Mini-update on T. and a small treatise on Romance

Thanks for everyone's comments on my last post; it fills me with unabashed gladness and glee that you took some entertainment value from my dating fiasco, and that you actually applauded my slightly inappropriate but liberating move of Leaving Without Looking Back, instead of chiding me for my childish behaviour.

T. texted me again yesterday, a completely passive aggressive text of "Yeah, must have been really hard to be stuck with such a douchebag, right?".

I had absolutely nothing to add to that sudden spot of self-awareness, apart from utter agreement, so I didn't respond.
For once, I thought, let's just keep to the adage of not saying anything at all if you don't have anything nice to say.

On the whole, I'm just getting tired of the romance game.

I'm a lost cause.

On the one hand, I am fairly anti social, I can't stand people more often than not and I sometimes despair of the feeling that I'm incapable of forming a relevant connection to anyone, with the possible exception of a few close friends none of whom I would want to date.

On the other hand, romance seems an important part of life to me - I do crave it, I crave the chemistry, I crave touch, I crave the rush and the excitement, that tingling sensation that you get along the edges of your spine when you suspect that things might be Developing Into A Certain Direction.

It's not just the sex I am interested in, either - I crave the intimacy, the mental connection, the build-up, the entire package.

Which is a shame, because a craving for just sex would always be easier to satisfy.
I am a sensual person at the core, but I am also, in addition to that, somewhat of an incurable romantic.

Throw that in with being uncontrollably impatient and misanthropic towards people who I find do not meet my standards of at least semi-coherent conversation (and there seem to be a lot of them these days), and you get someone who is haughty and desperate all at once; Too High Standards and yet Starving For Anything At All.

I tire of romantic partners easily, even prospective ones.
Yet I wish for and dream of someone whom I'd not tire of ever again, nor him of me.

And finally, on top of everything else, there is also that voice - that voice that I can never for the life of me shut up, that voice that whispers to me constantly: "You are a fat fuck. No one's ever gonna love you unless you stop being such a fat fuck."

Put together, it doesn't amount to very much by way of being able to develop or maintain a healthy relationship; or even a fling-tastic casual one.

I'm not entirely sure where I was going with this - I guess I just needed a good old rant, and I thank you all for listening to this soon-to-be old spinster and crooked crone raving about her inability to Get On Good Terms With Romance.

Oh well, I figure if I do make it to spinsterish Old Crone status some day, at least I'll have one entertaining story to tell - the story of T. and the night when I Disappeared Through The Backdoor.

Assault, Battery and Shopping Frustration

Today was an entirely strange and unpleasant day.

It started with the realization that Summer Had Gone again, at least for now - it is back to almost-wintry cool-and-grey-and-stormy-ness.

As I type this, raindrops are starting to splatter against my windows; by the sound of it they measure as much as the egg of a midsized pigeon, each.

To properly celebrate the last day of my spring break, I got it in my head to go shopping today - clothes shopping no less - starting at American Apparel.

I never really noticed this when I was still skinny - but they appear to be quite sizeist.
They really seem to have a sizing policy that is designed exclusively for those flesh-and-bone-skinny twigs on legs that we'd all want to look like, the ones that I idolize and strive to imitate physically, the ones that I am woefully far from emulating at this point.

I only tried on a few items, but I could barely squeeze myself into a size M with most of them, despite the fact that I am now at the lower end of normal according to BMI.
Even the Bra that I tried - Jesus Christ on a stick, my boobs are rather on the small side, but an AmApp size M is about two sizes too small for them regardless.

I used to leave shitloads of money at that store, but today I walked out without having bought a single item, as is the irrevocable fate of the fat person at the clothing store.

Then I went and blew a small fortune at Zara - on clothes that were labeled size S and actually fit me, one particularly freakishly sized jacket still fitting loosely in XS even.

That just goes to show, as it has been proven many times before, how tremendously you can affect your sales and influence your customers through sizing policy.

How much of a difference it makes, whether the sizes you employ give them the illusion of being skinny - or the illusion of being fat.

Then, when I was barely out of the changing room, my mother called.
She had been assaulted on the street by a Random Old Crazy Guy, who set his dog on her before pushing her to the ground and starting to kick her and the grocery bags she had been carrying with great abandon.

An absolutely random attack, absolutely bizarre and therefor all the more frightening, absolutely traumatizing to my mother, evidently.
She was lying on the ground sobbing when she called me, by the time I arrived a friendly young man from one of the neighbouring apartments had also come down to help her, and the police arrived not soon after.

I accompanied her to the station, where she gave her statement so that charges might be filed against the assailant, and to the doctor to document and treat her injuries.

Neighbours that had gathered at the scene told us that the man was notorious for incidents like this one, and had attacked many a passer-by in a similar fashion before, while the police said that probably nothing could be done about it unless something "really bad happened" one day, like the dog maiming someone in a severe and lasting fashion.

It's instances like this, really, that make you see for a moment why self-justice and vigilantism might actually seem like a good idea.

When I came home I was slightly shell-shocked and shaky from all the excitement; I made myself dinner, a large one, and didn't even feel bad about eating it as it seemed like an utter necessity in order to calm down and replenish my energy.

Tonight I am due to go drinking and clubbing with friends, so there will be alcohol, and even more calories.
It has been a bad day in regard to calories, but then again it has been a bad day in regard to pretty much everything else, so I'm figuring what the heck.

I'm sort of out of the loop, I would like to go to bed early and look forward to getting up right before dawn for my customary run - still I feel like I should not pull out of the group activity, lest I become a complete recluse which I am constantly on the verge of, anyway.

I take morbid delight in my inability to learn from mistakes.

First of all, I have a confession to make: I DID weigh myself, at some point after starting this blog, despite saying that I really couldn't bear to know.

I did weigh myself, pretty much exactly a week ago, just two days after the "Serious Business" post were I still said I hadn't and wouldn't.

I did step on the scales, and kept the result to myself, because it was just as I had feared - not quite 60 kg, but a solid 59, hovering in between 58.9 and 59.2 as I stood there, shifting around on my feet to see whether that number wouldn't yet, magically, go down.

The good news in the matter, however, is today's revelation: I step on the scales this morning, not even entirely empty, not having been to the bathroom yet, already having had a bit of water - and it tells me 57.1.

I step off and on again, can't believe this stroke of luck.
Seems like the on-off ABC, the exercise, the one day of proper fasting have already done some good.

The bad news is the fact that I still look like a freaking whale of course, unchanged, 2 kg do not make a difference in the monstrously appalling dimensions of my thighs, the not-quite-flat-enough-ness of my belly.

Although I have seen some progress there; since I've started working out properly again, there are already teensy tiny changes and improvements in muscle definition along the legs, the abs.

I even imagine that I am already starting to feel a shift in the monstrosity that is my hips, but that might be wishful thinking entirely.

Still, wishful thinking is what fuels me to go on, and a little bit of a starting enthusiasm never hurts.

On the downside, I did eat today, although I wasn't really hungry - I went on fasting for most of the day and it wasn't even hard, it felt natural and easy.

Still, I was feeling suspicious for some reason, distrustful of my own ability to fast because I hadn't done this in so long.
So as the day wore on, I convinced myself that having a little something to eat would be "safest".

And there I went, eating, and immediately regretting it the second I had swallowed it down. It felt wrong, my high was destroyed, my belly full and my sense of peace and centered calm shattered to a thousand glittering pieces.

I am feeling shitty right now, on the verge of depression, but I will keep it together.

I have learned a valuable lesson; one that I already knew but apparently have to re-learn once more:
That I shouldn't eat when my body isn't even telling me to, that I should trust my body to handle itself and warn me by outrageous hunger or dizziness should the fasting become too much to bear, that I should trust my mind to handle the slightly heightened mental stress of running on empty for a while, that I shouldn't feel compelled to feed them in advance just because I fear they might not be able to deal.

I have learned, as I already knew, that it is very easy for myself to achieve a little happiness through careful fasting, and very easy to completely ruin the mood by eating when I do not need to.

I will try to keep these lessons in mind once again, to ease back into the confidence that I can handle a little hunger, a little silence, a little stillness of the body and mind.

I will try to listen to my instincts next time, to be patient and relaxed instead of nervous, to trust myself and discard the automated voice that insists a human being must have food to survive, and going without it for over 24 hours still feeling no hunger must be unnatural.

(Of course, that voice is technically right - a human DOES need nutrition in the long run, but that is not the point of a fast, and going without it for a few days will not kill you - so I need to shut that voice up for a little bit in order to concentrate on the void inside of me, to let it nourish me, replenish me during some food-free days of peace and silence.)

I hope I didn't ruin my progress too much; on the scale and in my emotional landscape, by tripping up my confidence and breaking the fast.

... and because I don't want this post to be filled with purely negative raving, I'm adding a little something from the "inspirational" department, a lovely fictional being with blue hair and blue tears, by the name of Jill, a creation of formidable genius Enki Bilal.

That image of her seemed to fit the mood of my post, and I'm using it with all due respect and copyright acknowledgement to Monsieur Bilal himself.
I love all of his graphic novels almost equally, but La Trilogie Nikopol was the first of his works I fell in love with, and of course first love lasts a lifetime.

If you haven't read them I can only encourage you to do so; it is worthwhile also to work your way through the French original, even if your French is as poor as mine.

Or, if you want a quick introduction to his world, I recommend the loosely-based movie adaptation Immortel, where Linda Hardy delivers quite a watchable, and incidentally rater skinny performance as Jill.





PS: Don't you just love the ironic juxtaposition created by those last two, completely unrelated panels when you put them together in this fashion?
Yeah, I'm deep like that...

Skinny Love: Natalie Portman and some stunned observations

It's incredible - I just can't do it.

I cannot do the ABC right now.

It is incredible because I used to be so good at this, at starving myself.

And now, apparently, I am not anymore.
Half a year of carelessness and unfortunate events was all it took.

What's so funny about it, is that "normal" people, people concerned with my health, would probably say I got better.
I used to be good at something that is considered "bad", considered unhealthy and disordered.

And now I am bad at that very same thing, that badunhealthydisordered thing, which must in turn me that I am - healthy.
With a BMI right in the lower-but-by-no-means-alarmingly-low half of the normal range, it must mean that I am happy, happyhealthynormal surely, in better order than before?

That's not what it feels like to me, though. I don't feel better, I don't feel "healed".

All that I feel is weakness, a failure of willpower is all that I see.
A failure of willpower is all that it is, to me and that never silent inner voice.

And I am not the happier for it, more carefree, quite the contrary - I am feeling So. Much. Worse. than I ever did when starving successfully.

Huh.
I'm trying to overcompensate with frequent and vigorous training for the time being, running and weightlifting twice a day until I have figured out who I am and how I feel and where I want to be.

In the meantime, I bring you another episode of Skinny Love:










Natalie Portman.

She's my ultimate ideal of beauty, I think. I could gaze at her stunning features for hours on end.

She's an outstanding actress, I love virtually every single movie I've seen her in (with the notable exceptions being A) those Star Wars I - III atrocities, they do rather fall into the category "guilty pleasures", and B) V for Vendetta, it was a bit of a disappointment as compared to the the original comic, but that was by no means anything to do with Portman's performance).

Her extraordinarily memorable performance in Léon remains unforgotten, of course...



(I love that movie to pieces, on the whole.)

... and many a great and entertaining movie followed, Closer, Garden State, Mars Attacks!, The Other Boleyn Girl and so on.

From what you can tell through interviews, through her commitment to various social causes, she seems like a wonderful human being on a personal level, too.

Also, she happens to be very skinny - tiny, elegant, graceful.

Yet, there is seldom to never any harping about her weight in any of the tabloids - other celebrities get the heat for being too skinny all the time.

Still, despite her being just as thin as other actresses (oh my gosh, look at those stunning claviculae - do want!) - despite her shoulders being as bony, her collarbones as protruding, her waist as narrow, her chest as flat and her arms as tiny - her thinness isn't subject to a lot of debate.

Which seems graceful too, in a way, as being skinny is very obviously not her only defining quality - there is more talk about her talent and her movies than her weight; she simply is skinny on top of that without ever raising a fuss about it.

Again with a quality I would so like to emulate.

Skinny Love: Tilda Swinton and an update

So, I am really, really not fond of myself today, and that's kind of an understatement.

To give you all the quick version: I did well on the abc for an almighty four days (yeah, really long, that), and then screwed up majorly with a HUGE binge yesterday (or huh-yooge, as Stephen King would say).

I don't even want to go into the sordid details of how and why it happened - yes, there were certain circumstances, and if I wanted to indulge myself I could go ahead and blame it on other people, on the particular situation, on the fact that I'm on my period and so on and so on.

But, we all know that sort of thing is deceiving yourself in a cowardly fashion - if I slip up and binge it is my own failure, a lapse in my self control, and no one else can be held accountable.

Oh well.
I got up at five thirty today and started the day with a run and a little weight lifting work-out afterwards, so at least that's making me feel good about myself.

Not so good is the fact that I'm invited to my parents for lunch today, so even if I wanted to pick up at day five again, I don't think I'll manage the 100 cal limit.
Perhaps if I add the burnt-off exercise calories, though...

In any case, in the spirit of not liking myself, I have decided to shift my blogging focus to other people for a change - no fun in talking about yourself all the time, right?

So, I've decided to declare this "Skinny Love" month, and do a mini-series of posts on people that fulfill the following set of criteria:

A) They inspire me in some artistic fashion, be it through their music, their style, their image, through writing or acting or any other creative pursuit, or simply through the entire concept and presentation of their persona.

And B) They are, in keeping with the obsession theme of this blog, visually inspiring to me by being thin or in other words, skinny.

(You are, of course, welcome to take up and participate in this idea if you find it amusing; I'm not running a trade-mark on it anytime soon, ha.
In fact, I'd be curious to know - which skinny minnies happen to have been inspirational to you, dear readers?)

Starting with: La incredible Swinton.










I absolutely love her as an actress - she embodies my every definition of "ethereal" with effortless poise - otherworldly, detached, incomprehensible and infinitely graceful beyond mundane definition, simply and utterly other.

And that photo-shoot she did a good while back for Another Magazine?
I can't even say enough about how she looks in those pictures above, how eternal and perfect, like a statue flawlessly set into stone, a monument of grace and beauty and dignity and spirit.

Where being thin is concerned, I don't even picture her as a person who purposefully tries to maintain or achieve this as a goal.

Much rather, if I had to guess, I'd picture her as someone who simply doesn't have food as a large part of life on their agenda, whose mind is too busy with ideas and their realization to ever think about eating in an active manner; someone who might often forget to eat, if not by chance reminded, while immersed in an other and inspirational part of existence that revolves around things untouched by the trivial absorption of calories into the body.

And that's the kind of ethereal we'd all like to be, aye?

PS: Have a happy Easter, everyone...

On Sleepless Nights and Guilty Pleasures

Blargh, no sleep again last night, although I was feeling so goddamn tired... know that feeling when you're actually TOO tired to sleep?

Kept telling myself to get up and do something useful, like say reading or crunches, if I couldn't fall asleep anyway - alas, I remained absolutely paralyzed by lethargy and inertia.

I just lay there all night, morbidly fascinated with watching the shifting shadows on the ceiling and the excruciatingly slow passage of time, firmly held in the withering, vice-like grip of total apathy.

Then a big fight with mother dearest this morning, where she called me "manipulative" because I cried in front of her.
I said I didn't mean to be, what made her think that, and she replied that I was purposefully trying to make her feel bad by crying.

I wasn't though - I was sad, feeling alone and helpless, I wanted to talk to someone familiar and was hoping that perhaps she'd comfort me - clearly a naive notion.
So I said I was sorry, I didn't want her to be mad at me, I was just trying to tell her how I felt.

And she just yelled at me, that I should do whatever I wanted with my life but leave her alone with my manipulative ways, then she left.

Obviously, a very successful mother-daughter meeting.

Teaches you that crying in front of other people is seldomly a good idea; unless they happen to possess a modicum of compassion, which you cannot always count on.

Hmpf.

On the positive side, I did exercise today (go me, one step towards easing into becoming the happy exercise freak I used to be - I'd almost forgotten already how GOOD your body feels when you actually give it some movement!)

Also, I'm going to meet up with a wonderful friend right now, a friend I haven't seen face-to-face in a long time, and who happens to understand from personal experience a wide array of troubles and obsessions of the mind.

So, that should be nourishing for both body and soul (we are going to a sushi place and I haven't eaten yet today, therefor low calorie makis and high satisfaction with self will be provided).

I really liked the comment Summer left on yesterday's post - saying that it's a highly satisfying guilty pleasure to be "that other girl" that someone suspects their bloke might long for.
It is indeed, and while it doesn't exactly make you feel like you deserve a Nobel prize in the category "high morals", there's no denying that it feels good.

I've been there with The Coward and his new girlfriend before - not too long ago, there was a party that we all attended.

She was looking rather plain that night, as in my eyes she always does, and I had actually pulled myself together, bringing my hair to shine and my eyes to sparkle, making an effort with my make-up and my clothes.

So there I was, surrounded by friends, the center of attention, laughing, looking my best and pretending mirth like there was no tomorrow - and there they were, slightly isolated in a corner as overly clingy couples often get, not really talking to anyone.

From the corner of my eyes, I could see her gaze darting over to me every five seconds, filled with uneasiness and fearful concern - the kind where she knows that her man and I had something once upon a time, and that even if he decided to break my heart and choose her to become his girlfriend instead, that doesn't mean she can stop worrying.

It felt good then, even though clearly if she could see inside my heart she would know that I still feel the loser, still cannot quell the longing for a guy that decided to lead me on and hurt me in a most undignified fashion.

When they were getting ready to leave, she actually came over to me.
She tapped me on the shoulder while I was immersed in conversation, just to say a shy goodbye, all down-cast eyes and batting lashes, staring at her feet.

And I smiled at her, generously, all teeth and insincerity; gave her a warm "goodbye" back, in a voice much louder, much more affable and cordial than was strictly required.

It was my On-top-of-the-world act, my I'm-so-great-I-can-afford-to-be-friendly-towards-you, You-are-but-a-tiny-blip-on-the-outskirts-of-my-world and of course I wish you luck dear, you sure need it.

And damn it felt good that night, if only for a few hours.

I also liked how Bella said her self-esteem won't "rear it's fragile head" - the fragile bit is spot on, she has an almost non-existent self-esteem that depends entirely on validation from others, particularly men.

Now, I am not the queen of the "Love Yourself"-club either - but the particular way she goes about openly putting her insecurities out there - all "ooooh, look at me, I'm so poor and insecure guys, don't you wanna saaaaave me, make me feel pretty?" - it is appalling to me.

I hate hating myself, I never think of it as an advertising advantage.
Nor would I want to talk about it to potential romance interests or passing acquaintances all the time.

Found the below picture with the caption "Jealousy. The best motivation for revenge.".
True indeed.

Lies

You know how they tell you "Oh, even if you DO get skinny, that will not suffice to make you happy!"?

How they tell you that the perfect weight is not the gateway to the perfect life? That you need to see that skinny doesn't equal happy, that reaching your goal weight won't satisfy your craving to be whole, fulfilled, perfected, complete?

It's bullshit, if you ask me.
I have been there before - never as skinny as I wanted to be, never perfect - there is always room for less, how couldn't there be.

Still, I have been skinny-er before, I have been starving myself and exercising vigorously, and yes, I have been happy.

Hell, less than a year ago, I was ever-so-close to where I wanted to be with my body - I was thin, I was toned, clothes were falling off me and people were commenting the way they always do, with a mixture of awe and concern, of jealousy and curiosity.

"My, you have become ever so thin!", The Blonde Girl would say to me, and I would smile, all oblivious.

"Really? Hm, if you say so, must have been the fact that I took up running again..."
And she would laugh, unbelieving, flabbergasted "What, you didn't even notice?", clearly envious, so skinny herself, and yet in awe of my progress.

Those were good times, and I can honestly say that I was SO much happier then - not only happier; more complete, more in control, of myself, my life.
The "simple" fact of my body being closer to perfection made a whole world of difference in controlling my messed-up mind.

So there, I never want to hear those again, those lies of "It won't really make a difference" - It does.
If only I could get strong again, if only I could reach my goals, make up for the time I slacked.

If only...

Stay strong, and take those offerings of "wisdom" with a grain of salt.