Solution to world Hunger, fig. one.

Eating's been really bad these past few days. I seem to be hellbent on consuming everything in sight, like the fatty I am. Today's count is 1750. Written elsewhere.

Today in a shop, purchasing food, an acquaintance (well, probably a friend but I'm none so keen on her. She can be OK) asked us how many calories we thought were in a packet of pecan nuts covered in chocolate. She said 700. She's the only girl in my group of friends that obsessively counts calories (well, except for me, but I clam up when they're discussed for reasons I shall expound later). Anyway, the upshot of this was that I suggested, profit notwithstanding, that we should ship 90 percent of chocolate etc. to Africa, or malnutrition hotspots to combat obesity. Or even just put pictures of starving kids next to our rationed chocolate supplies. I know that if people are suffering malnutrition there has to be a gradual refeeding process, but I really don't see why, once that's been accomplished, we can't give away a bit of chocolate and other nutrient rich foods. How much do I need calorific content as opposed to those on the brink of starvation? I know profit would be a problem; I thought this could be solved by all the money yummy mummies (isn't that a disgusting epithet?) and vain yuppie sloanes spend on going to the gym, or a personal trainer, being given to chocolate companies to remove the temptation; they'd get slimmer, because of less chocolate being around. Say you live in Hemel Hempstead, for a fixed fee you can get the chocolate taken out of your local newsagent and shipped off to Africa; you have to walk further to get the goods. Better still, confiscate cars as well and let everyone bike or take public transport. I know this is hard on those who posess a modicum of willpower, but they don't particularly need chocolate either.

Earlier I said I don't involve myself in calorific discussions. I don't want to be seen as a boring girl that can only discuss calories, first and foremost; I fear if I were to admit my quirk, then the floodgates would open and I'd never shut my mouth. Another reason is my opinion of this particular acquaintance; she obviously used to be very thin. She's very involved in everything, theatre, magazine editing, god knows what else, but I get the impression that she doesn't enjoy herself doing it; she does it more so that she can say she's involved. If I think of how I feel when I act; it just takes away my desire to do anything else, when I'm absorbed in it- I don't want to eat, I get the glim in my eyes, it's like a flash of freedom, like doing a cartwheel. I think she doesn't get that from what she does.

She calorie counts and strives, yet she's about a size 14 (UK) I'd say, and she's around 5 feet four tall. In fairness, she has got a large chest, which carries less stigma. I think, every time she discusses calories, that if she cares so very much she would surely be thinner? I don't talk about my obsession because I don't feel that people will take me seriously- they'd think, well maybe you think about it but you're really quite fat; only thin girls think about calories. You, therefore, must think you are thin and want us all to tell you you are. I don't want people to think I think I'm something I'm not. This makes very little sense. There's also the other aspect of public self-hate and emotional whining, which I despise.

It's about how much you can take before getting knocked down, and how far you can get back up again.

Eating today:

Pasta and pesto (350)
sultanas (200)
beans on toast (2 slices half a can of low sugar beans) (350)
an apple (40)
a subway 6 inch meatball marinara (400)
a happy hippo (100)

I think I've just snacked on sultanas all day, which aren't fatty but their bastard calorific content is through the roof. Fourteen hundred calories is more than I need. Why do I always stuff my face, it is simply ludicrous. Now, what else have I ate today? Maybe a happy hippo, maybe that's it. I haven't got any other snacking materials, apart from cookies which don't lure me as much as sultanas. It's not been a day of much accomplishment; some revision, I meant to meet my friends at the library and go to a house viewing but achieved neither target.

I do like my housemates. They're all very entertaining and morally upstanding- I was trying to think of synonyms for nice, as I detest that word. My home economics teacher said it was an acronym for "nothing interesting cunt ear"... well, the first two letters are accurate. I don't think she used cunt ear. Anyway, the point is I am very glad to house share with the people I share with.

I turned my room into a sauna in order to dry my clothes by whacking up the blower that heats it. My clothes are almost all dry, so it did work. But I wondered why it doesn't precipitate indoors; my housemate said there aren't the climactic and geographical extremes necessary. I suppose this is true; for anything to occur, extremes are needed. It's tricky to eke something of note out of mediocrity. I am not sure if this is what I truly believe but it popped into my head as I was educated on the whys and wheres of rainfall.

I still miss her. I am mediocre, of mediocre intelligence and mediocre everything, and there's always more needed if you're going to fall for someone.

I saw Rocky Balboa today, expecting to hate every second. The beginning was slow, the storyline and characters cheesy and underdeveloped, the whole affair was obviously just a massive ego boost for Stallone (who must surely confuse himself with the eponymous hero he portrays from time to time)... but I liked it. Not only did I involve myself with the characters and audibly gasp at the feats of pugilism contained within, but I want to begin boxing now. I like the thwack of the gloves. My housemate and I ran to the top of every flight of stairs we found on our way home and sprang appreciatively, in homage to the film. Our other housemates took blurry pictures.

I tried to look like Grace Kelly, but all her looks were too sad.

Eating today:

pasta and pesto (400)
a happy hippo (100)
two tangerines (40)
sultanas and yoghurt (300)
Coleslaw (100)
sausage, mushroom, tomato onion stir fry (300)
happy hippo (100)

I am pretty sure I ate something else as well, at lunch with sultanas and yoghurt... I also ate 3 smarties, a polo, and a glass of tia maria and coke. I didn't order diet because it felt stupid.

So I'm saying about 1300. Food alone. I wish I could remember what I'd had at sultana and yoghurt time... not a biscuit. Coleslaw? No. WHAT WAS IT?

I've walked a bit today.

It's so strange... I woke up this morning in a horrendous mood because I'd spent the night feeling shit that my friends were all so much cleverer than me... I've had the same background, but I'm still not achieving as I should. I woke up feeling fatter than ever, uglier, stupider... I can't think of anything you could be, that I would want to be... humorous. I felt like I had no spark. That's so trite, but it was true.

Then, about half four, I went for a walk and the cloud lifted a bit. Then I had my first rehersal and I stopped worrying about what I looked like in my trousers, or that I was the fattest and largest there, and started to properly enjoy these stupid games we were playing. I didn't even feel like I was particularly good at them, but it helped so much to be out and walking about, just in life instead of a bit out of it.

Acting, pretending to be someone else, definitely lifts the cloud.

Knowing someone thought I was good enough to be there was a lift.

I came back in a really good mood, and chirped around with my housemates for a bit. I also discovered a band called Mika, which is good. The music makes me wave my arms and mouth along to the words.

Should we pity those who haven't got as much as us? I would say no, because I hate being pitied. That is one of the reasons I want to lose weight, I hate being discreetly felt sorry for. I don't think we should... I think people from all walks of life can be happy, and it's being happy that counts, even if you're ignorant. I think if you're not happy, you know.

Also, none of my friends want to end up like their mothers... apparently, they're all eating disordered, high achievers. Which is ironic, because they don't have eating disorders but are high achievers. My Mother... I admire her an awful lot. I think she's really cool, cooler than me. She's my code of behaviour, she gives the best advice, she's like a friend and a mother... I don't want to be her. But I don't want to be anyone, really. I know I would like to be powerful and eminent within my chosen industry, though I know that doesn't always bring happiness, doing something worthwhile (so not fashion) and ethical, possibly travelling, or at least involving travel. My Mother would have wanted all of these and could have had them, but she never got the chance. It was never suggested.

Tales and tales.

Eating today:

Sausage sandwich (vegetarian, pick off crusts) (350)
salad and carrot cake (93+292=380)
pesto and tortellini (400)
15g chocolate (75)
6 dates (60)
options hot chocolate (40)

Not good enough to lose weight like I want to. Weird, such a small looking amount of food.... I'm glad about the salad discovery though. So, totted up... 100, 175, 575, 955, 1300. Not so bad as I thought, actually. And I did a walk today as well, to University and back. I started to feel thinner today, but then I walked and my jeans felt tighter than they should do... these used to be huge jeans.

Tomorrow I will meet a final deadline with some work that is completely shit. And they will know it. And my friends will know it. Which I feel shamed for.

I just finished Salman Rushdie's Shame. It started slowly, but by the end I was devouring it akin to the manner of its eponymous heroine. I loved it, I love myths and mythology and folklore. Anthropology. Really, if we all construct our own lives, and if we all have our own tales, our lives are myths. Mine would be.... Icarus? I don't know.

There was once a little girl, given all she could wish for. Her parents loved her, and cherished her, and made her into the best they could, whittling her like a piece of wood with loving care. Ensuring she never became too greedy or too self consumed, until so old, and then they let her free. The perfect child, created to be perfect, was tested on the world to see if she truly was perfect, like a paper model, able to stand alone. And the perfect child blew back over and landed in a puddle, which dried and dampened with the contractual rays of the sun, greying and dirtying her bleached white shine until she became grey like everyone else.

That is none too happy a tale. That is not really my life. Whittling is a bad word for the description; they gave, they didn't take away. And I didn't fall in a puddle; no, I am not at the best university, I am not thin, she does not want me... but I have friends. I am acting, I am at a good university, I am financially independent, I am not morbidly obese, I am in full health. That is of consequence, that is important. I am not homeless... I am housed, thanks to my own financial management.

So

There was a girl who loved so much she could not bear to disappoint and pushed away the three she loved, one after the other, so that she would not disappoint them nor they her.
She settled for less. She tired easily of the first, wearing him thin, the second, she desired still after the culmination, the third, saw straight through her layers to within and despised her. So she despised herself.

That is not true. Or it is, yes, well. I don't know. It probably is.

Once upon a time a beautiful fairy was born who had the power to change into anything. And decided it was best to be just her.

I wish this was true.

I am no fairytale heroine
I cannot bend you to my whim
Nor sing mellifluous hymns
Or dance as stones on water skim

I, with visage undefined,
Figure so very misaligned
Attire that a jester shunned
Sleepless eyes a bed interred

Insomniac nights and wakeless days
Ridiculous fits of ludic brays
When comes my saviour to this house?
When I am ready, above all else.

Divine decadence, what I lack, work work work picks up the slack.

Eating today:

Fried egg bread (1 egg, semi skimmed milk, 2 slices of bread, piece of butter) (450)
a maryland cookie (50)
20g plain chocolate (100)
a double decker chocolate bar (275)
leftover vegetable stir fry (125)
apple and peanut butter (200)

1200! Yes. And I did a walk. I was OK yesterday as well. University is so much better for me. Purpose is better for me.

I do think I still want her a bit because I've got this morbid fascination with what she's doing with her new person. Ugh. I am such a stalker. But... nontheless. Slowly, slowly, I am ridding myself of it. And I will be tiny and perfect. Still rejected, but I will feel better that there is less cause to reject me, though I know rejection was not because of how I looked but because of the way I was. And she will.... will what? Say "oh, look, you are small, I love you now!". Of course not. I must stop being so utterly pathetic. Anyway, I shall never be short. Unless I get my kneecaps knocked off.

My period has started today. I slept till two in the afternoon as well. I did some work in the library. I fulfilled my calorie allowance. I have not had a shower. I feel a layer of grease and grime coating me with desiderata. I do not know what desiderata means. Ha, I looked it up, "a poem or essay on attaining happiness in life". I thought it meant debris, dust, of an academic nature, such as the mould that collects on books and other academia.

I want to grow into one of those birdlike old ladies that wear dead looking hats and are always pick-pecking at something, whose eyes are bright. I want to be one of those, that travels the world in a perspicacious manner then comes back at weekends to feed her cat and lunch with friends. Who hits burglars with her umbrella and puts the world to rights and rides motorbikes. I will wear bright clothes that startle foes, and hats and tights to bring delights. I don't want to be a moaner. Loner.

Queen of the Nile, serpentine
Fed on fruits of dark blood wine
Langorous upon a golden bower
Rowed by slaves, decaying hour
Brief sunrise, over cheeks has passed
Night brings truth: nothing lasts
Ephemeral skin adorned by jewels
Evanescent and knowing, surrounded by fools.

I don't know where I was going with that one. I just thought of Cleopatra, getting older, on a float with her slaves. I always write so darkly, I don't know why. It hasn't even got a message. The images don't mean anything. Humph. Why can't I write anything good?