Feeling: overly confident yet completely disgusting and overly exposed. conscious of my flaws but repentant, accepting, and appreciative. hungry. full. so full. silly. giddy. terrified.

Urges: to measure, photograph, compare, body-check, negative self-talk, purge, and restrict. the other 23 hours and 47 minutes of the day? Being as the day started with way too much sunlight pouring in, skipped quickly to a Farmer's Feed Scrambler with pillowy toast, extra mushrooms & onions, and TWO(!) sinfully salty pork products, then precluded work with sweaty, digestive calisthenics....it's been a banbookful.

Behaviors: less than there could've been...aka I can resist?

Challenged by: nagging insecurity...the shit-eth must inevitably hit-eth the fan-eth.

Valued/Learned: I can resist. I have the power to resist. I can change the course of my day at any moment.

Positive: every minute I was living instead of succumbing was better than the alternative.

Feeling: relaxed. settled in. like I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.

Urges: to waste a fantastic opportunity experiencing fantastic food in order to not feel physically disgusting. to purposely ruin good things in order to expedite the suspension of reality and inevitable scuttle-to-piece-together when it all inevitably implodes.

Behaviors: realistically...wow, nothing. Excellent.

Challenged by: possibilities.

Valued/Learned: goodness exists in a variety of contexts but it all goes to one collective.

Positive: I am starting to understand that collective.

Feeling: agitated and excited and kind of ready to jump out of my own skin. Nothing I seem to do tonight feels “right”…like I should be packing, balancing my checkbook, reading, writing, fixing my nails, figuring out all things school/career/miscellaneous “future”-related shit that I’d much rather put off by doing any number of other banal busywork. …slightly guilty knowing that I’m going to get buckwild on my day off at Door County as if I’ve really earned it or something.lol

Urges: every single one of em tonight. I tried to count my monies from the week and am ::thisclose:: to just saying “fuck it” and letting it accumulate in the empty Bubble Gum ice cream bucket I keep in the freezer. BECAUSE I CANNOT COUNT IT ACCURATELY(enough to stave off the supposed judgement of

Behaviors: I pretty much did everything I could to prevent myself from eating anything of substance today, which was only really challenging before I went to work at the restaurant. I considered a brunch buffet (conveniently located just beyond a Dollar Tree/bucket-for-a-buck store). I considered a bag full of Sugar Free Life-Savers (omgRIGHT??). I considered at least three.x2L Diet Dew. I ended up going with an apple and a swallofull of Banrock Station. Then he called and I felt romantically inspired to rush up despite looming threats of deadly heat lightning…but I turned around and got back home just in time to avoid everything. …and then I ate hummus, recharged, sucked down half a Parliament Light, and arrived in Egg Harbor with just enough time for a shot of Peppermint Schnapps and a few laps in the pool.

Challenged by: feeling too good to be true.

Valued/Learned: maybe this is too good, maybe it’s true…maybe it’s both?

Positive: it could be both.

Feeling: synergetic. Just “jinxed” Salma Hayek in Fool’s Rush In while she spiels on a cliff top in the Grand Canyon. Wow, a hot dog looks terrif right now. How the HELL did a little Mexican girl get one shipped piping hot from New York to Vegas in 1991??

Urges: to restrict [but I followed my breakfast plan] to binge/purge [but I followed my breakfast plan] to binge/purgerestrictrestrictrestrictbinge/purge [but I followed my breakfast plan and things just got easier throughout the day. No, not easier…things just continued after I followed my breakfast plan and didn’t get interrupted by fuck-ups.

Behaviors: body-checking…probably a lot. I’ve been eating without purging and dragging ass on slow nights @TTown – how could I not be a house? I definitely feel like one and am over-justifying, catastrophizing, and finding myself completely consumed by this feeling. I need to check. I really want to find my strings and compare circumfrances. Circumfranci. Circumfranyou. I also really want to order a hot dog from New York. And I’m thinking it would be wise to get my eating down to a consistent, reliable plan lest I really eff things up.

Challenged by: acknowledging hunger or interest in food in front of people. Feeling compelled to bounce on any and all social opportunities after an evening of feeling totally “off.”

Valued/Learned: my conversation, however staggered and un-polished, with Bill the Biker…who drank a pint of Johnny Blood and came back after a nap @the Holiday Inn for an elk burger and a glass of water. I want to be able to bike coast-to-coast across a country when I retire. …sooner would be great, but I I’d like to bank on being at a place in my life where I can do exactly that. Also, perspective is everything. …and is completely subjective. Duh.

Positive: tomorrow is my last day of work before DC :)

Feeling: ambiguous. vulnerable. lonely. present. …largely because I’ve had “Cosmic Love” by Florence & the Machines on repeat since yesterday.

Urges: to body check. […although I remember thinking a few times this morning how novel my reflection seemed, as if I’d not consulted with it in awhile.] to restrict.tobinge/purge/purgepurgebinge/purge. […but I’m pretty proud of my choices, actually.] symptom monitor. […hey, wouldn’t it be great if I started up with that again?] to repeat/redo/re-read. to clean, order & arrange, sanitize. […which may or may not have just been a very necessary reverse ransacking on my apartment and car.]

Behaviors: seeking reassurance. calorie counting.

Challenged by: the fear I recognized that had prevented me from giving up my eating disorder in the past.

Learned/found valuable: lunch with Dad. Eating sushi and All Bean Salad, sitting in Team KI obstacle course tires with the sun on our backs, sipping blackberry tea...having a body and being alive felt pretty okay.
Something good: 48+ hours.

It's been forever.


...and yet, really, never at all.

I really wanted to tell someone everything last night. Not that "everything" included anything particularly salacious or even interesting really...I just wanted it all out there, no longer ::in here::

I wanted to purge it all. Of course.

Irony noted.

I think I even started composing an email to...a therapist/friend/my own inbox...maybe I just did that in my head, noted what an excellent, seemingly manageable idea that sounded like (intheory) and then proceeded to get into my car at 3am in search of those super smooshy grocery store cookies that now apparently come in watermelon flavor for a limited time this summer.

Oops.

I didn't find them of course (they only have them at Roundy's stores...the latest location being Copps, which closes at 11pm) ...but I did wake up on my couch this morning with a repurposed oatmeal canister full of...something sitting in the middle of my living room floor.

At least it was upright. And I wasn't naked. Or waking up next to some creepy stranger. There were definitely worse things I could have found as artifacts from the night before. A friend I'd shared a kindergarten room with had once told me of a time she woke up in the front lawn of a strange apartment building, wearing only galoshes, which she remembers being thankful for having during what must've been quite a downpour.

As I'm currently on the verge of going back into treatment because I keep fucking the fuck up with my endless fucking string of "Well, yeah, this situation could be worse. I could make this situation worse. Sure: watch this!"

Essentially what we're doing here is mixing as many PG-13 elements of danger together as possible. Fucking chemistry!

Tonight, (this morning really, I sit drinking a glass of ambiguous organic red wine,

(that I impulsively bought when I went on my second ever grown-up grocery shopping sojourn at Woodman's Sunday when last I was up at 4am),

too tired to write anything coherent to

("Dear School A, May I come to your school to obtain a degree sometime late January 2012? kthx! me" ::DONE!::)

anyone

("Dear School 1/School 2, lol i w2b a nurse again...oops lolz Can you teach me?? xome")

but too wide awake after an evening of caffeine and various power-enhancing, brain-twisting and otherwise prescribed ingestions to lay it all to rest

("So XYZ...it would seem I'm losing my mind and have a death wish to get things as pointlessly fucked up as possible. Like I don't want to inconvenience anyone-fuckedup, but I might be trying too hard to look crazy. You know, when they do my E! True Hollywood Story.") ...is what I'd write if I was losing my mind. Which I'm not.

Although I do wonder if anyone's concerns about my health would be alleviated if I could at least commit to drinking half a bottle of wine every night? ...without expelling it(&its subsequent calories)? aHA!

I forget that I hold my attention far longer than I hold anyone else's...

I have two weeks to make some pretty major decisions so I'm approaching the upcoming challenges with what might be seen as passive, desperate and tragically un-hip attempt at Anne Frank-dom(/YouTube fame) so I'm trying to live as "by the book" as possible...not necessarily the treatment-approved book, but my own, which has a lot of doodles.

I am drawing a page from RMH in my Fixitall Frenzy...

Feeling: disappointed(in my inability to stick.to.anything. . EVER. I even bought fucking STICKERS this time). Um...I guess that's most of it. It's after 3, I've been home for nearly four hours now, during which I've had no one infringing or intruding on my decisions or time but me...and I'm feeling mostly disappointed. Well dammit.

Urges: I'm really hungry...which could mean eating the Pub Salad I have sitting in the fridge...or I could drive to Festival [24hrs. ORWAL-MARTomgz] and get some REAL food. Oh yeah or I could eat a yogurt/apple/banana, drink some water, etc...but much better than that, I'd like to eat some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. Or - ooh! even better!! - some chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake like I saw on Pinterest...with ice - no - custard! A big tub o frosting!! TOM & JERRY MIX!!!

Behaviors: Since I've been home? All day? Let’s see. I woke up this morning around 1:00 pm after finally taking my Zyprexa at 4:00 am. I started my day with a yogurt and a banana, then grabbed a blackberry scone @Lox on the way into work at 2:30 and ate a portabella zucchini mix for dinner. I drank nothing at work besides a cup of coffee and half a bottle of Diet Pepsi, then finished off the evening with a bowl of garbanzo bean chili and a can of Diet Coke. I have a busy weekend ahead of me at work, so I just popped my last pill and am wrapping up this post with a swallowfull of Banrock Station…which – on an unrelated note – brings me to the conclusion of my “tannin” study. Based completely on no scientific data other than “I bought the goddamn stickers,” I deem today an overall success.

Ooh, probably avoidance and body checking. And reassurance-seeking. Aaaand being emotionally manipulative…which is, in reality, how I go about seeking reassurance. Ick.

Challenged by: Wanting to restrict all day just to really “start fresh” with my new “healthy” approach to “life.” Wanting to get in one last binge/purge. Wanting to take a bite of a customer’s carrot cake when she jokingly offered it to me because I “deserved it!” Feeling vindicated when someone said I needed to eat a cheeseburger. Feeling vindicated again when someone else withdrew the predictable “what’s your favorite beer/dinner/dessert?” because clearly I don’t drink, eat nothing but celery, and consume less calories in a week than are in our brownie. I wanted to have several dramatic conversations today…which sounds a little bit schizophrenic, but I’m of the opinion lately that everything seems to have a “bigness” about it that can’t be approached so daintily. …so I guess I don’t think I was looking for drama as a “behavior” – like not to use it as an excuse to allow myself other behaviors. Maybe. I was challenged by the convenience of my flakiness which allows me to push things off and pretend I’m eccentric rather than crazy. Ooh, and I hated thinking about what people were thinking seeing me eat tonight…but then I was a little bit proud that something I was doing was being noticed, which might mean it’s a valid thing to be doing.

Ugh, and thinking for myself…that’s always a challenge.

Learned: how important perspective is. It’s funny that, for as often as that’s been the nutshell version of a day’s lessons, I fail to implement thinking about things from a lucid perspective, and how easily and sharply I can get bent out of shape.

Also, I can’t imagine what it would be like to see the person I love with the wrong person. …especially after watching tonight’s poignant episode of Frasier.

Positive: I’m officially on the coasting side of my him-less week, and will soon be able to see him more often than not again. …and I’m aware that this is the part where I get nervous about the waning of our honeymoon phase, and am trying to be appropriately proactive by being invested in both my relationship and my individual journey equally.

Tomorrow I meet with my doc for my three-months-out checkup. I will eat breakfast – which may mean a) monkey peeling and chomping down the second banana from my obnoxious bouquet (bunch?) that contained at least a dozen giant bananas when I bought it last week, or

b) spending the morning grocery shopping for and baking the perfect loaf of banana bread and presenting it to my mother as a solem vow that I would never again use food or lackthereof as a weapon.

+ Greek yogurt (peach tomorrow??) + whole grain blackberry scone.

…which sure did almost come out “-bearry.” Lol

Which in itself is something good, and so for now I shall bid adieu.


24+ hours :)