the more you know (cue music)
May 20, 2004, 6:31 pm

Yesterday I could pants myself if I tugged just right on my black capris. They were tight last summer.

People are starting to take notice; I can tell in their eyes when they look at some particularly loose fitting shirt I'm wearing that they knew once looked as if I were trying to hide a bowling ball and a rolling pin under my breasts...it's that "uh, what happened here?" look, and I'm getting it more and more.

I find myself eating lunch, eating breakfast, and turning down snacks that I'd once devour by the box if anywhere within my grasp. There were cupcakes in the English office this week; I left them alone (well, except to put my finger in the side and lick ONE finger of icing because I'm not invincible, OKAY?!?). I'm not invincible, and it's these moments like yesterday when I'm home and I'm stressed and I'm all weepy-1950s-era housewife-with-a-craving-for-bon bons-or-an-Oprah-watching-divorcee-with-a-hankering-for-cheesecake that I eat like I used to, look at my hands like people do when they've just killed someone in movies, and curse at myself while drinking three, four, five glasses of water and willing the carbs and calories to leak out of my body.

I have good days and bad days. When I have a string of good days, I struggle with a bad day, but I try to get back on track.

There's a bulletin board in the hallway that now says "The More You Know, The Less You Ate" (it used to say "HATE"...damn the bulletin board vandalizers!), and here's all I know:

*I win people over with my personality.

*I think if a boy sleeps with me, then I must be good because he wouldn't otherwise.

*I've been described as having "a pretty face"...it's true.

*I'll never be on The Bachelor.

*My knees should NOT hurt while climbing the stairs at age 25.

*If I want Gap jeans, I should be able to buy them.

*My friends think my alternate-world self would be a Hooters Girl, and as chauvinistic and stupid as it sounds, it still, on some low level, hurts.

*I never cared before, I mean, I cared, but I didn't want to do anything about it.

*My dad was right.

*This isn't as easy as it looks.

The more I know, the less I hate myself in the morning.