bitterfig

Amazing as it seems I've made it to and through Christmas without completely losing it. 

I was really dreading Christmas Eve, especially as I'd felt quite ill on the 23rd but didn't even have to work my full shift at the market.  I got sent home early and took advantage to go to a matinee of Youth Without Youth, the Francis Ford Coppala film starring Tim Roth.  It was very ambitious film.  Somehow it reminded me of something that might happen in Henry James, an American filmmaker aspiring to emulate the European masters but not quite knowing where they were coming from.  There’s some interesting stuff going on but it doesn’t quite come together, the scope is too broad and it ends up seeming haphazard and bizarre.  I was a bit disappointed; I’d really been hoping it would be a success.  Roth seems to make a point of working with interesting, prestigious directors (among them Coppala, Tim Burton, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog) but for some reason the films they make with him are rarely among their best.

 

My father wanted me to go to a Christmas Eve church service and I wanted to be lazy and stay home where it was warm so I ended up handling the situation in a passive aggressive sort of way and not finding out when local services would be then looking on the computer and not being able to find any and even going out and driving around and not being able to find any. 

 

Today I just kind of loafed around and read and worked on the bread dough ornaments I’m trying to make for gifts.  In the afternoon I went to see Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd  which is basically about what Leonard Cohen called “the homicidal bitchin’ that goes on in every kitchen to determine who will eat and who will serve.”  I liked a great deal, the design of the whole thing (Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp’s ghoulish make-up alone would have been quite enough to keep me captivated) and the songs.  Stephen Sondheim is such a wonderfully witty lyricist, so dark and funny and horrible.    The barber singing to his razors is as chilling as John Hinkley Jr.’s love song to Jodie Foster in Assassins.  I was also rather amused to note that Sweeney Todd starred half the cast of the Harry Potter films—Alan Rickman (Snape), Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange) and Timothy Spall (Peter Pettigrew).  Of course I loved the fact that Rickman played a nasty judge pursuing a much younger woman because it made the whole thing seem like a deliciously warped version of Sense and Sensiblity.

 

Presents.  Can’t forget presents. 

 

My parents and grandmother actually got their presents yesterday even though I didn’t mail them until Saturday.  I was very happy about that.  I was also very happy that I got a digital camera.  I’ve been wanting one for about a decade.  I am still in the process of figuring out how it works, but I managed to take some photos of myself looking ugly, both without make up and in my amateur attempt to duplicate the Sweeney Todd make-up….

( Trying out my new camera )

 

I’m feeling better.  I didn’t have work Tuesday so I worked on some of my Christmas art projects, then last night I managed to get through a closing shift without a crying jag or room spins for the first time since last Friday.

 

I pretty sure the efforts I’ve been making over the past month to get my weight back down have contributed to my recent difficulties.  I wasn’t exactly stable and well adjusted when I was eating 300 more calories a day, but I wasn’t quite so fragile.  I really have to ask myself, what’s more important to me?  Living my life and functioning or being thinner? 

 

There have been some difficulties in the past few days.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before I’m not going to my parents in New York over Christmas, I can’t because of work (there’s an official Time Off Blackout until 2008).  My sister and her family will be going to New York, so I will be alone on Christmas.  This doesn’t particularly bother me because between the food, the alcohol and the socializing holiday gatherings are mainly a source of anxiety and stress for me.  Also traveling around Christmas is a nightmare, especially when you toss in two small children and the biggest airport in the country. 

 

Basically I’m fine with not doing anything for Christmas.  I’m off work, I’ll go see Sweeny Todd or Youth Without Youth (first real starring role Tim Roth has had since I fell for him back in 2002).  I’ll work on the Christmas presents I’m making for my sisters and the kids.  I’ll write lesbian porn.  I’m very good at amusing myself. 

 

Unfortunately my family in New York is convinced that I’ll be thoroughly miserable, depressed and lonely.  My grandmother has written about how much she wishes I could be there for Christmas and how she hopes it won’t be too terrible for me staying in Chicago.  My mother has called repeatedly urging me to quit my job so I can come home for Christmas.  On Tuesday my father actually suggested it as well and he’s usually an advocate of responsibility and sticking things out.  I can tell he was really upset that I wouldn’t be able to be there and when he gets upset it upsets me.  My father isn’t an emotional person so when he does express his feelings it makes an impression. 

 

I think part of the reason my family in New York feels so strongly about this is that my Grandmother’s sister, my maternal Great Aunt, died last week in a sort of unpleasant way.  She was 93 years old and lived in Florida.  Basically decided she didn’t want to live anymore so she just stopped eating and drinking and died.  Given my history with eating disorders I suspect my family sees a certain parallel between her death and my constant struggle between whether I want a decent life or to be really, really thin. 

 

I wish there was some way where they could be happy and I could be happy.  Me being away upsets them but going back to New York would make me totally miserable.  As my brother-in-law so eloquently phrased it in a recent e-mail if I returned there would be “absolutely NO chance of advancing your career, finding anyone with teeth and not living with their parents for a relationship (or even a one night stand), no movies with a budget under 50 million dollars to see at the theatre, no lesbos....”  I might not have a blossoming career or girl/boy or girl/girl action at the moment but Chicago’s a big, bustling place and there are lot’s of possibilities.  Not to mention good movies. 

On Sunday I was working in the office but I took an hour off and met my sister and her family at the Renegade Craft Fair being held at the Pulaski Park field house.  I found a gift for my mother.  There was a vendor who made journal/sketchbooks out of old hardcover books.  One of them was made out of a 1951 Whitman Publishing company copy of Margaret Sidney’s The Five Little Peppers which was the exact same edition mum used to read us a chapter of every night for a bedtime story (she also read us Little Women and the Little House books this way.  I have my issues with mum but I do appreciate some of the things she did.)  She’ll either love it or think it’s horrible to cut up a book and make it into a journal. 

 

Last year I didn’t really give gifts as I was scarcely making my living expenses but I’m doing somewhat better now and am trying to get everyone something though I do wish I had more time and energy to make things.  In addition to the journal I also got my mother a pair of Bratz Lil’ Angelz holiday ornaments that she admired in Target when she was visiting.  They’re really cute with big heads and huge eyes.  I like dolls that are very exaggerated and cartoony and aren’t intend to look real.

 

I got my father a copy of the film To End All Wars, a film set in a prisoner of war camp during WWII.  I’d watched it a couple of months ago because I’m semi-obsessed with one of the actors who appears in it (Mark Strong) but I think he’ll find it interesting both for the historical element and it’s exploration of morality and spiritual issues.  It’s really an extremely powerful film, particularly in today’s climate where we’re being told that torture is acceptable and really being encouraged to view “the enemy” as less than human.  To End All Wars contains scenes involving a sort of primitive water-boarding and you realize it’s a horrible act of violence, not an “intensive interrogation” method.  Also, though the film is told from the perspective of Allied POW’s there’s a Japanese character, a translator, who is shown to be a kindred spirit to the narrator.  At its heart it really shows how honor codes trap men, Japanese and Western a like and how following the teachings of Christ is very much contrary to the ideas of good vs evil and us vs them that fuel wars. 

 

I’m also hoping to make some Christmas gifts.  A few days ago I bought some flour and salt (since I don’t actually have flour or salt in my apartment, the closest I get is textured vegetable protein and soy sauce) and am going to try and make bread dough ornaments.  I’ve haven’t gotten to it yet because 1) I had to work on stories that were due of 12/12 and 12/15 for 

fem_exchangeand yuri_challengeand 2) Winter weather makes my skin very dry and I get fissures in my fingers and I imagine kneading a dough made with a cup of salt would get very painful.  However I 've finished the stories and my hands seem to be healed so maybe tomorrow night....

 

It snowed on Tuesday night.  The first real snow of the year, everything blanketed in white.  I don’t like digging out my car or having to wear trekking around in boots but I’m still happy to have the snow, it makes it really feel like Christmas is coming. 

 

Mum stayed with my sister from Thursday until Sunday.  It was good to see her, but rather painful—she does push.  The minute she had me alone she started talking about how I should move back to upstate New York.  I could go back to work for the County and have health insurance that covered psychiatrist visits so I could have my medication monitored.  I could start a catering business using all the pots and pans she’s picked up at lawn sales and auctions.  At the very least I should quit my job at the market so I could come home over Christmas. 

 

I can’t help thinking that if I really meant as much to her as she says I do she’d accept my choice to live on my own in Chicago and not pressure me to move back home every time I saw her.  It’s very difficult for me to say no and I hate disappointing anyone but I have no intention of returning to my parents’ house. 

 

In fact, over the course of Mum’s visit she really reminded me why moving back is not an option.  She called and e-mailed from my sister’s constantly to make sure I was all right or just to inform me of what she was doing.  When I left my sister’s to return to my apartment she wanted me to call as soon as I got home.  When it rained on Saturday night she called several times to caution me to drive carefully.  On Saturday my sister’s family was taking her downtown to visit American Girl Place and have brunch with Ava, my brother-in-law’s mother.  I wasn’t planning on going because I had work later on and we’d discussed this but Mum still called early on Saturday trying to get me to come along and badgering until I had to say right out that I didn’t’ want to come because I haven’t been planning to come and I needed time to myself before work. 

 

This makes me feel inflexible and selfish, which I sort of am.  I realize that Mum feels persecuted and misunderstood by my father in New York and my sister in Chicago.  I’m very passive so I’ve always served as her ally, someone who will more or less go along with whatever she wants.  I don’t want to play this role but I don’t want to leave her on her own alone either, though in the end she’s going to have to work things out on her own.  That sounds harsh but I can’t sacrifice myself to appease her, which is what she expects from me.  

 

Not that her visit was unpleasant.  It was raining and my nephew was ill on Sunday so we didn’t go to see the windows on State Street as planned.  However we were able to go to some of the shops around the Damen/Division intersection with my sister which was fun.  Dozens of new shops have sprung up recently ranging from the super posh (Coco Rouge a high end chocolatier with a gorgeous décor combining red curtains and industrial design)  to the more accessible (Renegade Handmade, a shop put together by vendors from the Renegade Craft Fair).  I’ve started looking for Christmas gifts for people.  It’s not going to be easy on my budget but hopefully I can get small presents or make something for everyone. 

I made it through Thanksgiving intact.

It snowed on Thanksgiving Day, not enough to impede mobility but enough to be pretty and at the store everyone (both customers and co-workers) was in a pretty good mood and being extra nice. So I actually had a pretty good time at work then in the late afternoon I went to my brother-in-law’s sister’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. I passed on the dinner part but I got to see everyone including Ava, my brother-in-laws mother who I don’t think I’ve seen since summer.

Despite my worries I was basically okay during dinner, though at one point I had to hide out in the deserted front room and cry for a bit because I tend to feel disconnected, cut off, at any kind of gathering. As Ray Manzarek (Kyle MacLaughlan) says in The Doors “I feel the universe functioning perfectly but I'm still perfectly locked inside myself.” Maybe feeling this way is just something I’m going to have to accept as part of my experience of life-- a part of but not the whole. I experienced other things, I enjoyed talking to Ava, my niece and nephew were adorable, and I greatly enjoyed watching the other guests interact in the wacky dynamic that each family has with it’s jibes, affection, subtle and not so subtle pressures. Other than fifteen minutes of existential angst, I had a pretty nice holiday. I didn’t binge or drink, but so as not to be too upright I did violate my prohibition on artificial sweeteners and drink a couple cans of Fresca.

Thanksgiving morning, I got my work schedule for the week of 11/26 thru 12/02. My mother’s going to be coming to visit on the 29th so I put in a scheduling request back in September asking for 11/30 and 12/01 off. My request was apparently ignored and I was schedule for those days. Mum is going to have a fit and will probably think I never asked for the time off because I’m a horrible daughter and I don’t want to be around her but I did make the request in a timely manner, I really did.

While I enjoyed Thanksgiving overall the day after completely did me in. It ought to have been a cakewalk, after all who goes grocery shopping the day after Thanksgiving? You eat leftovers and save your consumerism for the department stores. Unfortunately the supervisors took into account that it would be quite and hardly scheduled anyone to work. And of course I’d been working straight since Sunday so my 8-hour shift sort of tipped me over the edge of exhaustion.

I was doing okay till the crazy wig lady came through my line. The crazy wig lady stopped in a couple times a week. She is approximately 100 years old, wears a blonde wig, hauls around a suitcase on wheels and makes a scene about something almost every time she comes in. Because I have extensive experience dealing with cantankerous senior citizens I actually have a pretty good track record. Or I did.

She had me ring up four items and handed me a gift card with $10 on it. I subtracted the gift card and she put more items on the belt to ring up. I rang them up and told her what she owed. She told me to subtract the gift card. She said I just didn’t get it, asked me if I was new because I clearly didn’t know what I was doing and called me rude and crude for interrupting her when I pointed her to the computer monitor, which showed that the gift card had been subtracted.

A supervisor had to be called over and he confirmed that the gift card had indeed been subtracted from the total at which point she shifted her complaint and insisted on a breakdown of tax for each item. I think she just wants attention. Overall it took about half an hour to get her on her way. It would have been sort of amusing if it wasn’t so sad and frankly keeping my temper and trying to continue to be pleasant to her took all that was left of my energy. This was at about 2:30 p.m. and I was on until 7:45 p.m.

I was off yesterday and today and worked at the office where I get to sit on my ass and not deal with people. I like not dealing with people.

Even though I know better I feel like I have to get my weight back down to the 140-145 pound range so I’ve been eating less the past few days. 

 

It does make me realize just how helpless I am when it comes to resisting my compulsions whether they involve drinking, over-eating, restricting, spending money I don’t have or stealing.  Probably the only area I’ve really been able to resist my compulsions in is self-harm.  About a month ago I had an overwhelming desire to cut myself for several hours but I managed to resist it and earlier this year when I was reading Fight Club I really wanted to try the thing with the lye but I managed to resist the impulse even though it was just consuming me for most of the day.  Maybe it’s because these things seem so drastic and nasty that it’s easier to not do them whereas knocking off a couple 100 calories per day is much more innocuous.  It can be incorporated into my daily routines without too much trouble and doesn’t really have an immediate effect. 

 

It does seem like I’m feeling better with regard to the depressive symptoms I was having last week.  Work hasn’t been easy, things have been very hectic with the holidays coming but I feel like I’m managing okay.  I haven’t felt really sad or tearful at least though the other day when I was working at Biff’s I did start crying when we were talking about my prospects for getting another job.  I really need to find one because I’m only making about $16,000 a year at the market but I feel like there’s no way I can get another job and any time anyone suggests I get another job I feel like they’re asking me to do something impossible and I feel like a complete failure. 

 

For this reason I’m a little nervous about Thanksgiving (very nervous actually).  My brother-in-law’s sister is having us over and I’m afraid that attempts at polite conversation are going to turn me into a sobbing wreck.  Also because I’m so freaked out about my recent weight gain I’m not going to be able relax and eat regularly even for one meal which means I’ll have to bring my own measured, calorie controlled food instead of eating what everyone else eats which sort of makes me feel like a freak.  And of course I won’t be drinking because I don’t drink any more but if there was ever a time I’d like to say “fuck it all” and have a few glasses of wine this is it.