My newspaper delivery carrier is on drugs. Or really stupid. 2008, June 29

i hate calling people stupid. but in 4 months of NY Times home delivery in st. pete, i have had at least EIGHT delivery probs with the paper. which means that i never know if the paper will be there. which means that MY SUNDAY STARTS OFF REALLY FUCKED UP when i wake up and look forward to getting the paper and having my coffee and my goddamn newspaper is not there. it actually really ANGERS me. i am not good with looking forward to something and then it not happening. i mean, really really really NOT GOOD with that at all. ahem.

i have gotten no delivery sometimes. once i got 2 identical halves of the paper but the other half was missing. once i got half nytimes and half st. pete times. and today i got the st pete times and not the ny times. not only do i not give a shit about the st. pete times, but we are talking about receiving a $1 paper instead of a $5 paper. it’s not hard to figure this out — the local paper comes in clear plastic and the good paper comes in BLUE. i mean, it’s not like you can accidentally pick up the wrong one and NOT NOTICE. now i have to wait and see if they redeliver, what time they decide to do so, whether they’ll even deliver the right thing, and, my favorite, whatever attitude they will have, which can be deduced from how they redeliver – a kindly throw, a harsh knock of anger at door, etc. and if they do redeliver, they drive away so fast that by the time i get to the door no one’s there so i have never seen this person/people. and i’m sure they’re the ones angry at me, since they have to go re-do something they fucked up hours earlier.

what the fuck?

my sunday NY Times is my sunday morning ritual. everyone knows this. some people go to church or brunch or whatever. i carefully unwrap my paper, divide the sections (there is a proper reading order that must be followed), and lovingly place the paper on the table. i make coffee (today it’s even ready to go, just have to press the button) and as the aroma fills the apt my anticipation doubles, for the crisp black-and-white pages, the coffee i will enjoy, and the joy of seeing what is on the cover of the magazine. this is an all-day process. it defines my sundays. i don’t even get to the crossword until dark, it’s just not right.

all this over a newspaper? yes. b/c it’s not just the paper. it’s my WAY TO RELAX AND ENJOY SUNDAYS. I am neither relaxed nor happy (and duh, yes, that is usually the case, but my sunday ritual helps, ok?). I can’t even calculate how much coffee to drink and when without knowing if or when the paper will be here. and don’t get me started on omg, what if i was going to get a latte today.

motherfuckers.

Happy Hour Haikus 2008, June 28

Drinking with colleagues
Can be a dangerous thing
I think it went well

Chatted with my boss
Five dollar cosmo special
Think job still secure

Awesome to be there
Got to know people better
Some think I am cool

Made some new friendships
Hope they last beyond the bar
Had a real good time

It’s getting a bit severe 2008, June 25

The whole loneliness thing. It does not help that I loathe my body at the moment and yes, the 2 are related. Because when I loathe my body and find it utterly disgusting, then I feel like I will be alone forever b/c hell, I don’t want me like this, all gross and damaged, so no one else will. People don’t evenw ant to be friends with what I have become, which is, ugh, the Fat Girl. So, so, so ashamed. Really, am almost crying now. I could have prevented this. I blame it a lot on stress (I have had A LOT of it this year) from the past few months what with the job hunting, then new job, the moving, the moving again, the having my stuff stolen, the anger at having my external HDs gone which means there goes concert vids of The Frames and vids of my baby cousin (thank god I had uploaded some jordyn vids and some damien onto Vimeo, as well as George b/c if I had lost my GM vid I think I would seriously need to hurt the douchebag that took my stuff). So yes, stress. But still, all I need to do is stop eating so much. Well, I don’t actually eat a lot, but all I eat is junk food, absolutely no nutrional value whatsoever and I think my body may have forgotten what the hell protein feels like. Chocoalte, though, and cookies and pastries and ice cream and fries — it knows those all too well. I hate bitching about the body issue. It’s not even dysphoria b/c it is true. I know it is “extra true” when people I know don’t contradict me when I say I am fat, fat, fat. Also, if I take a picture and think I’m all smiles and ok, then I actually look at it and see this huge mass of flesh that happens to have my head on top of it. Then I stop smiling and quickly stop looking at the pic, probably delete it or crop modt of myself out of it. It has been extremely difficult to set a weight loss goal. I have done it before, so many, many, many times and I think at a certain point that is not motivation, just discouraging that, well in the simplest BPDish term possible, I messed up yet again!

Surprisingly, even after writing the above, I am a little less harsh on myself than I have been in the past. Sometimes I lost my cool when I want to wear an outfit and it won’t fit. But I still dress up nice to work and even though I see all the fat, I still feel like I put together cute outfits. I look at myself in the mirror in the mornings, acknowledge that I am obese, but then I try to see what shoes go with my outfit and when I see the fat I am all like, well, what can I do about it at 7:30 am?

But the loneliness. Oh dear god. I’ve even started praying (do. not. judge. OR. laugh.) b/c at least jeebus is someone to talk to, no?

I stayed up late last night to watch Craig’s show instead of using the DVR. I kept rewinding each time he made an extra sexy face [oh my, what he did with that feather the other night!] or said something filthy [that's a lot of rewinding] and I realized that I was succumbing to my fantasy life again. You know, the one where I wish I could be with him and we could laugh together and hang out with his son and go on vacation. And of course, share a bed every night (and you bet there would be touching. lots and lots of touching. please, i already inappropriately stroked the back of the man’s neck -taurus errogenous zone- when i met him before. i can just imagine what else…) See the problem? When my real life makes me sad and I feel stuck, I totally crawl back into my daydreams and fantasy life. This is not a healthy way to live. I know this.

But back when I was 13 or so (actually younger, I remember being 8 and having celebrity crushes and wanting to be friends with them) I really used this as a survival tactic. I had a miserable home life with a douchebag that made me feel worthless b/c of his own insecurities (he’s short, has really tiny feet that makes it hard to find shoes, is stupid, etc.). So I had to go into my fantasy world to escape my reality because I was stuck in it, really stuck at 14 and 15, you know, and all I could think of was that it had to be better somewhere else. I clung (literally to my pillow named George) to George Michael and his music. I thought of him every day and would talk to him in my mind. This is not insanity. This was survival. It’s why I have always wanted to tell him “you saved my life.”

I should have outgrown this by now. But the BPD was so ingrained that I just made this my regular way to live, without thinking of the harm it caused me. Now I see that I have to do things differently. But the thing I struggle most is the loneliness, the being alone. IT HURTS. IT IS EXTREMELY PAINFUL (and shameful) AND DID I MENTION IT REALLY, REALLY HURTS TO THE POINT THAT I CAN’T BREATHE SOMETIMES. And then I feel there’s nothing I can do about it, so I ‘look to my eskimo friend,’ so to speak, and while it might make me realize my loneliness even more, the fantasy is at least something I can have, when I have nothing else.

Goddamn, since I closed the BPD blog this is such the confessional. I wonder how it comes across. Whiny? Pathetic? For me, it’s simply, honest.

Oh, I have pictures of my ‘fantasy boys” at work, tacked on to a wall area of my cube. A new girl started last week and saw my ‘decor’ and said…”So, you like men.” Yes, I do. But the real ones scare me. So I spend my day looking at GM and Glen Hansard and David Beckham and several pics of Ferguson. How do I solve this? I have no idea. This is where I revert to “i can’t.”

Yeah, it does sound pathetic. I need help. I need to figure this out. But I am stuck. That’s not a good place for me to be. Not good at all.

If it wasn’t for work… 2008, June 24

Today I got the most awesome feedback I have ever gotten at a job. And I’ve only been here a little over a month.

I got both an awesome email from my boss, which she copied her co-manager and boss on! And then I got a shout-out, which is an actual piece of paper that employees get from our manager when we do good.

Of course, instead of thinking I am doing well, I am having work dreams where I freak out, and I actually fear (daily, is it?) being fired and that I am not doing enough or messing up or what have you.

I think this corresponds with the lovely bout of depression. I am not only mentally and emotionally mot in a great place, but physically I feel like total shit (and look like total shit and I am not exaggerating). Meanwhile, I see happy news from a bunch of people around me. I can now be happier for people, less BPD-me-me-me-jealous-of-all-why-doesn’t-anything-good-ever-happen-to-me… But also, am a bit jealous. And sad that the good things I want aren’t coming my way and/or I am not able to make them possible (often due to my own stupidity, fear, sabotage, I dunno). And yeah, I realize I just wrote that I did good at work, but sometimes, when the old thinking hits, I am, as I have said a many a time, just like the Prince song: she’s never satisfied.

Mixed Feelings. Take some stress, add a HUGE amount of loneliness, a bit of confusion, and a dash of self pity (go slow on that one, trying to give it up). 2008, June 20

My good news for today is this lovely email confirmation (even though tickets went on presale early monday w/o any damn notice, so i am not in the first row, and fine i am in row F, and that’s awesome and stuff, but i am higher):

You purchased 2 tickets to:
Craig Ferguson
Lakeland Center Youkey Theatre, Lakeland, FL
Sat, Sep 20, 2008 08:00 PM 

Lakeland is about an hour away and I have no idea why Craig will be there. I, of course, will be there b/c he is there. In the last issue of People mag there is an article about him (way to go) and he looks so fuckin’ gorgeous in the picture of him in the leather jacket leaning against his airplane. Hot damn. Then you turn the page and see the pic of the bitch, er, girl he is dating and it’s ok if you throw up in your mouth a little bit b/c it is not you. Actually, because it is not me. I want it to be me. ME, ME, ME! I actually got a little depressed when I saw that. Must get real life, I know. But that still seems like an insurmountable task. I haven’t figured that one out yet and am still dubious that I ever will. So I watch Craig and think about how dreamy and witty he is and wish I had someone like him who is gorgeous, makes me laugh, is damn intelligent, loves zombies, and hates cats.

I got the second ticket for S. I hope she can make it. She is very far away now, on a 2-week business trip. I miss her an insane amount. It sucks to be here without a friend. Like, it sucks a lot. Have I mentioned that everyone I work with is married or attached in some way? Everyone seems to be in their 30s or early 40s for the most part. Again, it emphazises that I am not where I SHOULD BE in my life (don’t tell me there’s no “should”…i have a “should”… it’s pretty much the same as where I WANT TO BE in my life). Awesome, am depressing self further. Anyway, S couldn’t be farther away unless she lived in Norway and her name had 4 letters and began with a K. She be in Thailand. :(

This has been the first week where I have felt like I have had more ownership of stuff at work and that I am “getting” this whole thing. It has also been the week where for the first time (this morning) I hit snooze 5 times. Last night I knew I didn’t want to come to work today. And when I finally got up I found that 2 of my 5 pillows were on the floor, so apparently I wrestled with stuff in my sleep (which also means no deep sleep).

I like my apt. A lot. But I sit in it by myself and that’s too much thinking time. Where am I? Why am I here? How do I get my life in order? I feel old and alone in the evenings and I HATE it. Last night I almost cried and I had strong urges to drink or search for maybe for half a Vicodin I still might have somewhere. This might be an absinthe weekend even though I’m pretty sure my own urine would taste better to me. Damn you Romantic poets for, well, romanticizing this for me. i think of Byron and Shelley and Coleridge, but that doesn’t really make the stuff taste better. If I had any of the pot, I’d spend my weekend stoned.

So, obviously, some sort of ‘real’ depression hit me over the head yesterday and then decided to stick to the rest of my body. It’s like ok, I’m starting to fix things in my life, but the things I want most are so out of my reach and it pains me to realize that chances are I will never get them. Physically and emotionally pains me. And there’s stuff I have so royally fucked up that I feel helpless on how to fix them. This would apply to money, of course. Other stuff, too, but I have to get out from under the financial wreckage I have caused. Even now with a couple of paychecks, I struggle. Because I am buried so deep. And also, I had a bad day recently where I was reckless and impulsive and I ended up having to teach myself a $650 lesson. That’s a pretty expensive way to learn. I regret the money, but not the lesson, because maybe that’ll teach me to think more and realize when my old impulses and reactions are coming back. So, my bad, but i took responsibility for it.

I don’t know what the weekend will be like. I still have unpacking to do, since things were so busy and effed up as I was moving, then there was the conference, etc. i still have furniture to build (yes, IKEA, of course). But I find myself less motivated. I want to create a home, but then I sit in it by myself, with no one to invite over, no one to hang out with me and sit on the couch and watch a movie, no one to put his arm around me when I need someone to.

I can’t help it. Feeling sad. I know I have to make the decision to move forward again, to be less afraid, etc. But, as always: How? And of course: Then what?

I hate when I feel like this. I end up feeling horrible about myself and then feeling worse when I overeat to try and make myself feel better for a minute. I end up missing a boy who was never even remotely mine (which is so beyond ridiculous and embarrassing). I end up wanting to reach out to people and then I want to cry because there is no one there.

I hope I stay up late tonight to watch Craig. I usually dvr him and watch later. But I could use me some Ferguson fantasy. Counterproductive, yes. But what else do I have at the moment? Well, on the telly I have a gorgeous man, with a European accent, an incredible sense of humor, and a dirty mind… I like that kind. I’ve wanted one of those before.