AngloAm’s Weblog

Good Lord, it’s only April and already it’s so muggy. I feel all dishevelled and sloppy and I swear I’m perspiring through my shirt. I’m sitting here at Panera killing time until I can drive down to my C’s office in DC. His office building has a neat little gym that I can use to work out and shower (in privacy) in and then C & I have dinner together before he is done with his work. I miss out on the eye candy at the military gym, but when you stack that up against being able to be with my marvellous man it’s an easy decision.

Things People Say

Monday when Neal was at our house, he kept asking about various cuts of meat that he’s seen in my food logs – he especially thought we ate a lot of what he kept calling ‘tube steak.’ I didn’t know whether to burst out laughing or leap into high offense. Whether or not C or I eat tube steak is very private indeed, surely. And it’s certainly not something I’d share with him.

Other than that it went well, although I think he’s given up on me modifying my eating.

I wonder if I have as well.

It seems to be much easier for me to work out than to eat less. I’m not sure what to do, and my counsellor’s away for a whole month. (Selfish man is taking time off for the birth of his child instead of seeing to my concerns – shocking priorities.) I know that Neal and C cannot help me. When I don’t have a large amount of food at a meal, or snacks whenever I’m sitting still for more than half an hour, I feel deprived. I’m sure it has something to do with ‘my childhood’ – that catch-all bucket in which I toss all my shortcomings and from which I hope one day to pluck deliverance. I’m not sure what to do – I could design and dissect a diet plan standing on my head, but I can’t seem to follow one.

It’s not like I don’t want to be normal-shaped, or even trim/fit/strong looking. It’s not like I like to sweat at any exertion, or bulge out of my shirts, or have to ask for ‘table, not a booth’ when I go out to eat. But when confronted with food, or the occasion of food, all I can thing is ‘if I don’t have that, I’ll….I’ll…’ – I don’t know. Die? Be unhappy? Be a failure? Give in to the healthy eating cheerleaders? All of these?

In some ways it seems like an emergency, like it’s a vital thing, that I get not just dinner, but a lot of dinner; not just lunch, but a big lunch; not just a cold soda, but some potato chips. If I don’t get it, I envision ‘everything’ being ‘terrible.’

Pretty effed up.

So here I sit in Panera, having just had a muffin when I could have just had the iced tea, looking at a fine specimen of a fit, handsome, guy at a table across the restaurant and feeling utterly, inexpressibly, totally, in every way, inferior to him.

He’s crisp in his polo shirt stretched over his taut body; I’m in a rumpled dress shirt with a bit of darkening at the top of the buttons.

He can sit and lift his big (not too big) arms over his head; I’d only do that if somebody had swallowed poison and needed an emetic. (And my arms are big, but in a soft, cottage-cheesy way, not a powerful strong way.)

He has a lap; I look like I’m standing up even when I’m sitting down.

He’s cool and calm and perfect; nobody minds it when he approaches their table on their way to the garbage; I make people wonder if I can fit between the chairs at their table and the next. I’ve seen their momentary looks of fear.

He can wear speedos and turn heads; I could probably make speedos disappear in the folds of my skin.

And yet I’M WALKING SIXTY FRIGGING MINUTES MOST DAYS and have for weeks. So it can ONLY be that I’m Junior Hog Man and he only nibbles healthily at home. Or that he runs sixty minutes a day most days. I am not begrudging him his polished perfection; I know that even with genetics, he has to do at least work for it (though he didn’t work for that handsome face, that perfect hair).

Please don’t get me wrong; I’m not in a pity party, as I’m not saying that it’s “unfair” that I am, as my brother once called me, a “meat dump.” I just wish the resolve I feel now, right this moment, to eat healthily, had happened when the carrot and walnut muffin was still in its wrapper under the glass, and not contributing to the problem.

I think it’d be easier to eat thin if I were thin. And I don’t feel thin right now. I feel fat, and ugly, and sweaty, and so glad that C has industrial strength rose tinted glasses for me.

More svelte men walking in. <sigh> I think if your waist is less than 36 inches you shoud not be allowed to eat in public. (It kills me that these guys may not know how ineffibly gorgeous they are.)

Maybe I need more Effexor (mah peelz, I needz mah peelz).

You know what’s really perverse? I’m scared that if I do start ordering less in restaurants people’ll think I’m short of cash. I’ll have to have fillet mignon and caviar in very small portions so they don’t think so! That’s only one of the irrational fears I have over the idea of ‘eating less’/'eating healthy.’ I don’t know what to do. Or rather, I don’t know how to do it. Or rather, I don’t know how to get comfortable doing it.

(I mean, sexy man across the restaurant is also probably in his late twenties; no amount of dieting or exercising will get me to his perfection. I’d have to have his portrait painted and stored in my attic to age horribly for that to happen.)

And thing is, as I get older, I also have a sneaking suspicion that if I were thin/fit, I’d still be me – my life wouldn’t become a Nirvana of perfection, people wouldn’t be throwing themselves at me in admiration, lust, envy and jealousy. I might be less winded and sweaty when outside; I might be able to buy pants at more places, I might even turn myself on when I look in the mirror. But possibly not (and mostly likely not that last thing!).

At least C likes what he sees. He’s so cute and gorgeous. I often tell him he’s the goal of my life and my every day.

Who’m I kidding about cash though? I just spent over $50 on filling up my gas tank – if this keeps up I will be short of cash. I don’t know how people with really long commutes do it.

Is it me

Or were you also told that when you’re in a restaurant or other public place, you should speak so quietly that nobody away from your table can hear your voice? Did that rule get repealed some time ago?

I don’t normally ask

for support but I really need it from family and friends as I ’struggle’ to ‘deal with this’ (try to eat better).

Who’m I kidding? I always ask for support. I just don’t always take advantage of it.

I think I should probably take pictures of svelte/fit/normal shaped guys and use them for inspiration. Inspiration to eat less – my mind’s not always in the gutter.

Thing is I think of guys like that as utterly different from me, a different species, a whole more exalted level of being.

I wonder if I could ever be eye candy

Until I get “Back to my Mac” working I don’t have access to my eye candy store on my home computer (and let’s face it, I’m not getting big ups for Luke anyway). So here are two beach boys, in honour of the fast approaching beach weather that will most likely see me yet again wearing a t-shirt pretending I have ’sensitive skin’ when I go in the water.

(Shall we all salute the flag?)