A Signal and a Sign

There are times when I debate giving up blogging, because honestly, I bore myself some times. OK, a lot of the time.

I'm having a few weeks of struggling mightily with binges, and I thought about describing it, but you know, I have. But why is it that the urge – no matter how familiar – always seems newly desperate and, erm, urgent?

I binged Thursday after the blind date, a binge so bad I woke up and discovered a couple of blocks of Cadburys on my floor. Seriously. I think there were doughnuts. Lots of doughnuts. I'm not sure what else. This was just four days after Sunday's binge of bread and butter (lots of it), a McFlurry (I know, WTF?), some chocolate, a muffin (two? Three?) and hot chocolate.

This afternoon I went to a birthday party on Clapham Common – the sort of thing that frankly can be a disaster for a binge eater, because it's endless drinking and nibbling. It was couples galore, I knew only the birthday boy and the Nice Jewish Boy, and the NJB was on (and on) about the cricket, the World Cup, and what he could get for free and where. I had a couple of drinks, a (planned) bar of Green & Black's I had in my bag, and a small (crappy and unplanned) pork pie. When I got up to leave I thought about all the things I wanted to eat and could easily buy en route to the Tube, and I could feel myself accepting the fact that I would binge.

Except I didn't.

I bought a Classic Magnum and set off for the Tube, only to discover there was a hole in the packaging. Took it back to the shop who had no more. It's a sign, I thought. I'm going to binge now.

Except I didn't. I bought another at another shop, got on the Tube, and thought desperately of what I could do to keep myself away from food. I settled on going to Selfridges to get my makeup done, as was meeting a very glamorous friend for the book party. (Went to Trish McEvoy – not bad. Think so far my favourites have been Laura Mercier and, believe it or not, Benefit.)

Then I came home, slipped into my little black dress (grateful it fit, even if it felt a bit tight) and four-inch nude peep toes, and off I went. I had a couple of glasses of champagne, debated sticking around when my friend left (she had to get up to be on television tomorrow), then looked around and decided it would just be a recipe for disaster.

***

I can't imagine writing and exercising together – I find both tough enough on their own. But this morning at the gym I spotted a guy doing what looked like edits on something that was handwritten while cycling on a stationary bicycle. So I had to comment.

He said it made time go by. I said that was what music was for.

He said he was writing a book review for the Sunday Telegraph, and I noticed the book he was reviewing was Sebastian Junger's War, about Afghanistan. "Kabul actually is one of my favorite places in the world," I said. "I guess you've been?"

I knew he probably had, and I was right. Swoon. Plus I suddenly noticed he was cute. Really, really cute. (Swoon.) Also Cambridge-educated (swoon). Posh-ish accent (ditto). Funny (pick me up off the floor right now.)

We chatted for a few minutes about Afghanistan's underground bars and drunken dinner parties and the generally fascinating expats who populate them, then about a handful of notorious war correspondents and their generally appalling behaviour. Then I hopped on the cross trainer. A few minutes later he left, saying – as probably any journalist would – that he'd Google me. I wished I'd done laundry more recently and wasn't wearing my most hideously unflattering workout trousers (three-year-old gray cotton capris I bought in a Monoprix in Paris). I wish I hadn't binged quite so recently and wasn't splooging out of my workout top. But such is life.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later, as I was singing along to some song on my ipod, he reappeared in the doorway, wearing jeans and carrying a Daunt Books bag (swoon). "Nice to meet you," he said, a small gesture that made my day. No doubt he was going off to meet the girlfriend/wife for lunch, but a girl can dream otherwise. And so I do.