Realizations. January 30, 2008

-Not everyone likes pink and brown for a wedding (see: my mother, my sister, my aunts, my mom’s best friend).

-It feels good to stand by a decision you believe in.

-Sometimes what you need is a good freaking cry on your boy’s shoulder, right after Biggest Loser and right before some kick ass sex.

-In Defense of Food is an awesome book. You all should pick it up and then we can all be plant-eating healthy people together.

-I thought about giving up the blog but realized that my father has never backed down in the face of negativity, and neither should I. And he has gone through a lot worse.

-I do not like the sound of President McCain. Sorry, M.

-You can love someone in spite of their political views.

-If you don’t like a blog, don’t read it. Simple concept, actually. I do it all the time.

-Nasty emails from strangers WILL eventually make you laugh, instead of making you shake with anger. Really. Even the “I hope your family dies, you narcissistic bitch” ones.

-My friends would totally help me hide the body.

-The Greeks live longer because they eat greens, fish and olive oil. Thanks, Anthony Bourdain.

-Tea really isn’t that bad. I think I was just scarred from working in London and having approximately 3,567 tea breaks a day.

-Posting some fiction, anonymously, on a site created by some brilliant minds is so fucking refreshing. I plan to do it often.

-Live and let live is a brilliant phrase. Try applying it today! You’ll feel so much better without all the negativity. I promise.

Come to any realizations lately?

A Big Fat Wedding Post January 28, 2008

There will be no more references to the post below. Part of me feels like I made a mistake even putting it on the blog. But another part of me is all it’s my blog, I can post whatever the hell I want, I can abstain from posting whatever the hell I want, I don’t owe anybody anything.

I especially don’t owe a damn thing to someone who wrote nasty things about me and that includes a link to her blog.

Quite frankly, she doesn’t deserve the traffic.

So, um, moving on.

I drove out to New Jersey on Saturday to be a productive bride.

Tangent: M should really take away my keys to his car. While in the parking lot at Starbucks, I accidentally hit a barrier and now M’s front license plate is mangled. While backing out of a parking spot at the bridal salon, I hit the pole of a stop sign. I apparently have reverted back to driving like I did when I was seventeen and would try and make secret deals with the town mechanic to fix my car and not tell my dad.

Anyway, the bridesmaids dresses have been chosen. At one point, there were fifteen of us in a dressing room, debating the merits of a champagne sash versus a sand sash to go with a chocolate brown dress and everyone was kind of looking at me to make a decision and if I haven’t told you already, decisions are not my strong point.

So I did what any responsible, mature bride would do: I kicked everyone except for my mother out of the room and I started to tear up.

My mother, being my mother, rolled her eyes and said something along the lines of “Clinky, just pick a damn color.”

And I did. Chocolate brown dress with a champagne sash it is. (The reverse of what is in this photo, though my sister will be wearing this exact combination since she’s the maid of honor.)

I also had a consultation with my florist, during which a very bizarre exchange occurred.

I was speaking with the assistant at the shop, giving her the relevant information (date of the wedding, how many people in the bridal party, etc). She told me about her own wedding, which was a small backyard affair.

“Sometimes I think that’s the way to go,” I admitted.

“Yeah, well, with your last name you can’t really do that. I mean, the wedding is kind of a glamorous business meeting for your dad, you know? A chance for him to show off.”

I was pretty taken aback. One of my bridesmaids was with me and she piped up. “Actually, I don’t think that’s it at all, thanks.”

I wanted to tell Little Miss Florist Shop Assistant that, while my parents are paying for some of the wedding, M and I are taking on a lot of the expenses on our own (including the fucking flowers). That she clearly doesn’t know my father if that’s what she thinks of him. That she really shouldn’t judge people that she only thinks she knows (cough, cough, COUGH).

Ahem.

As Molly, Peter and M have all said - people are going to judge no matter what. Their perceptions may be off, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I just have to let it roll off my back; paying attention to it just feeds the beast.

It’s a good life lesson for me, actually. I can’t spend my life fighting back against the snarky bloggers and Florist Assistants of the world. They don’t matter. However, being who I am - no matter what - does.

Bitches be running their mouths. January 24, 2008

Title courtesy of Peter.

I don’t like every blog that I come across.

(Shock, awe, I know.)

And I don’t expect everyone to like my blog either.

(More shock, more awe, etc.)

But I also don’t ever feel the need to publicly tear another blogger down for being who they are.

Blogging at its best can be a really great community of kick ass people supporting one another.

Blogging at its worst can be me, sitting at my desk, reading the comments of a post wherein a blogger got engaged and her readers begged her not to become me.

And then the blogger herself said they had permission to kick her ass if she did.

It hurts, slightly. But I’m a politician’s daughter and I’m also Greek - I’m tough. I can take it. I stand by both my blog and my writing.

And I can also remind myself that you know what? It feels pretty fucking good to be me.

Even on my worst, disordered eating, Crazy-filled, stressed-the-fuck-out day.

So please, fellow blogger who probably wouldn’t hate me in real life, don’t become me. I have a feeling there’s only room for one of me in this world anyway.

Update: Someone just alerted me that she previously wrote an entire post about me (and, also, my commenters). Aww. Honey. I’m not that interesting, really. Move along.

Words of wisdom that rang especially true after what I read about myself. From a Julia Allison reader. I adore Julia, and she’s someone who knows a thing or two about being judged unfairly:

“ And thank you too, for staunchly standing by the idea that cynicism and sarcasm are not synonyms for intelligence. New York needs a rebellion against the pseudo-hipster passing-as-culture movement, and methinks you’re the one to lead it.”

The Blahs: Mid-Winter Edition January 22, 2008

It happens every year around this time. I should be surprised that I am surprised.

Everything - from the sky to, you know, life - starts to take on a grey pallor.

There is much to be excited about: Eli Manning finding himself at just the right moment, visiting Molly in three weeks, nearly-done Save the Dates, receiving mock-ups of invitations very soon, the realization that it is possible to re-fall in love with your fiance, as insane as that sounds.

But, really, all I want to do each and every day is put on my sweatshirt and the sweatpants M hates so much (splattered with bleach, ripped, unflattering, more comfortable than anything I own) and curl up in bed and drink hot chocolate and not have to talk to anyone.

I don’t know what has gotten into me. Things that were once shiny (even you, blogging) are now dull. Unappetizing. Unattractive (to borrow from Sandra Day O’Connor because, why not).

I blame the bone-chilling cold. The kind that makes me shudder when I even think about leaving the office to get lunch. So, I skip it. Or I forage around in a drawer for some cashews, an orange. Anything to stop the hunger.

Oh yeah. About that.

I’ve taken on “healthy” as my new word of choice when it comes to eating (I know! I’m such a pioneer!). I’m trying hard to eat 1200 calories a day and abide by this rule: “eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants” (credit: In Defense of Food). Some days it seems like an insurmountable number, impossible to attain. Other days, it is a drop in the bucket and I feel I could eat 1200 calories before noon.

I’m working out. I’m drinking water (and peeing. Often. So often that it is getting embarrassing because I work in an open-plan office and, yup, the tall girl with the long hair is going again). I’m doing what “they” say to do so that I don’t, you know, either die or binge my way through life.

It’s working. Kind of. I have headaches, which is annoying, and the bitch that lives in the back of my mind is still hanging out, stilettos on, slim legs and arms crossed, look of disdain, all “you are fucking eating too much. Stop it. Stop it now.” I’m learning to drown her out, mostly with some Kanye or Eminem as I commit to a treadmill for forty minutes or more. I picture the endorphins I get from exercising lobbing spit balls at her and it spurs me on.

Oh. And (raining, pouring, etc.), I recently found out that the Almighty New Job with Old Boss that I was supposed to start in two weeks has been put on hold. Except, um, I already quit my current job.

Sometimes this industry makes me want to throw things. Things like daggers, straight at the chests of a few suits in Los Angeles, whose whims we are at the disposal of.

In a word: blah.

I’ll get over it. But right now, I’d really like the sun to come out and play. I’d really like to have a job in a few weeks. I’d really like to have an epiphany about food and eating and be cured. I’d really like Heath Ledger not to be dead (wtf?). And I’d really like my new shoes to arrive so that I can coordinate a “meet Molly” outfit around them.

Competition. Specifically, how I feel about it. January 21, 2008

I am not, nor have I ever been, a competitive person.

In fact, competition is one of those things that makes me kind of feel like vomiting, right up there with seeing a dead rat stuck to a glue trap on a New York City sidewalk and the thought of M cheating on me.

You see, I’ve was nominated for three Twentysomething Blogger Awards: Best Big Blog, Most Interesting and Most Encouraging.

Of course, in true Clink fashion, I had to make a big dramatic deal (mostly to Peter and Molly) about how I hate competition and I especially hate competition when it comes to blogging, which should be a safe space to be yourself without being a popularity contest.

I love blogging now, when I have a readership that never fails to amaze me and I loved it then, when I got exactly zero comments and five hits a day, mostly by accident. I would do it no matter what. While I’m thrilled that I was nominated for something I’m so passionate about, the thought of there being a “winner” and “losers” makes me break out in hives.

Truthfully, writing is subjective. I learned that in college when one of my professors thought I would be the Next Big Thing and another one didn’t understand why my short stories didn’t have a beginning, middle and satisfying conclusion. Blogging is especially subjective in that you could respect someone’s writing but not be particularly interested in the content or vice versa.

So, I chose to withdraw from the competition.

I know, I know, dramatic. But that doesn’t mean I don’t support the awards - I do, just for other people. Trust me, I’m not sitting here with a “NO AWARDS! DOWN WITH AWARDS!” poster attached to a stick, occasionally getting off my ass to do a few laps around my bedroom (that would mean, um, actually having to leave my bed on this glorious day off and yeah, no.) I just know what’s right for me and I know what’s not and I made a decision based on that.

Not that, you know, any of you were wondering but I felt the need to get it off my chest.

There. That’s better.

And now I’m going to go enjoy my day off (first time I’ve ever had this day off since I started working in 2003) and:

-seduce M, who is currently sleeping peacefully next to me

-work out

-read more coverage of the GIANTS and HOW THEY ARE GOING TO THE SUPER BOWL

-try not to think about the fact that my fiance is a Pats fan

-eat brunch and see a movie and shop with my girlfriends

-finish The Nine (highly recommended book about the Supreme Court for Supreme Dorks like me)

-do a little dance every once in a while because I still can’t get over the fact that I’m not at work today

I quit my job last night. January 17, 2008

That should be its own category, shouldn’t it. “I peaced out of yet another job.” I swear it’s the nature of this business and not just because I am easily distrac—ooh, wait, what’s that? Something shiny!

I thought I was going to vomit as the day drew to a close, knowing that I’d have to hop in a cab with the friend I work with who brought me on, go out to dinner and at some point tell her “it’s not working out. It’s not you, it’s me.”

Because freelancing isn’t all that different from dating. Clearly.

I thought it would happen after a few glasses of wine. I thought I’d get liquored up and also get her liquored up (see! JUST LIKE DATING!) and the words would just tumble out and since we were both liquored up we would just laugh about it and deal with the repercussions the next day, along with hangovers.

Except, there’s something you should know about me. I am the world’s most impatient person. I hate waiting for anything, which is why I will probably never leave New York.

As soon as we got in the cab for the short ride from SoHo to the Village, she turned to me and said “so, how are you liking everything?”

And, because I could not even wait until we were, you know, on stable ground and perhaps seated in the damn restaurant, I told her everything.

How it’s not really for me. It’s not my passion. How I think it’s a lose/lose situation if I stay - I won’t be happy and thus I certainly won’t be producing my best work for the company. It was all the truth. I wasn’t as articulate as I would’ve liked to be but that serves me right, seeing as I couldn’t even wait to down a glass of wine in order to loosen up.

Because she is, perhaps, one of the sweetest, most caring individuals on the planet Earth, my friend totally understood (what was I so afraid of? Why am I so good at building anxiety to the point that it renders me near-paralyzed with fear?). She said she could sense that I wasn’t really in my element (another thing you should know about me: I wear my emotions all over my face) and that she would never put a job before our friendship.

Dear Weight: Smell ya later. Luv, Shoulders.

So I’m free! In two weeks! In the time it takes me to get through half of my menstrual cycle (shutpicouldnotcomeupwithanythingbetter), I will be back working with my old boss and former assistant again. I will have a splashy new title and an even higher pay rate. I will be working out of a luxury apartment, mostly on a couch where I was promised we would “cook and watch Oprah” during the day and I will again have the opportunity to see more of this country on someone else’s dime.

The one thing I will not have? Health insurance. But hey, I like to mess with my parents as much as the next kid.

Progress. January 15, 2008

In a lot of ways, The Crazy is like an eating disorder.

You can learn to “deal” with The Crazy but, just like an eating disorder, you’ll never fully be cured. It will always be there, its dormancy luring you into a false sense of security.

And just when you think you have it beat, it strikes without warning, reminding you who exactly is in control.

The way I deal with The Crazy is a lot better now (talking myself through it, utilizing rational thought) than it used to be (crying myself to sleep, not eating, questioning everything about myself and my relationship). But that doesn’t mean it still doesn’t bother me, that it still doesn’t pop up out of nowhere in the middle of me trying to maintain a normal, loving relationship.

The thing I guess I never really knew about law school is that there is a lot of wining and dining. Major firms want applicants. Major firms have money. Major firms will use that money to attract applicants.

It’s just weird to have M come home from an event at Very High End Sushi Restaurant and innocently discuss how he spoke with a girl who works as an associate at a firm and she told him blah blah blah and oh, I’m sorry M, I’m having trouble following this conversation because I’m too busy picturing this particular girl as a) looking like Angelina Jolie, only prettier and b) LOOKING LIKE ANGELINA JOLIE, ONLY PRETTIER.

I tend to have to remind myself to breathe. And think rational thoughts.

I guess it’s just that I don’t know these women who are entering in his life at a rapid rate (along with men, of course, but The Crazy is rather impartial to men).

It’s not for lack of trying on M’s part, to be honest. He met a girl who is also engaged and she apparently constantly stops him on campus to remind him that she wants the four of us to go out to dinner. He mentioned it to me and I wish I could say that I was all for it (because, again with the being honest, any excuse to talk about weddings is good enough for me) but there’s a teensy part of me that’s like “ugh, whatever, why does she have to stalk you on campus?”

The girl is engaged. She probably just wants an excuse to talk wedding as well but in my sick, twisted mind I can so pervert her innocent gesture until it comes out looking like she wants my fiance and this is her way of going about it.

That’s really what it’s about for me at this point - reigning in The Crazy. Not letting my mind lurk in those dark, irrational places. Not allowing myself to immediately think the worst, to immediately assume that every woman has an ulterior motive or agenda.

It’s about, really, giving my gender a little credit. And giving M a little damn credit too.

Law school has been a test, though. Just as I knew it would be.

Tomorrow M starts an internship and while most of me is nothing but excited for him because it’s a pretty big deal, there’s another part of me that wonders about the women he’s going to be working alongside.

And I hate that. I hate that I can screw up something so exciting with one little nasty thought.

I’ve thought and written privately a lot about this particular aspect of my personality. It’s the one I’m least proud of, to be honest, even worse than my love of procrastination and laziness (I will not pee until the last. possible. second. before my bladder bursts because OH THE ENERGY EXPENDITURE to get to the bathroom, and what if I miss a good email from Molly and Peter?).

I’ve worked it out in my head and it all comes down to this: it’s not about not trusting M, it’s not about thinking all women are man-stealing sluts. It’s about the fear of having this - this relationship, however imperfect it is at times - taken away. Pulled out from under me.

I will probably never succeed at never wondering what a particular girl he works with looks like or if he has a connection with someone else. But hey, I’m not sobbing on the floor in a ball. I’m not picking a fight with him because I’m insecure. I’m not even berating myself for not measuring up to some vision in my head.

I’m just here. Typing a post. Acknowledging a fault about myself but not letting it control me.

And that, my friends, is progress.

Hello out there. January 11, 2008

I’m curious, but afraid to ask.

I see you guys, though. I wonder about you.

I forgot my Sitemeter login (typical) so I really only have the numbers that WordPress provides. I don’t know where you live, I don’t know how long you stayed, I don’t know anything except that you came and maybe where you came from.

Delurking Day was yesterday, by order of the Blog Gods, and of course I missed it because I was too busy staring at my navel (”woe is me, I have a shitty relationship with food”; you know the drill by now) but I would love it if you’d delurk today and say hi.

Or ‘hi Clink, that sweater you’re wearing is really cute!’ Because I’m questioning my choice of outfit and I could use some validation. (’Hi Clink, you’re needy!’)

Really, I just want to know who you are. Where you’re from. Maybe a random thing about you (I love learning random things about people which, in and of itself, is a random thing about me).

I’ll go first: Before I go to bed each night, I check about five times that the doors are locked and that the oven is off (note: I rarely use my oven; there really is no need to check it) and that no one is hiding behind the shower curtain or under the bed (the bed is full of stuff I no longer wear, a Cindy Crawford workout VHS and shoe boxes. For a person to hide under there they would have to be, oh, two inches tall). I guess that’s more, um, obsessive compulsive than it is “random” but hey, bonus fact: I’ve also never been that good at taking direction.

Update:

Dear Blogging Gods,

Thank you for bestowing upon me the best readers ever - both those who comment regularly and those who prefer to read from afar.

I must’ve been really good in a past life, eh?

Yours,

Clink

No really: you guys rock. Thank you for pulling back the curtain and allowing me a glimpse of what part of the world you’re from, what random thing makes up a piece of who you are. And if you haven’t commented yet, feel free to do so. I’ve read every. single. one.

There’s one comment in particular that I’d like to highlight. It’s from Katherine, and she made me look at blogging in a whole new light:

“I write/study/think about women’s blogging as a form of self-portraiture and artistic production in this “new” place of internet spectatorship. You write for your reasons and we all watch for ours. The interesting part is how it all comes together in this flickering in the window on our screen. Thanks for the portrait that you “paint” for us here.”

This is not turning into a disordered eating blog. I promise. January 10, 2008

This is something I wrote for myself, before I had the balls to publish my post about my sporadic bouts with not eating. Writing “fiction” helps me process things; I don’t know why I don’t do it more often.

She writes; doing something with her hands keeps her from picking at her nails.

Truth: keeps her from moving anything into her mouth.

A fiancé who doesn’t know means that there are Doritos on top of the fridge and cold pizza within it. They taunt her from the other side of the wall and she wants to eat them, to shut them up. And then vomit, to shut herself up.

Fuck you, cheesy gordita crunch. Fuck you, anyone who can go to Taco Bell and enjoy a meal and not give it a second thought. Fuck you, fiancé, for being one of those people.

It’s the hunger. It makes her mean. It makes her not want to be touched. It makes her scour the internet for information about whether or not she is killing her metabolism and thus will have to eat nothing forever.

She pictures her metabolism, grey and empty and parched. The fire has burned down to ash. It coughs, looks up at her with weary eyes. Pleading eyes.

“Please ma’am.” She hears Oliver Twist, British orphan, and laughs.

Thinking about how she got to this point is not original.

In short: girl goes to college; girl meets unlimited buffet at dining hall; girl gets fat; girl learns from other girls the tricks of the non-eating trade as college girls do, late at night, in darkened dorm rooms, with Guster on the stereo. Cue the rollercoaster.

It’s such a cliché, but one she is not fully ashamed of. An eating disorder, she thinks – as an image of Posh Spice flaunts itself in her mind – is decidedly more glamorous than, say, meth.

“You’re glamorizing an addiction,” the therapist that lives inside her head says. “Just like Hollywood glamorized smoking. Just a fresh coat of paint on a rotting wall.”

Rotting. That’s kind of how she feels, especially without the energy. Without the muscle tone. Without the zest that comes from being a fully fed adult.

“Just another few weeks,” she tells herself, like the heroin addict who wants “one last hit – a big one” before rehab.

Another few weeks and then what? And then I’ll eat like a normal human being? And then I will extend the olive branch to food and we will live in perfect harmony? She pictures herself skipping down the street, hand in hand with a Twinkie. Cowboy hat and all.

She’s in her own head a lot these days.

On the messageboards (and there are always messageboards), they say that drug addicts are the lucky ones. They don’t have to “redevelop” a relationship with drugs. They, technically, can survive without the subject of their addiction.

“We,” writes SexyRexy129, “do not get that choice.”

She eats exactly two dried cranberries and then immediately searches the internet for their calorie content.

And so it goes.

Confessions January 8, 2008

I have a crush on Anthony Bourdain.

One of my co-workers is eating lunch at 11am and it something pasta-y and tomato-y and I just want to dive over the desks and start shoving it in my mouth and wash it down with handfuls of parmesan cheese.

M and I got into a “heated debate” last night about some social issues and sometimes I forget that we are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Forgetting is easier than acknowledging.

I’m going to a spinning class tonight with a friend of mine. I haven’t been to spinning in about two months. I’m terrified.

I had chocolate chips last night, a huge step in the right direction. I counted out exactly sixteen (because sixteen = 70 calories) and then felt terribly guilty about eating them, which means I still have a ways to go.

This weather makes me think “hmm, if I lived in California then I could have this all the time, and not just two random freak days in January.”

While exiting the subway this morning, there was a blind man in front of me. I was worried about him crossing the street, but I was hella late for work so I had to rush past him. I kept turning around to check on him, but I still felt really guilty that I didn’t stop to help.

I can be such a bitch. Example: I think most of the women I work with dress like they’re homeless but, on the plus side, it makes me feel like the cutest girl in the office.

I still haven’t tipped all of my doormen for the holidays. I can’t even look them in the eye when I walk in the building. I am such a procrastinator.

My dad and I haven’t been talking much lately, after a blow-up just before Christmas. Essentially: he spent $16,500 on a pair of earrings for my mother and I felt that a) he was buying her off for being such a workaholic and b) are you fucking kidding? That is a fucking ridiculous sum to spend on anything that is not an engagement ring and return them, IMMEDIATELY. I told him that she’d appreciate time with him more than flashy earrings. In sum: my family is not perfect.

M and I discussed living in another part of the world once he is officially a lawyer; I am all for it. I want to stock up on new experiences before we have children.

We received a Christmas card from the whore that M used to work with. The good: it was sent to his former address, meaning that she has no idea he moved because they haven’t been in contact at all. The bad: it was just addressed to him - she still pretends like I don’t exist; it stirred up a bit of the Crazy that I haven’t felt in quite a while.

I hate this job. I can’t wait to go back to my old boss in February.

Anything you want to confess?