Yes, yet another whiny post about my (soon-to-be-ending) lackluster career.

So my closest coworker- in terms of distance and time spent together, NOT favorite person wise- can multi-task like no other. Me? If I'm told more than one thing at a time, I go haywire. My brain just doesn't like it. I can email and do work at the same time, which basically means I check my email and can make it look like I'm working. I have to listen to music when I work because it drowns out all of the background noise. Being a trained pianist, I quite like the music and have gotten accustomed to it.

The real grate, however, comes when my boss rattles off this huuuuuuuge list of things to do to my co-worker and I. She just ticks all the items off her to-do list, and I'm left floundering after task one. I just can't switch between tasks very well.

Then, in my regular perusals of ED research, I find this article: Impaired "Set-Shifting" in Anorexia Nervosa. Basically, set-shifting is the ability to transition between several different sets of tasks. People with impaired set-shifting have higher rates of obsessionality. Which sort of goes to figure, since obsessions mean you focus on one thing. I know you can extrapolate research too far, but I also find it odd that I listen to the same band for ages and ages before I get into another phase. Plenty of people do this, but for some reason, I only want to listen to one band, or one type of music, for upwards of a year. Yes, there are variations. Even I would get bored of the same album for an entire year. Maybe this has something to do with set-shifting; maybe it doesn't. But people have always called me incredibly focused.

Take that as you will.

Even knowing and understanding this, I still have issues with my coworker. First off, she was one of the original Weight Watchers Queens. I am jealous of her. I am. She gets to lose weight (and be complimented for it); I have to gain. Yippee. She's my boss' favorite in terms of work completed; I need constant reminders to keep my head screwed on straight. She has a boyfriend; I don't. She has friends; I don't. I know I have plenty of good qualities, but sometimes I just want to do this whole little toddler thing and go: It's NOT FAIR!

Of course it's not. We all want life to be fair, for good people to get good things and bad people to get bad. But no one is entirely good or entirely bad. Hence the phrase: shit happens.

But knowing, at least on some level, why I need to be told only one task at a time helps not only my self-esteem, but my ability to tell people what I need.

One thing at a time, people. One thing at a time.

I debated long and hard on my drive home from work over whether or not to write a post on this. But the more I thought about it, the more this particular story seems to highlight so much of our society's screwed up views on food, weight, and the role of parents.

I read a news article on my lunch break at work about an obese boy who social workers in the UK were attempting to remove from his home. Why? His mom wouldn't stop feeding him junk food, and wouldn't lock the fridge. They said that his weight and feeding habits were signs of parental neglect.

This baffles me, especially since the mother sought the advice of health professionals at the start of the year to help her son. Sure doesn't sound like neglect to me. The article also doesn't disclose whether the boy had any underlying metabolic disorders, citing privacy concerns. Which is all well and good, except they disclose damn near everything else, and any innate illness would make a big difference. I don't think you get a 200 lb eight-year-old who just likes potato chips a little too much. You just don't. There's something else going on there, something that sounds a lot like Prader-Willi Syndrome.

But at the end of the day, what really gets to me is that his mother is blamed for his situation. And what gets me thinking even more is both the difference and similarities with parents and anorexia. Say an 8 year old kid presents with anorexia. Would the parents be hauled into court for neglect? I can almost guarantee not. Society is, in my opinion, much more tolerant of low weights than of high ones. An 8-year-old with anorexia is in just as much mental and physical danger as an 8-year-old who weighs 200 pounds. But the whole obesity epidemic hype has gone a little bit too far. Does this boy have a weight problem? Absolutely. But I highly doubt that a little overeating and too much time in front of the telly could do something that drastic.

On the other hand, the parents of the hypothetical eight-year-old with anorexia will probably have their parenting skills called into question, too. "How could you let your kid DO this?" they might ask. You very well might ask that of the parents of a child with cancer. "How could you let this happen?"

There are skilled parents, and there are not-so-skilled parents. Even the children of skilled parents- like me- fall ill with diseases for which we know little about. This boy's mom is single, and suffers from depression. When I was young, my mom suffered from depression too. It makes parenting a whole hell of a lot harder- when I'm depressed I can hardly remember to feed my cat, let alone comprehend how to care for a child. Parents are people. They come with their own issues. Mothers aren't made saints when they pop their first child out from the womb.

I'm glad the boy is getting help. I hope his mother does, too, so they can all grow up to be happy and healthy.

Behold the power of the golden fork!

So. Because my co-workers seem to be stuck on food and weight as a topic of conversation, I have come up with a list of 33 Other Topics to discuss. May the gossip begin.

1. Where’s the cheapest gas around here?
2. Are you a morning person or a night person?
3. Who was your first crush?
4. What TV shows are you hooked on?
5. What was the last novel you read?
6. What was your most awful class in high school/college?
7. Severus Snape- friend or foe?
8. Dumbledore- alive or dead?
9. Is global warning a true phenomenon?
10. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
11. What is your favorite band?
12. Toilet paper- over the top of the roll or behind it?
13. What is your dream car?
14. Do you believe in love at first sight?
15. What is the most adventurous thing you have ever done?
16. Baths or showers?
17. So how ’bout them Yankees?
18. What’s your favorite season?
19. What celebrity would you want to make out with?
20. Is bird flu all hype?
21. Was there a second gunman on the grassy knoll?
22. What’s your favorite shampoo or bath product?
23. What was your most embarrassing moment?
24. Have you ever had a crush on a teacher or professor?
25. Would you vote for a female president?
26. What movie has stayed with you long after the credits rolled?
27. If you could go back in history and change something, would you?
28. Lake, ocean or pool?
29. Should women be drafted into the military?
30. What’s the best piece of advice you've ever received?
31. Boxers or briefs?
32. Do you sudoku?
33. What's your favorite quote?

I also want to add: name 5 reasons why dieting sucks, but I figured that might spur on the food/weight talk, so I'll omit it. For now.

Diet talk is so...surface. Not shallow, necessarily, because there are HUGE self-esteem issues involved in basically hating the way you look enough to systematically deny yourself food. But even just coming up with this list made me realize how much of this "Big Fat Loser" contest has made me lose out (har dee har har har) on getting to know my co-workers. Most of them are nice, interesting people. Once they get their noses out of the Weight Watchers Points book, that is. And that's really sad. Really sad. I don't care about their thighs.

The son of one of the nurses where I work was recently paralyzed in an accident at work. You have to ask yourself: do you think he cares about the size of his thighs? He just wants them to function. At the end of the day, does any of this really matter?

No, I've never had delusions of grandeur and wanted to be a model. For one, I'm too short. For the other, I'm a klutz.

However, everyone can now be a model. Seriously! Check this video out.



The Hole - video powered by Metacafe

And turn up the volume. That really makes the video.

Everything isn't always what it seems. Go Photoshop!

This must have been the weekend for big news: I'm also going to be an aunt! Holy crap, peeps!

There is also, however, this sense of distance from me and the rest of the world. Life has a strange way of happening to me, rather than me happening to life. The strange, strange world of anorexia recovery (or, for that matter, the strange, strange world of anorexia itself) has a way of separating you from the events going on around you.

My brother and his wife are expecting their first child. I am moving home until I go to school in the fall.

There's a bizarre discord there. Yes, I know in many ways I am more mature than my brother, even though he's almost five years older than I am. I also have way the hell more hair, though way the hell more gray hair as well. Win some, lose some, I suppose.

I'm not trying to compare lives here, even though that's sort of inevitable. We are where we are in life, blah blah blah. While that's true, it's also true that I feel quite odd moving back in with my parents just as my brother is expecting his first child. He's going to have- holy crap!- a family. I have...a cat.

My kitty is lovely, and I wouldn't trade her for anything. I also love my parents.

But at the end of the day, I go to sleep in my girlhood room (all 9 feet by 9 feet of it) by myself. Okay, myself and a stuffed animal. I can never shake that loneliness, that sense of drifting and floating, suspended above the life around me. That lack of connection was what really pushed me over the edge into the abyss of depression this past December. The anorexia had so isolated me from everything, that I'm having a hard time catching up.

I hate feeling all "oh, pity me" and I absolutely HATE being pitied. I have a good life, all things considered. Part of me would like to swap some parts out, but that's not the way it works, and I can deal with that. Life is a chain reaction. If I never would have gotten so depressed, I never would have had my parents drop off a book written by a graduate of the Johns Hopkins program. I never would have gotten to the point of being so disgusted with my present existence that I was willing to take a leap into the unknown.

I don't have a whole lot of belief in fate. Or destiny. People have too much of a tendency to wind up where they're going. Was I destined to be a writer? Hell if I know. But once I started down this path, once I first saw my name in print, there was no turning back. I could still choose to do something else in my life besides write. I could, but I don't know that I'd want to. Maybe I'll find something more interesting, maybe I won't.

I just need to accept that my life is going to look waaaaaayyyy different than my brother's. We are so completely different, so why would I expect us to be the same?

I got in!

To Johns Hopkins!

Science/Medical Writing Program!

With an 80% scholarship!

Baltimore here I come!!!

I haven't posted for the past two days, mainly because my thumbs were so sore. I took a beading class Thursday night and basically shish-kebobed my fingers on 22-gauge sterling silver wire as I learned how to make loops.

My first loop was not very...well...loopy. It looked like a Crash Test Dummy loop that had been mangled and wrecked on my round-nosed pliers. But the teacher said, "Try again." I made another loop. If not circular, it at least looked ovular. Then she said, "Make another one."

I wanted to remind her that this wire ain't cheap, but she said the only way to learn is to break a little wire.

So I made yet another loop. And another. And another.

I'm no loop expert- far from it, in fact. By thumbs were bloodied from twisting and contorting the wire into the proper shape. But I had half of a pretty, delicate, beaded bracelet. I won't be able to sell it with the rest of my designs, but at least I will be able to enjoy it.

One of the other key things I learned during this class is the necessity of proper tools. My instructor had very few actual tools made for "beading." Nope, this girl shopped in the Craftsman section at Sears. A girl after my own heart. She knew which tools worked best for her because she had tried so many out. During the class, I had tried out a bunch of different tools and decided that some were really useful, others not.

It's so much like recovery. Not every tool will work for every person, although there are some basics that pretty much everyone will need. The kinds of jewelry you can make are endless, and so is recovery.

The idea of creating things, even just necklaces and scarves, is so innately appealing to me. I don't have a God complex, but there is such a moment of pride in realizing, "I made that. That came from ME." And so amid the scraps of wire and yarn, scissors and beads, or the flashing cursor on my laptop, I create.

And create and create and create.

Along with the realization this morning that I was going to have to spend half and hour scraping the snow and other winter detritus off my car that had accumulated overnight, I also realized: crap. I was going to have to go clothes shopping.

I've never been a fan of clothes shopping, my motto basically being: get in, get out, get done. There's a reason I have such brand loyalty- it's so much easier to find pants that fit. I'll "explore" with shirts, but it's the standard pants for me.

Now, with weight restoration (i.e., weight gain and every anorexic on the face of this planet knows the meaning of the euphemism so why bother?), I understood at least tacitly, that I was going to outgrow my sick pants. You know, the jeans with which you measure your worth, the ones that, if droopy at the waist, means you have been a good girl.

Those jeans are now suction-cupped to my ass. I can hardly breathe. I feel like a complete hippo.

Of course, all of the other women at work are going clothes shopping, but for the opposite reason: their pants are too big.

That makes me feel like I've been the quarterback for the losing team in the Superbowl, and not wearing any protective gear. Why oh why do they have to be doing their damn contest NOW? Couldn't they wait (ha!) until I inched my way out the door?

But that would mean life would be fair and recovery would be easy (easi-er, at any rate).

There is nothing I am dreading more than walking into a dressing room and not knowing what size to request. Not all that long ago, I just asked for the smallest one and hoped it wouldn't fall off. Now I feel I need to go into the maternity section to find something that will fit my cellulite-laden frame. I feel like my weight is shooting through the roof. I have either been losing or maintaining for the past 3 years, and the concept of gaining really has me antsy.

Losing weight is good and gaining is evil. That's all there is to it. Every female in America (and probably a good portion of the men) know it in their bones. We have, thankfully, passed the "New Year's Resolution" diet phase. Now, however, we are about to embark on the next great yearly landmark in dieting: the bathing suit.

I always wore t-shirts over my bathing suits because, well, let's just say I go from girl to lobster in under 15 minutes. That had more to do with practicality than style. I have worn a bathing suit about three times in the past five years. I am not looking forward to this prospect. I am not looking forward to making peace with the fact that the size of my jeans may contain two numbers, both of which are not zero. I do not like this and I am more than willing to share it.

But is it that I don't fit the pants, or that the pants just don't fit ME? "Oh I'm too fat for these pants!" we lament, staring at our butts and thighs in the three-way mirror. I have to remind myself- dude. They're pants. Do I really want a piece of fabric to have this much control over my life?

So, when I brave the malls this weekend, I will find pants that fit ME, that are perfectly me-sized. I refuse to waste any more time trying to make myself fit my pants.

I thought I had quite nicely expanded my horizons when I lived in Scotland for six months and studied at the University of Aberdeen. I learned how to drink beer like a man- a skill which, I am proud to say, I have since forgotten. I learned that I could find lodgings in any town, big or small, on basically no notice. I accompanied world-class musicians in open music nights in dimly lit smoky pubs (simultaneously learning the whole drinking-like-a-man thing). Lastly, I learned that such a thing existed as a deep-fried Mars bar.

And who said Scottish cooking sucked?

Life with anorexia was completely different. For me, it consisted of three things: the scale, the treadmill, and the calorie counting guide. I was too afraid of anything else. It was so much like when I was walloped by OCD in high school. I wanted to stop washing my hands, I wanted to NOT be afraid to go out in public or eat at a restaurant without thinking about how many germs were crawling all over the damn place. But I couldn't. Yet the anxiety that would accompany not washing or not counting calories was so overwhelming that I felt basically compelled to do it.

It was a singularly dull, miserable life.

Now, however, I am turning things around. My latest fascination, besides crochet, which is still holding its own, is beading. I've gotten quite into it and am almost ready to set up an online store to sell some of my creations. I am trying my hand at fiction writing, though it sounds awfully autobiographical at this point. Tomorrow night I am taking a basic beading class. I have picked up the basics on my own, but I want to make my stuff look more professional. So I can charge more.

This summer, I am hoping to go on a trip out west, to see all of those really cool national parks they have in the travel shows, and to go hiking. Now, the strange thing is that even eating a french fry is expading my horizons.

For someone with OCD, beading and crochet and other repetitious crafts are therapeutic because they tap into the very parts of my brain that are giving me trouble. Yes, OCD and anorexia are problems. I will be the first to deny that. But there's also a sense of calm that accompanies focusing them on something different.

I suppose this is where the chipper writer signs off and says brightly, "Who knows what my life will bring?" Though this is true, I have never been classified as chipper. Ever. Not unless I've had a double triple latte with about 80 packets of sugar. The simple fact is that none of us know what tomorrow will bring, none of us know how we will handle it, what will come of everything.

There is a certain kind of relief in knowing that I can handle it. Whatever it is.

See, here's the weird thing about working with a bunch of women on a diet. All they talk about are fat grams, calories, and clothing sizes. I feel like I'm back in treatment! One woman was talking about how glad she was to fit into an old pant size. Yippee for you.

The lady who is in charge of this "Big Fat Loser" contest knows about my eating disorder, having told her in order to have her remove those damn posters in the break room (er, weight room?) She has been singularly kind and sensitive. She even checked my book out from the library. This tickles me greatly; however, I kind of wished she would have bought the silly thing from me. I could have autographed it! And earned a couple of bucks! Gone for a latte, even!

Ah, the days when I had money.

So I'm assuming, since this woman has read nearly 3/4 of the book, that she has a little bit of a clue about eating disorders.

Wrong.

She was tallying the weight loss, and trying to decide in determining the winner/loser for the week whether it should be average pounds lost per person, or average pounds lost per percentage of body weight.

Aren't there bigger things in the world to worry about? Trust me, your ass isn't that big. It isn't nearly on the level of, oh I don't know, world peace and such. If you ask me if I think you're fat, you better know I'm not going there with you. It doesn't matter if I think you're fat, it matters if YOU think you're fat. Half the time when I asked that question, I was kind of fishing for compliments. I wanted to be told how great I looked, how thin I was, how svelte. People didn't see the sallow skin, the dark circles, the protruding bones. I was thin.

How boring.

I think that's a lot of what irks me about this whole weight loss shenanigan. I'm bored of it. Almost bored to tears. I have spent the last seven years of my life thinking basically about food and weight. I don't want to hear much more about it. If you want nutrition information, save yourself the trip to the website and just ask me! I could write the book on nutrition.

If only I could figure out how to read the darn thing.

Here's the interesting thing about supporting someone with an eating disorder: they're often not in control of their own judgements, especially those involving food. And to someone with anorexia, just about every judgement has to do with food, at least in part.

When I was in residential treatment, and one of the day patients was going to head back to her apartment after dinner, one of the Resident Assistants requested that she stay at the house until later so she wouldn't purge. Looking her straight in the eye, Mel said: I trust you. I don't trust your eating disorder. That sent a powerful message to the girl. It said that Ed is untrustworthy, not you. It said that she would NOT let Ed harm her in any way if she could prevent it.

Can I just say that I love Mel? My treatment experience there was what it was, but I miss her so much.

This past week was rough for me, and I found myself back in Ed's clutches. I was depressed and anxious and overwhelmed and I didn't know where to turn. My job (which I felt pressured to return to) was literally making me crack under the pressure, not helped by the fact that I don't particularly like it all that much. I didn't even have the energy to fight off the ED thoughts. It became quite evident on Thursday night, when I finally reached out to my mom.

I need constant reminders of why I need to eat. I didn't have those reminders right then.

At my therapy appointment yesterday, I talked to S who said that she figured that going back to my apartment and old job probably wouldn't work. This was not said unkindly, just in the matter-of-fact way that characterizes our work together. I did cringe, just a little bit. Partly because she didn't think I would make it, and partly (okay, mostly) that she was right. I knew, deep down, that this was a dumb idea, but I was so lost for other ideas that I just said, screw it, I'll go back.

But then S said something that really made me think about how far I've come in recovery. She said:

I didn't want you to go back, but I also had enough faith in you that you would make it work if you could. I also trusted you enough to bail if the situation was hampering your recovery. I wanted to give you that opportunity to learn.

Damn. That says a lot right there.

Trusting someone with anorexia is a hard deal. Is it Carrie speaking, or is it Ed? Could this harm her recovery? Are there ulterior motives? And on and on.

In spite of everything, I decided to move back home and try to find a new job. I decided I needed much more help in refeeding than I thought. I simply need that support. I need someone to say "I believe in you so much that I'm not willing to let you fail."

I'm realizing the cheese factor in this post is getting almost unbearable. But the work of recovery has completely wrung me out, and I can't go on without someone helping me along. The helping hands were outstretched for so long, only I didn't grab hold. Yes, I could be dragged out of my well of despair, and perhaps I should have been.

But this time, I'm grabbing hold and not letting go.

Life with anorexia is like a can of Chicken and Stars soup: you always know what you're gonna get.

Damn. That's pretty philosophical coming from me, seeing as I had to drop my ethics class in college because the professor looked exactly like Shaggy from Scooby-Doo and I just couldn't quite take it seriously.

But for those who say that variety is the spice of life obviously don't know someone with anorexia and OCD. Because I'm not a gal who likes variety. If variety is spice, then that spice is like doing a shot of pure capsaicin. Not pleasant.

Life without my eating disorder was, to me, quite unpredictable. It was like getting served different soup everyday, only half the time I hated it, and most of the rest was barely tolerable. But then there was the Chicken and Stars out of the can. Not exactly haute cuisine- in fact, basically it was the exact opposite. Condensed soup- does a body good. But every can of Chicken and Stars was the same. It was reliable. I knew what I was getting, and even though it wasn't my favorite, I could deal with it.

Then something odd happened. I didn't just have to have Chicken and Stars soup. I had to buy it from the same store. Then I could only eat the same lot number. And on and on. Soon I found I had to count the itty-bitty stars in the can before I knew it was "safe" to eat.

Now, I'm going back to the buffet table. I don't like this. I miss the Chicken and Stars, I really do. I know there are many many better soups out there, but the safety of Chicken and Stars was comforting. It took the edge off of the anxiety that ruled my life in every other area. I don't like getting different soup every single day.

The problem is that so many people around me (the dieters at work, for example) are discovering the joys of Chicken and Stars, while I am having to leave the familiar red and white can behind. Maybe it's different for them, maybe they can go back to the smorgasbord of soup that is life whenever they want. Maybe I don't have that ability- at least not without hospital stays and years of therapy.

I feel like a toddler: I WANT MY CHICKEN AND STARS, DAMMIT!!!

I am only beginning to learn that life, by its very nature, is unpredictable. And that I have the ability to deal with that, to accept that shit happens, and it will be okay. That I can handle it, head on, that I don't need Chicken and Stars to dull the anxiety. Maybe I thought I did before. I don't like that itchy feeling that comes with uncertainty.

But I am finally coming to ditch the can.

There are so many things in life. For a long time, there was nothing that made me want to get out of bed and greet the world. Absolutely nada. I didn't care, I didn't want to care, I practically couldn't care.

I'm not saying that now I leap out of bed with joy, fling open the blinds and say "Good morning sunshine!" No, I whack the snooze button as long as humanly possible, roll out of bed at the last minute, and immediately make a beeline to the coffee pot. I am NOT a morning person. I'm a night person- I love the silence, the quiet. It's a nice contrast to the constant buzzing of thoughts in my head, thoughts that swarm like bees, and occasionally sting.

However, I still get up and greet the day, however begrudging it may be. I ask myself why? Not so long ago I decided hell with it and attempted to not see another sunrise again. Ever. So what is it that enables me to put my feet on the floor, even as I curse God, the Greek gods, the Egyptian gods, and every other religious icon I can think of that I have to wake up so damn early.

My cat's eyelashes. I never knew that cats have eyelashes, but they do. Teeny tiny things, but eyelashes nonetheless. Just watching them, as Aria glances around the room. Also her fascination with a flushing toilet. I can't help but chuckle as her head follows the swirling water.

Seeing the next day on my page-a-day calendar. It's a crochet pattern one, and I almost always enjoy seeing what other people thought up. Yesterday's was for an itty bitty friendship bra.

Going into a yarn or bead store and just putting together items in my head. Then, seeing the final product.

I have made a pact with myself that I will not even think about trying to off myself until the last Harry Potter book comes out. I'm not saying I have any plans to stay up all night reading, snap the book shut and then chug a liter of Drano. Not at all. But I've been waiting almost 7 years to see how everything turns out, and there's no way I'm going to give up with only 6 months to go.

I still haven't exactly found a reason to live. But I can cling to reasons to keep going.

Wanting to recover from an eating disorder is one thing. Doing the actual work is another.

But then there's the emptiness left behind, that gaping hole of what used to be, those what ifs, which continue to haunt me. I have made a tentative peace with the "what if" questions that never seem to cease in my head. What if I had never decided to lose weight? What if I hadn't gotten help when I did? What if I had remained well enough to submit my Rhodes Scholar application my senior year in college? What if? What if? What if? My past is what it is, and I am where I am. Maybe I would have been a Rhodes Scholar. Hell if I know. But I do know that I am also the author of two books, and hopefully about to embark on a career as a writer, a prospect of dubious likelihood for Carrie, Rhodes Scholar.

There is the other emptiness, that sense of what is and what will be. Going home to an (almost) empty apartment, day after day. The slow evolution of the question of "Do I eat?" into "What do I need to eat?" and finally into, "What do I want to eat?" The vast expanses of time spread in front of me, time that used to be spent exercising, counting calories, or reading recipes. Time that Ed tries to lure me into spending with him, usually doing one of the above three activities.

It's a lonely, hard road, and though people walk it with me, they can never walk it for me. Nor should they. We each have our own paths in life, paths we think are easier or more difficult than our own. Whether that's true or not is a matter of debate. The one thing that isn't a debate is that, however the chips may have fallen, I am right here, right now, and I can always choose to go somewhere different, to change my own trajectory. I do it each time I fix myself a meal or a snack, each time I am honest with my family and my treatment team.

I don't know what my life will be without ED. I just don't. I'm still forging it, still finding out each and every day what freedom will bring.

It struck me, as I walked around the aisles of the grocery store today, just now "normal" it was to diet. Yes, this has occurred to me before, but there's almost an unwritten assumption that you're trying to lose weight. Marshmallows have these big labels saying "Naturally Fat Free!" As anything that is 100% sugar typically is. All sorts of sweets and snacks are somehow supposed to be good for you (or at least cause less guilt) because they have "whole grains."

Yes, your diet- meaning typical daily intake of food- is intricately related to health. Absolutely. The consumption of omega-3 fatty acids can help with depression. When I don't eat enough fats, I can't absorb Vitamin K, a clotting factor, and I have these disgusting bruises all up and down my shins. And so on. This isn't exactly newsbreaking. What is bizarre is the almost complete lack of emphasis on the dangers of dieting.

The whole model/anorexia debate, as played out, ironically enough, on the cover of People magazine, is good in that it draws attention to the dangers of anorexia and bulimia, but not always so good in that all the chips aren't on the table. Models, modelling, and looking at models do not cause anorexia or bulimia. Eating disorders are not a diet gone a little too far. The link isn't causal.

The dangers of ultra-skinny models go beyond just triggering eating disorders. It makes the tell-tale behaviors (eating low fat, no fat, no cal foods, binge eating, overexercising, purging) seem quite standard and ordinary. If a young teen says that he or she is going on a diet, no one will likely bat an eyelash. It might even be written off as an obsession over Kate Moss. In my office, everyone is dieting. Together. It is more odd that I am not than that I am. A young teenage girl is much more likely to be at a more advanced stage of her eating disorder upon diagnosis because it all seems so freaking normal.

I was lucky. My rapid weight loss was so absurd, so seemingly unprovoked, that my mom picked up on it quickly. By then, of course, I had already dropped 10 pounds and malnutrition had thoroughly set in. Even then, it gave Ed much more ammunition to use to lull me and my loved ones into thinking that everything was normal, everything was fine.

Duh. Doesn't everyone want to lose weight? I'm on a diet, I'm just eating healthy, exercise makes me feel great (in the 100 degree Atlanta heat in the middle of the day for an hour and a half). No one noticed. In fact, I was solicited for advice. Two days before I was found to have a pulse of 44 and a blood pressure that was completely undetectable.

So this whole model thing goes quite beyond just triggering eating disorders. It can then sustain them. Normalize them. Make anorexia (at least on a moderate level) seem somehow enviable.

It's hard not to look for the low fat options. I feel guilty when I don't buy them, when I have to ask for a larger size in the dressing room. Tell me that these standards are unhealthy all you want, but they're still standards. They're ingrained upon me. I have to make a conscious effort, every hour of every day, in order to fight these things.

There's a part of me that would like to run out and change the world, but all I want to do anymore is live in it and be accepted no matter how large and untoned my butt is, or how odd my tastes in clothes, books, and music might be.

Really that's all.

I went to a local bar and grill for dinner with my parents- a hometown sort of microbrewery. It's really cool, a converted warehouse, with wood floors and stainless steel fittings. So I do the usual open-the-menu business, look at the "Burgers" list and discover...

...the Eddie Burger!!!!

I looked closer: ground beef, bacon, onion rings, and bleu cheese dressing, and homemade fries on the side. I am not typically a bleu cheese kind of girl- ranch is much more my schtick. But I didn't argue. The chance to eat a fabulous item of food, previously forbidden, that was also named "Eddie," well, I couldn't pass it up.

Gave Eddie a good bite in the rear, if you know what I mean.

Much of my recent success in recovery has not been due to any prophetic revelations or blinding realizations. Nope. I know I have to eat, I know I have to gain weight, etc. I've known that for quite some time. Most of that time, I either didn't care enough to try, was too scared of succeeding (or that matter, failing), to actually see it through. This past time as a day patient, I had the absolutely sinking realization that insurance wasn't going to help, treatment wasn't going to pander at my doorstep, none of that. It was going to have to be ME. Yes, me with support, but ME.

I am finishing up an audio book called Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. It's his memoir of a life as a chef, not necessarily a surprising choice by a recovering anorexic. However, one of the segments that stuck in my head as I was on my drive home from work was him and his three friends, sitting in a cab, looking to score some dope. He made the little lame joke that only one in four people detox successfully. He said he looked around and said, "That guy is gonna be ME. I am going to do this successfully." And he did and his friends didn't.

Aside from the fact that this is a good, if slightly off-color, read, I realized that Bourdain's determination is the same one that is now fueling me. I am going to beat this thing. Half of the "professionals" I've met with have told me I'd never get better, I was chronic, I was hopeless, I didn't have a chance. I know that the prospects for long-term anorexics like myself isn't necessarily the brightest. But I AM going to beat this. I am going to be that person.

So watch out, Eddie. I bite back. And you taste good.

Some people say they want to be like a celebrity. Or someone famous. Or a billionaire. Or someone who owns a private island in the South Pacific.

Me? I just want to be like my cat.

On second thought, I just want to BE my cat.

How much better can a life get? She's charming and attractive, she sits around all day and waits for people to come and adore her. Other people clean up her crap, she plays only when she wants to, and everything that comes in the door (people, purses, shoelaces, beads) is hers.

And she never, ever, looks in the mirror and think, "Does my fur make my butt look big?"

I love my furball, I have to admit it. She demands worship- not the idolatry type, just the "I am the best damn thing that ever set paw on this planet and you had better believe it!" This is, in fact, quite belied by the fact that she farts. Yes indeed, folks, I have a farting cat. Silent...but deadly. She's too lazy to kill mice (she found one in my parents' house once which she batted around to her heart's content, but eventually the poor little mouse got away), but she could just let loose a good one nearby and whoo boy! Aria's new perfume line: Cyanide by Aria. "It makes people faint in your midst."

She's my little Furry Prozac.

Yes this is shameless self promotion of one of my magazine columns. Deal with it.