I had a hard working weekend. On Saturday, we, and by we, I mean me, took down all the Halloween decorations and put up all (ha, ha all 3) Thanksgiving decorations. DH did help putting the boxes back in the attic.

Chunguita harvested some of our apples. We have an Arkansas Black apple tree out front. I made a baked apples recipe. It was pretty good. We thought it would be better with vanilla ice cream, but it was not. At least, not with the ice cream that I got. The ice cream was too sweet.

On Sunday, we, and by we, I mean mostly DH, cleaned out our storm drain lines. When we bought the house, 18 years ago, DH fixed all the gutters and downspouts, dug trenches and installed irrigation pipes as storm drains, to carry the water to the street. He’s very concerned about water getting under the house. Well, they filled up with roots and no longer drained. It was hard work, but we snaked out the drains.

Anyway, I met this guy who paid a lot of attention to me at a party. I’d known him for a while, several parties, but he was all over me at that specific party. So, there was this Halloween party, and I was anxious that I would freak out if I saw him again, and he ignored me. I really liked the attention. It made me all hot for my husband.

The Halloween party comes, I dress up, and he tells me how hot I look. He didn’t ignore me, and it seems like we are back to our regular relationship. This is a good thing.

The party goes on. I dance, have a drink or 2, dance, and so on. Sometimes I’m dancing with my husband, sometimes random people from the party. I’m having fun, so I smile at people. This guy in a harlequin costume comes over to dance with me. He gets pretty close to me; I’m not really comfortable with it, but I will not be intimidated. I want to dance and have fun. So I dance, mostly ignore him, and try to get my husband to dance closer to me.

Harlequin guy comes back. This time he dances closer to me. I’d had more to drink, so I didn’t mind. I let him get close enough to hold me (no epimethean comments). So I leave the dance floor after that dance and sit down by a friend. We talk a bit. Harlequin guy comes back and asks me to slow dance. I say no. My friend abandons me (BASTARD!), and I give in to the unending begging to dance with a “Fine, whatever”. He was undeterred. So we are dancing in a more polite manner, and I ask him his name. He’s Mike; I tell him mine. Then I manage to mention that I’m wondering where my husband and daughter were. (Pulguito was off running around with a bunch of boys, so I was pretty sure where he was.) Mike says, “You have a husband? I can’t do this.” Harlequin guy/Mike leaves me alone.

Whew.

Where the fuck is my husband!

It’s time for the costume contest. My husband wins for scariest costume, but he is not there to accept, so I accept for him. I don’t win any of the contests (sniff), and I don’t win any of the raffle prizes either. Harlequin guy won a raffle prize. I sit down and examine DH’s winnings. Harlequin guy comes over, sits by me, and shows me his prize. Then he grabs me and kisses me.

Where the fuck is my husband!

Hey, and all my friends seem to have abandoned me.

Oh, wait, there’s Tom, so I jump up and run over to Tom. Tom is dressed as a woman, and his dress is falling down exposing his chest. I try to help him fix that.

Finally, my husband comes back. It’s late, and we all leave.

We join the after party at Tom’s after taking showers. Our friends were teasing us that we will shower together. No, DH makes that very clear.

At the after party, we give Tom a hard time about drinking too much. I tell everyone that I felt abandoned when they all left me alone with harlequin guy, and he kissed me, and I’m really grateful that Tom was there for me to retreat to. We finally leave the party and go back to our boat.

Does my husband compliment at all during the evening, even when everyone else is saying “How goddamn sexy I look”? No. He says nothing. Does he touch me? My hand, my snakes/wig, my shoulder, my arm, anything? No.

Does this open the door for ED? Oh, yeah. So ever since then I have been battling ED who is saying what a loser I am, how ugly I am, that I’m physically repulsive, etc. etc. etc.

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

I’m feeling down. Am I ever going to be free of ED?

Am I going to have to leave my husband to be free of ED?

I’m pretty sure that ED whispered to me “That one, him. He’ll let you keep me.” when I met DH.

Maybe I should call him BH for a while.

It makes me very sad.

Then ED came calling. It’s like a psychotic break. I’m sitting there beating myself up because I’m sure that I feel this way because I am fat, because I let myself get fat, so it’s all my fault. I bring myself down to the point where I get suicidal thoughts. Now I have skillz/toolz, tho, so I’m not actually suicidal. I just sat myself down and watched TV (distraction) until ED was gone.

So I get over that, and my mom calls. She’s been in the hospital since Tuesday, so Laila has been with Barbara & Pete who are the same age as my mom. It’s become too much for them. I’d take Laila, but she doesn’t like Lily or Bruno. So I called Mom’s vet/boarder and get things set up for Laila to stay with them. I call Mom back and tell her things are set up. She mention’s that my sister’s BFF is willing to dogsit, so I look up BFF’s phone number and call. No answer, but I leave a message. I call my sister and ask if BFF has a cell phone. She does, and I get the number. Sis says that BFF may be with a client today and unavailable. I call BFF’s cell and leave a message.

Then I wait.

So the time comes that if I want to get Laila to the boarder’s, I have to leave. I load up Chunguita, and we head for Oakland. Traffic is terrible, and it takes longer to drive there than usual. We park right by Mom’s which is very lucky, but I forget to pay the meter. When we check in, I need directions to Barbara & Pete’s. Finally, we get there and get Laila. B&P are old, so they are slow. It seems like forever to get out of there, and we are loaded down with all of Laila’s essential accessories. Back to the front desk to request entrance to Mom’s apartment. I don’t have a key. The apartment is on the other side of the complex, and a security guard will meet us there to let us in. Is the guard at Mom’s when we get there? Of course not. We wait. Guard finally gets there and lets us in. We dump Laila’s stuff and head out.

The vet/boarder is at Shattuck & Telegraph. I’m headed down 40th from Howe, and I turn left on Telegraph. That was not the right way to turn. Get it. Right way?

Anyway, we drove down Telegraph until it hit Broadway. Telegraph ends at Broadway, so at that point I knew we had turned the wrong direction. I turn around, by going around blocks, and head back up Telegraph. At last, we find Shattuck, but do I see the big pink building that is the vet? No, so I drive past it. Oh, wait, I can turn left! So I turn left, and turn right on 45th, another mistake. I thought I could easily go around the block, but I forgot about the interstate. So I have to drive over to MLK, Jr (could I have turned around? Oh, sure, thank you very much Epimethius) down to 52nd, left on Shattuck, and finally, we get there. My route They asked us to arrive at 4:15 because the check in process takes 45 minutes. It was 4:23.

We go in, and I learn that it takes 45 minutes to check in because you have to wait 45 minutes for the boarding tech to come talk to you.

Finally, finally, we get Laila checked in. We head off to Kaiser to see my mom and give her Laila’s leash.

By this time, Chunguita and I are starving, so we stop for dinner. So much for getting home at 5. We drive home without incident and arrive at 7:30. I’m exhausted.

She had anorexia. She had come home from college and came to group for the rest of the spring semester and summer. In the fall, she went back to school. She was doing well; her weight was back up, her brain was back, and she could climb a flight of stairs. Unfortunately, she’d suffered from heart problems related to the anorexia. Her college was at high elevation, and her heart couldn’t take it.

She was beautiful.

I don’t think anyone, except the psychologist at work, recognized how very sick I was, and even she would not have diagnosed me if I hadn’t sought her out. I mean, my public behavior and appearance would not have lead anyone to suspect an eating disorder. In 5 years, I have gone from wanting to isolate my self at home and not eat , to the above list of accomplishments. It’s been 5 years of hard work. If anyone is reading this is caught in the clutches of ED, you can change things. It’s hard, and it’s painful, but it’s worth it to go from killing yourself slowly to enjoying life.

I’m so tired of you dragging me down. I will be free of you. I will stop listening to you.
You are hateful, and you hurt me. You say ugly things and try to make me feel less than human.
I am not you, but we have been together for a very long time. I used to think you made me stronger, that you were a good tool that helped me cope, and sometimes, you were. However, you have caused me more damage than any benefit you’ve given me.
I’m notscared anymore, when I think of facing challenges without you.

Did I confront her? No, I’m not up to it. And I don’t believe it would change things. I believe that, aside from the cutting, she thinks that she is being healthy by not eating. She’s overweight, but that wouldn’t matter. Someone who is 66 inches tall and weighs 80 pounds thinks she needs to lose weight if she’s got an eating disorder. It will take some serious intervention and considerable therapy to change things for her, if, and it’s a big if, she wants to change things.

One of the thought distortions common in eating disorders is “perfectionism”. I’ve talked about this wrt exercise before. So, in an attempt to reorder my thinking about “exercise”, I decided that I would try stepping up and down on a step aerobic step while watching Heroes on my computer. I had 8 episodes of Heroes languishing on Tivo, so it made sense to me that I could use this as an opportunity to do something that I like, i.e. watch Heroes, that is something that I consider to be a pleasure. And while I’m watching Heroes, I can step, too.

So, I did the stepping thing last Wednesday and last Thursday. I was so sore Friday in the muscles in my calves that I could barely walk.

I was still very sore on Saturday which I spent 10 hours on my feet, hawking Decades of Style patterns at Maker Faire.

Good news: I stepped again this morning and have no soreness (yet?).