W(h)ine and T and the NJB

I thought about just not posting for a while. About waiting a few days until I had something else to say, and maybe, just maybe, better news to report.

But that's like avoiding putting on jeans because you know they'll be too tight – or maybe, won't fit at all. (I'm wearing mine right now. They just barely fit. Ugh.)

It's denial. And denial is how five or ten pounds turns into 50 or 60.

I could feel the binge coming on Friday morning. I was exhausted and stressed out and overwhelmed from the moment I woke up at 6 am – which is pretty much how I've been feeling every moment of every day for the past few weeks, if not months.

Rush, rush, rush to finish story and sneak in a workout before huge lunch. I thought about skipping the workout, but thought doing one would make me feel more in control about lunch, which usually it does.

Except sometimes it doesn't.

I thought about the weight I'd seen on the scale that morning, and how it was still up more pounds than I'd like, despite my best efforts. I thought about the fact that I'd be eating a big lunch, at friends for dinner on Sunday, then a handful of events during the week, then a week in Dorset, then a trip to the US, then...

I figured I'd better work out. And so I did. Then I raced to Covent Garden to the lunch, feeling resentful. Rush, rush, rush. That's all I ever do, I thought. So why do I seem to accomplish so little?

I wanted a glass of fizz, which was supposed to be during the "reception" part of this lunch, not, of course, during the main event. There wasn't any. I had a glass of white wine. Bad idea. I knew it the moment I started sipping it, but I didn't care. All I do any more is race around and worry about money, I thought. I just want a break. I thought about the conversation I'd had with my grandmother a couple of weeks ago, when she asked me why I didn't travel anymore and didn't have any good stories. I've told her before that I'm struggling with money, and I repeated it. She dismissed it. I told her I'd had to get through the last week in February without spending any money, so survived mostly on peanut butter and eggs. "That's very fattening," is all she said.

I gave a primer on American political processes in general and health care reform in particular (I've written at least 3 articles in the past week on the subject) to various people, including Armando Ianucci, who wrote the brilliant In the Loop. I had another glass of white. Bad to worse.

We sat down to lunch and I ate 3 rolls – soft, warm and delicious. You can see where this is going. In case you can't, let me just tell you that I not once but twice excused myself to "take phone calls" and ducked out to binge. One of those times I bumped into a guy I met at the Venice Film Festival several years ago and had lunch with once right around the corner. I haven't seen him since. "Wow, you've lost a lot of weight," he blurted out. I didn't want to chat; I just wanted my cupcake. I grabbed it and ran out the door, eating it on my way to the next shop.

After the lunch I eyed the chocolate truffles left on the tables (I'd already had a good share of the ones on ours). I felt sick and full and just wanted to go home and die, or at least take a nap. Just the thought of getting myself to the Tube made me want to lie down on the floor and give up. A handful of people – among them the NJB – were going to a private members' club around the corner to carry on drinking. I didn't want anything else to drink but I figured I'd sit for a couple of hours until I could face getting myself home – or maybe I'd even feel good enough to go to a party I was supposed to attend.

The guys (they were all guys) ordered me a glass of wine, which I'm not sure I took so much as a sip of while they made it through four or five rounds. The NJB started talking about getting fish and chips. The old "last supper" part of my brain fired up and I thought oooh, yes, please. And then I thought: No way. I'm not hungry, fried food makes me feel sick even at the best of times, and I'm probably having fish and chips that will be way better in Dorset next week.

Partly because one of the guys was hell-bent on drinking and kept ordering rounds, we didn't end up leaving until nearly 10 pm (I had maybe half a glass of wine in the whole five hours we sat there), by which point I was beyond cranky and tired. The NJB kept talking about the fish and chip shop across the street. I told him he should go ahead.

"Not unless you want it," he said. We kicked around a couple of other options. I had very little patience at this point.

"I'm exhausted," I said. "I'm really not up for sitting through a meal at a restaurant." I wondered if I could get away with skipping dinner entirely or if I'd just end up starving by the time I got home. Cutting back is one way to end up bingeing again, so I decided I'd better eat something.

"Let's go to this vegetarian Chinese place," the NJB said. "It's healthy, and you know I'm all about the healthy." (He's very far from it.)

"Is it fried?" I asked.

"It's vegetarian," he said. "It's vegetables. They don't fry vegetables, do they?" This actually sounded eerily to me like something the Fig would have said, except the Fig was healthy, and I was absolutely mad about him, so everything he said was swoon-inducing. Also, the Fig would have been kidding, which I knew NJB was not.

The place he talking about was Korean and very definitely not vegetarian (or healthy – there was fried food galore) – and so crowded we'd have had to wait for hours. We ended up going to the market and buying bagels and light cream cheese and smoked salmon and Mullerice, which I haven't had in years. I didn't look at calories or weigh or measure anything, but I had one bagel with cream cheese and salmon plus one pot of Mullerice, the last of which I really didn't need. I knew the NJB wouldn't comment or even care if I had another bagel (he had one) but I also knew it was a bad idea, so didn't. At least one good decision made in an ocean of bad ones.

***

One of the three guys in the NJB's Internet venture is called T. He's 29, from Essex, and used to play in a hotly tipped indie band before he decided he wasn't cut out for a life of constant touring. I hardly spoke to him all afternoon, but at one point we were the only 2 people sitting in the nook we'd taken over.

From various bits of conversations I'd pieced together that he'd lived in Japan and New Zealand. He told me about a trip to Idaho he'd taken, because he'd ended up doing some writing for a newspaper there and figured he'd hop out there while he was in Los Angeles.

"Everyone in Idaho is stupid," he said. "Even the editor was stupid. It's beautiful out there, though." He went on a 10-minute rant about Idaho. I half-listened. He seemed argumentative, but – stuffed and tired – I had little fight in me. I thought briefly that he must think I was the most boring woman alive.

By this point the NJB had returned to his place between me and T. (Maybe that was why I hadn't spoken to T. all day.)

T. wanted the NJB and me to listen to his new band and give him an honest opinion. While I listened to the track on his iphone I stole a peek through his other music: Yes, the Libertines. Yes, the Kaiser Chiefs. Yes, a bunch of 90s jam bands. But also all the Killers' albums (and demos), all of Counting Crows, plus Keane and Don McLean. Awww.

I said: "I pretty much want to listen to every single thing on your ipod. If you just had Dan Fogelberg on there I think I could die happy." (I was half kidding. There actually is one Dan Fogelberg song I like but I doubted he'd even heard of the man.)

T. looked at me like he'd never seen me before. "Will you marry me?" he said. "Like, right now?"

The NJB looked at me expectantly. I looked down at the iphone. A text had popped up. "I think that's your girlfriend," I said. (Really, it was.) I handed him the phone. He glanced down, pressed a button to make the text disappear, and handed it back to me.

"Let's get married," he said.

The NJB – who is (a) not my boyfriend and (b) has never said a word to me about what he feels about anything – put his arm around me. It didn't seem to be the time to wriggle free of it.

I didn't know what to say. "Aren't you already married?" I said. (Earlier he'd told me he'd married his Kiwi girlfriend so she could get a passport. Then they'd split up, she's back in New Zealand, but that they hadn't gotten round to getting divorced – "and my new girlfriend really wants me to sort that out.")

"I can fix that with a phone call," he said.

"I'm from Idaho," I answered, rolling my eyes so both he and the NJB could see.

"You're not really, are you?"

"No," I said. "You're not really from Essex, are you?"

He burst out laughing. "Give me your number," he said. "I'm going to marry you one day."

I didn't speak to T. again after that. The NJB made sure of that. I didn't have the energy to fight or otherwise do anything but watch events unfold.

Somehow it was just the three of us standing on the sidewalk outside at 10 pm.

"Which way are you going?" T. asked me.

"We're going north," answered the NJB, taking my hand. Again, probably not the time to drop it and make a scene.

"Aren't you, like, three hours late to meet your girlfriend already?" I asked T.

"I'm already in trouble at this point, so what's the difference of a couple more hours?" he asked. (Classic boy logic. I wish my mind worked that way. Once I think I'm in trouble, I can't enjoy anything else.)

"We're not staying out and we're not going your way," the NJB said, almost rudely.

"I could come yours," said T., who was not getting the hint.

"I'm not up for anything else," I said, and finally T. left. The NJB looked relieved. He tugged my hand like an owner with a recalcitrant puppy. I followed reluctantly, wanting nothing else except to go home.

***

By the way, O and me? Not going to happen. He's back with the ex. It wasn't ever going to happen, frankly, because of two major reasons: (a) he's not attracted to me, and (b) he is shockingly, appallingly, makes-you-lose-faith-in-men unfaithful, not to mention perpetually dissatisfied (see "unfaithful," as before).

Just so you know.