becker's forbidden book list (in progress)

1. Dr. Zhviago by Boris Pasternak
2. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
3. Thus Spake Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
4. The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
5. The  Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara

and there are surely more to come . . . just thought i'd get the list down before i could forget

abuse

downward spiral

What REALLY matters?

I feel so tired. SO tired. I made a list of all the things I should do today. All I want to do now that I'm back from class is SLEEP. Dammit, what's wrong with me?? Stupid question. A LOT of things are wrong with me, clearly.

I want to clean up the house for Mom. She's working so insanely hard. I'm really proud of her. And I know she's crazy-stressed over the lack of functionality in our household these days, which is why I feel so strongly about taking some initiative to get things off her plate. I've never really been very good at foreseeing potential problems and then forgoing them, but it's important that I start thinking with that focus.

Mom really hurt my feelings last night. I don't like it when she compares me/my food issues to Leah, my little sister. Of COURSE I would never wish the kind of angst I have on ANYONE, much less my baby sister. And I make a point not to voice my opinions on the shit my family shovels down their throats. Leah is far more likely to become obese at some point than she is to become anorexic.

Most girls I went to middle and high school with were skinny up until . . . junior year, probably. Then time started catching up with them. Yeah, they ate the same junk they'd always eaten, but, once you hit a certain evolutionarily-based child-bearing age . . . 16 or 17, I guess . . . your body just starts storing up all that extra fat for baby. I could rattle off dozens of girls who I thought were so enviable for a long time . . . and then they hit that point.

Leah's in the same place right now. She's eleven. She's got years ahead of her in which she can eat whatever the hell she wants and however much she wants of it without really seeing any affects on her figure. And, like Mom said yesterday, Leah's figure is currently getting cuter every day--she's going through that change from kid to not-so-kiddish. I haven't noticed the waist Mom mentioned, but mostly because I've been so distracted by her boobs. My eleven year old sister has fucking bigger books than I do. Damn. In any event, of COURSE she isn't going to be getting fat during this period of development, NO ONE gets fat during this period--bodies change and weight placement changes and some stickkish girls gain weight and baby-fat girls lose weight and everything shifts around. No one BECOMES FAT during this puberty--the little body's working too hard. But--and here's the big ole BUT that I've been working towards: The fact that kids don't have to worry much about getting FAT during this time, does NOT mean that they should eat shit. The only times I have chosen not to hold my tongue is when I watch Leah eat multiple poptarts with cereal at 10 in the morning as she slugs out on the couch, which is where she remains until exactly noon, at which point she'll eat something like, oh, I don't know, a FRIED BOLOGNA SANDWICH and a MOUNTAIN of CHIPS. And then an avocado's worth of guacamole with more chips for a snack. And then whatever god-awful, nutritionally-devoid concoction my dad sees fit to put on the table for dinner.

So, honestly, Mom can make all the snitty remarks she wants to about it being so great that food and fat is "on the back-burner" in Leah's soon-to-be-a-hardcore-mean-girl little head, since such things are "so unimportant." I agree that it's very relieving that she's not wrapped up in this stuff as I am. But, truly, she's not any better than me, for a number of reasons. Firstly, as if the things that occupy Leah's time are important? Spongebob, iCarly, Zach and Cody, games on Dad's iTouch and Mom's laptop, texting, becoming increasingly popular and more thoroughly immersed in middle-school-dramatics? THAT'S important? At least MY issues have some kind of deep, secret, awful internal significance, whereas Leah's issues are about as surface-level as they come. At least MY issues say something about my intelligence. Yeah, it's stupid and irrational but at least I have a modicum of DEPTH, even if I haven't figured out yet how I'm supposed to channel it. Because I fucking WILL figure it out. I have POTENTIAL, dammit.

I didn't intend to go off about that. I wasn't going to mention it, even. The whole hurt-feelings sha-bang. I do feel a little bit better though, a little less heavy, now that I've just spewed it all out there and gotten it out of me. I was hurt and angry but I'm not anymore. Just sad again. And sleepy.

Oh, but one more thing about that: HOW can one POSSIBLY say that my food choices (as far as concern for animals and health go) are unimportant? In the scheme of things, it is SO important. It's based in compassion and consciousness! Skinny Bitch! Skinny Bitch! Skinny Bitch! How is that message unimportant? How is being wrapped up in stupid, pithy, "in the moment" nonsense somehow better than living consciously and with intent? I've lived my whole life thus far miserable because I feel like such a fucking waste of space. I don't DO anything. I don't STAND for anything. I don't have anyone, really. Veganism might make me less of a hypocrite. It'll make me feel like less of one, anyway. I'll be doing something, I'll be standing for something, it makes my life mean something. I'll still be lonely, but it's getting to the point that I don't even care anymore. I don't need to be loved. I just want to be right.

Okay. I'm still exhausted. Either I go take a nap or I go clean something or I go to the bookstore or whole foods or I do homework . . . I've got SO MUCH to do, Jesus Christ.

I fucking I fucking I. I fucking hate personal pronouns. I'm a self-centered fucking bitch.

my body is a witch i am burning it

I am sad. I went to church. Music was pretty. People were so into it. I felt so guilty. I couldn't concentrate. A part of my mind is so perpetually focused on the mundane, and no matter how hard I try to look at the big picture, that stupid part usually can't be suppressed for very long. It always ends up coming back to the surface and eating away at me. I don't know what I believe in. That doesn't bother me so much. I think there are many paths to God. I just want to be a part of something bigger, and I know, innately, that I am, because we all are, but I make myself and my life so fucking small. At this point in my twisted, stressful life, as I grapple for some stupid artificial sense of control, food is my god. It runs my whole fucking life. And I recognize this. And that's the most infuriating part of all. I recognize it. I recognize that it is illogical and I acknowledge that irrationality and yet I am too fucking terrified to change. What the hell am I so fucking scared of?? Why do I only feel like a decent, semi-worthy human being when I'm putting myself through excruciating restrictive behaviors? I don't see the bones when I look in the mirror. I don't see fat, either, and getting thinner certainly isn't my goal, but I don't know what my goal is or why this method composes my comfort zone. What do I see in the mirror? What do I want to see? Nothing? Is that it? Am I just trying to fucking disappear? Total erasure of the self . . . huh. Maybe that actually makes sense.

A poem by Eavan Boland:

flesh is heretic.
my body is a witch.i am burning it.
yes i am torching
her curves and paps and wiles.
they scorch in my self denials.

how she meshed my head
in the half-truths
of her fevers

till i renounced
milk and honey
and the taste of lunch.
i vomited
her hungers.
now the bitch is burning.

i am starved and curveless.
i am skin and bone.
she has learned her lesson.
thin as a rib
i turn in sleep.
my dreams probe

a claustrophobia
a sensuous enclosure.how warm it was and wide

once by a warm drum,
once by the song of his breath
and in his sleeping side.

only a little more,
only a few more days
sinless, foodless,
i will slip
back into him again
as if i had never been away.

caged so
i will grow
angular and holy

past pain,
keeping his heart
such company

as will make me forget
in a small space
the fall

into forked dark,
into python needs
heaving to hips and breasts
and lips and heat
and sweat and fat and greed.

Skinny Bitch

Well, it seems like I'm one of the last to get on the skinny-bitch wagon--but you can bet your butt I'm on it now. I saw Skinny Bitch by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnoiun at Half-Price the other day and remembered having seen it mentioned on Heather Eats Almond Butter and a couple of other healthy-life blogs and so I decided to snag it after flipping through the first few pages and finding myself giggling in delighted shock at the flagrant blasphemous-ness of Rory and Kim's ideology in regards to modern-day American culture/societal eating habits. I'm not quite finished yet--I'm trying to pace myself with this one, because there's so much valuable information--but, already, I think this book is going to freaking turn my life upside-down. I just read the chapter on animal-slaughtering. That's why I'm here. I couldn't read any more just now. I feel better now, but, initially, I thought I was going to be violently ill. No more meat (or dairy) for me. Rory and Kim make too much sense. And, intuitively, I've always known that this stuff is poison. That's why I feel so guilty for it. But . . . I'm not supposed to lose more weight . . . so I've got to get creative here . . .

friday night

It's hot. Very hot. Too hot. It's dark. I'm not used to it getting dark so early.

I'm doing a math project--kind of. And watching Law and Order: SVU. I made miso soup earlier. It's way too hot for me to even think about it, though. My tummy feels funny. My head feels so hot. I've got ulcers in my mouth again. The roof of my mouth feels about covered. The right side of my cheek is swollen. I'm kind of a mess. No worse than usual, though . . . it always seems to be something.

Aaron and Leah and Dad are at the Austin High football game. Mom's the closing manager-in-charge (MIC) at Nordy tonight. I go back to work the first Saturday of November. I'm half-excited, half dreading it. Working as hard as that job requires will probably kill me.

I think I need to eat smaller lunches . . . I just end up not being hungry later. And technically I probably can't afford to lose much more weight.

I should have called Ashley to go to coffee like she wanted to. I just had no motivation to get out.

It's Friday night. I am quite pathetically, but intentionally, alone. And I'm burning up.

Breakfast for Dinner

Nature's Path Vanilla Almond Crunch cereal with ice cold almond milk and a barely-ripe banana is wonderful. I didn't have much of an appetite and that lovely little meal just did the trick. I ate my weight in vegetables at lunch, anyway, and hadn't had anything carby all day, so there's no guilt either . . . and my typically-rambunctious tummy actually feels pretty good.

I'm still feeling effects from the acupuncture. People who practice Chinese medicine always seem so peaceful, I've always thought. Maybe I'll become one of them . . . Who knows if such inner composure is possible for a nut-job like me though, hah. Probably not. But I'll sure as heck give it a shot!

I'm reading The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison for my literature and philosophy class. It's devastating, but great--so well-written and compelling. I often feel alienated by African-American writers for some reason . . . I think because the attitude towards white people tends to be so uncomfortably negative. That attitude makes sense, all thing considered, but it still manages to make me feel weirdly uncomfortable and disconnected and guilty-feeling. That doesn't seem to be an issue with Morrison's work, and I don't know why that is, but I am definitely glad.

Professor Cherry says there are three types of friends: functional friends, fun friends, and virtuous friends. Functional friends are people who are useful to you. Not someone that you're merely using for your own selfish purposes--that isn't a friend at all. The girl I sit next to in math, for example. She's sweet as can be, I like her, but if we didn't complain about math together, we wouldn't have anything to say to one another. There's no way we have enough in common to be legitimate friends. A fun friend is like a party-buddy. And a virtuous friend is a truly good friend, one who leads you to virtue . . . it's a friendship based on values and respect and genuine caring and, presumably, it lasts a long time. I think my "problem" is that I'm not interested in the first two types of friends. I am just interested in the third type. And that kind of relationship isn't exactly easy to find and it certainly can't be manufactured out of sheer force-of-will. This realization is actually quite relieving to me. Despite myself, in the back of my head, I've always felt like a little bit of a weirdo for not having friends. But, when I really think about it, the only types of friendships my peers have are the first two kinds . . . and I honestly don't want that, anyway. I'm an all-or-nothing kind of gal . . . if I can't have a good, virtuous friend, I don't want any at all. And I'm not at all ashamed of that.

I'm so sleepy I can't hardly see straight. Enough senseless rambling. I'll pick up again on the 'morrow.

Acupuncture

I got acupuncture today. I've gotten it every Wednesday for a few weeks now, and I'm honestly starting to feel long-term effects. I feel like I am becoming more centered, more grounded. It's an amazing thing. Chinese medicine is fascinating. It's been around for so long. It's an intentional medicine, and I really like that. In Chinese medicine, everything is connected to everything else. Nothing is random. Our bodies are made up of different systems, and it's when these systems are out of whack that we start feeling crappy. I don't totally understand the whole yin-yang thing yet, but I've experienced enough to honestly believe that yin and yang truly do dwell within each of these systems and the harmony or dissonance between the two 'energies' directly affects our chi--which is our life force/spiritual energy . . . that's my understanding of chi, in essence, anyway. Our entire existence--mental, physical, spiritual, and otherwise--is a balancing act. I've always been something of an extremist. I am most likely to gravitate towards one pole or another, and, for some reason, I just can't seem to be comfortable anyplace between the two. So this whole approach to health through is a scary struggle--but it's a necessary struggle. And acupuncture is certainly proving to be an incredibly helpful component against this war-on-self-terror.

Epiphany

Yesterday I had an epiphany, kind of. I realized, for the first time, that one of the reasons my mental state is so perpetually screwed up is because I'm stuck in this strange cycle where I think in terms of limitations. Why the heck is that? I am so steadfastly rigid so much of the time. Why? Why am I paralyzed by the prospect of possibility? All my life, I've managed to remain painfully and illogically convinced that there is a "right" choice in any given situation. Guilt ensues no matter what I decide, because I ALWAYS figure out a way to convince myself that I've done the wrong thing, regardless of the situation. How the hell did this kind of black/white mentality develop? Nature? Nurture? What?

This way of thinking places a significant damper on various aspects of my life, as one might suspect. Instead of "dwelling in possibility," as Ms Emily Dickinson would suggest, I'm practically phobic of it. Perhaps the most notable way in which this mindset affects my daily life, however, is in my relationship with food. I've had "food issues" for . . . well, for a long time. I think most women have food issues of one kind or another, at least at some point. I remember having food-guilt issues as far back as I can recall--I was a chubby kid, and I hated it. I flirted with anorexia when I was . . . eleven? twelve? It was only a flirtation though, nothing serious. But enough to get me over my chubby-stage into unnecessary stick-stage. Set menstruation back a couple of years, anyway, much to my dismay. I wanted to grow up faster than my mind/body processes would allow, given my treatment of it. The food issues evolved and metamorphosed over time, but they never went away. In fact, they've always been an embarrassingly pervasive part of my life. It's sick and disturbing to me that so much of my energy has gone into dealing with food issues. This doesn't justify anything, but it's less about food and more about control. What exactly my motives are and why they exist with such tenacity is still something of a mystery to me. But it's not entirely about food. It's not entirely about health. It's not entirely about thinness. It's partly about denial and restriction and purity and self-inflicted suffering and lots of other things that I've yet to unearth. Yesterday, my limitations-epiphany was the final straw atop the rickety mound of several experiences lately that have . . . shaken me awake, so to speak. I am not in a very good place. I am very, very thin. I don't always see that. I never intended to lose as much weight as I have lost in recent months. I'm still terrified to gain weight. But I am not healthy or strong and there are so many things I want to be able to do . . . I have to be more fortified in order to do them. 5'7, 100 pounds isn't going to cut it. I don't want to get another kidney infection. I don't want to fight for consciousness during class. I want to be present in the moment. I'm scared to lose, I'm scared to gain, I'm scared to eat, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared, and it doesn't make sense, but none of this makes sense. I'm a smart girl. I'm a fairly pretty girl. I have a hell of a lot going for me. And yet I always manage to get stuck. It's partly obsessive-compulsiveness, partly anorexic-tendencies, partly orthorexia, partly badly-handled control issues, and a massive amount of fear. Fear of what? Possibilities? Failure? Part of me almost wants to just . . . disappear . . . in an act of erasure . . . total erasure of this blasphemous, pitiful, frustrating self. Another part of me still wants to be perfect. Clearly, I don't know what the hell I want. But it's important for me to get unstuck. It has taken me a long time to be able to admit that I have an eating disorder. Her name is Lilith, by the way. She's that harsh, critical, rigidly discipline-oriented voice, that currently-overwhelming part of my psyche who is trying to protect me from . . . something . . . but, in the process, she's killing me instead. I love her and I hate her. I need her, I think. She could be useful, if she used her "power" for good instead of this nonsense. I don't know what to do with her. I do know, however, that it's time to get unstuck, if possible. No, I take back the "if possible" because it IS possible. It isn't going to be easy or fun and I'm quite fucking terrified. But there's a bunch of shit out there that's bigger and more important than this and it's always been important to me to get out there and do something meaningful and the first step is getting the fuck out of my crazy freakin' Lilith-run, nazi-istic head.

. . . now or never . . .

getting started

i like:

sylvia plath

dr. house

books and libraries (museums are cool, too)

holistic nutrition 

psychology

homeopathic medicine

school--st. edward's university, in particular 

learning, writing, thinking--trying to broaden my self-limited horizons

i don't like:

my recent epiphany: i tend to think in terms of limitations--hence my blog title (see post 1, the fig tree analogy); need to explore this disconcerting fact in a post sometime in the very near future

cilantro

big crowds--people in general, actually, except in small, controlled doses

fighting (i'm a pretty damn good arguer, though)

Lilith--more on her/me later

anything mathematical

scientific nonsense--usually extemporaneous information

being bad at yoga

being impatient

"i'm a realist

i'm a romantic

i'm an indecisive piece of shit

and that's about it."

- the cribs

fig tree analogy/story of my life

"I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."

--Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)