Oh one day we will die, and our ashes will fly, in an aeroplane over the sea

Things I have discovered a renewed love for:

1. My family, in particular the father

2. Him. I was beginning to tire of him because it seemed that we were further apart... but really, we aren't.

3. Neutral Milk Hotel. I liked them as a child, and I didn't know their name, but now I do and I've rediscovered them. I am listening to Aeroplane Over the Sea on repeat. But who is Goldaline? This is a lovely name.

I have kept under count today, but through sheer luck as I've eaten utter crap.

Norah Vincent is the coolest woman. I want to be her, or at least to see what it's like trying to be a man for a while. When I was a child I wanted more than anything to be a boy; I don't know why. I wanted, actually, to be a girl who was so convincing a boy that people were surprised when this wiry, tiny, pugilistic defensive thing was a girl. Of course, I was broad and cumbersome, and too effeminate to fool many at more than second glance. I cut the hair off my Ariel barbie and drew a moustache on it to create an emulatory figure. I wanted the surprise of strangers rather than their acceptance; I was a strange child I suppose. Too much famous five altogether.

Norah says, in her book, that women feel sometimes that they are intruding on mens space. Conversely, and I don't know if this is because I'm young and thus, no matter what, attractive or pitiable to the older generation, I have never felt this way. When with a group of men, I feel that I am one of them, though they may not feel that. I feel... accepted. It might be because I react in a conventionally masculine way; for example, I don't like to hug- I detest the word hug- I prefer to handshake. I rarely discuss emotions, and if I do it will be anger that I express rather than sadness. I can't comfort when I'm in a group; if a friend breaks down one on one, that's ok, but I cannot do it publicly. I feel that I can be a man too, when I am with men. I stand tall (because I'm not afraid of towering over the other girls) and swear, and joke, and discuss serious things, and laugh. Which is what I also do with my closest female friends, but only with them and men. I especially like old men. It's possibly because of a subconscious feeling that I hold a sexual power over them, I don't know.

Norah is exactly right about masculine handshakes and feminine hugs though. I detest the feminine hug, and will eschew it at all costs. It's such a flimsy thing, and incredibly shaded. It can't even be called a hug because it's so wispy and ineffectual. I will hug my very best friends, when they need it, and preferably not at the start or end of every social occasion unless I am forced. Bless Norah for elucidating this, because otherwise I would have continued to feel an emotional stone freak. Otherwise I only ever touch him, or hug him, and he is starting to wonder why... A handshake is far better. This is why I continually instate handshakes instead of hugs.

He said today that I looked like Norah, but softer (he lent me the book) and I was complimented. I am very masculine shaped, with my broad shoulders and flat chest; I wouldn't really even need the tight sports bra. I have got a waist and a huge arse, which mark me as a woman, but I suppose these could be covered. I'd do it for the thrill, and to learn how to talk like a man; how to lean back and make others listen. It would be wonderful to make that an aspect of myself.

I bang on about how I hate my bony decollete, and my flat chest, and my turkey neck, but really I am happy with all of those things because they make me athletic and thin. Without small boobs, my clothes wouldn't look as good, I'd have problems doing gymnastics and I wouldn't be as good a physical mover as I am. Friends with large chests say they're a hindrance, and others say I'm in proportion. My bony decollete and neck (my neck is very thin, and its tendons stand out easily), whilst sometimes disgusting because they remind me of my innards, are good for acting. It's so easy to convey even the slightest tension with them, and others have said they look elegant. I prefer to think that they look strong, and honest. There's an honesty about bones and tendons, even if they are vile to me. I suppose I could even be glad for my broad frame because it makes me look thinner; I would rather be broad, tall and thin looking than small, narrow and have an extra four stones of fat hanging off my frame. I weigh about the same as some friends that have this problem, and I'm glad I don't have their build. Was I a slightly-built girl of 5ft 2 that weighed 10st 7 I'd look horrifically fat; double chins everywhere. At 5ft 9 and the same weight with broad muscles and bones, I look slighter. So I suppose there is really a lot to be grateful for.

Hours and Hours

I've been in the library, and I've still got 1000 words of this essay to do, plus referencing and citing. I'm hoping that writing this will gear me up to it. So, here's my list of what I've eaten today:

An eat natural bar-300

a pear-40

two tangerines-40

some chocolate peanuts-100

two slices of vegetable pizza-400.

All in all, this isn't bad.

I feel shit because I can't stop thinking about my room problem. I'm so pissed off that my housemates gave me the worst room ever, again, and that the girls are uncommunicative, and that I have to wait till after exams to tell them this else it'll cause more drama than it's worth. I should have asked before holiday time.

He just asked me why I always hug him because I don't hug anyone else, and I didn't know what to say. I just went pink, then he made fun of me and it was all normal again....


Roll on three thirty tomorrow.

That's your name.

Realism is overrated in my little world
Observing your hair and hands uncurled
Music plays in soft chords and strings
Utterly oblivious of aural meanings
Say I, because I've simply no idea
Kinesthete's my epithet, fidget nearer
Alongside your book and halycon shoe.

Final eatings today, and the whinings of little red riding hood.

I had a bagel with cream cheese, pesto and spinach, and two cubes of chocolate (65). The bagel is 300, cheese 60, pesto 100. So that's a meal for 520 cals.

I feel like shit because I've been looking at his ex girlfriend's webpage. This has perturbed me for two reasons:

1. She seems alright, and he usually demonizes her. I wonder why? Does he do this to everyone?

2. She is a far better version of me than I am. She's thin, pretty, goes to Cambridge and knows what she wants and says when she wants it. I thought she would be ugly, because he was so disdainful partly, but mostly because she's a self-harmer. The other self-harmers I know are ugly or built like a brick shithouse- there's something off, and she isn't at all, physically. She dresses unusually. I'm this watered down version. So if he does hate her, if he ever in a million years saw me as anything other than one of the guys, I'd still be second best. I'd be gone in 3.5 days. And he only went out with her for a week. He always says he doesn't want a long term relationship, but this is essentially what we've got now, without anything sexual. So being friends, then.

I know what is wrong with my eating: I obsess about it. I think too much and it makes me old, worried and haggard. She probably doesn't think about it what with being thin. I am old at twenty one and she is nineteen. I am jealous of someone I've never met, that he perpetually says was miserable, humourless and spoilt. He doesn't want anyone for a start, much less me, and far less someone that won't measure up to someone he had for a week.

Why would I ever think I, me, chubby, spotty, boring, insecure me, could seduce someone that is essentially celibate? I need to sort my life.

And the first way I will sort it is not to think of myself like that.

So. Well, here is a good thing about today: I arranged to take some drugs with another friend, which will make me happy, because experimenting out of my comfort zone does. I always worry I'll be a Leah Betts, but never too much to stop me. Here is another: I saw him and he told me he hated my jumper (it's a huge turquoise men's one) and I looked like a tennis player with my academic headband, but he let me fix his collar. I like this. What else? I took a close up photograph of myself with my new camera, zoomed in on the hairs and found I'd got a moustache. That's terrifying, but at least now I know about it.

It rained today and I had a lift in his car, so that was good. I like the rain. It's part of my name for duplicitous reasons. Dualist reasons, they're not lies.

I do like being one of the guys: I'm part of a friendship group (two friendship groups actually) where I mesh better with the men. It's because I put on this show of not caring, really. I don't come across so very insecure in reality, or as paranoid. I took a test that said I was paranoid. The first is in my house; I don't care much for the girls, I prefer the men because they're funnier. The girls hardly ever laugh, and they're duller even than I am aesthetically. In our other group, it's me, him, two men and a girl. She is a pudding of a girl; she's small and very chubby. Her thighs chafe, I can see it, but she makes an effort and this is tragic. She is far too eager to be friends, like a poodle, and she takes pictures on nights out. She flirted shamelessly with the three men, and pestered me about who I "had a crush" on. I was not going to tell her; and I despise bad flirting. It's a horrific scene to watch, hypnotising yet terrible, and the worst thing was that she obviously thought of herself as a sexually appealing entity; well, everyone wants to think of themselves as that, but she simply isn't attractive, no matter how she tries. I know other people who are sexually attractive but not beautiful, because they know what they are; the difference between being attractive and not is knowing what you are. Anyway, needless to say I get on better with the men, who are also hilarious. I adore him, obviously, but nobody else knows, so we usually go about as a four, or a three, or a two, depending on what is happening.

One of them is besotted with a girl who is pushy and irritating; when she speaks she's heard halfway across the room because of her own sense of self-importance. She gets on my nerves at times, and then not at others. She's also desperate to cultivate friendships because she's severely lacking in them. She's seeing someone who is a complete anathema to her; he's lackadaisical, a drug pusher, and runs a sort of bar come greasy spoon. Then she flirts with my friend as well, who is between the two of them; fairly lax but also competitive, not pushy or irritating but confident. He only sees her face, I know this, and possibly her intelligence, she'd be a nice enough person if she wasn't so frustratingly pushy. Yet this doesn't irritate me. It should, being a feminist and all- valuing looks and appearance above essentials. I'm not even jealous, despite her beating me in various aspects of my life. I suppose I don't care because I'm happy with the way my friendship is with this man, and the way I feel about the girl- I can leave or take her- adds to his mood about her, either frustrated or happy.

Girth Mirth.

I went over a bit yesterday. Here are today's eat treats:

Breakfast: an eat natural bar.-300
three dried apricots-30

Lunch: a bean and cheese wrap-380
an apple-40

It's currently half past eight, and I got up at two. I went to a friend's last night and we watched Supersize Me and some documentary along the lines of, "What's actually in that health bar is half a pig carcass, chubs, so don't eat it". Now I'm terrified that I'm actually eating so far above my calorie count it's astronomical.

I'm meant to be writing an essay. I've read a few sources...

Here are some good things about today and yesterday:

1. I saw my friend who I like, and we firmed up plans to live in London next year. Both of these make me happy.

2. I saw him today. He picked on me for my jumper (it's a huge one, 40in mens, but I wear it because it's warm for the library).

3. I'm on my way to doing work.

I feel a bit of a bitch because I'm sitting directly opposite a girth. I mean a real fatty- this one's got to be at least twenty stones. I chose to sit here to make myself feel better. She's very pretty but so big. I feel big; I go home, and I think the mirror's lying there, I can't be THAT fat, then I come to Uni-Home and I think the mirror in my room makes me look even more grotesque, then I look down at my body and that's the worst of all reflections. But this girl opposite me is garguntuan; she's wearing a grey sort of dress that should be flattering but doesn't cover her rolls. She isn't hideous by any stretch, but I know that the primary reason for befriending her would probably be pity. It's not as if I can talk, with my hideous jumper, tennis pro headband and spotty face; I've made far less effort. But I know that if I was to put in as much effort than she has, I'd look a lot better. And I don't think I'm the prettiest pork about town; I'd just be more appealing. She makes me glad to be me.

Eating yesterday.

I had:

six mini kinder eggs-300
apricots-50

an apple-40

pasta, pesto and broccoli-400

two wafer biscuits-150

more apricots-50

two tangerines-40

Ice cream- 225

Today I have had:

A tangerine
a carrot and cheese sandwich

which is about 500, plus coffee. It's one twenty now, and I'm in a positive mood- I had a presentation today, which went better than I thought it would. I babbled a bit when I was asked questions, but it was alright. The girl that went after me did the most facile presentation I'd ever seen. I'm guilty of feeling it reflected well on me.

For now, anyway, my workload appears under control- I'm about to embark upon writing another essay, and then I'm going to start my dissertation properly, and write 3000 words of it. After that the term starts properly, and there'll be plays and things to do. So at the moment I'm really happy about where I am.

Here are things to do:

1. Go to the other campuses around this one and explore.

2. Various work things

3. See family.


I saw him the other day. I think sometimes that I don't like him as much, and then I see him and realise actually I do. He talks too long about his plays and sprays me with febreeze, and then tells me I smell of chicken. I quite like it. I don't think he'll ever become my... boyfriend sounds silly, for him, and partner sounds too old. Consort is bizarre. Significant other? I don't know. He doesn't want to be, so I'll just enjoy this time till it's on the wane.

Hazardous day

God, you were beautiful today, I'd almost forgotten over the holidays, how much I like to stare at you. I'd forgotten your eyes and your skin, and how I want to touch the slope in your back and slip underneath your jacket. I want to kiss each of your fingers, and to stroke your flushed cheek. I wish you wouldn't do your hair like that; I like your curls best.

You were talking about the man I'd been with before you, you don't know about the woman. Anyway, you laughed at him, because he's ugly. I'd not thought of it before; I thought we matched, he and I, and that you'd be kind because you didn't want me to know exactly how ugly I was in return. You told me I was cruel for not ending it properly; you sounded almost admiring, and I said I had a tendency to make people cry, which always made me awkward.

And you laughed at me because we worked out that I like fat men, and I do. I can't stand thin men that I think I might break, if they aren't friends.

It must have been blazingly obvious to everyone else in the library that I adore you, because when you turned back to work I kept staring at your reflection in the window. I don't know if it's obvious to you, if you don't look back for fear of having to confront it and telling me you don't like me like that... or that you do, and then it would be the end after we'd gone out. Because we're too young really, to be in a relationship forever.

You said you didn't want to be in a relationship because it takes up time, but we spend all of ours together... I wouldn't be a hassle.

The thing I lack
Is the bit of your back
And your neck's pretty too
It's about all of you.

I love it when you tell me I'm stupid for thinking the way I do about myself, because it means you think more of me than I do of myself.

Someone else said today that this girl I'd thought was thinner than me was fatter. That made me feel good, and it shouldn't have. I'm trying so hard not to care, but I do.

A big shortbread-500
An apple-40
Pasta, spinach and salmon-400
two kinder eggs-100
some apricots-100
two wafer biscuits-150
two tangerines-40

I wasn't going to write that, or at least, I was going to leave off the calorie writing. But I did. He hasn't made me that secure yet. I think that what I like about him is that he could think I'm ugly and fat and all the rest, but that he likes me nontheless. I like him because he is clever, and over-confident, and arrogant, and so vulnerable underneath it all. He'd laugh at that last one, and I would too. He's funny.