Maybe it’s just dumb.

So, forty pounds ago, * I began my rather lengthy and memorable reign as the Queen of No Thank You. “No, thank you” was my automatic response to anything that didn’t fall within my arbitrary boundaries of dietary and physical restriction. It was subtle and classy enough to stave off imprudent and unwelcome amounts of attention, the verbal equivalent to the elbow-elbow/wrist-wrist wave.

No thank you, no thank you, no thank you.

Eventually, it became so automatic that it was more a response than a decision, and electric hunger became so constant that it felt more like fuel than deprivation.

I was completely disconnected from my body. Strange as this might sound, I didn’t have a good grasp on what I looked like until quite recently. Until I was about twenty years old, I didn’t menstruate, had no idea what a sex-drive was, and was terrified that any deviation from my self-imposed restrictions would destroy me.

Out of obliviousness rather than prudishness, I was a very good girl for a very long time. Sucked. I don’t recommend it.

Anyway, never mind the time line of details, but I did overstep of my silly boundaries, and the "transgression" didn't cause spontaneous combustion. But when I do such things, forsaking one set of rules for another, it seems like I go from one extreme to the other without paying attention to any other options.

I go from nun to rock star in seconds, flat. I go from contained, introverted anorectic to indulgent, self-violating, bulimic. I go from Martha Stewart to slumlord. I go from fitness guru to chain-smoking, insomniac binge-drinker. I go from free-lovin’ pseudo-hippie to cynical Nietzschian atheist. Pay attention, and you’ll find I’m pretty predictable.

The concept of “enough” is alien and frightening. I confuse healthy moderation with lack of passion.

As much as I would miss the momentum of the mood swings, maybe I should grow up. Some stuff, I need to get a handle on. Obviously.

I think of advertisements in which the featured user of Product X testifies how the product changed his/her life. This is seemingly most common in campaigns for magical weight-loss elixirs.

Advertisers rely on the assumption that the average consumer is desperate to change his/her life. They depend on our hunger for before/after pictures, and feed us blurry flashback shots of Version 1 of Person A staring at him/herself in the mirror with a most disheartened expression. Then, the focus sharpens, and New and Improved Version 2 of Person A busts triumphantly through the sad-sack image of Version 1, like so much stripper out of cake!

Tah-dah! Person A is toned and lean! Person A scoffs at the lardy joke that he/she once was! Person A is obviously whole and healthy because of Product X, which is solely responsible for Person’s miraculous transformation from Version 1 to Version 2. Commercials say so.

And, oh, how we like to believe them.

I’m not proud; I’d be overjoyed to find a magical weight-loss pill. Even better, I’d like to ease into physical health so that I eventually become my own success story. Whether that means I lose twenty pounds, get an average of at least 6 hours of sleep a night, or manage to go two weeks without bingeing and purging, I’m not sure.

I still look to the days forty pounds prior to this one as The Golden Age, despite the fact that I was self-loathing, miserable, and terrified by all things sensual. I never attained the coveted physique in which my collarbones could serve as birdbaths and my spine as a xylophone, but I was thinner than I should have been, even if I didn’t see it, myself.

Now, I can’t fathom being forty whole pounds lighter than I currently am. I’m naturally stocky, but I’m not hugely fat. I look like I could take and throw a mean punch, and I kind of like that.

I don’t think I want to “change my life.” I don’t want to be anyone’s slogan. If I were to do a complete one-eighty, I’d be staring in the face of the No Thank You Queen, who is no fun at all. And I might kick her ass.

* I don’t measure my time line by calendar years. I remember that I graduated from high school in 1997 and from college in 2001. I also remember taking note of 1985 because of Back to the Future, and of 1992 because of the Gulf War. Otherwise, I’ve never really made the connection between what year it is and my life events.

I measure time by pounds.

From the age of about fifteen until now, I can tell you what I weighed at any period of my life, within a five-pound error margin. My young adult life until now, for example, has occurred over a slightly fluctuating forty-pound time span. Forty pounds. Jesus.

I got my first job forty pounds ago. Prom was thirty-five pounds before today. I graduated from high school seven pounds after that, entered college about five pounds later, finally started getting my damned period five pounds after entering college, studied in London for about six pounds, tizzied through a whacko depression for five pounds, stabilized, and graduated from college six pounds after that. I’ve pretty much leveled out since then.

When I see pictures of myself, I automatically do the math in my head, figuring where I can place the picture along the great weight timeline, and how far away I am in the picture compared to forty pounds ago.

Force of habit. Boring, crazy force of habit.

To be honest, all vanity aside, that’s a big reason why I avoid looking at pictures of myself. The formulation of complicated, mythical algorithms is dumb and tiring. I end up looking for equations for wholeness where there are none.

~ Last Five Entries ~

Arm-in-Arm Down Burgundy - 09.05.05

Motivated! - 08.25.05

Moths, and Relative Nonsense - 08.18.05

I Finally Have Internet Access in my Bedroom. But, No Ashtray. - 08.09.05

Here I Am - 08.02.05

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