There is a lump on the knuckle of my left big toe.

These pictures are of my stomach. The fatter one is the most recent one. I wish I could get back to the picture with the yellow background. Having said that, it might not be as bad now, I don't know. I've got a 27-28in waist, 39 hips and 35 chest. That in itself is depressing. I am about five feet eight tall. So is that.

Eating today:

Chocolate pastille (30)
Cheese and tomatoe puree on toast (240)
Some tomatoes (2o)
A ripple (180)
Mints (70)
Meatballs and Lingonberry sauce (200)
2 shortcake biscuits (150)
2 tangerines (40)
Bowl of readybrek (250)
3 quality streets (100)

(1280)

Not bad. And I did a six mile walk, or five, I'm not sure. I wanted to see how far it would be to get back from the city centre and it helped clear my mind. I practised what I would say to her. She used to be, in my head, my bombazine doll. She would disagree, but for me, looking at the lyrics, it is quite accurate.

It exorcised some ghosts. I decided, when we have a discussion, my lines will be like this:

I am so sorry. It was a really shitty thing of me to do, to pry into your private life and I didn't realise how bad it was until you saw I had. I'd hate if someone read my diaries. I did it because I was still infatuated with you, and I felt like I needed to know about you. I didn't ask you because I didn't want to upset you or upset our tenuous friendship, which is ironic really because now I've completely shat on it. I hadn't got everything I wanted to know, because I just pasted a smile on and acted like everything was fine when we split up, but it wasn't and I'm sorry that I did it, because that is no excuse whatsoever. I don't expect this apology to get us back to where we were before, but I just wanted you to know I am really, really sorry.

Then she would maybe say something like: No it won't, I hate that you read my private stuff, I can't believe you did it, thanks for saying sorry but it doesn't really ring true. You disappointed me as a friend. I hate people disappointing me.

And I would say: Ok. I'm sorry. Before I go, can I ask why you ever entered into a relationship with me? This is the last reference I'll ever make to it, if you want, but I do really want to know. And you can ask me whatever you like.

She would say: I did it because I felt sorry for you. Because I had to be receptive and nurturing. Why didn't you ever want me to touch you there?

And I would say: I wouldn't because I felt like it was the last thing I had to hide, and I didn't like keeping nothing back. You had me in your thrall, you're experienced and I just adore (d) you, and I was frightened of disappointing you. But disappointing you there would have been nothing compared to how I've disappointed you now. I am so sorry.

And then she would probably want me to get out. I'm not dramatising, but I really think this is the way it'll go. Through reading something I've lost one of my dearest friends. It doesn't even look right written out. I feel almost like she's replaced me with this other girl, who is musical and clever and fun and open and all sorts of other things that I'm not. I don't think I could list characteristics like that about myself. I've got nice hair. But I always want to change it and it's never perfect. I'm not judgemental or materialistic. I like what I wear. But it's usually a bit off, and not as innovative as I would like it to be. I am creative. But not creative enough to pursue a career in it, to get a book published or to get something made. I can apply my own makeup, but it always flakes and I never usually experiment with new things, it's always the same three items. I'm at a good university doing a subject I like, but I'm nowhere near as clever as lots of people around me. So you see? I can say that I am...... but, at the end, I am not. The only things I can clarify are bad things: you are stupid, you didn't get into Cambridge despite going to a good school. You're fat. Look how tight stuff you briefly fit into is for you. You're ugly. Because you are. You can glorify it by calling yourself quirky but you know you are. You are a crap friend (for reasons above). You are ditzy, you are lazy.

A hopeful Fatty writes.

Eating today:

150 calories of chocolate
A cranberry and turkey sandwich (400)
1.5 cubes of galaxy hazelnut promises (75)
3 guilliano chocolates (150)
3 quality street toffees (120 cals)
small portion of chips (300)
broth and a slice of bread (100)
slice of stollen (150)

1450.

And I ate a tangerine. I've got a feeling I ate more chocolate than that. I went on a five mile walk today but I don't think it'll have counteracted much. I feel fat fat fat. I usually do. I'm surprised my fingers are slim enough to type, I'm that lardy (joke).

I had a mild craving for her today. I still haven't contacted her, and I must before new year because if I leave it any longer it'll just get weird. Ugh, I don't want to want her because that makes me pitiful and weak and under her control, even if she doesn't know it. I think she must. I really do hate loss of control; I suppose we all do. But I feel it in different ways, for example, when going to another country, I am fine getting lost or finding my way or whatever. It's all about not having power over how other people perceive me. I want to control how they think of me. That really is quite psychopathic isn't it?

I have to start eating less. And doing more exercise. I know it won't change anything but I'd feel better within myself, like I was able to stand up better for myself if I had control over my body. I'd feel better about myself and as a result other people would feel better about me. That's how it would work. I don't think being thinner would actually help me with anything else; I don't think I'll suddenly become cleverer or prettier. It would be a self esteem thing.

I got a sewing machine this christmas, and my first attempts at creating garments are shocking. I coventrated some tops and made them into the shittiest dress you've ever seen. I must begin to make things better. I'll look for patterns tomorrow. I love my sewing machine. So I am glad I've got that. What else am I glad about? Well, that I like books. I like that I like books, and that I don't like Jane Austen. I am glad that I am not bereaved. My family and friends (touch wood) are all healthy and hale. I am glad that I have made headway in doing work. I am glad that tomorrow I am having a night out with my friends. There are really lots of things to be glad about.

The Grinch

I am the grinch of the festive season, and in particular this day. I dislike christmas. I realise that I always have, from being a very small child. Everyone thinks that Christmas is a time when adults feel most stressed, but as a child, there is always the pressure to appear grateful but not too happy wallowing in consumerism. Or to love your family and at the same time show them a lot of gratitude; it's all bound up in gift reception, which I have never been too good at, being emotionally barren.

So, I got some lovely things. I got clothes and books. I like the books. But I dislike receiving presents for three reasons:
1. Having to react. I hate that my reaction will be judged and give people joy or otherwise; I feel I dissapoint. I'm honestly not fussed about gifts and I think the effort people go to to get me them is diminished by my pleasure in receiving them.
2. There are people starving that need food more than I need another book.
3. This year, my parents have bought me size 12 clothing from Marks and Spencers, tops. This is a generously sized brand. And they bought me a 12. They usually buy a ten. This is so petty and trivial, but I hate that they think I have become fatter. This means that every time I eat they must be watching and thinking how disgusting I am. Not that they've said it but the quiet admiration they used to have, so long ago, has disappeared. I am a fatty.

But I enjoyed our dinner, and the shoes I got. And I received necessary things, like music and books and a sewing machine. Despite my hatred of consumerism, I do love clothes and art. When does art become consumerist? I do believe that art should be one of the things you spend money on, however, in giving it value we take away artistic credence, as there is a motivator other than that of producing art. I would like to live as a living work of art, but realise that in order to do this I should have to consume.

Anyway, I cannot yet use a sewing machine but I shall learn. I shall create clothes and they shall be good.

It all just seems so extraneous and unnecessary. I don't want presents, I don't want all this food or all this fuss, but it's foisted upon us all anyway. All anyone really needs is enough food to survive and love. A cliche. All this pampering is just so uncomfortably dry and heinous, it just makes me sick that we rush round like headless chickens buying things we don't need when we could all go to charity shops and feed the world instead. Why do we need wealth? What does anyone ever do with it? Travel, yes, that's important. Buy huge houses. But who needs a huge house? Who really truly needs a fleet of butlers? Who needs Hello and OK and social pressure? It will never make you happy. What would make me happy is if lots of other people were able to live happily, and by that I mean probably what we would classify as dire poverty in Britain. Can you imagine giving an organisation like the NHS to Africa? Think of the impact! I need that, I need to know people aren't dying needlessly, instead of a teddy and some bath salts in a plastic bathtub. The excess of it sickens me. I am glad it's over.

However, I have eaten ridiculous things, such as today, boxing day. I had two slices of toast and marmite, nine liqourice allsorts, two cubes of galaxy, an apple, a chocolate mint, some pineapple juice a galaxy ripple, 75g of coleslaw and some banana toffee. I think about 25g. See, I just keep picking at bits. That is my problem, I just need to leave well alone. My family is eating turkey sandwiches but as a result of eating the crap I am not joining them, which suits me well as I dislike turkey. I had some yesterday, but I don't like the look of it. I am pedantic as a result of being pandered to by consumerism and prepackaged pulverized meats. When it lies there, in all its glory, it's as if it shouts at me, "yes! Look at my bones and sinews! I was once alive too! You're eating muscle and skin, muscle and skin!" I like the taste. I don't think we should eat meat on the grounds that there are more humane proteinous replacements. But I still eat it, in acceptable forms that don't look like meat. I cannot stand the idea that I am eating sinew and bone and muscle. So, I cauterize and chop off every reminder, not touching it with my hands and barely managing with cutlery- I sliver off the greasy skin, all pimpled, and put it away from my plate. The little squiggle of red vein, that is chopped out with a border around it, a grisly reminder that blood flowed in abundance. And then, when I have my slice of meat, all white and pure and never alive, then I can eat it peacefully.

I also dislike crusts. Bread crusts. They are too much effort to chew, they posess none of the filling of the sandwich, they are burnt and pointless. So I remove them before I eat my sandwich or my toast. You could put your jaw out chewing toast.

All this is a distraction from my work that I should be doing. I so desperately want not to fail. If I don't start I won't get confused or fail. But that is a paradox because if I start I have a chance of not failing, if I never start the work is not there and I fail anyway. But my work does not fail, my intellect has not failed, because it refuses to be judged. So that is why I do not work. But I will, in time.

A story of a clean woman; let's call her Moira.

Wiping, scrubbing, polishing
Taking away the essence of myself
Because a circular pattern of cleaning
Is taken over by the dirt on the shelf

I don't understand why it would be me. I've always kept so clean; there's none keeps a cleaner house than me. I don't know why you wouldn't keep as clean a house as me though, to be fair. Mrs Adams, at number forty-five, with ten kids (by two different men) comes round and asks me how I keep it so spotless. Well, she could keep it spotless too. She chooses not to. Life is all about choice; it makes you what you are. You choose to divert energy into lots of little crevices and pots; some for the kids, some for your man, some for your part time job in Sainsburys watching the people you can't ever wish to be, some to dodging the rent man on bad days, some on vegetating in front of the telly, some on a piece of plastic that promises slimmer hips and the world at your feet within twenty days, none in returning the piece of junk when it's only ever used as a washing draper. And in doing all that, putting all your force into all of those crannies, it seeps slowly away and leaves you with a mouldering house and steely children that it can't contain.

I devote all of mine to cleaning. Cleaning is an overarching premise that you can apply to life. I clean my house and I clean myself, I clean away all the processed junk, no clutter, nothing hanging onto my frame, no drops of dust besmirching the perfect driven white raked reputation of my life. Yet, now I find that something has crept in and will soon be devouring my clean body from the inside out.

I first decided I wanted to clean when I was young. My parents used to notice I lined up my dolls and gave them all the same hairstyle, since I could walk almost. Because I liked things to be good, to be in their place. I never wanted anything out of line, out of the border I could categorise it into. As I got older, I was never organised but always neat. My Mother worried I didn't seem to want friends, or to go out. All I wanted was to make our house neat. But I could never make it neat enough; the butter yellow curtains and the plush blue sofa all seemed too much, too rich and bright and contrasting for clean lines. Whenever I did manage to clean them, there would always be a ruffle I'd missed or something I couldn't quite smooth. So I focused on my own room, I kept that perfectly perfect. And I built up my own company, I made that successful. I started with moving myself away from the grime to where I live now. It is small and compact, like me, and it is clean.

I wouldn't mind, but where will the white be in the world then?Nobody else cleans like I do. Nobody will be able to appreciate the beauty of minimalism. Eclectic pieces of rubbish will take over, dividing and sub dividing and bringing with them all the smut and debris of their past. Coated in a slowly thickening layer of calcifying grey. Like my body is doing now, inside. Disgusting. But then again, it always was going to be. There is always something to clean because dirt is always trying to take over. The cleaner it is to start with, the easier it is to mess up and catastrophise. It's that way with me. The dirt is slowly unwrapping my shrink wrapped surfaces and crusting around my edges until I will be a white plastic fragment, a fossil incarcerated.

Thou dost with disease and sickness dwell; and herbs and poppies can make us sleep as well.

I watched Emma Thompson's Wit last night. It's a TV film about an academic that is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and it is the only thing that's made me cry in about five or six years now. When I first saw it I sat on my bed and cried, and I'm not quite sure why. Not because Emma Thompson's character is lovely and her loss is a sad loss for the world; she's fairly brutal. I think the world needs brutal people though. Emma Thompson is amazing in the film; she's my favourite actress. She's pretty much amazing in anything. I probably like it so much because it is dark, not overly emotional considering the subject matter and unflinching. I also like the good acting. I also like John Donne, though I dislike the way the lecture points that she makes are fairly standard yet everyone acts as if she's discovered the answer to the universe. And I feel fairly insulted at the assertion that Shakespeare is a Hallmark card. He's not all sonnets and even they're not airy fairy. Just because he's dramatic and writes about base emotion doesn't make him a crappy Hallmark card.

But the magic didn't come again and I didn't cry because I came to it halfway through, I was wrapping christmas presents at the time, and my Dad and brother were watching it with me. My Dad's Dad (my Grandad) died when he was nine, hence I always feel slightly apprehensive about death around him, well people dying. And my brother is wonderful but a teenager so I didn't expect him to appreciate the subtleties of Donne. On a second glance, some of it seems hammy; the doctors are all wankers, except for the one nurse, and the scene where she gets read that story by her old lecturer is lovely, but did it have to be a rabbit book? I appreciate the significance and all, what with the Beatrix Potter rabbit motif, the idea that Donne's poetry is like a rabbit warren, the fact that you go back to being childlike before death because you're vulnerable and learning new things all over again.... but the Runaway Rabbit? Come on, they could have done better than that. Even though they try to academise it by calling it, "an allegory to the soul". I can't ever cry in front of anyone. My family included; it's just weakness, and it strips everything away. Almost like being suddenly naked.

I cried at my Grandma's funeral; that was the last time in public. It was horrendous, because I wasn't expecting to cry and then suddenly the floodgates opened. Someone in a row behind shoved a hanky at me. It was that feeling of being on show, because I was in the front row, and having everyone whisper piteously at me whilst they stuffed themselves with funeral food later, "did you see her granddaughter on the front row? Broke her little heart, she did." I didn't want any pity. I can't remember quite what it was I wanted. I was fourteen.

She cried in front of me once. Not my Grandma, the girl. I'll have to think of a moniker for her; I'm not putting her real name. She felt like she could let the boundaries down I suppose. I didn't quite know what to do in response, aside from tell her that it was fine and hold her hand. That was when we split up. And it was strange because after she said she couldn't see me anymore, we were close like always but it felt more awkward. The word awkward is spelt exactly as it is. Onomatopoeia of a sort, I suppose. She cried because she was missing her Dad, and she needs him such a lot. First Christmas without him she's spending with her family but not in their house. It must be horrible. I want to let her know that I'm thinking of her but I don't know if she will want me to be thinking of her, or if she'll feel crowded if I write. I don't want to make her hate me more or feel bad. I am so glad she doesn't read this. I thank my lucky stars that noone I know reads it. Well, they could be reading it I suppose, but hopefully they wouldn't know it was me.

It won't heal right if you keep tearing out the sutures.

So very true.

I wonder if anyone reads this blog or if they just quickly click past it on a neverending voyeuristic journey? On consideration, I think I would like some comments. I am an attention seeker.

I am feeling bad that I wasn't on time for my Mum though she is never on time for me. Surely I shouldn't feel bad in that case. So I won't. I suppose I don't feel bad, just vaguely annoyed that she made me briefly feel bad when she is so discourteous as to be unpunctual many many times. She said she was "glad I was back safe". I only drove down the motorway to a neighbouring city. Am I that inept that I can't even do that?

I am also feeling fat. Nothing new there. Eating today:

a date and a mini mince pie (85)

A skinny small frappuccino and a salsa chicken wrap from starbucks (450)

Doritos (300)

Raisins and yoghurt (200)

2 dates (40)

I felt angry with her as well. I feel angry a lot today. I think Christmas is getting on my nerves. I felt angry that she pitied me and went out with me as a result. I hate being pitied; I don't want to be that sad and bereft of respect.

I am angry with myself because I'm not doing revising, getting a holiday job or losing weight. And because I just thought of going out before my Dad gets back in, simply because his general mood jarrs with me at the moment. And then I thought, how disgustingly horrid of me to not want to speak to my own father, who is lovely and loves me so much. I love him too, but I don't want to have long learned discussions when I will inevitably feel argumentative, because that is generally the swing of our conversations; I argue or monosyllabically agree. Either way, I feel pretty stupid at the end of them, which is not his aim. It's just that my Mum is so easy to be around, she makes me laugh etc. As is my brother. But my Dad and my sister are far too serious and easily affected- I feel like I can't just be jokingly rude to them as I am to my brother and Mum. They'd take it far to heart, and this is why we're not as close. For example, Dad came in last night and I was writing this. He asked what sort of headphones were on my Ipod, and I said I'd got no idea. He just kept going, "go on, go on, you do know", which made me say "no I don't". And I think it offended him, whereas my brother would just slump off and call me fatty or something.

Essential factors in happiness.

I think there are seven pillars in recognised psychology that are a route to being happy, or adequately satisfied (the first being food, the second is a home and it goes on). So I decided, because I am arrogant, that I would list my five factors for happiness.

1. Knowledge.
Knowledge is power, because if you know more than everyone else then you feel above them. It's a fact of life. Knowledge opens doors to rebellion, powerful positions... everything. That is why I like books so much. They are a path to knowledge, and as such a door opener.

2. Good Health.
Vital for enjoyment of life. Noone who is ill or unhealthy gleans the most, they just don't have the necessary energy. Ask Stephen Hawking; he might be living, but I bet he'd love to have his health back.

3. Confidence.
People are pretty useless without confidence in themselves and their own beliefs; you might know a hell of a lot, but if you don't trust your own opinions of it it's as much use to you as the proverbial fish and bicycle.

4. People.
Not just to be surrounded by people, but to be surrounded by people you like and can interact with because you choose to, not just because you are forced to. Humans are social animals and need contact, or we wouldn't be able to practise any of the above skills and we'd wither away.

5. A stimulating environment
This can be work related, or sport related, or even in the way that you have to negotiate people you don't like. If we never had challenges, we wouldn't know how good life could be when good stuff finally came along.

Music is pretty important as well. As are the feeling that you're providing for yourself, freedom from physical abuse and freedom in general to do what you like without hurting anyone. Also, no debt. Being in debt can ruin your life.

But what doesn't make you happy are having a lot of material posessions, thinking you're a lot worse than anyone else or thinking you're a lot better than anyone else. Too many secrets. Feeling the need to display your power. Kidding yourself that all five of those in your life are fulfilled when they are not, and refusing to acknowledge the void. And things that I do that won't make me happy are buying into the idea that skinniness will make me happy. Self confidence will make me happy. I need knowledge and self confidence. I know that being thin won't make me happy, but somehow I just can't reconcile it with that desire in me to be thin. And hankering after her definitely won't make me happy, I should just reconcile myself to being friends. But I am having difficulty with that as well.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree... where Alph, the sacred river ran through mountains measureless to man down to a sunless sea

Ah, I had a nice day. Lots of Christmas shopping, which I abhor, but I tried to buy useful things, namely books. I think books are the best present to receive; they open up other worlds and teach you about human nature, or just about what the author thought at the time. I think they're what can make you truly happy, because they give you knowledge. I don't know many people who enjoy books that are sad.

So I bought two Irvine Welshes, to encourage a recalaitrant teen, some Blake and local interest books for my socialist sympathiser, some Poe and Coleridge for an enthusiast and a Jacqueline Wilson for a clever young thing. And some Gerard Manley Hopkins for my Grandmother, who is a christian. On reconsideration, I'm not so sure this was a good idea as, though Hopkins was enamoured with the church, he was fed up with being gay and used it to constrain himself. But I think she'll like the poems, especially God's Grandeur (hardened atheist that I am, even I liked it).

I have eaten: a vegetable and cheese wrap (500)
ice cream (250)
some doritos (75)
A mini mince pie (65)
2 cubes of chocolate (50)
a mouthful of tuna pasta salad and some smoothie (55)

And no doubt there'll be more later. Damn calorific substances, I really should have sat down properly to eat something. Ah well, I've got 200 calories left. And it's eight, so that is ok. I should manage that.

I was thinking about her today waiting for a bus. And how she used to put her head on my shoulder, because I'm that bit taller. I always worried she'd get speared on my brutal shoulders- they're sinew and muscle, not good leaning material. I thought it would be like lying on rock, with a horrendous view of my face. But she never seemed to mind so much.

One of my friends has had a threesome; it started with her and her female friend, then the girl's boyfriend kind of invaded. I think she is probably a lesbian. That's cool, and I should tell her I am. I probably will, next time I'm drunk. I don't fancy her, because I want the girl I've spoken about before back. Even so, it's nice to know there's someone out there similar to me.

I think I'm a bisexual, which appears to be a get out clause. Quite simply, I can be attracted to either. I tend to like clever people who appear fairly morose with perverse senses of humour. Darkly clever. At the moment, that person happens to be a her. It's been him twice. With a girl, I feel more naked, more exposed because I always had this feeling with most men that there was a part of me they couldn't see, but I felt like she saw straight to my icy secret core and that's why I want her acceptance so much. Because if she saw all that, and rejected me, I am surely worthless. One of the guys I loved made me feel like that too. It was never cemented, we were just friends that played around... but then he started seeing someone else, and made it far more public than he had done with me. She was petite and musical and vacuous.

I want to see her open her eyes wide and form the letter M. I want to stroke her fringe back from the one eye it covers, or at least see it flop over that eye for her to put purposefully back behind one ear. I always had this urge to wrap her up warm.

Triskaidekaphobic

I am a triskaidekaphobic, which is essentially the long name for thirteen phobia. Not of the thirteenth day, more of thirteen when it crops up round written words and books. For example, the last post I left was the thirteenth post, which I would consider to be unlucky. If I'm reading a book and want to stop, I can't stop on thirteen or its multiples, especially 169 which is thirteen thirteens. Page 169 is bad news. I also don't like pages that end in 3 because it's ten away from thirteen. So, say I feel my eyes beginning to close on page 260, I wait till I get to 270 (because, as it's a ten multiple of thirteen, it is so unlucky I have to read the whole ten pages. I stop on page 270-271, because 273 is also a multiple of thirteen). I wouldn't actually classify this as a phobia because it doesn't affect my life, apart from making me read further than I would normally but that doesn't matter. I check the page number before I put it down.

Thirteenth days of the month are fine. My Grandma died on December the thirteenth, but that was years ago, and not the reason for my phobia. Actually, she probably died on the eleventh or twelfth but was found on the fourteenth. She'd had a haemmorhage, and she'd been sick in the toilet. My Mum went over and found her. Weirdly, I had a sense something was wrong when I got off the school bus. I didn't get told about the sick till a while after her dying, a year in fact. I suppose its fairly extraneous information, but I think I would have liked to be aware. I got asked if I wanted to see her in the morgue, but I didn't go. I'm glad I didn't because I wouldn't have wanted to remember her pancake faced and on a slab. I went round her flat and tried to take photographs, because I was worried I'd forget how it looked. But I never have. She had a little front room, and it had her L shaped sofa in it and a pouffe and a rocking chair. All plush. And lots of ornaments on the windowsill, glass mostly, bells, a crinoline lady I adored. It was always warm, and there were thin magazines in it and a fire and a Tv you couldn't get reception on. A big picture of all of her grandchildren. none of us especially good looking then. All chipmunky. I suppose my youngest male and female cousin, and my sister, were the most aesthetically pleasing children. They still are. Her kitchen was narrow and all yellow, and it had a clock, a plastic one. She had a bureau in the hall that's mine now because she said she wanted me to be a writer. That was clever of her; she knew I wasn't pretty but instead of saying it she said I was good at writing. And her two bedrooms, hers with a vanity mirror and lots of her clothes in a cupboard and a double bed.

She was very clever. I read her cards a few months ago, one of her friends was completely honest about her and said she sometimes thought she was manipulative at meetings, but that she was good at organising and sadly missed. I thought, well, being honest is the best of things. I'd far rather someone wrote about her faults than pretended she was completely perfect, because that's like writing over someone's personality and akin to just blitzing them off the face of the earth altogether. If you erase the bad bits, you're blocking out the truth and that makes the good things you say ring hollow. There isn't any point in pretending things aren't the way they are, or that you don't think what you're thinking. You're just kidding yourself.

Fatty fat fat fat. And America's Next Top Model

That is me, as I would wish myself to look. The real me is fatty fat fat fat. I have ate ridiculous amounts of lardy food. I wouldn't normally speak to anyone about this, till I get drunk, just freak out about it in my head and pretend I didn't think of myself as an ugly obese pig. But this is the internet, and I am merely another faceless emotional drone. As such, I can rant as I like and never be worried that someone will discover my vomit inducing pitifulness.

So, I shall rant about calories. Let's tot up all the things I have forced down my aesophogus.

1. Bowl of strawberries, some muesli and yoghurt. This was probably about 300 calories. I didn't eat it till 12, so the day started pretty well.

2. Apple. 40. Not disastrous.

3. Tuna pasta and green leaf salad, probably about 250. And some chips off people's plates (yes, everyone else had fish and chips- I felt quite good because I didn't eat any). So let's say 350.

4. Some chocolate covered raisins and 4 chocolates from quality street. I think about 200-250.

5. 1.5 chocolate shortbreads and some doritos and dip. I dread to think how many calories this would add up to; more than the 350 I had left, probably. In fact, I am probably underestimating what I had for tea, I probably ate far more chocolate.

So. Lots of calories and a shortage of exercise. And I can feel my stomach jiggle. I detest my thighs.

I am so glad nobody knows I write this blog. I can put on a front, I think. I'd far rather be the fatty having fun than the fatty that whines about calories and exercise; those sort of girls make everyone want to shoot themselves. So, though when I'm drunk and in the company of those I trust I can rant about it, I don't usually. When people mention diets, I pretend to glaze over so that they can't see how much I really wish I could find the right one for me. Well, there is one, it's called eat less and exercise, fatty! I suppose I don't want to lose that much weight considering, its just hard to effect. I'd be happy if I could fit a size eight in England. I'd want to be smaller but I'm fairly tall and built like a beast so I know it would never happen. About a stone, maybe two... yeah, two stone.

So let's say after this holiday, if I start to run and stuff, I could lose weight. I could. I could NOT put weight on. I could be thin, and... well, not beautiful. But who wants to be beautiful anyway? Being thin would be nice, but I can settle with being quirky looking. Distinguished from the crowd of blonde pneumatic bimbos, that would be acceptable. If I could look like anyone, it would be Luisa Casati, vampiric and sepulchral. If I have to choose from modern day, I'd say Elyse Sewell- she was a contestant on America's Next Top Model, a TV programme that is like smack; it encourages young girls (and older ones like me) to be thin, is maladaptive for physical and mental health and highly addictive. I hate that I like it so much because it's vacuous and girly and utterly pathetic. But I like it a lot, because of the pictures they produce- I think they're interesting- and the bitching, and the glamorous lifestyle. And even though the judges are so up their own arses, and arbitrarily bitch about people, I'm always entertained by it. I change the channel if my parents are around though, because I know they don't like me watching it.

You'd never think that crazy things were running through my head.

I love my family, and I feel loved by them. My Mum took me shopping today (and though she insists on telling me I always need the next size up, not in a nasty way, it's matter of fact because I will try to squeeze into sizes that are too small) and it was lots of fun- tiring but fun. She considers me an equal, which is always a boost to self esteem. I'm actually an adult now.

Mum said I'm mature and that she's impressed with my outlook on material things (i.e. that essentially they won't make you happy). Which is true, but I wonder how much I'd subscribe to those views if I was beautiful? Would I still want to eschew commercialism if I knew it held benefits for me?

I think if I was beautiful, I could make anything look good, so I suppose it wouldn't be a problem; I could wear the same cheap shit as always. Or if I was thin would I think I deserved all of the ridiculous clothes? They are ridiculous; just bits of fabric that make you look good but not necessarily a better person. But I do love being able to express myself through what I'm wearing. I wish I could fancy dress all the time. Not to look sexy or anything but just to be something else for a day. Or even just to make my own clothes, that would be fun. I want to be a living work of art, like Marchesa Luisa Casati.

Anyway. There hasn't been any poetry for a while has there? It isn't because I haven't been thinking of her because I have. I haven't touched her in so long that I don't know quite what the tingle feels like anymore. That worries me. It's around this time that its worst, at night. Because even though it was only a few times, I'm used to sleeping wrapped round her, and here the bed is uncomfortably soft with too many pillows. It's like being surrounded by a huge dry wad of polyethene cotton when all I really want is some human contact. It's too comfortable, too cosy and esconced, all too much. I am used to my cold room that makes the heat of my bed all the more desirable, the house that lets my cheap old jacket take the place of regular central heating. And, of course, because it was cold we used to sit close together, or lie close together, to be warm.

I wish I could start to email her again, or talk to her properly or anything but I worry she doesn't want to talk to me at all. If I was sportier, if I was thinner, if I was prettier, if I wasn't as emotionally barren, if I retained my emotions more, if I was less self obsessed. It could be any and all of these. I wish I knew which one. Or do I? Then I'd just fixate even more on whatever it was.

This could be Rotterdam or anywhere.

I was going to write a story here about a girl who was bought to be a bride. Apparently in China there's a baby trade; girl babies are bought to be daughters or servants and some are bought to be brides. I wonder how that would feel; we think it's barbaric, but is it any more barbaric than pushing a child into another profession? In a culture where women can only be brides, and probably have marriages arranged for them in due course anyway, is it any less humane to designate who will marry whom from birth? It's just a faster route is all.

Though it would definitely be a gilded cage. If you buy a baby with a view to it becoming a bride, you foist all these expectations on it. If it didn't turn out exactly as you wanted it, what would you do? Or maybe you grow to love it no matter how it turns out, because the expectations you have for it grow with the child itself. You'd have to be pretty and clever and all the rest of it if you knew your purpose from the start, or maybe they just shock you with it when you come of age, "By the way, you're intended to be married to him over there".

Or are they all reserves? In case one son doesn't find anyone, they've got an extra out the back, ready and waiting, prepackaged. Would you be part of the family in the meantime? Or just an extra. I suppose it would depend on who bought you. Everyone who adopts a child does it because it does something for them, yes, we might say we adopt children to give them love (in Western society) but really it's so that they fill some void that we have in our lives, or some need to give something. I think adoption is a brilliant thing, and everyone that does it does it for the good of the child (usually), but they have to acknowledge that they are as dependent on the child as it is on them. So really this is just another branch of that, buying a child to suit our needs, though the process is all too consumerist and clinical. Pushy adoptive parents might want their child to become a doctor or professor, but cases are few and far between of children being pushed into marriages. Or are western parents just more subtle about the wishes they have for their children, and inflicting that on them?

Stuff the goose.

I am worried about getting fat over Christmas, because I have gone home. I have a lot of access to lots of food, and this doesn't bode well for my already expansive waistline. I keep catching glimpses of my porcine form in the mirror, and it isn't pretty. Not that I ever will be, but my body is one thing that (through will, determination and pure sweat) I can change. So I resolve not to eat stupid amounts of food.

Today I ate:

1 mini mince pie (65)
Jacket potato with cheese and beans (400)
2 small sausages, scoop of mash potato and broccoli (400)
2 chocolates (100)
An apple (40)

So I have consumed 1000 calories. At least. And done little excercize to warrant it. I always have trouble spelling exercise. Yesterday I ate more. I'm not doing as much walking because there's no cause to.

God, I do hate being flabby. It's bizarre because the people I am attracted to are never stick thin, I adore their shapes. But I hate my own, I loathe it. I hate the blocked feeling I get from my own limbs, and the way I look in photographs. I hate not being able to fit certain items of clothes in my wardrobe, and the protrusion of my stomach. The chafe of my thighs together and the chunkiness of my calves and arms with a floppy sac under each one. I hate my chin that is indistinguishable from my neck.

But I love her gently rounded stomach and that her chin is all one line, leading down to perfect body that's soft and beautiful. Her legs and limbs are slim and powerful and feminine. She is really really beautiful, and I disgust myself but it doesn't translate to my view of other people. Well, they aren't pale and spotty like I am.

What else? I read her blog again, after resolving that I wouldn't, and she's having a lovely time at home. Which is good.

My dad is getting on my nerves, which is horrible because some people haven't got one, and he is lovely. But it's his constant wanting to have clever discussions with me, and need for attention. He's got three weeks of attention coming his way, he doesn't need it so much! But it's lovely that he's so interested, some parents are negligent and abusive or absent. Her Dad is dead. I feel ungrateful for moaning.

I get lost in the sounds I hear in my mind, all of these voices.

Dearest dolly darling dot.
I like you an awful lot
As is evident by this shoddy poem
Something I don't intend on showin'.

You're wonderful. How could you ever like me? Oh, I love your hair, your smile with your open mouth. Your worrying. Thankyou thankyou thankyou. Beautiful clever you, and then me. I loved to call you mine. Just in my head, because it was strange and possessive aloud; "there she stands, on the wall, painted by Fra Pandolf... my last duchess, as I recall".

And you are so beauteous, beatific. You don't think so. And maybe I think you are beautiful because I like you so, but maybe I like you so because you are so beautiful, in every way. I slowly became aware of it; I think maybe at first I thought your face was pretty. Maybe not. But then I started to recognise its features in a crowd, because they seemed to stand out far more than everyone else's plain faces. Your eyes were bluer, pale blue like the inside of an eggshell, and your walk was different. The line of your mouth, the perfect downturn of a cat's mouth but with pretty english rosebud lips. The line of your nose. Everything just seemed to fall into place, and there you were. I miss your scent of faint sweat and perfume, the way your neck smelled. I miss the fidget. I miss fitting together with no jags. I miss you laying your hand on me, when I didn't expect it, the movement of it was like a fall of crushed velvet, starched and sure to me. And the giggle when I stroked your hair. I miss holding hands when we were lying together, just to connect as if we'd lose each other if we didn't. Little finger yours, little finger mine all the way to thumbs.

The first time you touched me. No, I touched you first. We were reading. And suddenly it felt right to put my hand on the top of your arm. And it was right, because you put yours on my thigh. Electric. It wasn't as if I hadn't felt it before, but it was unexpected. And we kept on reading, and slumped further down on the bed, and then you kissed the top of my head. And that was all it was, apart from a moment of awkwardness... what should happen? And we had our first kiss. And there were lots of unbelievable circumstances about it, but most unbelievable to me was that you could ever like me back. And I don't believe you did, now, looking back. Just pitied me. First attempt at seduction, you had to be receptive is all. Were you thinking, even then, "I'll give it two weeks". I'd rather not have had you close to me at all than for you to feel that about me; horrendous. But at the time.... wondrous.

You were the sweetest thing, that I ever knew. But I don't care for sugar, honey, if I can't have you.

You bought me something wonderful and useful today that I would never think to buy myself, though it's pretty obvious. It's the perfect present. Thankyou so much. I do adore you still. And you can't hate me, if you bought me a present... unless you don't want me to think you hate me so buy me a present but secretly have a deeply held disdain for me?

You say I worry too much what others think of me. Well, yes. I worry what you think of me.

I am going to act again. This makes me very happy indeed. I am going to be in the Vagina Monologues. I wasn't expecting to get a part and am astonished I've got one, a part, not a vagina. It made me so happy I hopped and skipped all over the place and made squealing noises. I hate that I've become a squealer, they're so inane. But I am flattered and happy, and hope that I didn't just get cast because the director felt sorry for me... he asked me to audition, I don't know why but that's like I've already been earmarked and so have an unfair advantage. But I don't care so much, I'm happy to have the chance to be someone completely different from myself for three nights. Well, not completely different... just to express another bit of me I haven't explored before, I suppose. But yeah, I'm happy.

And just to lay with you, there's nothing that I wouldn't do, 'cept lay my rifle down.

All those traits which in me I abhor
Just make me want to hold you more
And slipping from my icy grasp
Is your attention, gone too fast.

The wind cut over the trenches today but brought no essence of fresh freedom wherever it had happened from. In the trenches we strained for that evanescent scent of home, knowing that stretching up for it could be the end for us but not caring.

I know that there is no point in fighting, that we'll be here forever. But we already have been, as if we'd been earmarked by war's red bloody hand the moment we'd drawn our first breaths. He stamped us with a thumbprint on our foreheads that hearkened us back to the trenches where we run around, alike the rats, with the rats.

I miss. Everyone misses. Misses their Missus. And some go mad, some run away, some do all sorts of things rather than admit that boredom and trench foot slowly moulder under the oppressive purple sky, sometimes lit with bolts of patriotic fire that seems to crush ever closer onto us. It's like we're living in an unsanitary vacuumed tunnel, where there is nothing but all too much of something like mould and status quo and patriotic grit make us rub against each other and yet never tear and fray, not to each other, not to our pals.

There is nothing new or surprising anymore. It is all fight, die, live, fight again, hospital, die, live. A game of probabilities. I miss her. I miss being me.

Marionette

Marionette fell off her strings long ago.
She is glad to be away from the show.
No more gawkers or lechery, not for
Marionette. Her legs grow soft and poor

I sit in a shed, in the corner. Maybe one day someone will pick me back up. For now, dust collects in the cracks of my peeling varnish, the peeling facade. Toys are none so immortal as anyone else. Though I was never a toy, I was... an object of amusement. Maybe an objet d'art. I don't know. Women wanted to look like me; I could see the faintly jealous way they peered into my glassy eyes and wished for a moment they too could excite as much attention and admiration without seeming to be in control of any of it, but secretly powering the whole panorama. A lack of control, maybe, because without an operator I never would have worked that way. But without me, the operator could never work in that exact way. He cannot rouse the crowd with a magician, an aged crone, an intricately crafted chick on wires no thicker than an arachnid's detretius. He needed me, maybe more than I him.

That was my world. Now mildew and dank is my world. Spiders weave their lives in one hollowed orbit and see what I cannot, possibility of growing old. And there are always more to take their place. My dress is sprinkled with plaster and debris where once rhinestone fell, and my shoes erode under the weight of years. But I will continue to lie like this, seated and disjointed, until I gradually wear away after a thousand, a hundred years. Always in the same form, just whittled at by time, always the same structure underneath but just a little is scraped from this corner by a year's hand. This existence appears melancholy. No, for I know of worse. It is rest. It is knowing I, too, shall have my end. It is knowing that even my operator could not control the crowd, even with me. Our duo had to end with the advent of speed, and easier, more amusing entertainment. I was not valuable enough for a museum. He was not valuable enough for anything. He lives a few metres away, with his wife, both of them decaying and eroding, not dryly and cleanly as I do but slowly melting into a bubbling heap of senility. He would never want to put on another show; after the zenith, there is no gradual decline but a sharp fall into a void. Inhabiting a void is not possible; you must become nothing to live in nothing. He is nothing. He does not exist. He melted long ago, and she did. His pretty young bride is yellowing with age, her gums withdraw back into her head, her blue eyes are peppered with purple veins. And love wore away too.

Different from me.

She saw me today walking down a corridor, absorbed in my phone. She didn't think I saw her but I always see her, I pick her up if she is around. She thought I didn't see her. She was on a staircase. She didn't say hello or shout to stop me. The other day I shouted her, so much. And now I've concluded she hates me. When someone that used to love you hates you, you wonder if it's what you do to them that makes them hate you, or if it's their reaction to you, or if you've just revealed too much of yourself... I think I did. She thought I was strong and self assured and I am anything but. I'm glad I project the image, but I wish I was different. Less bolshy in some ways, more in others. She doesn't play the game anymore.

I resolved to use this blog to write stories about other people in, to take on other characteristics. I haven't so far; I've just used it to ramble about relationships. All the relationships I've ever been in have had a power dynamic of one being loved, and one doing the loving and not receiving so much in return. I have usually been the deficient lover; that is, not giving out. Sometimes the dynamic changed. It's definitely better to be the one that isn't in love as opposed to the one that has ran headlong into it. Stuck in glutinous jelly. It's every bit as comic and disgusting as being stuck in jelly to be too deep in a crush; crush, not love, because love must be reciprocal and this is not. In my other crush, I used to let it out when I was drunk in text messages to him. So I am glad that I have got this outlet instead. But why does there always have to be a power dynamic? Why can't it ever just be equal?

Stupid me.

Oh lordy lord.

So, life had taken an up turn. She came round tonight. Just to do some work and have some dinner, my housefriends were in so nothing was ever going to happen. It started rusty, but we got talking again and the hinges were oiled and it was fine. We were using this computer to look up things. And we laughed, and it was almost like before (yesterday, once more) again. But then... then she looked at the favourites bit and saw her blog name there. And she didn't know I knew about it, much less that I'd been looking at it. I felt horrible. Like I'd been caught prying, looking at her naked, something she didn't want me to know. I'm horrible, it's so wrong. I've ruined her private world. I feel sick. I am a charlatan; all this time I convinced myself I wanted nothing but the best for her, but in probing that bit too far I've shown myself to be what I really am; I obviously couldn't care less for her comfort if I do something like that.

And she was still lovely to me, which shows that maybe she hadn't seen it. But that doesn't alter what I did. I collapsed her private world. Her private world. It was none of my business, none whatsoever. And I think I should apologise but I don't want to make her feel worse. Everything's so delicate, like a butterfly you can't touch for fear it'll fall apart. You can try and hold it but the closer you get the more likely it is you'll destroy it completely.

Christmas cheer

Oh darling. I just read your blog- you don't know I read it. Yes. I internet stalk you.

You're so fed up, and with good reason, because you're missing someone you can't have back. And you feel the same way I do about christmas- why bother? Why bother at all? You love the people you love, and you don't need any presents. I always feel, with getting presents, that if I don't show enough gratitude then the person giving won't know I love them as much as I do. But they should know I love them anyway. But noone does because I'm emotionally constipated, except with you, then I succumb to verbal diarrhoea. I'd rather get no presents and be done with the hassle of it all. I'd like to have a big meal with all the people I like over, family and friends, though that wouldn't work because all the people I like don't like each other. This sometimes makes me wonder if I'm a schizophrenic- all the people you're friends with are essentially meant to be extensions of yourself. So if I'm friends with so many people, I've got too many fragments of my psyche (this is what schizophrenic literally means, after all) and... well, and what?

I went to a really good party tonight. It was very small, though it didn't intend to be. I felt very welcome. I didn't feel like going out, but when I got there the people that were hosting it were lovely and I just stayed for ages. It made me feel happy, and I laughed so much I had to massage my cheeks. I haven't laughed like that for a bit. Since she dumped me, in fact. But I did, and it makes me happy to know I can. So, that's one of the things I'm grateful for today. Another is... well, I like my shoes. But they're shit and transient. I... I'm not bereaved, the blog brought that home to me. And? And... I'm not in financial trouble. Touch wood. I am possibly in University trouble, which is stupid because at my age they should know to leave well alone, we're our own doing. But I suppose thats what all the thick wasters say.

My first pathetic poetic ramblings. They don't involve pathetic fallacy.

Not much of account has occured today. I have ate as if I'm dying tomorrow. What a stupid thing to do. I tried on some trousers I used to wear; they used to hang off me, and now they just expose my love handles. Can they be called love handles when there is noone there to love them? It would appear as though their name is tied up with their function.

If that was to be true, I think I would be a saver of men. Derivative. I don't seem to do very much saving.

Word Association

Mixing dream and reality
Real could be a whale in the Thames
Teeming and ludicrous
Ludicrous, but it happened
Hapless I; I wonder if love ever
Ever at all
All happened for me when
Whenever I think of you
Your letters and words or looks
Look as though I've shaded them rose
Rosy sickly pink, decieving myself because
Causing your memory to be changed
Changes me and makes me doubt
Doubtful, so much, that I keep concrete
Cemented proof, like emails and one picture
Picture develops ideas through eras
Ere while a while away
Weight that you stopped playing
Plays heavy on my heart
Heartless silly I
I am all mixed.

Another poem I wrote was to combat my insomnia, but instead my mind begins to make millions of frissons of connections that disappear before I can capture them in ink. It's a huge electric power plant, out of control.

Insomnia

As I lay me down to sleep
I pray that I'll be tired and weak
Instead I'm mostly too alert
To cure it, I remain inert
Different positions, on my back
The thread of time, once taut, now slack
Winds on as in a dim lit maze
Not dim enough for sleepy daze
Meanders round the shadows then
Jerks me back, conscious again
Familiar feel of falling down
Back in bed, without making a sound.

Oh, oh darlin', who needs love?

Definitely not me. At least, not unless it's on an equal par and both are equally sunk into the mushy depths of romantic quagmire that chokes you with its sickly sweet slime.

I will probably use this blog for expounding my emotions and consequently it will be cathartic but ultimately useless. Expect lots of moaning, meandering, poetry, senseless repetition and pretension. I only write when I am in the doldrums, consequently when I'm happy don't expect too many postings.

Apparently there is a greek myth of a prophetess called Sibyl. She asked for the gift of immortality, but forgot to twin it with asking for the gift of eternal youth. She wouldn't have sex, so the god Apollo caused her body to age and wizen until it was so tiny it could only fit inside a jar.

He stripped everything away until all that was left was a strand of time connecting her dull existence to the future, roping round about the universe. You stripped all my defences away, all those barricades, until all that was left was a tiny pile of dust. But it wasn't lovely enough to keep, because after all, dust is boring and can be found everywhere. So you blew it away and it roams, undefended. And it probably doesn't need you anymore but wanting you appears to mould it together.

I would hate to be someone who wears a lot of knit pastels. They're invariably flabby and think the pretty colours distract from their unseemly flesh. Not that I am not fat. I don't think anyone is going to think I am not fat if I dress in pastels though. I don't disillusion myself that my flab will suddenly disappear if covered by a cheeky knit print.

I should cease to care about weight and appearance, but its all everyone else cares about. Really, it shouldn't matter, but it does. It is so unbelievably trivial that we judge; for all I know, girls wearing pastels could be forthright and outgoing. I am reluctant to believe this when surrounded by their wishy washy shades of crap.

So at least I'm not a girl that wears pastel. This is my positive thought of the day.