a few days of Vick's can't hurt that much. So I DayQuil'd and NyQuil'd that shit until -- well, really, today's the first day I haven't felt the need to take it. My voice returned a bit yesterday, albeit huskily, and today it's almost completely back to normal and my throat doesn't hurt at all. My nose is a little runny. I'm debating as to whether or not I should take more Nyq tonight. I don't need it. But it would feel good. (This has happened ever since grade school: I take ill, develop a mild addiction to OTC sedatives, and quit with some reluctance later when I can afford to re-train my body to fall asleep on its own.)

I need a new laptop. Desperately. This one is falling apart like mad. It's already crashed once (remember that episode last summer?), sometimes it randomly goes to sleep and won't wake up until I unplug the charger, take out the battery, and re-install it, the audio doesn't work unless there are headphones plugged in (and yes, I've tried all the typical are-you-sure-you're-not-just-an-idiot things by dicking around with my system preferences), the little mouse clicker-thingy doesn't know it's being clicked sometimes and at others it thinks it's being clicked when it isn't. Very aggravating. The worst part is that my screen is incredibly moody, as in, if I tilt it past a certain angle it goes dark. And that angle changes every time I re-open the computer. I also have to open it very slowly; it's like boiling a frog. If I swing the screen open it goes dark and stays dark until I close it again and slowly creak it open, tilting and tilting as far as I can go -- do I want to take a gamble and push it to 90 degrees? Let's try this... slowwwwly... FUCK I lost it. Time to shut it and re-open. Come on... more... more... FUCK DAMN IT NOT AGAIN. Okay. Open... slowly... slowwwwwwwwly...

You get the picture.

Anyway, I can't summon up the balls to tell my paternal unit I need a new one. They're so expensive and I feel incredibly guilty after ALLLLLL the money I'm bleeding them for.

Still, here I am, with a continually open tab on the apple page so that I can drool over a 13-inch $1100 Macbook Pro. I'm not unreasonable. It's the second-cheapest Macbook model they have in stock (the first is only a couple hundred dollars less and it's much lower quality; I'd probably only keep it for a few years and have to replace it again like this one. The Pro is top-of-the-line. It's an investment. Do want).

One Day More

One more performance of this dumb fucking play I hate. One more.

Ordinarily when I finish a show or wrap a film, I feel a strange sense of emptiness inside. There's a well-known "post-show slump" that many actors talk about. This will be the first acting project I've done whose ending brings with it not a sense of loss -- only relief.

THANK GOD IT'S GOING TO BE OVER IN JUST A FEW HOURS.

Before this fucking play I hate, I never fully understood what people meant when they talked about someone or something "bringing out the worst in them." I knew what it meant on an intellectual level, of course, but I wasn't entirely sure it was possible in reality. I'd never felt that fully; I'd never witnessed that fully. I guess I could say that my eating disorder brings out the worst in me, except it doesn't completely. It brings out some of the best in me as well. My dedication. A twisted version of my incredible ambition and tenacity. My work ethic; my analytical side. I'm not saying there aren't many less destructive things that could do the same and not also bring out some of the worst in me, but that's another thing -- the eating disorder also quells a lot of the worst in me. It keeps the worst from being too noticeable.

The play was a different story. It brought out the worst in me and buried the best from the very beginning, and I'm ashamed of it. I hate the person I allowed this play to make me. (Note that I take responsibility for becoming said person. No one put a gun to my head and told me to be such a brat that I couldn't stand to hear myself think.)

My negativity has soared to new heights. I hate everything and it's no longer charming; it's grating. A certain level of misanthropy, when played right, can be endearing. Think of Dr. House or... fuck, I don't know, Rat in "Pearls Before Swine." Think Jeff in "Community." Now turn that up to eleven and it's not so refreshing anymore. I brood like I'm the second coming of Hamlet. My smiles have turned into grimaces. My laughs have become sardonic and hollow. I take an attitude with everyone. I've found it impossible to conceal my eye rolls or let slip snarky quips that reveal my deep-seated loathing for everything about this play. They come out before I know they've slipped past the security checkpoint in my brain. This dressing room has been hijacked by AJ's bitterness. I radiate negativity from my pores. All I do is complain. I'm even complaining right now. I can't stop complaining about how much I complain. Me me me me. My life my life my life my life. My misery.

None of this is an exaggeration. I'm a vain, sarcastic, bratty, ungrateful, negative, spiteful, hateful, ornery, cold, aloof, narcissistic bitch. With no mischievous, playful undercurrent to my rancor; no secret compassion behind my contempt. It's all ugliness. It isn't cute and it isn't clever. It isn't funny; it's draining to those around me and I fucking hate myself for it.

I hope this dies with the play and I can get back to ruining my own life in peace without becoming a toxic drain on humanity.

WTF Craving.

I've been clean almost two years; this should not be happening.

I'm physically craving coke like a motherfucker.

My apartment smells like blow. Not my room itself, but the hallways, and my room is acquiring just a sense of that residual hallway odour. Never let anyone tell you cocaine doesn't have a smell. It does. It's a caustic, burning, chemical dump scent. You wouldn't notice it unless you'd done it. But it's fucking TRIGGERING as all hell.

I've gotten a whiff of coke-like smells before, but it's usually been just in passing. And it's rarely made me want it this bad. My body wants blow. I'm fidgeting; I try to distract myself and THAT FUCKING SMELL creeps back into my consciousness and I start thinking about cutting lines and rolling bills and having energy again, which is especially necessary because I'm getting ready to head to my second 12-hour rehearsal in a row (yes, you read that right. 12 hours).

Oh God I want coke. I never considered myself an addict but DAMN this craving is strong. After almost two fucking years. I can't keep still. I can't focus. Coke coke coke coke coke. I waaaaaaaant cokkkkkkkkkkke. I can't stop thinking about it. I wish I had some air freshener. I've got the window open and the fan going. Hopefully it'll wear away soon. Given how fatigued I am, it's like the smell is taunting me. Just a little bit and you can make it through rehearsal, totally present, totally open, no problem. Fuck you cocaine.

I have a headache. I want to go back to bed. I can't. I have to go to fucking rehearsal in half an hour and I'm nowhere near dressed.

At least it doesn't smell like blow in the theatre.

Getting On And Getting On

I have an ally in my hatred.

C. (we'll just go by his first initial) transferred into the sophomore class this year, and he's probably the only student whose acting consistently floors me. He loves the same things I love: analyzing Shakespeare to look for hidden stage and emotional directions, top-shelf alcohol (just because the ED won't let me drink doesn't mean I don't miss it terribly), intellectual elitism, and cute boys. He also hates the same things I hate: the dean of the school of theatre, the director of this fucking play I hate, and the current environment surrounding this fucking play I hate. And, like me, he feels a need to keep all of this under wraps. Because "nobody else gets it, AJ."

"Well of course not; they're drinking the Kool-Aid."

I first discovered that he may not have been the biggest fan of our director a few weeks ago, when he made an aside comment about how she wasn't staging a particular scene in the way Brecht would have wanted. Not that "the way Brecht would have wanted" would have been more agreeable, in my opinion, but C. was right. He murmured something to me about her not achieving the alienation effect (also known as the V Effect), and I whispered back to him, "she doesn't really care about the alienation effect or serving Brecht or any of that. What she cares about is conveying her own political opinions. And the second either Brecht or epic theatre or the V Effect becomes incompatible with forcing her own biases down the audience's throat, she'll ignore the former and carry on with the latter and nobody fucking says anything."

I hadn't intended for my diatribe to be so scathing or hearty, but this contempt had been festering, unvoiced, within me for so long that I couldn't help myself. Besides, the more I spoke, the more C. continued to nod his head in vigourous agreement.

"Well, and she keeps saying, 'it's all about the ideas.' You read the introduction to this play by David Hare; it says Brecht wasn't about the ideas AT ALL. It's the opposite. It's about the action. Action OVER ideas, it says that."

"She doesn't care, C. She either doesn't know or doesn't care. And if she did know, which I'm sure she does, because she's read so much on him, she wouldn't care anyway."

C. continued to bob his head up and down as we enthusiastically denounced her directing philosophy. I was so elated to have found such an unexpected ally, and someone who wasn't afraid to complain because it might foster an "unhealthy mentality." If you want to grouse, fucking grouse, man. Commiserating is the only thing that keeps you sane sometimes. I should know.

I tested the waters with C. a bit. I still wasn't sure how deep his loathing was for the director; whether or not he was just having a rough week and decided to take it out on some minor annoyance about the alienation effect. No. As I soon learned, C. was in his disdain for the long haul. Aware that he now had a confidant in me, he took to exchanging blank glances with me every time Herr Direktor said something particularly infuriating. No eye rolls. No arched brows. We had to be more subtle than that. One breath of eye contact was enough. Sometimes one of us was lucky enough to be standing behind her, and we could convey our fury facially.

"I never knew you hated her," he gushed to me the other night. "You always seemed so eager and affectionate. But you didn't overplay it."

"Dude, I felt the same thing about you! I thought you were one of her disciples!"

C. grimaced. "Nooooo."

Anyway, lately we've really been beginning to bond. He was thrilled when I told him I was staying here for the majority of the summer ("we're going to hang out, right?"), and today in acting class, after his scene partner unexpectedly burst into tears because "I just don't feel 'in the moment'; I just feel like I'm reciting lines," C. shot me another glance. It was a note the student (who was doing a perfectly lovely job, by the way) had been given the night before, in a very public and humiliating directorial session. During break I zoomed over to him.

"That is what I like to call the Z Effect," I said, using the last initial of Herr Direktor. "It happened to me Freshman year; I lived that shit, she had my class reduced to tears constantly, but you never say, 'it's because of her.' You say, 'it's because of me; I'm not thinking what she says I'm supposed to be thinking; I'm not approaching this the way she says I'm supposed to be approaching it; I'm not feeling what she says I'm supposed to be thinking; the only way out is to judge myself harder than she judges me.' And where are you living? In your head, C., you're living in your head and acting isn't fun anymore and she has crushed your healthy mentality and turned you into a fucking wreck, and you only get worse from there."

"Yep. Yep yep yep yep yep." C. flipped through his notebook. "Do you want to see the notes I took last night?" He turned a page to face me and showed me a series of bullet points, all of which read something along the lines of, this woman is ridiculous and here's why. Best of all, at the very top of the page he had scrawled, "THIS IS A TOXIC ENVIRONMENT."

Toxic. I'd used the word before. It described the circumstances perfectly.

"She's bitching about how the cast is developing a negative mentality, whatever the fuck that even means," he went on, "and she's right. But it's - because - of- her."

I was as happy as I was angry. A very odd combination, if you've never felt it. But really beautiful. Like spiced rum, or bourbon: so fiery and biting, yet sweet and warm at the same time. You feel it burning through your core and it's marvellous.

"We need to get together for cocktails soon," he implored. "Like Friday."

"I like the way you think," I said.

Man, if that boy were straight... People have "gay crushes," right? Why can't gay people have straight crushes? Like, "I might go straight for a night with so-and-so."

I'm only joking. Kind of.

Outside the Dawn is Breaking, But Inside the Dark I'm Aching to Be Free

I don't have much new to say, but figured I might post an update since I haven't done so in a while.

I hate Motherfucking Courage And Her Sophomores. Everyone else is so FUCKING excited and chipper about it and I'm sick of pretending like I am, too. I hate this play and I hate this playwright and I hate working with this director and I hate what it means that I'm in this play. The only thing I don't hate is my character, which is good. And I hate that I complain all the time. I hate that I'm so negative, but at least I'm feeling something. Hate. Fury. Resentment.

It's about 4 hours of rehearsal every night at this stage. Which sucks not only for the reasons listed above, but also because my starved state only allows me a few "good" hours of peak functioning per day, and that window of time does not occur at night. You can pretty much guarantee that I'll be useless to humanity after 8PM. What little glucose I've provided my body that day has long since been depleted, the sputtering caffeine high completely fades, and after that I'm running on spite. So when you're working me from 6-10, prepare to be disappointed.

I usually get one nice energy spurt in the morning (probably because of being nurtured by sleep), which dies down not more than an hour after any greater-than-minimal expenditure of energy. I get another much briefer one some time in the afternoon, not after 5. By the way, I'm defining "energy spurt" as "window of time during which I feel capable of functioning like a normal person and not like I'm about to crash." Yes, at all other times, I feel like I'm about to crash. This is not an exaggeration.

Anyway... more bitterness. I have prohibited my parents from coming to see this dumb fucking play I hate. "I'm not proud of it, it isn't good from an objective standpoint, and I don't want you watching me do something that made me miserable," I said. It's just as well; they'll save money and I won't have to think of an excuse not to spend a meal with them while they're in town.

Honestly, this is the first time working on a show/film/set has ever been anything aside from fun or enjoyable. Seriously. Before, I even took pleasure in the most "annoying" or "banal" elements of my work -- waiting around on set for my cue; having to do multiple takes of the same two lines over and over and over, from this angle, and then from this angle; reshoots; technical difficulties; rushing at the last minute; idling in the green room reading a magazine while the newer actors, determined to prove their dedication to artistry, try to achieve a trance-like state in an attempt to "get into character." But now? It's torture. It's a chore, and I hate that something I typically love is now causing me so much pain. It feels unnatural and twisted. My passion has become adulterated.

And that, that feeling of something -- that once brought me so much joy in spite of everything else -- being bastardized and distorted... that's probably the most painful part of it all.

Phone Fight!

I had a phone fight with my mom this afternoon and ended up hanging up on her. This has only happened one other time in my life (also in the throes of my eating disorder, go figure), although when she was drinking she frequently hung up on my sister and dad when they would call so I figure I've still got a ways to go before I catch up with her immaturity-wise.

Basically the backstory is this -- I'm looking into modeling agencies. I don't expect anything to come out of it at all, and won't be crushed if nothing does, but it's something to do. I've always wanted to model professionally, I've had a lot of amateur and pre-professional experience, and people are CONSTANTLY telling me that I either look like a model, should be a model, or that they saw a model in an ad that looks just like me. I'm not saying this to toot my own horn, but I get it a lot. I also figure that I'm already fucked with my anorexia, so why not enjoy one of the very few perks while I still can?

I told my mom about this today (leaving out the last bit about being fucked, of course), and she flipped a shit. Obviously, she doesn't think it's good for my eating disorder and she thinks modeling is stupid. All right, mom, tell that to every ad agency behind every product you've ever bought. Exposure is exposure, I said, and tons of actresses start out as models, and -- here's the kicker -- "you have NO IDEA of the place I am in my recovery. I'm doing so well." Even I had to grimace at that one. I also tried telling her that models come in all shapes and sizes, and that the media depicts the modeling industry as being this soulless entity, when in reality that's not true at all. I have friends who are/were models and they've never been told to lose weight. No avail. She continued railing at me, saying, "I'm going to be SO disappointed if you do this," (which immediately made it imperative that I go to the next realistic open call) and "just remember I was against this from the beginning."

Yeah, mom. Just like you were against me being an actress. And moving 3000 miles away to go to school. I will certainly remember that when I get my first big paycheck.

Finally, I stopped arguing and said (in a NON-sarcastic way), "you're entitled to your opinion."

"Yes, I am," she said. "Yes, I very much am," and went off for another two and a half minutes, during which I heard nothing but debated whether I wanted to hang up the phone while she was talking or after. I figured that if I hung up in the middle of her rant, she might just think it the result of a bad connection, and I wanted to make my motives clear. So when I remained silent and didn't interrupt throughout her speech, she said, "all right. Let's talk about something else."

Yeah fuck no. No way this conversation is ever getting back to a happy place after how you just screamed at me. I know this woman. She doesn't just change a subject. Everything she says to me will be tinted with acid for the next month. That's why I determined to hang up in the first place; had I thought there was a chance of salvaging our dialogue, I would have stayed and gotten it back on track. Instead I said, "No, you know what, I'm gonna go. Bye." And pushed the end button (not before I got to hear her say "don't hang --").

Shit. Shit shit shit. I had hoped previously that there might be some festering doubt in her mind regarding my recovery, and this little tiny (I mean TINY) fleck of self-preserving desperation in me thought, "maybe she and dad will step in and try to help me, save me," but after that shit I just pulled? I'll never hear the end of how I can't be trusted and am incapable of reaching out for my own safety. And how they need to KNOW my weight from now on and KNOW just how well my dietitian and therapist think I'm doing (believe me, I barely escaped without a HIPPA "release of medical information" form when I started seeing my team here. And that was when I looked and behaved totally f-i-n-e fine).

I just keep digging myself deeper and deeper into AJ's Hole o' Lies. Fuck me. I just want to call her back and say,

"I'm sorry it's just that you're right at least kind of I don't think the modeling industry condones or encourages eating disorders but the reason I want to model now is because even though I don't see it in the mirror I have a borderline emaciated BMI and I'm not confident trying to model at higher weights so I have to do this now also I might die so I should probably get in an ad campaign or two before that. Also the only reason I can eat like a human being in front of you is because I have to go through two weeks of slow calorie increases before I visit so that I don't die of heart failure. And please don't try to put me in treatment as it'll only make things worse because I don't want to recover right now."

But there are a few snags in how that might play out.

Finish This And You Win

Very long post alert. Read in between cigarette breaks.

(I meant what I said. Not during. In between.)

I didn't intend for yesterday to be a happy day. In fact, I expected it to suck, because I intended not to do anything to celebrate my 21st, stay in, suffer through rehearsal, work on homework, and go to bed. And I intended to hate myself for letting my eating disorder ruin a phenomenal rite of passage.

I also intended for no one else to do anything to celebrate my 21st, because I hadn't exactly been vocal about it. I thought the nice facebook wall posts were about as happy a birthday I was going to experience.

Initially, it seemed as though this would be true. I woke up to a rare rainy sky, sneered at my reflection in the mirror (it's been the legs lately, worse than ever -- they always give me trouble but now it's just awful), and went through my usual morning routine. I did eat my "breakfast" in bed, however, for the sake of tradition, and decided that if I wasn't too tired when I got home from class, I would give myself a fresh manicure with my favourite green nail polish.

When I got to voice class, I was immediately greeted with sophomoric "happy birthday" wishes and several big hugs, and everyone was just so damn nice to me that I started to feel a little bit better about myself. People were really treating me like I was special, which touched me. A lot. I was somewhat livelier during class and horsed around in between scenes. I felt slightly more cheerful.

Then, after an hour break, it was time for movement. One of the sophomores came up to me right before class was about to start, and presented me with a batch of several small homemade cookies (still hot -- he had baked them in between classes!), on which he had iced (one letter per cookie) HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I thanked him, and then he produced a ziploc baggie of fresh carrots and strawberries with a grin.

"The cookies are for you and our class to share," he said, "but I got you these 'cause I figured you might not want a cookie."

I could have chosen to be offended. Instead, I was incredibly touched. Not only did this kid go out of his way to make cookies and go out of his way to decorate them, he also somehow realized (and I'm not really sure how, since I haven't really interacted with food much around him) that I might be uncomfortable eating them and went out of his way to assemble something that was safer for me. The rest of the class enjoyed the cookies.

When I got home, there was a package waiting for me. My parents (who had both sent me sweet "happy birthday" texts that morning) had sent me a huge bouquet of my favourite flowers -- daffodils. Many of them were still in bud form. I watered and fed them and this morning all of them have bloomed.

Dillies!


I'm typically not one for flowers, but there's something about daffodils that just makes me love them.

A plus of living in one tiny room: Now my entire life smells like daffodils.


I was called for rehearsal at 7:30, though others had been there since 6:30 working other scenes. When I got there, it was about 7:15, so people were in the middle of a break. A few minutes later, three of the sophomores emerged, carrying a case of Diet Sunkist (my favourite soda), a card, and a small cheesecake with lighted candles. Everyone sang "happy birthday" and once again I got the fuzzies inside.

The other actors shared the cheesecake, while I opened my card. It was pretty awesome. It had a dinosaur on it.

Another point on the Diet Sunkist: yes, it's my favourite soda, but the class has only seen me drinking it maybe once or twice. And I only expressly mentioned it was my favourite soda to one of them when giving him a ride home. So... these kids do their homework. I was really shocked that they cared so much. I've never been particularly nice to them. I mean, if they ask me for a favour, I'll do it, and one time I made them a study guide for a class none of them had attended more than 4 times so that they'd all do well on the midterm, but that's kind of the extent of it. I don't hang out with them. I don't usually volunteer myself to help out with things. I'm just... over here if anyone needs me. Way way waaaaaaaaaay over here.

I don't know why they like me. And I didn't expect them to like me. It was all so strangely heartwarming. Sweet kids. Big hearts. I don't get it, but it felt really nice. I felt wanted. I felt enjoyed.

Finally, that night I had been invited to a surprise party for another friend whose birthday is today. These are all friends I really like but haven't seen a whole lot recently -- the same people I partied with at the very beginning of the year. Two junior BFAs, their awesome housemates (some of whom I've worked with in student films), and mutual friends that I've met through them. All guys -- just the way I like it -- except for one equally amazing girl.

The party was great (it ended up being a joint birthday celebration for both myself and the other guy), and though I said I wasn't going to drink (even though I'd saved enough calories to have one), I got tough-loved into a birthday shot. Rum. Yum. "I don't need to chase," I said after I'd downed the amber deliciousness. Everyone hooted.

Then there was the cake -- cookies and cream ice cream cake. Austin's (the girl's) boyfriend started passing pieces around, and I tried to slide out of the alcohol-and-food circle before anyone noticed that I was a freak. I failed. "I bought this cake and if you don't eat it I'll threaten you," joked the boyfriend. I would have pretended to be lactose intolerant if there weren't so many people there who knew I wasn't. The boyfriend handed me a piece, and a fork, and said, "I'm giving this to you." "We'll share it," said Austin. Several of us migrated into another room, where it was slightly more intimate, and after establishing house rules for a round of King's Cup, Austin said gently, "it's your birthday and you're going to have a bite of this cake. It's going to be a small bite and it'll just be ice cream." She cut an admittedly small piece with her fork. "And I'll even feed it to you."

I let her. Happy birthday to meeeee.

The rest of the night was spent smoking, conversing, and hearing Austin and the guys talk about all the awesome bars and restaurants they'd been to and "oh, AJ, you HAVE to come" and "you'll love this one drink they make" and "next weekend we're all free we should..."

"Are you around over the summer?" asked the boyfriend.

"Yeah," I said.

"Sweet; we can all go bar-hopping together."

"And beach days!"

"And beach days."

"Epic weekends."

"When do you move into your new place, AJ?" I'd boasted about my sweet-ass future apartment earlier.

"August," I said, "and it's too small for big parties but perfect for intimate intellectual salons."

"Cocktail parties and conversation."

"Yes."

"I'm excited."

I began to realize that there were people in this world for whom I wasn't a third wheel, who would love to have me along. And they weren't just my parents. They were people near me, and they were people I really liked. I liked the same people who liked me, as much as, and no more or less than they liked me. (Did you follow that?) I began to see myself being able to go out with them, laugh with them, and let loose with them more and more. I pictured AJ's Life Without An Eating Disorder and suddenly it wasn't empty, but full of beach days and double majoring and cocktail parties and cafes and bars. And dorky TV shows and fun parties and movie shoots. And auditions and naps and coffee and nights out.

It was full of life. I suddenly had this new sense of hope and optimism where I'd previously dreaded a life sans anorexia as being even blanker and more purposeless than life consumed by anorexia.

None of this has affected my behaviour or allegiance to my eating disorder -- yet. But it's slowly beginning to chip away at old fears and lies.

Someday, maybe.

I Think I Just Made It to 21 Out of Spite.

Tomorrow is my birthday.

I'll be 21.

I honestly believe the apathy I feel regarding all this is real. I think my brain is too sick to be happy that YAYI'M21!!! or sad that I'm not going to be celebrating (I really felt entirely too pudgy not to get back to restricting immediately upon returning home), or angry that I'm letting my eating disorder ruin this for me. I know that I'll look back on this birthday and be pissed. But right now, I don't care about turning 21. It doesn't even feel like it's about to be my birthday. Three of the sophomores have birthdays this week, and they're throwing a party on Saturday to celebrate jointly. I didn't tell them it was my birthday, too. I'll probably buy them a really nice bottle of champagne and take it to their party as a gift, then leave. I've always believed in classy alcohol, and now that I'm of age and buying is less of a hassle (I've never tried my ID at a fancy liquor store, though I'm sure it would take) I plan to drink vicariously through others.

There's so much pressure in our society for people to have a good time on their birthday. I think Jim Gaffigan has a rather enjoyable bit about that.

It doesn't feel like it's been a year, it really doesn't, but then again I suppose that's because I haven't really done anything this year.

I have to go to rehearsal for Motherfucking Courage and Her Sophomores now. Cheers.

Coming Home

Spring break was so beautiful.

I can't even begin to describe the difference in how I felt one month ago and how I felt last week, especially towards the end of it. Night and day. Physically, it was like my internal body and mind did a one-eighty. In fact, I wish a circle had more degrees in it because "one-eighty" doesn't sound like a large enough descriptor of the change that took place in terms of my energy, my mood, my comfort, and the amount of joy that I was able to take in even the smallest of things.

Every day was so full of life and laughter, even on boring rainy days or that one day my mom decided to pick a fight with me (nothing major and she got over it in record time). I didn't quite feel at the top of my game as far as my physical capacity to exercise or walk long distances, and I feel bad because my ferrets seemed disappointed that I wasn't able to jump around with them for as long or with as much gusto as I have in the past. Instead, we played a new game; namely, "AJ wears loose clothes and curls up into a tiny ball and shakes her head furiously so we can see how many openings we can weasel our way through, how many secret passageways we can find through her oversized t-shirt, and how well we can attack her hair."

It was fun.

I slept a lot, which I actually take as a positive sign. The body makes its best repairs during sleep, but when it senses it's in danger, it doesn't want to shut off. I took several naps and slept through the night while I was visiting, despite my super-hard bed (unintentional side effect of anorexia: EVERYTHING HURTS TO SIT OR LIE DOWN ON. Actually, just make that "everything hurts, period"). I hope my liver was able to do its thing.

I cannot stress enough the sentiment that I believe I bought myself so much glorious time with this break. And saved my family upwards of several medical bills.

Because you're all so interested, I will give you a highlights reel of my relaxing, restorative AJ-cation.

Saturday night I got in very late and went right from the airport to a former flame's house. He's in the military, and will be shipping out for his first tour in Afghanistan very soon (in active combat, no less). It was his last night visiting from base, and the last night we would be able to see each other for quite some time. Given the sacrifice he's about to make (don't get me started on U.S. military personnel or I will seriously turn into a caricature of Amurr'cin pride conservatism and start bawling like Glenn Beck), along with our long history (I cheated on the only man I've ever loved with him), and the fact that he has a body off the cover of Men's Health magazine, I couldn't resist. We fucked furiously, culminating in the most disgusting rug burn of my life. It looked like I had been beaten and is only just now starting to peel (thank you, Neosporin and extra large band-aids). It spans the entirety of my lower spine. It was worth it.

Then I slept. Oh, how I slept.

Sunday I went to the mall with my mom and she bought me a whole bunch of awesome shit on store credit left over from Christmas returns. This prevented me from feeling like a total spoiled brat, since she wasn't spending new money. (That would come later.) My ferrets also got a lot of extra love that day because I hadn't seen them in months.

Monday was my mom's birthday. I made her breakfast in bed (a family tradition) and then we picked up my sister and brother-in-law from the airport. The rest of the day was mostly spent visiting, and my mom requested that for her birthday dinner we have a home-cooked meal. Ironically enough, I'm an insanely good cook/baker, so my sister and I made a lovely vegetarian dinner.

On Tuesday we had another girl's-day-out-at-the-mall by going to get our hair done and shopping after that. Ever since I was in late elementary school, the women in my family have gone to the same salon, only deviating once or twice. We've seen two different stylists there, but for the past several years my mom and I (and usually my sister) have had our hair done by this outrageously hilarious African-American woman-with-an-asterisk. She is a genius. I have never once left her chair anything short of in love with her, my hair, and myself. For clients who sometimes don't know exactly what they want, like my mom, she helps them figure it out and creates a look that completely matches their tastes. For clients who know exactly what they want, like me, she never fails to give them precisely the look they asked for. So I got my cut and colour touched up and went from looking like Kurt Cobain to looking like the love child of Victoria Beckham and Draco Malfoy. And myself. I also got to play my mom's fashion adviser while she shopped for herself and tell her what was "in," which made me feel incredibly trendy. Thank God for the issues of Vogue and Allure that I purchased just before getting on the plane.

In case you were wondering, trends include colour blocking, vibrant colours, menswear, lace, floral patterns, wide-leg trousers, and, oddly enough, feathers. The first three I love and have been doing since I first knew what fashion was, lace I can take or leave, and I can't rock floral patterns and can't stand wide-legs or feathers.

After a night spent with E. and P. introducing me to "Parks and Recreation," everyone woke up quite late on Wednesday and nobody really did anything exciting or eventful until 6:00, when we kids went to the home of E.'s college friend to play this ridiculously convoluted and nerdy board game/RPG. It's called "Arkham Horror." I recommend it if you read H.P. Lovecraft, have enough geeky friends to play with, and enough time on your hands to understand all the complex, labyrinthine rules and how they can be modified by different cards/character traits/circumstances.

Thursday marked exactly a week before my birthday, along with St. Patrick's Day, so Thursday fittingly became AJ's 21st Birthday, Observed. I didn't ask for anything this year because I feel like my parents have already bled money for me over the past lifetime and a half, plus they lather me in shopping trips and hair appointments every time I visit anyway. Being the parents they are, though, I did get a couple small things. E. and P. also gave me an awesome blank notebook,


^ The front


The back
(the side reads, "home of lovely ideas")

and "gin and titonic" ice cube molds. Sink one in your drink!


The waitress at the restaurant we went to, unaware that this was a birthday celebration, even brought me a beer when I told her I forgot my wallet! Lovely woman. I have a fake that has never failed me, but my dad's weird about it -- he'll let me order a drink and hope I don't get carded, but he forbids me to use the fake in his presence. Whatever. I ended up enjoying my favourite beer -- a German-imported Hefeweizen. (A wheat beer with a light-medium golden colour but comparatively denser taste.)

My sister's birthday is the 13th of April, so we decided to go ahead and observe her birthday on Friday. We went to these beautiful gardens and an affiliated museum. The weather was glorious, the gardens were glorious, everything was glorious.

It was back to reality on Saturday when I boarded a flight home. I felt like I had just spent time in an entirely different universe; a blissful, fun-loving universe where there are no sophomores, scales, or sad studio apartments. My parents' house was beautiful and full of flowers. Full of life. My studio the size of a walk-in closet? Or smaller? It's more of a cell than anything else. It isn't the size that gets me. It's just that my brain associates everything about it with my eating disorder. Starvation and death. Yaaaaaay. It's come to represent my life: small, cramped, lonely, limited. One room, one focus. Anorexia.

I may have gone on vacation. But today I'm back in every way.

And I ain't moving out any time soon.