And Now For Something Completely Different

Halfway through drinks Wednesday I started plotting my binge. I reasoned that it was only Day 2, and that I could start again the next day.

The editor/acquaintance I was having drinks with was talking about something – maybe it was the Obama book, maybe it was the story of how she met her boyfriend – and I was thinking about what I would (or could arrange to) pass on the way home. Or maybe I should just try to overeat like a normal person and just have whatever I wanted for dinner? But what was that? I decided I just wanted to binge.

I tried to focus on the conversation.

I went back to binge plotting.

It was probably about 8 pm as we got up to leave, maybe a little later. I'd had an extra afternoon snack because I felt like I was starving at 5 pm, an hour after my first snack. I settled into the idea that I would binge; that resignation mixed with fear and loathing.

And as I put on my coat I had – I wouldn't say it was a ripple of fear so much as a sense as a foregone conclusion that if I binged that night I would not be able to come back from it quickly. It wasn't terror, bizarrely – just this eerily calm vision that it would be days or weeks or even months before I would get a grip on myself.

And so I did something I have only managed to do once or twice: I pulled out my phone and started calling people. I knew I needed to keep myself occupied until I could get home safely. (Though frankly, given what the last binge started on, I'm no longer sure how safe I am at home. But that's another story.)

I left a message for one friend. I dialled a second one; someone who shares a version of this problem. She picked up.

"What's your plan for the evening?" she said. "Map it out for me."

And so I did. A simple dinner – when I'm in that sort of headspace making a lot of decisions is impossible – and then, bless New York and its cheap nail salons with late hours – a manicure, which would ensure that I could not be eating at least for an hour or so. Plus, I needed the manicure – I had a meeting today at the sort of magazine where they would notice any infraction of New York grooming laws. (I did keep my hair curly though; I have not succumbed to blowouts.)

Binge averted.