[baker street]

+ Three days until things level out. I have to fly for nine hours first but it is all worth it, even if I do always throw up.
+ I waxed my legs today and gave myself a brazilian. Re-dyed my red hair. painted nails. elizabeth maintenance- check.
+ I've been eating Caesar salad for the last six days. I am not tired of it yet. It is also calming my food anxieties while still being enough food.
+ I'm in love with peach iced tea.
+ I bought a cheap camera for $20 off ebay and with boredom am taking a photo every day.
+ Also boredom.
+  watching old episodes of Sherlock Holmes and colouring pages in James' sketch book.
+ drinking white hungarian wine
+ panic attacks. they are lengthy but don't manage to rise to the level I hate. I have decided to be less embarrassed and have been calling James each time. it helps to have him root me back in reality.
+ trying to find a new perfume. two scents per month. 3rd month. some success.
+ my brain isn't connecting itself to the pieces that make things easy. my words have been muddled and wrong when out of my mouth. it's easier to nibble my nails.
+ no nails left.
+ maybe I'll upload painting photos for you because I can and that will be better than lists of the wrong words,

[blah blah]

My brain feels like it has flattened itself against the sides of my skull. I could scarcely be more uninspired and unsatisfied. Dear job, you suck- I am over you. The past four days have averaged 35 transactions in a ten hour period. I work eight of those hours. I am maybe seeing 20 customers a day and half of those people order drip. I am so bored. I finished my books. I have done everything on the internet. I am so tired from doing nothing all day that by the time I get home I just want to lay in my bed and listen to Harry Potter read to me by Stephen Frye or catch up on radio lab/this american life.

I finally did laundry and dishes yesterday. It was too exhausting. I wanted to go for a quick jog but the idea of leaving the apartment was too daunting, especially by 8pm. Tthe rain has been crazy and constant. I like the soggyness but I'm sort of ready for summer. I hate that eight boring hours take all the energy out of me. I do as many crosswords as possible and play facebook scrabble with friends. It helps me not get drowsy in the middle of the day.

Leaving for Rhode Island on Wednesday night. We're going to spend a day in Newport. Many adventures planned. I hope July comes soon so I can fill my free time with James and all his loveliness and our activities. New York at the end of July, camping, road trip, and many small exciting things. Just a few more months.

Listening to funk and drinking peach iced tea. If I didn't have to work from 7-5 tomorrow it could be a care-free Friday.

[ovulating and such]

My script for my birth control ran out earlier this month. I've been taking Microgestin FE 1/20 for about a year. Before that Lo-Ovral, Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, Yasmin, and probably a couple other 'Lo' brands.
I began taking birth control when I was 18. I don't remember the brand but I do know I was terrified of gaining weight. Instead I lost ten pounds and spent the two months I was taking it spotting and feeling more emotional than usual. I was also terrifyingly bloated. Thus began the merry-go-round of birth control pills.

At some point in the last five years I came to terms with never having a BC pill that didn't give me some undesirable side effect. I'd already learned this was the case with psych meds but something about birth control being so essential to every woman's life made these side effects feel completely unfair.

With the expired script I took the opportunity to confer with friends and the internet for a better pill. Sure enough everyone has horror stories with one brand or another. Most of my girlfriends have settled for pills that are mildly inconvenient. Brands that didn't give them cysts or months of bleeding this time around. WebMD shows a similar story. With easily over 30 brands reviewed, you'd be hard pressed to find anything at all rated over 3 stars, most barely garnering 2. I spent hours pouring over these reviews and was left pretty discouraged. If I'm lucky I won't get an ovarian cyst but if I don't, I'll go crazy or gain 50lbs or stop finding men attractive because of their smell.

Because there's no winning I've decided to just take what a friend is taking and hope it's better than the Microgestin I was previously on. But we'll see, I'm not going to hold my breath. Besides, there's always the future of the male pill. Here's to that.

[sometimes I feel like a Cathy comic- ack]

Saturday was mostly good. I woke up at noon and made breakfast to go with a french press of Stumptown. I spent a better part of the day putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a wolf and watching internet-tv. Around five I noticed how blustery it was outside and decided to go for a run through downtown. Everything was light and easy. I love how running without headphones in the rain feels like it could be something very important.

I jogged by bed bath & beyond and remembered I needed to pick a few small things up. As I wandered through cosmetics and every exciting little product I could ever want, I happened to walk right through the scale isle.

I threw my scale away 4 months ago. The scale I bought when I was 13. The only scale I fully trusted through the worst of my eating disorder. Since moving into my own place I'd weighed myself maybe a handful of times. I felt like ditching my scale was huge but finally, also easy. I had not weighed myself since. I have seen scales in others' bathrooms, random stores, I have been so good at knowing a trigger and walking away.

Yesterday out of curiosity or weakness, I pulled down the most expensive scale, breathed in, told myself it was evening and I was fully clothed, then looked down.

I don't know what number it could have been that would have made me feel okay. If my head is in that space, every combination of numbers is wrong.

I meekly bought cotton balls and a shower curtain while trying not to cry. How can everything I've learned be completely forgotten from one action? I walked outside and it was pouring but I couldn't go home because I was fat and fat was the end-all. The berating started the was it always had before, my head knew all the paths to wind through and the solutions to draw. Everything is worthless and doomed because I am fat. I should lose xx pounds and stop allowing myself to do anything until then. and then I should lose 10 more pounds for good measure. I started calculating meal plans and exercises for the following month.

Before I knew it was in the middle of a closed Pike Place Market, crying, and soaked from the rain.

No, no, no I thought. I got a grip. Three years of recovery would not be easily thrown out the window. I am not my old self. I get to enjoy life now. I am in an honest, genuine relationship where I share myself fully.

I got a hot chocolate and walked home in the thunderstorm. I reminded myself that I was just fine and would be the next time I felt a pull in a backwards direction.

[Currents in May]

Currently:

  

considering dinner

Current Album:

Current TV Series:

Current shame inducing guilty pleasure:

hours a day, every day.

Current Links:

www. tvduck.com

Current Drink:

Current Fetish:

Current Wish List:

No more!

so I can have James back

Current Song:

http://www.melophobe.com/audio/06-girls-just-want-to-have-fun.mp3

Current Triumph:

Current Scent:

Current Excitement:


Current Mood:

 

[brightness]

did you know that everything is going to be so beautiful and okay? sometimes I get swirlled up in the depression and manic meloncholly and I forget that I am no longer at where I was. That life is already beautiful and perfectly scented. I am so in love and this love is like honey and I'm going to be in school and eventually I'll have a career and enough money to not be stretched too thin. And there are so many wonderful adventures in front of me and I have a lifetime of goodness and interesting things in front of me.

James and I had this great conversation last night when I called pre-panic attack and he reminded me about everything being so in place right now and we could count our real worries on one hand. And most of those worries were long term, far away things.

breathe, breathe, breathe. everything is lovely and good.

[satiety]

I have been sending one million resumes and personalized cover letters to one million employers. I have also met with the school advisor and planned my fall schedule. It is simple and includes just math, english, and yoga but I am excited, and scared, and a little worried but mostly excited! I am worried about being able to work enough without stressing myself out too much. We will see when we get there. I am wishing for a secret relative who reveal themselves to be rich and really wants to see me get through school and supplement my income! Oh, dreams...
James has already promised to help me with homework and projects and any schooly-problems I might have. Him being a professional school-goer these past 30 years. I am nervous for math even though it is the lowest they offer (!). I haven't taken a real math class since I was in 8th grade, thank you Washington school district (and Integrated Math). hah.

It is nearly the weekend again and this one will be full. My sweet sister has her BFA show tomorrow night and then she graduates on Saturday. Very exciting stuff all around. Also a birthday party and hopefully a picnic.

I have been cooking more these last few weeks. I am hungry all the time. Ravenous. I am not sure about it. It's scary and feels various degrees of wrong. My quieter parts had been toying with the idea of diets and exercises for summer and skimpy clothes. My louder parts were worried, and mostly I hadn't changed any of my food routines yet. But this whole week! I could eat a steak the size of the ocean! I tend to think that my body knew I was meditating on less calories and just the knowledge made is insatiable. But I also tend to think of my body as always trying to spite me and maybe I should break out of that thought pattern.
Last night, I became depressed and then really angry with myself for still starving after a big dinner (again), I went to bed early and hoped I wouldn't be hungry in the morning. Of course I woke up wanting to eat out my fridge. I skipped breakfast thinking I could scold my body. Just coffee and a sandwich once lunch time. You'd think I would learn! you would think!

Okay, okay. No skipping meals. I know it. I do. I don't know why I am craving everything in mass quantities. It might be James' absence and my subsequent loneliness. It might be medication dose changes. It might be just a regular, silly body thing that I fail to understand. I have spent the afternoon brainstorming solutions. Bigger breakfasts, better snacks, more attention to fibers and proteins in every meal. Continue drinking silly amounts of liquids (sooo much peeing!).
Hopefully this plan of action will work. It's hard to be hungry all the time, it makes my head worry for the past eating disordered me and the remnants in the future.