So I applied for three jobs today that I actually would be happy to get. I decided one of the others I didn't want after all, one I wasn't qualified for at all, and the others had like a 60 to 80 minute bus ride that wasn't worth it considering the job and compensation.
I fell asleep on the futon mattress and was woken up by the maintenance dude calling at like 8:30am. Then he came over and messed with the shower. Supposedly it's fixed now. He said something really dumb to me - he said, turn the cold water on full blast and slowly add the hot. No shit, sherlock. The problem has been that I can have nothing but the cold water on and it's fuckin burning hot. I wonder if he was talking to a man if he would have pointed out something so everfucking obvious.
I finally opened those Cheetos. To my credit, I did eat granola and milk before a nice Cheetos breakfast. When I was a little kid I used to buy candy all the time, and eat like a whole bag of mini-Reeses in two days or something. I was always super skinny although I had many a cavity. One day my mom tried to tell me about metabolism. Basically she cornered me in the kitchen in 4th grade and said that while I may be thin and able to eat like that now, when I get older I'm going to get fat if I keep eating like that. I'm sure she had the best of intentions - that is, she weighed more than when she was younger and didn't want me to "suffer" the same fate. However, I started crying and developed a complex where I would suck in my "gut" all the time - to the point of getting a stomach ache.
I remember in 6th grade my dad (king of giving presents since he was spending his time at the bar) gave me 2 tickets to see Les Miserables in Milwaukee. My best friend and I were obsessed with it and Phantom of the Opera. I wore this little black cotton dress and sucked in the whole time. I thought since I was flat chested my body didn't have the right proportions - bellies aren't supposed to stick out further than your chest! (Somehow I never noticed that my belly stuck out farther than my chest due to my spinal curve). I had the worst stomach ache during the show, which was pitch black and I'm sure no one was even paying the slightest attention to the ratio of chest to belly on my tiny 10 year old body, but I kept doing it. I did it from about 4th grade on. I still do it at times. I have much healthier body perspective (and usually a healthy-ish diet if you don't count all the cigarettes and beer) but old habits are hard to break.
When I went to Senegal I gained about 25 pounds. I left weighing probably 130 lbs (I'm slightly under 5'9") and returned weighing about 155 from the diet, lack of exercise, and completely horrid birth control I was on that also gave me mad acne like I'd never had before and made me extremely emotional. Nothing like being way oversensitive and feeling fat and ugly to boot. I don't know what I weigh now but I think maybe 135 just from the difference in lifestyle. I made no effort whatsoever to diet or any real effort to exercise. But gaining that weight is the best thing that could have possibly happened to my body image. It gives me a perspective from which to realize that even though I felt fat and ugly at times, I really wasn't. I was still normal-sized. I remember Ponge telling me I had a flat stomach and me being like what the fuck are you talking about, I have a belly... But since I knew he was serious in saying that and not just saying it to make me happy I took another look at my body and started to believe him. Now I'm thin and fit again, and I actually believe that as opposed to people telling me I'm thin and me thinking - if you only knew. Like if I stopped sucking in for 5 seconds people would be just shocked or something. I tried to talk about it with my high school boyfriend, and even tried to stop sucking in while naked one time to prove it to him, but I could only let go a little bit. I had it down to an art. You don't suck in too much, because it fucks up the shape of your stomach then and becomes obvious. You suck in just...so.
If I had weighed what I weigh now in high school I would have been horrified. My stomach complex was at it's most severe in latter middle school-early high school. I used to write down what I ate every day and wish that I could be fucked enough in the head to be anorexic. Probably I smoked too much pot to ever realize that twisted little dream.
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It's nice to be up during the day. I miss the sun.