So I noticed that I had not put anything in my Journal for a week. I have been posting pretty regularly on the boards and at my other bloggy/networky site so I don't really feel like doing a general life update... been over it a ton recently and frankly it is a little depressing.

Earlier today I saw someone had posted a general question about how people got started with their ed / body image issues and I thought that it was an interesting topic. However I did not chose to answer it because when I am explaining the why of anything I do, let alone something as complicated as this, I always seem to have to go back to when I was like 4.... and I write a novel. I feel bad putting epics like that on the boards... but I'll do it here. Journal is supposed to be about me eh? And I am allowed to be epically long here. Ha ha.

So - to start off with at this point I am would not say I have an ED. I certianly have never been diagnosed as such. I definately do not fit the diagnostic criteria for Ana, I don't purge - never been a binger or compulsive eater. I'm not really a stress eater, or starver. I do sometimes skip meals when stressed because I am too busy to get around to it, and I do tend to consume excessive cals when I do eat when stressed, but again that is a busy thing - I eat fast and convient food which is horrible for you. I do have a few ed tendencies so I suppose an argument could be made that I am ENDOS - but yeah.. I wouldn't really feel comfortable owning that.

The tendencies: I do have a bit of an encyclopiedic and self taught knowledge of diets, nutrition, digestive science, as well as random Cal / fat / sugar / carb counts stored in my head. I also tend to be an elaborate and obsessive cook. I have baked my own bread for years, not becuase it is better for me (although it is) but because I can, and I like it... and I like to give it away. I have a serious fetish about feeding others. Whenever there is company, and often when there is not I make super super elaborate dishes - it isn't USUALLY stuff I won't eat or stuff I wish I could eat and so want to feed to others, but then again I haven't done restriction very long either. I just like the act of making something fancy and complicated. I also almost always try something I have never made before for guests - which lots of people say is crazy because every once in awhile it doesn't turn out. That is half the fun though. :) 

Now outside of that nuerosis my parents have had me in therapy since I was 4. Not really sure why it started in the first place. I do know that between 5 and 10 there were 5 major deaths in my family, but I THINK the therapy started before that. I had a very dual world too - my parents were only married for 6 months, and that happened when I was already 3 years old. They both had children who were much older than me from previous marriages.

My dad was a plumbing contracter that came for a very blue collar family - but he made a CRAP ton of money - but he is really weird about the money becuase he grew up poor. Also his first wife was seriously crazy, like psycologically disturbed, and my brother and sister on that side were smokers and into drugs and very disrepectful in general. They were into the whole 80's hair band / metal thing.

My maternal Grandfather was a superintendent of schools and while he came from labor oriented parents my mother's childhood was much more middle class. However the maternal grandfather died very young, screwed my grandma up, which doubly screwed my mom up and she ended up getting knocked up by an alcholic at 17. She got married and had an additional, planned kid to boot. She left that husband a few years before meeting my dad - but for whatever reason my brothers on that side turned out really... I mean REALLY Christian. (in fact one of them just came out of 9 years in the mission field and has transitioned nicely to being a youth pastor) They were creepily perfect children. In fact the only real issue was that the younger one (still 8 years older than me) was such a perfectionist that it was occationally a nusance. So many wholesome activities to corrdinate and all that - oh yeah and he graduated with a 4.3, then moved on to grad. top of his class double majoring in English and History at Cal poly... arg.

So on my mom's side I am the total bad kid, but on my Dad's side I am by and far the most together kid. Weird. Then, esp. when I was really young, before my brothers went to college, my mom was really really really poor. She didn't go to college because of my brothers until I was a year old. She finished her degree in 3 years while raising 3 kids by herself. My dad did pay child support and she got s.s. for my brothers, but still.  Our electricity got turned off at the end of the month a couple times a year and sometimes she would tell me to ask to spend the night at my friends because there was no food at home. She never said that, and she was really good and never feeling sorry for herself or making us FEEL poor - but looking back we def. were. Of course at this time my dad bought a sports car and stuck a magnegtic sign for his plumbing business on it for a tax wright off - very strange living between these two worlds.

The women in my family are amazons. Reasonably tall (were all between 5'9" and 6'2") but not in that willowly way. I am (at the moment) by far the most overwieght person in my immediate family (my mom's first cousin and her kids are pretty big but they are like once removed or some such thing from me and not around much) but none of the women are danity. My mom weighs maybe 160? right now at 5' 10' - maybe more, she was a size 12 last time I checked. She does fluxuate pretty bad though - anywhere from a size 10 to a size 16 ( I don't think she's ever gotten above that). However she has the worst body image ever. She is convinced that she is the most fat disgusting woman alive. (which is rants about in front of me all the damn time... just love that, cause if that is true what the hell am I?)

As long as I can remember she has been on a diet. Now I don't know if this happend because I am the girl or if it happened because I am so much younger than the boys and they were self sufficent or out of the house for most of my life - but my mom had a hard time being my mom. She was more my buddy in a lot of ways. She is / was pretty strict about being respectful and not violating the established rules, but I dunno... She also got her teaching degree when I was in Kindgergarten. She is an elementary school teacher, and by then my brothers were in highschool - but she was my teacher for 2nd - 3rd grade. Then I was homeschooled in 4th (she was taking the year off to get her masters) and she was my teacher again in 6th grade. We spent a LOT of damn time together. Everyone knows dieting is WAY better with a buddy - so I was my mother's diet buddy.

When I was a baby my dad was dating my mom so when he visited we were all familish - then after they got married / divorced they didn't talk for about 4 years. My dad has some issues with instant gratification. He is super active and although he's got a beer gut he's been 150 (at 5'10") forever and ever. In fact, other than the alcohol induced gut he was down right scrawny - but he loves his food, rich, fried, sugared - and a lot of it. Until he was diagnosed as a diebetic he would eat until he was so full he was literally sick - like sometimes it made him throw up sick - EVERY SINGLE DINNER.  So when I was at my mom's I was on a diet, because she was on a diet. At my dad's I could have anything I wanted. This is also a little bit of a money thing because my dad would take me out a lot and mom couldn't afford that. Usually this wasn't a big deal because it was just every other weekend - but a couple of times my mom would go on vacation with my brothers in the summer and I would be at my dad's for a month. I would just BALLON - because there was suddenly nobody telling me to eat my veggies, and feeding my ONLY veggies. Dad let me pick dinner every night, not matter what I wanted. Plus donuts and sugary cearal and snacks and stuff like that. I couldn't have a snack at moms... ever.

So between about 5 and 9 there were a couple times I would get overwieght during the summer at my dad's. Then my mom would freak out and we would diet and I would lose most of it - but of course my general body composistion was just a little worse than it was before.

Then between 9 -10 my parents started dating again, I was being homeschooled, and my mother went through the worst diet phase of her life. She went through lots of diets but the ones that stuck real bad were the rotation diet and slim fast (which was brand spakin new then) She also fell in love with richard simmons. So everyday we had to do richard simmons. My one brother at home teased me about this terribly, and I adored this brother which made me hate the enforced videos that much more. We also biked EVERYWHERE because my mom was back in college and we couldn't afford to drive the car unless we were going to the store or something like that. I also grew nearly a foot this year. Any idea how many cals growing a foot burns... yeah.

Now the rotation diet was honestly a whole lot like ana boot camp. You eat for three days (very specific and restricted) you got things like cottage cheese and chicken the first day then by the third your main meal was half a grapefruit. Then you fasted for a day. Once a month you fasted for 3 days. 9/10 year old should not fast 3 days a month. And honestly, the whole slim fast thing wasn't a lot better - those shakes didn't do shit for me. The most prominate memory of that year was being hungry. I was always hungry. One day, I was freakin starving because it was fasting, cranky in general, and particuarly pissed off about richard simmons - I was whiny and my mom lost her temper and freaked the fuck out.

She dragged me by my hair to the bedroom (which we shared because then we could live in a smaller apt. - I just slept on the couch when my dad came every other weekend) and dug out an undershirt that was a couple years old and I had outgrown. She put me in it and had me stand in my underwear. She said if I wanted to be fat and ugly then that was fine with her. That she would force feed me ice cream until I was sick for every meal and every week we would take pictures of how fat I was, blow them up and hang them all over the house so I could be surrounded by my fat. I of course was sobbing, then she took out the camera.
She of course did not force feed me ice cream - nor blow up the pictures... but the experience was fairly horrific all the same. The worst part was, a few years later I told my grandmother about it - because my mom had us on yet another diet (my grandmother also generally approves of diets) and I was trying to convince her that what my mom was forcing me to do was messed up. My grandmother didn't believe me, she told me that I had a nightmare and it was so real I though it had actually happened. A few years after this I found the set of pics that those were in when I was cleaning the garage... I stashed them... still have them. Don't really know why - but I actually started to believe my grandmother at one point... and knowing I didn't imagine this incident is important somehow.

That summer I got my Dad to take me to the grand canyon - and my mom couldn't go because one of my brother's still lived at home and hell if he was gonna spend a 2 weeks in an RV with my dad... That trip I think I gained 25 lbs - which is a crap ton when you are all of 5' 3" - I had been, for all gen. purposes, hungry for a year - and not by choice. My dad of course let me eat whatever I wanted - and I ate like I was storing up for freakin winter.

When I got home my mom announced that we were moving to Nevada, because she got a job there. Then she looked at my dad - right in front of me..... and said this is why I don't like you to take her on your own - you always bring her back so damn fat. Thanks mom... although to her credit I was pretty chunky at that moment.

There was some attempts at dieting the next year, but I had a lot more unsupervised time and learned how to get food from other places so it wasn't as effective, I did lose some of the weight but I have been some level of overweight since that time. The around 6th / 7th grade I put my foot down. First I started reading EVERYTHING I could get my hands on about nutrition. This way when my mom started talking about some new fad diet I could pick it the hell apart and argue that she COULD not make me do it. I just refused to let her shove me on a diet anymore. I refused to let her make me exercise.  In some ways this was good - but at the same time I was so stubborn and pissed off that I deliberately went the other direction. There was only so much really bad food in my house but I got seriously couch potatoy - and I baked a lot, from scratch. By this time I finally had my own room - brother's gone, and I had reached the height I am today.

I creeped up 180 and though... yeah that's enough and maintained this for about two years. Then my mom found a boyfriend and suddenly her and my dad didn't talk again - and my time with Dad was unsupervised. I was teenage enough not to go completely food nuts at his house so I still maintianed for a while - but then I decided I wanted to meet the relatives on his side of the family - his dad died young too and so I had never met that whole side of the family - so we went on yet another road trip. We weren't in the RV this time so we had to eat out every single meal - and because they are just every where and right off the freeway I think we literally ate 98% of our meals that three weeks at Denny's. Also - for whatever reason I got a bacon avacado cheeseburger with fries and two side of ranch to dip both the fries and burger in every single meal - breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I gained 30 lbs. This put me over 200 --- when I got home one of my friends actually said something to me about it - my mom was too busy with the boyfriend to bother.

Having broken 200 my spirit kind of broke too. I didn't want to be my mom... I didn't want to diet.... so I decided "fuck it - I don't care." I spent the next many many years seriously waving the it doesn't matter if you are fat as long as you are healthy (like that is even possible) flag and being seriously hostile about how society and the media treats women like objects -- yadda yadda yadda. Now I was also an athlete. I started throwing shot-put and discus in elementary school thanks to the brother (who still holds the nevada state high school record) and so I could run amazingly fast and far - for someone over 200 lbs. Between track and occationally submitting to some diet my mom found that I deemed nutritionally sound enough to be tolerable I managed to stay at that 230 or below through highschool.

Then at 18 I moved out - I was in college from 16 - 18 because I left high school early (just wasn't workin out for me) so when I moved out I didn't quite gain the "freshman 15" but it was the same idea. I was on my own, did my own shopping, and had a boyfriend I was secure in becuase we had been dating for 4 years at that point. I ate a lot of junk - suddenly there was no more track because I had left school (well there wasn't track in college either but every quarter I had yoga or weight lifting or SOMETHING) and I put on 15 - 20 lbs. Kept it there until I was about 20 though.... gained it in like the first two months I was out of the house too...

Then my relationship went to hell - I got evicted from my apartment after loosing my job because I was in the mental hospital (swallowed a bunch of pills because I had just way too much shit coming down at the same time) and after living in my car for a while  and couch hopping anywhere that would give me free drugs , I thought - shit... I should I dunno - do something with my life. So I got into a college I  had dreamed of since I was 14, in Seattle - I was going to leave the boy / shitty relationship behind and go do what I loved in a city I adored and get the HELL out of Nevada. WOO HOOO!!!!!

Then I found out I was knocked up. 5 months knocked up. Now I am not saying that I would have gotten rid of the baby if I found out sooner, but when you find out then your options are limited. However, no matter how shitty the relationship had become we had then been together 6 years - and he was basically all I had ever known of men... it was still hard to walk away. We had these plans and dreams and part of me still loved him very much and suddenly there was a baby. We were gonna get married and have like ten of 'em - there one was... all up in my uterus. Well sent the boy flying over the edge and he decided he was sick of me and my crap (no I don't know how him getting me preggers counts as my crap, cause I WAS on birth control yo) and he wanted nothing to do with it. I decided to go to Seattle anyway, and give the baby up for adoption when he was born. However it was a very very very dark time for me... and I was knocked up so I shot right up to 270 - and that was after he was born...

A few depressive / suicidal episodes and moves later I ended up in British Columbia going to film school. Now I got a loan for this - a $30,000 loan. The day I signed the papers this was about $38,000 Canadian. I bought a shiny shiny macbook - trundled up to Canada --- and the dollar crashed. By the time I actually got all my funds over the boarder I was at $32,000. My living budget was $1,000 a month - so I was short roughly 6 months of rent /food/transport. FUCK. I was also an American and unable to work legally in Canada. At one point in Seattle I did a little stint as a phone sex girl... also about a year after I had the baby I wondered why the hell I was being such a good girl? So I became an unbelievable slut. Seriously - between 22 and 24 I went from 3 partners to over 50. When I got to Vancouver I was still pretty slutty, and I got into the Bondage scene... at one point scouring craigslist for odd jobs it occured to me that I fucked everything that moved anyway... I could get paid for it. Yeah I would have to do some guys that I wouldn't otherwise... but the money --- and honestly how much different would it be from the phone sex girl thing? It is different. Really really really different. Truth be told most of what I did was pro-domme, which doesn't involve penetration, and sensual massage ending with oral or hand jobs - but I have had sex for money.

Remember the really really Christian brothers? Yeah --- I did that Christian bit for quite a while myself. I walked away from it when I fell in love with that darn boy, and I never went back - but the whole selling my body thing... yeah... not good. Also because of my weight and the domme thing I was very much a novelty. I marketed myself to those who had a fetish for fat - so not only did I become a glorified blow up doll, but the men I was with were either really really fat themselves OR they really liked me being big and talked about how pretty my fat was the whole damn time. Yes they were being nice about it - but fuck... nobody wants to hear that shit. So I went ahead and had me a nervous breakdown. Luckily this happend about a month and a half before school was out so even though I stopped going I still graduated and got the hell out of Canada. I had decided to go stay with my mom in Alaska for a year after this - but my school ended in April - and she was going to be down south all summer so I wasn't going up until August.

So I stayed with my grandparents for a while - this was a very good thing. I got into Sexual Addicts Annomous and stopped being both a whore and a slut. Don't get me wrong - I am still all sorts of screwed in my head... but at least I am not likely to get an STD from it now. (been clean for about a year and a half now - though there was one slip up, and the last few months I started sleeping with the ex because I am back in Nevada... and well... but as we did date for 6 years it isn't exactly picking up a random stranger in a bar) I also semi-restored my relationship with God. (we are still working through it him and me, mostly it's me, but yeah) So after a few months of massive life changes I packed myself up and shipped up to AK.

When I got there I discovered that my mother had been lying to me - just bold faced to direct questioning LYING - to me for .. well still don't know how long - think it was about 8 months... could have been a bit less... could have been as long as a year. Now my mother is many things, many messed up things, but somewhere a long the way I discovered that I only get one and harboring a bunch of blame for my problems on her isn't gonna change anything. After all it isn't like she fucked me up because she was a bitch - all those diets and worrying about my wieght - and the pics... it was because she carries around so much self loathing she just can't contain herself. Yeah - she shouldn't have done the things she did, but at this point I feel sorry for her more than anything else. I should also mention that the women in my Family age really well. Most of their lives, when my mom was out with my brother's people thought they were romantically together. My mom is 55? now - looks late 30's. She really is freakin beautiful and lots and lots of people tell me this all the time - I not being biased - like when she isn't even around. No she isn't thin - but she isn't a fat ass and she is so pretty, but she can't see it even a little. It is sad really.  Also as I said way way up there me and my mom are more friends - so I am not used to her lying to me... about anything... ever. Sometimes we gang up and lie to the rest of the fam together -somethings my grandma doesn't need to know. Sometimes I lie to her  - like about my promescuity... but her lie to me? WTF? I was really really upset.

Oh yeah - and what was she lying about you ask? She had been dating a man... a married man. A married man who after starting to date my mother, moved his wife from Louisianna where he was also from, to Alaksa. (It was his first year teaching there and she had stayed behind until he was sure he liked it) OH yeah and he is a heavy drinker - my mother, who married an alcolohic at 17... not so much about the drinking. Him and his wife drank alot - he also weighs about 300 lbs, because he lives off soda, cheetos, and fried southern food covered in cheese and gravy. The kind of shit my mother would cry over if she ate for most of my life. Not only is she dating this man but (she had moved to a new village when I got up there... he moved there too) he was going to live with us. With me. In our tiny two bedroom, one bath house. Oh yeah and he even had a cat. (we have two dogs) WTF!!!!

oh but wait there is more.... he divorced his wife - yes in one way this is good... but he stranded her in nome... after bringing her from Louisianna just 5 months before. His heavy drinker wife, turned alcoholic over that one - then her and her son - the step son that mom's new man supposedly loved like a son since the kid was 5 - they were homeless... in nome Alaksa. Because my mom was a home wrecker. Yeah - I was fresh on the free of sexual addiction wagon, and my mom is a home wrecker of epic proportions - and I get to live with her. Did I mention the thin walls? oh yeah. Awesome. So I got two jobs and was out of the house as much as humanly possible, inculding eating dinner at work or at other peoples houses. For whatever reason, at least where we lived Native Alaskans ate two things - fried seafood and flat bread or pre-made / packaged food from costco. (we were on an island in a town of less than 1,000 so yeah - no health food section in the one store either) So that's what I ate.... for a year. And thusly we arrive at my HW of 327.

I hadn't weighed my self in a very long time when I saw that.... and if thought breaking 200 was bad.  - nothing compared to 300. In fact I kind of went into this shocked panic and I think I somewhat repressed it there for a couple weeks. My mom had left town - moved to yet another village and went down south for the summer. I stayed in our village because frankly I was really far away from that horrible man - my neice also came and spent the summer with me. I got back down south mid Aug. I think I had lost some because I had started being a bit careful with my food - but nothing concrete - nothing like an actual "diet." Late September I went to see the ex - like I do. And of course we messed around... like we do (hey I went from sex several times a week to nothin for a year... and it had been almost two years for him) afterwards... in his ever so tactful and sweet way he asked me if I had gained weight. Gee hon - I missed you these last couple years too - the phone just isn't the same as this great pillow talk. So I went home and weighed myself.

291. okay. well not okay... but I could you know... fit that in my head. I could deal with that. Not like that 327 bullshit. On top of this I had randomly picked up "Wasted" in the library the winter before. That led me to write a paper on eating disorders for my Ab. Psyc. class last summer. Part of the paper involved the web culture of eating disorders. That was all I needed.

I am manic by nature. Stubborn. Terribly OCD - an over achiver and a loner in many ways. I was raised to be fearful and obessed with food all at the same time, and I possesed not only a negative body image, but had cultivated myself some just phenominal self loating through my sexual acting out. I knew where to find people who knew how to not eat. Everything one needs to turn into a superstar restricter. I wouldn't say overnight - so much of my life has contributed to my abiltiy to do this now - but I stepped off the scale that night and for the most part haven't eaten over 1,000 calories in one day since. (there have been a handful of bad days, but even then --- I think I capped out at just over 2,000, and that was because I had to eat with people for one reason or another and it just got away from me.)

So is it an eating disorder? Is it just crash dieting? Is it just another way I am trying to passively kill myself? I don't know.

I do know I am not more unhappy than I was before. Somedays - like the days the scale drops dramtically - I am much happier. I also know I am 65 lbs lighter than my high weight. 29 lbs lighter than I was the day I sat down at the computer and researched heavy restriction on ed sites and pinned down my goal of 800- 1000 cals a day or less.

I also know I am on the evening of my 4th day of fasting, and not even breakin a sweat. See I am actually hungry today - first day since I started the fast really, but today the scale also stayed the same. Didn't go up, but somehow didn't drop either - so there is no way in hell food is passing my lips. If I feel hunger the scale will drop tomorrow right?

For so many years I suppressed any inkling of unhappiness about my weight or physical apperance - stuffed it down deep and swallowed it... but it doesn't digest or dissapear. It waited, until I was ready to stop this shit. Until my life culminated in this fixated desire.... Now, like 4th grade I am hungry, every day. Not every min. and not in a consuming way. Today I am very hungry. Many days I am only a titch hungry - like I would eat, if I wasn't purposefully not eating, but it's not a big thing. It will go back and forth like this for many months - or maybe it will escalate and I will be able to be very hungry ALL the time. We shall see. All that loathing though- both of body and of self, it sure does come in handy at 4:45am when the alarm goes off and I think, if only for a moment that it is too cold to go run.... or on days like today, when my stomach growls when I hear the microwave ding, signalling my neice that her Kasha Varniska is ready. The Kasha Variska that is actually reasonably healthy and on my top ten favorite foods lately... the kasha Varniska that I had to make yesterday to hide my fast - that I clenched my jaw against.

Yes then self loathing is very useful... as is distractions like LJ. And re-reading, altering the cal intakes for everday for November. Carefully planned out.... recalculating charts for weight loss goals.... and crunches. you can always do a few more crunches.

Crazy is not new to me - just got a new hat one today. Hopefully it will stick, and maybe, just maybe I won't have a heart attack or have to take insulin shots in ten years. At least this crazy is productive because less face it, 327... there is no excuse for that.

 it's here... it's staring at me. I am so pensive. I want to get on it. But I am afraid. Been really good since last time I weighed - one crappy day, and the last time I weighed was almost two weeks ago. I will have to have lost right? But is it enough? what if I didn't loose. what if I gained??? FML. What if I lost too much - like more than I think, which would be depressing because if it is more than I think I should feel thinner. Shit shit shit. I want to wait until morning - because that is when you are "supposed" to weigh right? but there it is.... staring at me. all shiny. all new. all wanting me to step on it. 

kind of feels like I imagine russian roulette might feel. I want to - but it seems so dangerous. 

fml. why the hell did I want this thing... oh yeah... it's good for me. 

on the up side Sat - today has been amazing. 

Sat: 315 cal
Sun: 837 cal (okay... been better but it was the weekend and I kept it under 1000 so I'm happy with it) 
Today: 745 (that's my girl... under 800 like pro) 

so this is good... this means the scale will not FML but be everything I thought it could be an more. I have dinner at my brother's tomorrow - so hopefully this will help me put the fing spoon down. I planned out my scrumptious under 500 cal meal that looks like a crap ton to other people like I always do - but my stupid sister in law "has to cook this cranberry pork roast tomorrow before it goes bad." FML - what the hell am I supposed to do with that. Don't even know how to figure out the freak cal count for it... just look around and pick the highest - but I HATE not knowing. Now I won't be able to eat my soup lunch at work because dinner is gonna suck so bad. 

all my planning!! sigh. sigh sigh.

evil scale... okay... back to homework.

ack - I am totally post lunch crashing. I get that this happens sometimes, glucose spikes and all that, but seriously? I had 60 cals of miso and 140 cals of brown rice cake. I even got a decent amount of sleep last night. For me at least. Goodness I have got to start sleeping more.

Had a rough craving AM, but thankfully I got a pile of stuff to do at work so managed to distract myself until it was time for lunch.

My scale is currently in OH. It's on it's way :) Although I haven't officially weighed in 11 days. I tried to do the in-store wally world high jack, but the only time I was close to there and alone it is really late and I panicked - because if I had weighed and it had been high there wouldn't have been a way to check to see if it was a night thing or not.

I go to my brother's tonight and have located their scale. It is in the master bedroom, but I can get to it chasing the girls around without it looking too weird. The only thing is trying to get to it BEFORE dinner. Either way I think I'll give it a go though. Even after dinner and at night I must have lost SOMETHING in almost two weeks of less than 900 cals a day avg. (not sure what it is exactly because if I don't have at least 700?? cals (not sure where the line is) the website I use won't calculate that day into the average. There were a couple real low / fasting days that aren't in there...)

Cross your fingers, don't wanna get suicidal. ack. I think I am starting to feel the effects of 26 years of toxins which are currently fueling my body (hopefully - you know, stored in fat) I am feeling more tired, but I am also working out really consistently which gets me up at 4:45 (in theory) and I don't ever go to bed before midnight really. Shit, I got to start sleeping more! well three days a week I sleep in until 6:30. woo freakin hoo. I also am starting to look a little crappy though - skin tone and such, but I am so fair this happens sometimes. My hair seems to still be doing okay. Not too dry or anything.

been taking a calcium supplement in addition to my crazy amount of folic acid and other random vitamins. Okay - back to work. sigh. 3 more hours... more returns to process, bank to drive to... busy to look.

Do you ever suddenly realize what you've done and then wonder how in the hell you got so retarded with out even noticing the decline...

FUCK!!!

So I water fasted yesterday like a champ - planned to liquid fast today with the possibility of that getting fucked up by dinner at my brothers - which it did.

Less than 24 hours ago I posted this ranting reply about liquid fasting. It can be awesome but liquids are still cals and you can't be stupid about what you put in your body just because you ain't chewing. I know this. Right?

Riiiiight.

I have this protein shake on many days - it is 140 cals and makes me happy inside. In prep for my fasting this week I brought me home a banana to put in this shake on my liquid day. I also make my shake with water only, but today - well today is eating only liquids in between water fast days so I'll toss in a half cup of soy milk, and one serving of almond butter just for shits.

FUCK ME I AM SO FUCKING DUMB! I didn't even add this shit up. Thank god I did split the shake in half instead of drinking two. Lunch was okay - miso broth which came in at 60 cals with seaweed and tofu that I didn't actually eat. That shake however - yeah, that shit put me at

Eight seventy fucking four calories.

Just the FUCKING SHAKE 874. You have got to be shitting me.

Such an idiot.

Of course it is also pouring rain so I didn't get to walk. FML. By the time I add in dinner and lunch I am at 1250.

Over 1000 cals and I didn't even fucking binge. WTF.

I am so retarded. I want to stab myself, seriously... I so deserve it. If I am gonna fuck up this bad I want to have fucking eaten.

FML. But on the upside I am suddenly over the scale thing cause I am never weighing myself again. Clearly I am just a colssal fail and will be this fat until I finally keel over and they shove me into my fucking oversized fucking coffin.

arg.

Good news - albeit accidental I walked for 2 hours and 20 min. tonight. At one point there was even running, full on running. I was also toting my heavy heavy backback which burns more cals.

Water fast went totally great - I guess I did eat 6? pieces of gum at 5 cals each, but yeah... I feel good about forgiving myself that.

Bad News: uhhhh - I hurt. 2 hours of walking in crocks with no socks was a bad choice - but like I said it wasn't entirely on purpose. Also the weird rub mark on my back from the bike rider thing last thrusday got rubbed on by my pack and pants and hurts like a bitch - as well as all my joints. Poor over loaded joints - including my elbows, which I find very strange. The carrots in my carrot ginger soup are not yet soft. Lame.

Ugly: Okay did I say great? Well it was great until about 15 -20 min ago. Through a several conjoining circumstances I was compelled to make soup tonight. Well half of soup. Of course I am water fasting so I can't eat it. This has been okay actually - I mean it is only pre soup. I did throw a piece of celery in my mouth twice, but caught myself before chewing and spit it out so that was okay. I also was fussing with this and that and talking to my friend on the phone - but oh lordy no. Now sucks. Now is awful. Now I want to eat so freakin bad. I don't even really feel hungry. I mean, I am not FULL, but my stomach isn't even growling - but I am sitting alone in the kitchen, smelling soup cook. I have to stay because the pot has soy milk in it and is pretty full so I am on boil over patrol and as soon as the freakin carrots are soft enough I go to bed anyway.

That is the really annoying part. I have work tomorrow - so even if I said fuck the water fast and had something, you know, small healthy and allowed - then I have to stay up for 3 more hours which I just can't do on a work night. Lame. I mean it is good because it is one more reason that I am not eating. Damn it I am NOT eating. My bed calls, I am tired and sore and gonna sleep good so there is no reason to be weak and pathetic in the next 10 min (or whenever) until I get to sleep.

this sucks.

okay, enough whining. It really could be much much worse - I really thought I would just turn on the bitch-o-meter so that I could kill some time indulging my pity party. Heh, heh.

time to go check carrots.

I've gone and incriminated myself. Shame on me. Oh well.

Well this weekend could have been worse - but it could have been much better. Also got stuck right in the middle of a birthday dinner/whatever which sucked. Feel gross and disgusting and freakin full. Not purging though because my throat is still getting over the vinegar od, oh yeah, and there are some habits even I don't want to get into.

I did try to up my cal intake slightly in light of my Friday weigh in, but yeah, back to 300 - 500. Not only was I feeling shitty about the whole thing but after hassling myself all day on Sat. I got dragged to the bar. Okay - so I convinced myself that eating was out of the question because I was going to bed anyway - but then I was gonna be out until like 2am... so I grabbed about an oz of chicken from the fridge (good lord did I eat meat this weekend... shit) and munched it out while coaxing my dog to eat HIS dinner and picking out my clothes.

Then I bounced excitedly down the stairs, grabbed the Quinoa out of the fridge intending to eat three bites before getting in shower and thusly proving that I am not so neurotic that I can't eat freakin 1000 cals in one day. Only as the Quinoa was sliding into my mouth, my landlady/roommate woman (on the couch downstairs) says "oh my god was that an earthquake." I chewed a little... and said no - because uh... huh?

Then she says "no I swear I just felt the house shake."

That's right boys and girls I am so fing fat people are afraid for their lives when I walk too quickly down stairs.

I spit out the quinoa, cried through my shower, somehow managed to get my ass out of the house anyway - but fuck this. I am not eating more. Nope... not gonna happen.

Am going to try and water fast tomorrow - might do a shake though. Might have to make dinner at brother's on Tuesday which will suck, but it that doesn't pan out (it's his wife's birthday so they might not be there so I won't have to eat, or they might be at her dad's and I can stay home) I'm gonna do liquids only - can't get away with water at work, but I can do miso soup and ditch the seaweed and tofu, and water fast again on Wednesday.

Got to make up for this weekend. And the fact that I am the size one of the earths plates, and my shifting feels like something that happens along the san andreas... so gonna go run. Well jog.. but I stopped this pussy walking bull shit and my actually hurting / sweating like I mean it. Sucks. Oh well.

FML. damn you LJ - who the hell reads this who actually knows me? fuck. fuck fuck.

I know I am not supposed to think this. I know this is not supposed to be a choice and I am supposed to be suffering and feel sick and out of control... BUT not gonna lie.... ed def. has its advantages like loosing 14 lbs in one week. That's right bitches... 14. Holy shit... now THAT is what I am talking about.

I am never eating again... ever.

be excited... be, be excited.

Thank God. I think this will make my challenging weekend of restriction so much easier because I def. don't want to gain back - so excited!!!!

also means I'm just 1 lbs under half way to my Nov. 1st goal. Sweet! 4 days ahead of schedule!

My dog is both worrying me and costing me a fortune! First he got a hole in his head. No seriously. A hole. There was an injury, poorly taken care of because I was in Ak and I thoughtfully sent him down to CA early so that he wouldn't have to deal with the move. So the wound abscessed - and turned into a giant hole. The vet had to put an additional hole too - for the drainage tube. Gross... sad... the day before burning man. Lame. Well my grandmother swooped in (thank god) and has been nursing him while I get my crap together. He is coming back to me next weekend, but with an additional $200 vet bill. He stopped eating. Okay.. he's a whippet.. they do that sometimes. However, because he lost so much weight and was dehydrated during the hole in his head incident the vet put him on a diet of chicken breast, rice, and cottage cheese. He was being weaned off that and kibble was making up more and more of the mixture - okay maybe that was why he wasn't eating? Nope... tried just the people food. Finally tried some canned dog food and he gobbled that down, went outside, and puked it right back up. This means no nutrition for him for five days now. awesome. Went back to the vet, gonna get blood work back tomorrow. I guess if that comes back clean then they are gonna want to do some x-rays to see if there is some obstruction or some such thing. Then the bill will go up to $600.. nice. Well thank God I am working that $12 an hour job 2 days a week as well as adding the expense of school or I might be in trouble eh. Good thing I am so co-dependant on that little guy or he would be screwed. Love that dog. Ain't he cute too?

So I honestly don't really feel up to making this entry in the least bit clever. It's Wednesday and for one more shiny shiny week (not including today) Wednesday is my long day. Out to give bear tours at 9:30, off at 3:30, walk the dog, and to my other job at the youth center by 4:30 - off at 10:30. yups, a 13 hour day. Awesome. However I am going to burning man with my niece, what? no! I am not even adh... hey, wanna go ride bikes? yeah. Anyhow, burning man... well I am going with my niece and her friend, who shall evermore be referred to as the faux niece so I really want to be in a camp. Hard to find a camp from nowhere Alaska... not a lot of burners around here. So, to support my effort I decided to join yet another interwebs network that I can neglect in the future. (sound familiar... yeah, I know.)And I figured since I have what ... 14 days? to nail this down I might as well slap up a picture and make myself seem a titch bit more human - of course I only have internet at work these days and this computer is hardly teeming with pictures of me. SoOOOooo I thought I would pirate them off here, since my face is conveniently hidden in all of these. :) Since it did however take me the better part of a half hour trying to remember what the heck my screen name was (Never did, but found a back door along the line... would explain but it was complicated through... lets see - 5 degrees of separation, damn I'll never get to Kevin Bacon like this, 5 degrees just for MY name?) I figured I ought to post something. Hot damn... now I have.

So it turns out smoking IS bad for you and as such my habitual cough is back... again, though this time it was caused by an honest to goodness case of the swine flu. F$%king cruise ships. (tests came back positive and everything) So, yeah been awhile... I live in Alaska, but of course am posting this just in time to be moving again. I do that. Back to California it is. I will be spending quite a lot of time in Nevada, but I don't live there... I don't live there.. I don't live there... (there may be some denial in my life right now.)

I am freaking out quite a bit though. I started an SA program before I left for Ak. This is good and my first year or voluntary celibacy is almost nigh - woo hoo! However this is Hoonah. Shit is easy in Hoonah. I do occasionally make it out to the bar and lined up there the men (who women outnumber almost 3 to 1) go something like this..... no, no, married, no, HELL no, married, married, no, old. Yeah, anyone even remotely in my age range that isn't married remains single for a very good reason, sometimes a variety of good reasons.

I did enjoy living here in Alaska, however it was not quite the peaceful relaxing environment that allowed me to get oh so much writing done. More of a place of stunning beauty that is beyond the imagination, but happens to charge you for that imagination through the ass via the cost of living. So I worked three to four jobs all year and am currently also responsible for the health and well being of my dear sweet and aforementioned (past post) niece. Yeah, not so much with the writing.

The good news is the move back includes school - I even started already, online. It's only been roughly 11 years since I started college, I was thinking about actually obtaining a degree, or something. Maybe I'll end up back here (LJ) a little more often, I do so hate Nevada.... Of course I will also be working and doing a full load at school so maybe I won't too. For right now I am going to go mow the lawn. That seem like such an unAlaskan thing to do somehow, but right now I am housesitting. Here in Hoonah there are maybe a dozen out of the 870 people that have lawn worthy of mowing... and of course this includes the house I am currently sitting in. Le sigh.

Also so very very busy. But on the upside I am moving to Alaska at the end of the month and there I will have nothing better to do that put my every waking thought down here on chez journal of liveness.

So I saw a couple of white kittens playing in a suburban street last night and I actually thought they were cute. I blame boys. They will turn me into a crazy cat lady yet. How is it that the big ole tough men in my life are all such babies about cats?!?

oh a completely different note I've been listening to love line a bit lately and I felt the need to chat with Dr. Drew... again. So I had a question about the SA issues I have been dealing with lately and was told that I am emotionally cold, control obsessed, and brutal - not so much with the SA, I just use that sort of behavior as an outlet for the underlying brutality.

story of my freakin' life eh? At least I don't have do go to damn meetings, just learn how to be a real human, you know, with feelings.

sigh.

My grandma wants me to take all the rocks from around her sudo-orange tree and wash them. (it was supposed to be an orange tree but is some other sour and more hearty tree that was spliced onto an orange tree to give the orange tree a better shot at surviving, however the orange part died and by the time we figured all this out it had been like 35 years, and it is a big ass tree so our family just baits new people with the fruit. we like it. heh heh) Why do the rocks need to be washed. Because they are dirty. uh. yeah. They are rocks. However, I love my grandmother and if washing the rocks makes her happy then by-God I will wash the rocks. Gives me something to do and makes me be outside at least. More like rinsing anyway, since there is no actual soap involved. However, there is nothing wrong with a little procrastination first right?

so - what pray tell is that gross picture of?

the beagle has been fixed - behold her incision site. Now, I don't mean to criticize, because I admit that I couldn't exactly have done it better but... uh. Does this look, uh... a bit I dunno. I really want to know if this is the way it is supposed to be. I don't know ANYTHING about animal suturing but I have had stitches and surgery involving stitches of my own, and it always seemed flatter and the suture work more precise and semetrical, and well.. prettier. So I am not that freaked out because the dog doesn't care if her stomach has a freakish scar but is this a vet to cross off the list? poor Beagle. She wasn't a fan of the cone head thing by the way. I took it off while she ate and realized she actually has no desire to lick herself at this point. Been obsessively watching her for almost two days now and she hasn't so much as sniffed the incision area. I am a bit irritated about the vet selling me the collar and putting it on her, making her suffer for a day without seeing if she would lick it first. Just saying.

okay - out the dirty rocks.... I guess.

sigh.

so I was waiting to write about my fabulous night of behaving badly, in the fourteen year old style of my choice - but my niece thought to bring a camera because she is awesome like that and I wanted to post a pic of two with tale of wonder, pain, and oh yes --- glory. However being a child formed in my image, which makes her a fab. girl to go and be a hooligan with in so many situations it also makes her procrastinate and she has yet to e-mail the pics.

Moving right along then... sniffle.

My mother's beagle is pregnant - wtf. I also happen to be watching this dog and was informed of this pregnancy possibility four days ago instead of, oh I dunno, when my mum dropped the dog off. That woman is so lucky that not only am I co-dependant but not the kind of girl that forgets all the times others have bailed me out when it is conveient to do so.

arg.

so the beagle is going to the clinic on Thursday morning to get a puppy abortion and be otherwise scooped out. I can't believe this is the most exciting thing that is happening in my life right now. I gotta make some friends yo. Sigh. I really need a welding torch for that though.

I can't say that I am REALLY dissapointed with this state of affairs, you know, just in case the powers that be happen to be paying attention. They say (no, I don't have any idea who "they" are) that the word interesting is a chinese curse, as in may your dreams be interesting. I can't say that I disagree. I mean, yeah, I like my dreams to have some plot which by nature involves conflict, however I would rather my life be completely un-cinematic. Boring is good in life often. That being said, I am sure it won't last long, I guess I better go enjoy it :)!

oh yeah and we got wi-fi at the house today! Yeah! I can look at porn in peace again.

That's right. California. In 1850 our little town turned from mining camp into a more civilized version of itself with a Mayor - called Nevada city for the snow we, even with global warming, have on a semi-regular basis. Nevada meaning snow covered in spanish and California was in Mexico at the time. Less than a year later California became the 31st state in the union, and then in 1852 Nevada City became part of the new Nevada County as Yuba County grew and needed to be divided into more manageable bits.

Why, you may wonder, am I giving a history of Nevada City, a town many people in even the 100 miles radius have never heard of. Well it's to illustrate this point. As you may or may not realize Nevada the state was not admitted into the union until 1864 - over ten years after Nevada City and Nevada County CALI-FREAKIN-FORNIA had been fully established. At this time Nevada city was also a fully functional and highly profitable mining resource. In fact Empire State Mine still hauls up gold, albeit a miniscule amount. AND Nevada the state - not that far away. Fucking A, Q, T, S, and B look the hell around before naming a state. Now I know that this isn't the only instance of this, but it is right freaking there. In fact there is this weird triangle between Reno, Seattle, and Sacramento - which is a mere 45 min South of Nevada City. Do you have any idea how many times a freaking week I have to explain Nevada City CALIFORNIA. Any time a phone is involved, forget it. Sigh.

There is also a rumor which I do not care enough to confirm or deny, that in one of the many re-zonings since 1864 Nevada County is now shaped like a gun pointing to Nevada - we are that pissed off. Fuckers. Just another reason for me to hate the state of Nevada honestly, like I really need more. Like I said, I am not confirming or denying the actual truth in this rumor - in fact if you know the truth I don't know if I want to hear it, because the though has always made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Don't you want me to feel warm and or fuzzy?? I do know that in the drive from Reno to Nevada City - a drive I know and even love, there is point you cross into Nevada County, then into Placer County, and back into Nevada county - so something is oddly shaped somewhere. There are even several miles in between so it isn't like one of those weird time zone spots like they have in Arizona.

I had no idea I could talk about this that long - visiting my dad, who still lives in Nevada City (California) which is what inspired this rant. And if you wonder what this happy happy toe has do to with anything - well scroll down my friend. I just like to take odd pictures of various body parts. (and my dog) Ahh... the toe. It is happy eh?

Okay - so in no way shape or form will this entry have anything to do with said whippet, because while I love him dearly he just hasn't done anything all that interesting today and I am not scraping the bottom of the barrel and pulling out the "one time my dog" stories just yet. Give it time they'll show up. He is cute though eh? (If you don't agree I understand, thought he was the ugliest S.O.B. until I had him about 6 months, but now he's grown on me so lie or keep your mouth shut. I am rather protective)

Today I mucked around with my resume and did some temp agency rounds as this is my favorite form of gainful employment. Why? Because I am ADD deep inside in my own girly way and then I don't get too bored and if I don't start getting a pay check on a semi regular basis I'm gonna kill my grandmother. She co-signed my student loan. sigh. I haven't actually missed a payment, but about six hours after the loan was offically in my pile o' debt said grandmother started freaking out about how I was gonna make the payments. Ack. anyhow so I do actually love my grandmother and I don't want to end up in prison - because even though Rubin Carter managed it I feel it would be difficult to get published let alone produced on the inside. That's right, the inside.

The thing I hate about temp work is the applying. I mean I suppose I am not terribly fond of applying anywhere, but mostly I just do temp. See to get good clerical work that pays more than freakin' min. wage one must bring to the temp agency a proper resume. Okay, that's cool I get it. I'm down. However they actually tell you this on the phone, and then when you get there you have to hand write every gosh damn thing on the resume onto their application - WHY????? Why can't they just cross referance to the resume? I can even give them an extra copy to staple to the form. Hell I'll give 'em an electronic copy in three different formats on top of that. Fuck me.

I really hate it when people waste my time, which is weird because I seem to waste it myself constantly. Maybe it is more that I hate wasting my time non-consentually. Is there such a thing as time rape? Would this actually be more like time date rape - cause technically I go into these places of my own free will but then they blackmail me with the promise of a paycheck. So I just had a much more complicated anaylasis of this in another window - so you lucky bastards don't have to be exposed the rest of it. Thank you President and Dictator for Life (his request) for taking one for the team. Woo. Woo.

night n' stuff.

I once had a teacher who told us to blog. In fact she even made it a graded assignment - only she didn't care where, when, how much, or what about. Every once in a while she would randomly ask people if they had been blogging and that is how the assingment was graded. I was always amazed at how many people simply admitted that they had been neglecting their blog. I think that was part of the randomization of checking in with us though. Catch people off gaurd and they don't have to watch 15 other students answer while deciding how ethical they really are deep inside. I, being the gigantic school geek that is me, of course blogged religously. Okay, okay -- I only started blogging because I am a giganitic school geek. In reality I love it, because well I am a writer. The whole thing with "professional" writers is that we think everyone is entitled to hear, read, or otherwise absorb what we have to say - that is the nature of it. Please note I did not specifiy EVERYTHING we say. Most writers would agree that 90 percent of what we produce is crap, but that crap must be written in order to get to that last 10 percent. The part we are proud of, the part that pays the morgage (sometimes), and the reason we keep on keeping on. This is not that 10 percent. This is a way for me to get out the other 90. Random thoughts, rants, quandries on life, liberty, and property. (fuck the pursuit of happiness - John Locke was the MAN!) Of course becuase I am a writer I do get off on the fact that this is public and not in some notebook under my bed. Read it. Don't. Whatever give you joy yo. That's what it's all about eh? (no I am not Canadian but frankly eh is so much better than um, uh, or but - and you should hear me say coast or pasta)