“How’s BN2?” the instructor said suddenly today, mid-workout.
I’m in London, and was at my favorite Heartcore Pilates, with the very instructor who taught us the day I dragged BN2 to class at least three years ago. (I’ve been living in New York for 18 months, BN2 and I split up nearly a year before I moved, and I seem to recall the time we went together was in the summer.)
I wasn’t as surprised as I might have been, actually. I haven’t been to London for nearly a year (I believe last year I landed on July 1), and every step I take – and I love to walk in London – unleashes a flood of memories. It’s not unpleasant; just loaded with psychic baggage. Like walking at the bottom of a pool.
Wednesday night I went to Putney, where I lived all but fulltime for two of the darkest years of my life. I did not see BN2, thankfully, but it was like stumbling into the soundstage where my nightmares are shot. I nearly cried walking over Putney Bridge, remembering all the journeys I’d made there and the dread of what mood he might be in when I arrived. And I realized I didn’t fully exhale until a couple of hours later, when I crossed back to the north side of the river.
***
Today is a year to the day since I left the horrible job – the job for which I gave up my entire life in London. I stop myself from saying the job is the worst thing that ever happened to me because (1) it isn’t, and (2) frankly, I should be so lucky that the worst thing that happens to me in my entire life is a high-paying job at a prestigious company. Hello, first world problem.
It has been a long, hard year, and I’ve learned an awful lot. And I’m almost afraid to say it, lest it be taken away, but lately I have been having a seriously good time. I still work far too many hours and pull all-nighters freaking out over my New York Times stories (the last one – yowza! I tried and tried and tried to write it but just could not get anything down on paper until 3 am. I swear with every story I keep waiting for an editor to say: OK, that’s it. You’ve failed your way upward but it is all going to stop now.) But on Saturday morning (yes, the work spills all over the place), I slammed my laptop shut after speaking to a source in Nicaragua for an hour and thought: I love my job. Yes, I am self-employed and sometime my boss really sucks (honestly, what is she thinking doing some of these stories?), but I am actually making a living doing something I love to bits. I almost can’t believe it.
***
So if life is so great, why am I bingeing so damn much?
Last Thursday I hit 21 days without bingeing, which happens to be more than I have managed since February, when I hit about 25 days. Then on Friday, in Washington DC for some meetings (and then my triplet nephews’ second birthday party Saturday), I started bingeing that evening and could not stop. I binged for five days, off and on – through the birthday party, but somehow not during the six hours of queuing when my flight was cancelled or on the flight itself (though I did overeat on it). Then in Oxford (what’s a nice Jewish girl like me doing at Jesus College, you ask? Me, too), and again on my first day in London on the 26th, when I made it through the whole day and then started bingeing at 10 pm. Five days of bingeing is more days in a row than I have done in at least a year, and possible not since 2006.
I promised myself that if I could not stop bingeing I would have to get on a plane back home, because if I’m bingeing, I am not really here. I am off in my head, plotting what and where and how much and how on earth I’m going to get it.
But I didn’t binge yesterday, and I have not binged today. I have eaten more than usual, and had an extra snack both days. I’d like to say I don’t really care, which is almost true. It is a relief not to be bingeing. Now if only anything in my suitcase fit besides a maxidress… and, um, my gym clothes.
Friday, 29 June 2012
Sunday, 20 May 2012
Come On, Skinny Love
Disappointed.
That's what I said I was when a guy cancelled our second date at 4.30 pm because, as he said, he was tired and cranky and did not feel like coming back to Manhattan (he lives in Brooklyn) and just wanted to sit on his couch and watch basketball and drink beer – and that he'd make it up to me.
I always have had trouble expressing how I feel (when it is not positive) and then sitting through the discomfort of the reaction. So much easier just to eat – or to say it's all OK. Except it wasn't. The e-mail made me alternately sad, angry and depressed, and plunged me into a deep despair. Over a guy I don't even think was the man of my dreams – just a man I actually wanted to go on a second date with, something that has not occurred for a very long time.
I did not respond immediately because I didn't have the energy. I went to a barre method exercise class I had booked and dragged myself through it. I felt a little better by the end of it, but when I left the studio everything weighed on me again.
I trudged through the evening as if moving underwater, knowing perfectly well that eating would not help yet wanting to do it anyway. I did not.
Late that night, I wrote, along with the fact that I was disappointed, that I was sorry he'd had a crummy day, and that I hoped things looked better in the morning. He'd alluded to a not-great week, which I know included the same difficult holiday mine did: Mothers Day, when yours is not alive. (Not that it's a competition, but my week also included a birthday I found surprisingly tough: 37.)
He responded the next morning with a single line: "I'm sorry I disappointed you."
Was this the best place to practice saying how I feel? I am doubtful, but it's done now.
***
Last night – fresh off the above and the news that an old friend I have long harbored feelings for is in a relationship that, he told me, he considers "permanent" – what did I do?
I went to a singles event at an art gallery in Chelsea.
Let me state for the record that my friend B goes to a bunch of these – with quite good luck; she's flirty and pretty; easily the catch of the room -- and texted me Friday to ask if I'd join her. I have been to one other one, which was spectacularly bad: a ratio of at least 8 women to every man, and most of the men either old, short, dull, weird, shy-to-the-point-of-struck-dumb or some combination of the above.
Text message from B as I am running slightly late: "Just saw guy I was dating go in. I'll wait for you outside."
When I arrived she told me there was one guy she'd dated and another she'd hooked up with. Then we went upstairs and a woman standing by the elevator greeted us with: "There's a lot of ladies in there."
I began to wonder if there would be anyone to talk with who wasn't a B castoff.
Answer: Not really.
Strange evening. Made all the stranger by a 30-year-old black guy – the only one in the room, as he told us repeatedly (as if we couldn't tell) – attaching himself to us (B had been chatting to him) and proceeding to challenge almost everything I said. I didn't want to be there, didn't want to talk to him, and certainly did not want to deal with questions such as "Let me ask you something: Do you have a complex about things getting complex?"
He joined us for drinks after, first trying to insist we go to some place in Union Square where apparently celebrities go (that was all I needed to hear to know I didn't want to go there). When B and I started talking about a trip she's planning to Spain and Morocco, he all but demanded we change the subject because he couldn't contribute. He also kept touching my knee, which made me very uncomfortable. I could not think of a polite way to say, "Cut that sh*t out right this minute." I'm sure my face reflected my displeasure – I am crap at hiding things.
And at the end of the night, B announced she was catching the bus and he asked me what I was doing.
"I'm going to walk," I said.
"Which way are you going?" he asked.
"I am going to clear my head," I said firmly.
"So...?"
"I just want to listen to my music and clear my head," I said.
"Well," he said, injecting the word with about as much disapproval as I've ever heard.
Normally this sort of tension -- being trapped and frustrated -- might well have made me binge. But last night, badly as I wanted to, I thought fiercely: I am not going to do it over this twit.
***
To the singles event I wore a dress I bought in Venice in 2009, when I was there with BN2. It was supposed to be his birthday present to me, but I don't think he ever gave me the money for it. I never wore it, left it at
my grandmother's, and promptly forgot about it until I was in Miami in December.
It is one spring/summer dress I know fits, and – I fear – one of the only things.
It has been a rough 2012 on that front.
I don't weigh myself, so I can't give you numbers, but clothes don't fit and I feel ginormous and like I want to hide from the sun. I know part of this is New York body dysmorphia (this is the place where any double digit size is the easiest to find on a sale rack), but part of it is grounded in fact. I am bigger than I was.
And I keep hitting what seems like new bottoms in terms of what I binge on (almond butter and peanut butter are two things; both things I used to keep around the house with no problem) and when was I ever a person whose binges required pizza? (Answer: Never.)
Thanks to injury I cannot exercise the way I used to, which adds another layer of frustration.
And yet, and yet. I amassed 17 days without a binge, binged for two days, and then picked myself up. After two days binge-free I spent the entire evening of the third desperate to do so – but just could not face the idea of waking up on my birthday post-binge.
Sometimes in the moment the consequences are not enough to keep me from doing it, but this time, luckily, it was.
Eight days binge free.
That's what I said I was when a guy cancelled our second date at 4.30 pm because, as he said, he was tired and cranky and did not feel like coming back to Manhattan (he lives in Brooklyn) and just wanted to sit on his couch and watch basketball and drink beer – and that he'd make it up to me.
I always have had trouble expressing how I feel (when it is not positive) and then sitting through the discomfort of the reaction. So much easier just to eat – or to say it's all OK. Except it wasn't. The e-mail made me alternately sad, angry and depressed, and plunged me into a deep despair. Over a guy I don't even think was the man of my dreams – just a man I actually wanted to go on a second date with, something that has not occurred for a very long time.
I did not respond immediately because I didn't have the energy. I went to a barre method exercise class I had booked and dragged myself through it. I felt a little better by the end of it, but when I left the studio everything weighed on me again.
I trudged through the evening as if moving underwater, knowing perfectly well that eating would not help yet wanting to do it anyway. I did not.
Late that night, I wrote, along with the fact that I was disappointed, that I was sorry he'd had a crummy day, and that I hoped things looked better in the morning. He'd alluded to a not-great week, which I know included the same difficult holiday mine did: Mothers Day, when yours is not alive. (Not that it's a competition, but my week also included a birthday I found surprisingly tough: 37.)
He responded the next morning with a single line: "I'm sorry I disappointed you."
Was this the best place to practice saying how I feel? I am doubtful, but it's done now.
***
Last night – fresh off the above and the news that an old friend I have long harbored feelings for is in a relationship that, he told me, he considers "permanent" – what did I do?
I went to a singles event at an art gallery in Chelsea.
Let me state for the record that my friend B goes to a bunch of these – with quite good luck; she's flirty and pretty; easily the catch of the room -- and texted me Friday to ask if I'd join her. I have been to one other one, which was spectacularly bad: a ratio of at least 8 women to every man, and most of the men either old, short, dull, weird, shy-to-the-point-of-struck-dumb or some combination of the above.
Text message from B as I am running slightly late: "Just saw guy I was dating go in. I'll wait for you outside."
When I arrived she told me there was one guy she'd dated and another she'd hooked up with. Then we went upstairs and a woman standing by the elevator greeted us with: "There's a lot of ladies in there."
I began to wonder if there would be anyone to talk with who wasn't a B castoff.
Answer: Not really.
Strange evening. Made all the stranger by a 30-year-old black guy – the only one in the room, as he told us repeatedly (as if we couldn't tell) – attaching himself to us (B had been chatting to him) and proceeding to challenge almost everything I said. I didn't want to be there, didn't want to talk to him, and certainly did not want to deal with questions such as "Let me ask you something: Do you have a complex about things getting complex?"
He joined us for drinks after, first trying to insist we go to some place in Union Square where apparently celebrities go (that was all I needed to hear to know I didn't want to go there). When B and I started talking about a trip she's planning to Spain and Morocco, he all but demanded we change the subject because he couldn't contribute. He also kept touching my knee, which made me very uncomfortable. I could not think of a polite way to say, "Cut that sh*t out right this minute." I'm sure my face reflected my displeasure – I am crap at hiding things.
And at the end of the night, B announced she was catching the bus and he asked me what I was doing.
"I'm going to walk," I said.
"Which way are you going?" he asked.
"I am going to clear my head," I said firmly.
"So...?"
"I just want to listen to my music and clear my head," I said.
"Well," he said, injecting the word with about as much disapproval as I've ever heard.
Normally this sort of tension -- being trapped and frustrated -- might well have made me binge. But last night, badly as I wanted to, I thought fiercely: I am not going to do it over this twit.
***
To the singles event I wore a dress I bought in Venice in 2009, when I was there with BN2. It was supposed to be his birthday present to me, but I don't think he ever gave me the money for it. I never wore it, left it at
my grandmother's, and promptly forgot about it until I was in Miami in December.
It is one spring/summer dress I know fits, and – I fear – one of the only things.
It has been a rough 2012 on that front.
I don't weigh myself, so I can't give you numbers, but clothes don't fit and I feel ginormous and like I want to hide from the sun. I know part of this is New York body dysmorphia (this is the place where any double digit size is the easiest to find on a sale rack), but part of it is grounded in fact. I am bigger than I was.
And I keep hitting what seems like new bottoms in terms of what I binge on (almond butter and peanut butter are two things; both things I used to keep around the house with no problem) and when was I ever a person whose binges required pizza? (Answer: Never.)
Thanks to injury I cannot exercise the way I used to, which adds another layer of frustration.
And yet, and yet. I amassed 17 days without a binge, binged for two days, and then picked myself up. After two days binge-free I spent the entire evening of the third desperate to do so – but just could not face the idea of waking up on my birthday post-binge.
Sometimes in the moment the consequences are not enough to keep me from doing it, but this time, luckily, it was.
Eight days binge free.
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Modern Love
"I love the Styles section!" he said, after I'd warily confessed the names of the publications for which I write. (The MD/PhD had winced when I'd mentioned Styles -- he said he'd dated a fashionista, and apparently it did not go well.)
"I'm dazzled by the presence of The Times in my life, however sparingly. For secular Jews it's like manna. If only my grandmother were here to hear me brag I'm flirting with a real, actual Times reporter."
Is telling me about your mediocre online dates – and how women are jealous of your semi-retired-at-age-37 lifestyle – what passes for flirting in the 21st century? I always knew I was born in the wrong century.
If this is an emergency, hang up and check your Facebook messages...
"I'm dazzled by the presence of The Times in my life, however sparingly. For secular Jews it's like manna. If only my grandmother were here to hear me brag I'm flirting with a real, actual Times reporter."
Is telling me about your mediocre online dates – and how women are jealous of your semi-retired-at-age-37 lifestyle – what passes for flirting in the 21st century? I always knew I was born in the wrong century.
If this is an emergency, hang up and check your Facebook messages...
Friday, 27 April 2012
Another Low
Just when I think I've hit the bottom, I just keep on digging.
A week ago, a friend who has a history of bingeing called me. I was in mid-binge after a haircut (seriously, sometimes that is a trigger for me – all dressed up, so to speak, and nowhere to go) and a lame-ish event. It was approximately my fourth binge in two weeks, and I was on my fourth or fifth stop of the evening, wandering around the bodega thinking: "I cannot live this way anymore." And yet there I was – having eaten cake and pie and heaven knows what else -- buying a bloody ice cream sandwich.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I saw her name flash up, and chose not to answer it. Then I thought: I should call her back.
"How are you?" she said.
"I'm eating an ice cream sandwich," I blurted out, starting to cry halfway through the sentence.
She talked to me all the way home, past the bodega on Bleecker Street, past the Magnolia Bakery, past countless other stops I might have made – or made excuses to get off the phone and make.
I thought I had turned a corner. I woke up the next morning feeling crummy, but not as crummy as I would have felt if I'd carried on bingeing. I got through the Friday. But then I started bingeing before a dinner party Saturday night and carried on bingeing afterwards. (At the party: An adorable MD/PhD who lives in San Francisco and throws words around like "bioinformatics." Swoon. I know, I'm weird.) Sunday I woke up and could not face figuring out what to wear – because so many things were already so tight.
I binged Sunday. One long, continuous binge that only stopped, mercifully, because I had promised to take two editor friends to spin class Monday at 8 am, and I knew there would be a point where I absolutely could not do it. (Sometimes – hell, often -- this does not stop me but in this case luckily it did.)
I have not binged for four days, but it has been a struggle. I've been unable to exercise due to recovery from being sick – and from having woken up yesterday inexplicably unable to put weight on my left heel. (Really hoping this is not plantar fasciitis.) Being sick makes everything feel a bit gray anyway, and for the first time in several months, I've been struggling with getting work.
Last night I went with a friend to a trivia night in Brooklyn and ate a huge, greasy sandwich. En route to the bar I had eyed places I could binge, and I thought about them for the first half hour in the bar, and again at a break between rounds. It seemed a dead cert that I was minutes away from stuffing my face.
Somehow – I am honestly not sure how – I did not. Maybe it was the dread of having _really_ nothing to wear at a lunch and another event to which I knew I had to go today. Maybe it was something in the ether – or the sauvignon blanc (ha). Nor did I binge today, although I so wanted to after lunch.
Now it's nearly 2 am, and here I am, tappity-tap-tapping away and thinking I should go to bed because being tired is one surefire way to make it easier to binge. Will I ever get to 30 days again? I can't think that far ahead. One day at a time…
A week ago, a friend who has a history of bingeing called me. I was in mid-binge after a haircut (seriously, sometimes that is a trigger for me – all dressed up, so to speak, and nowhere to go) and a lame-ish event. It was approximately my fourth binge in two weeks, and I was on my fourth or fifth stop of the evening, wandering around the bodega thinking: "I cannot live this way anymore." And yet there I was – having eaten cake and pie and heaven knows what else -- buying a bloody ice cream sandwich.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. I saw her name flash up, and chose not to answer it. Then I thought: I should call her back.
"How are you?" she said.
"I'm eating an ice cream sandwich," I blurted out, starting to cry halfway through the sentence.
She talked to me all the way home, past the bodega on Bleecker Street, past the Magnolia Bakery, past countless other stops I might have made – or made excuses to get off the phone and make.
I thought I had turned a corner. I woke up the next morning feeling crummy, but not as crummy as I would have felt if I'd carried on bingeing. I got through the Friday. But then I started bingeing before a dinner party Saturday night and carried on bingeing afterwards. (At the party: An adorable MD/PhD who lives in San Francisco and throws words around like "bioinformatics." Swoon. I know, I'm weird.) Sunday I woke up and could not face figuring out what to wear – because so many things were already so tight.
I binged Sunday. One long, continuous binge that only stopped, mercifully, because I had promised to take two editor friends to spin class Monday at 8 am, and I knew there would be a point where I absolutely could not do it. (Sometimes – hell, often -- this does not stop me but in this case luckily it did.)
I have not binged for four days, but it has been a struggle. I've been unable to exercise due to recovery from being sick – and from having woken up yesterday inexplicably unable to put weight on my left heel. (Really hoping this is not plantar fasciitis.) Being sick makes everything feel a bit gray anyway, and for the first time in several months, I've been struggling with getting work.
Last night I went with a friend to a trivia night in Brooklyn and ate a huge, greasy sandwich. En route to the bar I had eyed places I could binge, and I thought about them for the first half hour in the bar, and again at a break between rounds. It seemed a dead cert that I was minutes away from stuffing my face.
Somehow – I am honestly not sure how – I did not. Maybe it was the dread of having _really_ nothing to wear at a lunch and another event to which I knew I had to go today. Maybe it was something in the ether – or the sauvignon blanc (ha). Nor did I binge today, although I so wanted to after lunch.
Now it's nearly 2 am, and here I am, tappity-tap-tapping away and thinking I should go to bed because being tired is one surefire way to make it easier to binge. Will I ever get to 30 days again? I can't think that far ahead. One day at a time…
Wednesday, 4 April 2012
No Day But Today
About halfway through a couple of drinks with a reasonably powerful editor I know – because years ago in Washington DC I hired her as an intern – I could not stop thinking about how soon I could get out of there to binge.
I thought about muffins. I was pretty sure I remembered they sold muffins in the bakery next door. Would it be open circa 9 pm, or whenever I got out? I remembered they sold crummy cupcakes. Hmmm, but the Gourmet Garage would be open and I could get cornbread and macaroni and cheese and...
I tried to return to the conversation. I hadn't seen Madam Fancypants Beauty Editor since I was in New York trying to see editors when I was still living in London. I had met her at the Hearst cafeteria, where – although I desperately needed help or work or something – she spent the entire lunch complaining about a freelance assignment she had for a very well-paying magazine. (She is powerful enough and good enough that she has a fancy title yet works parttime and freelances the other.) I'm not sure I got in a word edgewise at that lunch.
I had forgotten about her and that I knew her, to be honest, until I received an email from her a couple of weeks ago, saying she was looking at the first bound copies of an upcoming issue of the magazine and there I was. (I've written my first piece for her magazine, without her help, thankyouverymuch.) Did I want to get a drink?
So I said sure. And we met up and she proceeded to spend almost the entire time complaining about her sister and how all her sister does is complain about her job. (Ha.)
In fairness, she did ask me what I was doing these days. I gave her a brief account of the miserable job and my entry into the world of freelancing. I said it was a struggle because I hadn't worked in New York before, and didn't really know people, but that I was enjoying learning how it all works. She admitted that her incredible success in terms of getting assignments was mostly down to having worked with various editors on their way up, yet made zero offer of any help, even at her own magazine. I didn't expect any, frankly, but many people in her position might at least have offered.
She then commenced the complaining. I actually had forgotten that the last time I'd seen her she complained the whole time until she triggered the Hearst cafeteria memory. By that point I already was long down the I'm-going-to-binge-track.
I half-listened to her, half-considered my options. She would probably go west to the subway – should I go east to Sixth Avenue and Citarella? Or should I walk with her to the subway and hit the Gourmet Garage or even the Dunkin Donuts? What time would it be when we got out and what would be open? Ah, decisions, decisions.
I surrendered to the idea that I was going to binge; that soon enough I would be finished with her and full up with carbs. Way too full of carbs. I tried to remember what I had to do today – what, essentially, I would have to struggle through post-binge. I couldn't remember. Muffins. Muffins. Muffins.
Though only she had bar food – and is the only one of us employed – she wanted to split the bill. I decided not to make a production. I just wanted out. She decided she had to go the bathroom. I went after her (it was one of the single-person kind) and stood in front of the sink and looked in the mirror and closed my eyes and then opened them again.
Gotta get out of here so I can go binge, I thought. I could feel the feeling reaching fever pitch – the sort where I am impatient with lines or whoever is serving me because I want whatever I want that much.
And then I thought: You don't have to do this.
And an even stranger thought: Your life is worth more than this. You do not need to spend an evening overstuffing yourself and then losing the next three days of your life to this. You do not want this, and you do not have to do this.
Really.
I thought about how much I wanted rice, and where I could get it. And maybe I could just have the macaroni? Maybe I should just get one really good dinner. But what, in this state, is "a really good dinner"? And would I taste it? And would it be enough? I doubted it.
Keep it simple, I told myself. If you have to go anywhere and make decisions about what to buy or order you are going to binge.
I went home planning to have breakfast for dinner, because it was a meal that required no preparation or further consideration. It was my last Fage, meaning I wouldn't have any on hand for breakfast. I always wake up starving. Maybe I should go out and buy some yogurt now because I might binge tomorrow if I have to go out in the morning for it?
Yes, but you might binge now if you go out and get it now, I thought. Tomorrow is tomorrow. You can deal with it then.
I wanted to eat more. I thought about eating the muffins in my freezer I often have as snacks; the chocolate square; more cereal; anything that would make me fullfullfull.
It was 10 pm, and I'd stayed up past 4 am that morning writing another Times story I had due. You're tired, I thought to myself. Just go to bed and let this day be over.
And I did.
Four hours later, at 2 am, I woke up. I debated eating any number of things over the next 2.5 hours, as I tried to sleep. But I didn't.
This morning I straggled to the bodega, still in these ridiculous pink and white pajama bottoms I bought at least five years ago at Primark. I couldn't face changing. Nor could I face my contact lenses, and I didn't bother with my glasses, so I could barely see.
Of course the bodega was out of yogurt. (I know, only in NYC would a bodega have Fage 0 percent fat Greek yogurt. And the CVS has Chobani, though only in nasty flavors.)
I continued on to the grocery store, where I bought the yogurt (and noted grimly that being nearsighted, which I am, allows you to see all the goodies left by the cash register perfectly clearly without aid.) I got myself home for breakfast.
Tomorrow is a possible date, often a trigger. And Friday I've accepted an invitation to a friend's parents for Passover. That's the sort of evening I plan my next day around, so sure am I that I will binge.
But neither of those days are today. And I don't have to binge today because I might binge tomorrow or Friday.
Or so I'm telling myself.
I thought about muffins. I was pretty sure I remembered they sold muffins in the bakery next door. Would it be open circa 9 pm, or whenever I got out? I remembered they sold crummy cupcakes. Hmmm, but the Gourmet Garage would be open and I could get cornbread and macaroni and cheese and...
I tried to return to the conversation. I hadn't seen Madam Fancypants Beauty Editor since I was in New York trying to see editors when I was still living in London. I had met her at the Hearst cafeteria, where – although I desperately needed help or work or something – she spent the entire lunch complaining about a freelance assignment she had for a very well-paying magazine. (She is powerful enough and good enough that she has a fancy title yet works parttime and freelances the other.) I'm not sure I got in a word edgewise at that lunch.
I had forgotten about her and that I knew her, to be honest, until I received an email from her a couple of weeks ago, saying she was looking at the first bound copies of an upcoming issue of the magazine and there I was. (I've written my first piece for her magazine, without her help, thankyouverymuch.) Did I want to get a drink?
So I said sure. And we met up and she proceeded to spend almost the entire time complaining about her sister and how all her sister does is complain about her job. (Ha.)
In fairness, she did ask me what I was doing these days. I gave her a brief account of the miserable job and my entry into the world of freelancing. I said it was a struggle because I hadn't worked in New York before, and didn't really know people, but that I was enjoying learning how it all works. She admitted that her incredible success in terms of getting assignments was mostly down to having worked with various editors on their way up, yet made zero offer of any help, even at her own magazine. I didn't expect any, frankly, but many people in her position might at least have offered.
She then commenced the complaining. I actually had forgotten that the last time I'd seen her she complained the whole time until she triggered the Hearst cafeteria memory. By that point I already was long down the I'm-going-to-binge-track.
I half-listened to her, half-considered my options. She would probably go west to the subway – should I go east to Sixth Avenue and Citarella? Or should I walk with her to the subway and hit the Gourmet Garage or even the Dunkin Donuts? What time would it be when we got out and what would be open? Ah, decisions, decisions.
I surrendered to the idea that I was going to binge; that soon enough I would be finished with her and full up with carbs. Way too full of carbs. I tried to remember what I had to do today – what, essentially, I would have to struggle through post-binge. I couldn't remember. Muffins. Muffins. Muffins.
Though only she had bar food – and is the only one of us employed – she wanted to split the bill. I decided not to make a production. I just wanted out. She decided she had to go the bathroom. I went after her (it was one of the single-person kind) and stood in front of the sink and looked in the mirror and closed my eyes and then opened them again.
Gotta get out of here so I can go binge, I thought. I could feel the feeling reaching fever pitch – the sort where I am impatient with lines or whoever is serving me because I want whatever I want that much.
And then I thought: You don't have to do this.
And an even stranger thought: Your life is worth more than this. You do not need to spend an evening overstuffing yourself and then losing the next three days of your life to this. You do not want this, and you do not have to do this.
Really.
I thought about how much I wanted rice, and where I could get it. And maybe I could just have the macaroni? Maybe I should just get one really good dinner. But what, in this state, is "a really good dinner"? And would I taste it? And would it be enough? I doubted it.
Keep it simple, I told myself. If you have to go anywhere and make decisions about what to buy or order you are going to binge.
I went home planning to have breakfast for dinner, because it was a meal that required no preparation or further consideration. It was my last Fage, meaning I wouldn't have any on hand for breakfast. I always wake up starving. Maybe I should go out and buy some yogurt now because I might binge tomorrow if I have to go out in the morning for it?
Yes, but you might binge now if you go out and get it now, I thought. Tomorrow is tomorrow. You can deal with it then.
I wanted to eat more. I thought about eating the muffins in my freezer I often have as snacks; the chocolate square; more cereal; anything that would make me fullfullfull.
It was 10 pm, and I'd stayed up past 4 am that morning writing another Times story I had due. You're tired, I thought to myself. Just go to bed and let this day be over.
And I did.
Four hours later, at 2 am, I woke up. I debated eating any number of things over the next 2.5 hours, as I tried to sleep. But I didn't.
This morning I straggled to the bodega, still in these ridiculous pink and white pajama bottoms I bought at least five years ago at Primark. I couldn't face changing. Nor could I face my contact lenses, and I didn't bother with my glasses, so I could barely see.
Of course the bodega was out of yogurt. (I know, only in NYC would a bodega have Fage 0 percent fat Greek yogurt. And the CVS has Chobani, though only in nasty flavors.)
I continued on to the grocery store, where I bought the yogurt (and noted grimly that being nearsighted, which I am, allows you to see all the goodies left by the cash register perfectly clearly without aid.) I got myself home for breakfast.
Tomorrow is a possible date, often a trigger. And Friday I've accepted an invitation to a friend's parents for Passover. That's the sort of evening I plan my next day around, so sure am I that I will binge.
But neither of those days are today. And I don't have to binge today because I might binge tomorrow or Friday.
Or so I'm telling myself.
Tuesday, 27 March 2012
Somehow, Unbelievably
And like a delayed reaction, like stray cancer cells that have taken root, there was a binge.
It was Sunday, more than 48 hours after the ball – and after two days of clean eating. Over the 48 hours I'd had some cravings for various things, including, honestly, a binge. Coming back from a workout in Soho on Saturday morning, I passed a bakery and – not even having seen or smelled any of their goods – had a sudden desire to go in and buy the lot.
I dismissed it as hunger and carried on home for my snack.
Sunday morning, en route to breakfast with a friend, I decided that since normally it takes me 72 hours to detox from a binge, perhaps I might need the same cooling off period from Thursday's messy eating. "If you still want what you want on Monday, you can have it then," I told myself.
Sunday afternoon I thought: "To hell with this. It's the endless delayed gratification that makes me binge in the first place, isn't it?" And so I decided to go to the Magnolia Bakery and buy a slice of cake and have it for my snack. So far, so Normal Person, right?
I should have known this would not go well when I caught myself fibbing slightly about where I needed to turn off from a friend who was heading to the subway. And then quickening my pace. And then getting extremely impatient as the wait seemed interminable. (Thanks to the bizarre hours I tend to hit the place, I've actually never waited in the queue.)
I got my cake. I ate it. It seemed... watered down, somehow. The icing not as thick, the cake insubstantial and tasteless. And yet I kept eating, like if I consumed enough it would stack up into the perfect apex of flavor and texture.
I was supposed hit a spin class at 6.30, two hours away. I had been debating hitting the barre method class just before it. Go, I told myself. Go to class. You can totally do this. One ginormous slice of cake is not a binge, and doesn't have to be.
But already I Could. Not. Stop.
A cannoli cupcake and a cinnamon streusel muffin from another bakery. A few munchkins and the worst blueberry muffin I've ever had in my life (thanks Dunkin Donuts). Cornbread and an apple slice (the baked good, not the fruit) from the Gourmet Garage, where the wry Russian behind the counter watched me grab a cake sample and said; "It's Russian coffee cake. I come all the way from Russia for zis coffee cake we do not have back home." And on it went, seven stops in all.
As embarrassed as I am to admit the seven stops, I am at least as embarrassed to admit that that did not make me full to the brim.
Stop, I kept thinking. Stop now and you can go to spin class.
And at the same time, I was afraid to. I was home, semi-safe, with at least a pause in the bingeing. If I went out again for any reason, I was risking a two-part binge. Already I was thinking about what I would pass on the way home from class.
What if I spent the whole class thinking about what I could eat after?
What if I chased a spin class with, say, a cupcake from the Crumbs bakery across the street?
Just go, I told myself. You'll have to leave the house to get dinner at some point, so you might as well go spin if you possibly can.
And somehow, unbelievably, I did.
I got to spin class and focused on getting through one song at a time.
Somehow, unbelievably, I did.
When it was over I spied a friend and agreed to get dinner with her. We went to a (healthy) place she'd been wanting to try, and when we arrived, that's when the fullness hit me. I felt too sick to eat anything, so I sat while she ate. After a couple of hours, I suddenly decided I wanted to eat, but the kitchen had closed.
When we parted ways, I stood on the street corner, wavering. I wanted rice, among other things. Should I order? Where could I go?
Home, I thought. You can go home and not buy anything you shouldn't.
I went home and had cereal for dinner (something I do more often than I'd like to admit). I debated chasing it with various other things, and then thought, sharply, that is enough. Go to bed.
Somehow, unbelievably, I did.
This morning I had agreed to meet a PR at a new boxing class. (I know I could cancel, but I really do not want to get into the pattern of thinking commitments are elastic when I binge.)
I joked to the boxing instructor that I might not be able to jump rope because I'd taken down an entire cake (little did he know...). He answered: "Oh, don't worry. I took down a chandelier once."
I envied how oblivious he was to what I meant. I wish I were.
It was Sunday, more than 48 hours after the ball – and after two days of clean eating. Over the 48 hours I'd had some cravings for various things, including, honestly, a binge. Coming back from a workout in Soho on Saturday morning, I passed a bakery and – not even having seen or smelled any of their goods – had a sudden desire to go in and buy the lot.
I dismissed it as hunger and carried on home for my snack.
Sunday morning, en route to breakfast with a friend, I decided that since normally it takes me 72 hours to detox from a binge, perhaps I might need the same cooling off period from Thursday's messy eating. "If you still want what you want on Monday, you can have it then," I told myself.
Sunday afternoon I thought: "To hell with this. It's the endless delayed gratification that makes me binge in the first place, isn't it?" And so I decided to go to the Magnolia Bakery and buy a slice of cake and have it for my snack. So far, so Normal Person, right?
I should have known this would not go well when I caught myself fibbing slightly about where I needed to turn off from a friend who was heading to the subway. And then quickening my pace. And then getting extremely impatient as the wait seemed interminable. (Thanks to the bizarre hours I tend to hit the place, I've actually never waited in the queue.)
I got my cake. I ate it. It seemed... watered down, somehow. The icing not as thick, the cake insubstantial and tasteless. And yet I kept eating, like if I consumed enough it would stack up into the perfect apex of flavor and texture.
I was supposed hit a spin class at 6.30, two hours away. I had been debating hitting the barre method class just before it. Go, I told myself. Go to class. You can totally do this. One ginormous slice of cake is not a binge, and doesn't have to be.
But already I Could. Not. Stop.
A cannoli cupcake and a cinnamon streusel muffin from another bakery. A few munchkins and the worst blueberry muffin I've ever had in my life (thanks Dunkin Donuts). Cornbread and an apple slice (the baked good, not the fruit) from the Gourmet Garage, where the wry Russian behind the counter watched me grab a cake sample and said; "It's Russian coffee cake. I come all the way from Russia for zis coffee cake we do not have back home." And on it went, seven stops in all.
As embarrassed as I am to admit the seven stops, I am at least as embarrassed to admit that that did not make me full to the brim.
Stop, I kept thinking. Stop now and you can go to spin class.
And at the same time, I was afraid to. I was home, semi-safe, with at least a pause in the bingeing. If I went out again for any reason, I was risking a two-part binge. Already I was thinking about what I would pass on the way home from class.
What if I spent the whole class thinking about what I could eat after?
What if I chased a spin class with, say, a cupcake from the Crumbs bakery across the street?
Just go, I told myself. You'll have to leave the house to get dinner at some point, so you might as well go spin if you possibly can.
And somehow, unbelievably, I did.
I got to spin class and focused on getting through one song at a time.
Somehow, unbelievably, I did.
When it was over I spied a friend and agreed to get dinner with her. We went to a (healthy) place she'd been wanting to try, and when we arrived, that's when the fullness hit me. I felt too sick to eat anything, so I sat while she ate. After a couple of hours, I suddenly decided I wanted to eat, but the kitchen had closed.
When we parted ways, I stood on the street corner, wavering. I wanted rice, among other things. Should I order? Where could I go?
Home, I thought. You can go home and not buy anything you shouldn't.
I went home and had cereal for dinner (something I do more often than I'd like to admit). I debated chasing it with various other things, and then thought, sharply, that is enough. Go to bed.
Somehow, unbelievably, I did.
This morning I had agreed to meet a PR at a new boxing class. (I know I could cancel, but I really do not want to get into the pattern of thinking commitments are elastic when I binge.)
I joked to the boxing instructor that I might not be able to jump rope because I'd taken down an entire cake (little did he know...). He answered: "Oh, don't worry. I took down a chandelier once."
I envied how oblivious he was to what I meant. I wish I were.
Saturday, 24 March 2012
Ball of Nerves
A friend posted on Facebook a photo of the ball we attended last night and tagged two friends in it but not me.
I immediately wondered: Did I look embarrassingly awful? (I work at home alone most days, which means I am no longer practiced in getting dressed properly. I sent the above photo to two friends before I got enough courage to leave the house.) Did I do something awful? Did she know?
I have a history of both drinking and eating far too much at these types of events. Last night I don't think I ever reached the point of even being tipsy, and while I definitely ate too much, I did not reach the point of feeling sick. That said I did engage in my old tried-and-true: Excuses to go sneak off alone and eat. Not good.
Earlier, in the cab en route to the festivities, I found myself noting places that might be open for après-ball bingeing. (I know; I'm crazy.) I'm proud to say that at least I did not do that, and not because I was too drunk or full. Instead, I came home and had a pear and a couple of spoonfuls of almond butter (but not, I must note, the bar of dark chocolate in my gift bag – something I'm sure I would have attacked in the taxi at one point). Did I need that food? No. But was it better than going from shop to shop, or even just tearing through any random food in my apartment? Yes.
The last bunch of times I've attended this type of event – not that I've been to anything fancy for nearly a year -- I have been so full and sick I can't sleep. Not so last night. Still I woke up sluggish. I probably would have felt better if I'd gotten up and worked out, but I had actually planned my day around the fact that I might binge – which is to say, I had not scheduled any classes (which you pay for whether you attend or not) because I just didn't know in what shape I'd be.
I still had pregnant-stomach-from-eating-too-much this morning, but I'm counting last night as progress.
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