Be aware of my thoughts. That's what I'm supposed to do. What we hear when we're children is absorbed like water into a sponge. As a child, I heard I was fat, and I knew that no one liked me, so my brain equated being thin with being loved. And even though I am currently aware of this and realize that it is illogical, it's been so deeply engrained in me that I have to retrain my brain to believe something different. So the psychiatrist says, "Be aware of your thoughts" and try to stop them. She says I have a bit of body dysmorphic disorder. She says I look great. I showed her the big roll of fat on my stomach but she ignored it. I told her that I can't have dysmorphia if the fat is actually there, but regardless of the fat being there, I want to stop obsessing about it. She says "be aware of your thoughts". I would prefer a quicker fix than hours of therapy and being aware of my thoughts. What about hypnosis? Isn't there something I can do that won't take a long time? I'm tired of this shit. I am so tired of making everyone's life miserable with my constant, "I'm fat" ramblings. No one cares, no one agrees with me, and people resent feeling like they have to tell me I look good when they know I'll just keep saying I'm fat. I don't want people to be annoyed or resentful of me. I don't want people to dislike being around me. I guess I'm more likeable as a fat person with good self-esteem than I fat person with low self-esteem. Surprise! So I just have to accept the giant roll of fat on my stomach and not let it bother me. That just seems impossible. I guess I can at least start with not saying anything out loud. Maybe if I internalize the self-hatred, people won't resent me. God, this is just such bullshit. If only I could just lose the fat, then I wouldn't even have to worry about any of this, because when I'm thin, I know it, and when I know I'm thin, I don't complain about being fat. Therapists assume that it's something I complain about and see in myself no matter how much I weigh or how I look in the mirror, but the reality is that when I am thin, I know it, and I feel better about myself. I don't complain about being fat when I'm not fat. I guess the problem is that my standards for myself are higher than other people's. For me, I need to be in between a size 0 and 2 to feel like I'm thin. For other people, they think I am thin now. However, I am a size 4 now, and this is too big for me. I am a small person, only five foot two and three quarters. I have small bones and a small frame, and I don't need to be 123 pounds. It's too much for me. I should be 115 at maximum. I would prefer to be 110. I think this is reasonable. I'm not trying to be a skeleton, I've been anorexic and don't want to go back there. I like food. I don't want to look like a teenager. I just want to be height/weight proportionate...on the lower end of height/weight proportionate.If you look at the height/weight chart for someone who is five foot two with a small frame, they should weigh in between 108 and 121 pounds. So, I technically am two pounds over weight. And all I want is to be on the lower end of that chart. I don't want to be underweight. And you can ask anyone who knows me - when I'm at my ideal weight, I don't complain about being fat. Does my life get any better when I'm thinner? No, not really. Do I expect it to? No, not really. But it's certainly nice to be able to take my mind off my gut and start focusing on other things, so I guess there is a slight upswing in my quality of life when I am thin. However, there is the burden of trying to maintain that weight, and the fear that one taste of sugar will send me into the downward spiral of cheesecake-induced insanity. But you have to understand, I've spent most of my life as a cute girl, one who gets a lot of attention and double-takes from boys, and, while it may not be as epic as winning a Nobel Peace Prize, it still feels good. It feels great, actually, to be desired, to be "hot". And as I get older, I know that will continue to fade away and I will have to rely on my charm and quick wit to woo others, it's still painfully difficult to let go and let the younger girls have their moment in the spotlight. Like EP (aka Hot Girl), there's this one photograph of us together, and she just looks so radiant and shiny, full of life, almost glowing. And there was me, next to her, pale (literally) in comparison. I look okay, not terrible or anything, but certainly not glowing or shiny. I look dull, lifeless, like limp hair. That's age. EP doesn't tan, doesn't get her hair done, doesn't get her nails done, doesn't do any of the maintenance that I do to stay looking cute, yet she looks amazing next to me. So, shit, I've gotta stay on top of my game. Gotta get that tummy tight, gotta whiten those teeth and bleach that hair. I'm not ready to give up yet. And yet, no matter how thin and pretty I am, I still have no friends. I have one guy who loves me, and I love him, too, but I always wonder why he loves me and when he's going to leave. Sometimes I look at him and think, fuck...this guy is so gorgeous, in such good shape, he looks like a damn Abercrombie & Fitch model. He gets checked out by gay guys everywhere we go (so you know he's hot, because whether a man is gay or straight, you can count on him being superficial and attracted to beautiful things), so what does he see in me? I guess I'm pretty funny. And smart. An airhead, but smart, nonetheless. And he thinks I'm cute. Beautiful, sometimes. So I need to just accept that he loves me, believe that he wants to be with me and that he's not going anywhere (like he says). But I know he doesn't want a fat girl. He hates fat, especially on girls. He wouldn't be able to get a hard-on for a fat girl. So I have to at least stay thin for HAM. If not for the rest of the world, then at least for HAM. So anyway, I'm rambling, it must be time to stop, but the real point of all of this is that I need to be aware of my thoughts and stop them when they are negative because I am pretty awesome, and would be more awesome if I would shut the fuck up about my weight.

It was a toss up this evening between tanning and writing. Here I am, so obviously I chose the latter. EP invited me to a barbeque tomorrow and I'm thinking I will go. I don't know anyone there besides her and I'm not very good at parties, especially if I don't know anyone, but I feel like a jerk that I keep avoiding hanging out with her. Even though she's a hot girl, she actually is really nice. I just never know what to say to girls. I've spent most of life around guys. My first friend was a boy. We met in Hawaii when I was one year old. Then, growing up in West Seattle, my best friend was a boy. We used to build homes for worms out of mud and leaves, throw toys around my room, get chased by packs of neighborhood dogs, and torment his twin sister. There was a bit of time, middle school, where I didn't really have any boy friends. But in high school, my best friend was a boy. We talked on the phone for hours every day. He had a crush on me, and since I didn't feel the same way, we became friends for several years. When I started hanging out at Totem Lake Denny's, there were mostly guys there. I became friends with pretty much all of them. Wherever I went, whatever I did, I always had lots of dudes around me. I like guys because they're usually funny and there's no competition. I get to be the pretty one, the one with the vagina, they get to be the ones who settle for being my friend because I won't date them. I'll admit, I've had my share of guy friends who bought me drinks, dinners out, clothes, gas for my car. One guy bought me cable TV. I always got free drugs. To this day, I have no idea how much an eight-ball costs. Although it doesn't matter anymore. I've just had a lot of bad experiences with girls. A girl introduced me to HAM. She had a boyfriend, but apparently she liked HAM, or at least she wanted HAM to like her. When she found out that he and I were seeing eachother, she didn't want to be my friend anymore. That really hurt. I thought she actually liked me but it turned out she liked me until she realized that guys were more attracted to me than to her. As soon as she realized that, she was out. Now she's best friends with HAM's ex girlfriend. I had a "best" girl friend for years. I'll call her TB. TB was pretty cool for a while. Super artistic. She was a poet, and she was funny. We had all kinds of inside jokes and we also spent hours on the phone. Bit drugs eventually tore us apart. She went to prison for a year for international drug trafficking, and I only wrote her twice the whole time she was locked up. We stayed friends after that, but she was really fucked up, and I guess I wasn't much better. Eventually I got sober and I decided I didn't like the state of our relationship, so I basically broke up with her. I've talked to her only one time since then, to apologize for being a total shithead (because I broke up with her through email after being best friends for 15 years). I guess she's living in some ghetto apartment out in Lake City and spends every night in a gross bar getting wasted. So I guess I'm not missing much. Too bad, though, because she used to be really amazing. She was so charismatic. She was the type of bitch who could make friends with anyone, get a job anywhere, convince anyone of anything. She could dance, sculpt, write, sing, and paint. Drugs and alcohol just sucked the soul out of her. I guess they sucked my soul out for a while, too. I'm thankful for all that time I spent sober and for learning how to live sober, learning that "getting fucked up" really isn't that great. I mean, every once in a while, sure, but every day? So lame. Life is too good to spend it high. Besides, I like my job, I love HAM, I love that family trusts me, that I can hold a job, go to school, write, work out, afford to get my nails and hair done, look realistically toward the future. I enjoy a nice glass of wine here and there, and a good old-fashioned opiate session is still enjoyable every now and then, but I'm not trying to spend my life as a junkie. I truly learned from AA that life is better without drugs and alcohol running it. But I have also discovered that I don't have to be a teetotaler to NOT be a junkie. There is a balance. Anyway, I've gone off in a completely different direction here. My cat is staring at me. Girls...that's what I was talking about. I'd love to have some girlfriends, but where the smart girls at? Where the funny bitches at? I miss my college professor, SH. That's the kind of chick I want in my life. Funny, brilliant, eccentric, and darn cute. I guess I really need to go back to school and get my master's if I really want those type of chicks in my life. The ones who understand my sense of humor, who think deeply about things, who know there's more to life than taanning. I get to be that girl who's funny, eccentric, smart, and hahaha, she goes tanning and spends $300 on her hair, isn't that insane? Oh, that BG, what a character. I want to be the only girl in my group of girlfriends who goes tanning and gets her hair and nails done, because usually the girls who do things like that are empty, vacant. There lives revolve around those things and they lack substance. I do those things now more for HAM than for me. I mean, I like being pretty and well-maintained, but it's expensive and a lot of work and time. I can think of about a zillion things that are more important than tanning. Like writing this long, rambling blog about...what is this about? Girls, drugs, and tanning? I guess. My point is, all those superficial things I do, I don't believe in them as worthwhile endeavors, I just can't stop doing them for some reason. I am attache to physical appearance, being pretty, or desiring to be pretty. But I know in the greater scheme of things, hair, nails, makeup, and tanning is all irrelevant. It won't say on my tombstone, "BG - She had fabulous hair". (I guess I could request that if I really wanted to.) I would like it to say something like, "BG - A great writer and a true friend" or something like that. "Loved by many". Right now I have HAM, my mom and dad, and my grandma, who (if things go the way they're supposed to) will probably not be at my funeral. Maybe there would be an old guy friend who would show up, maybe my ex boyfriend, BD, and my homie KH, but other than that, I am not loved by very many at all. "Loved by a few". Better than "BG who?" Oh well, this is getting a bit morbid. I just need to go to this barbeque tomorrow.