It's so weird how some people never change. They have some bad childhood and just stay stuck in the past forever. They never get over the bad shit that happened to them as children so they keep doing self-sabotaging, self-defeating behaviors over and over again. Every once in a while, I do a web search for my ex-boyfriend from when I was 19, Evil. As you can imagine, someone named Evil might have some issues. He was a short, tan, blue-eyed white guy who affiliated with Mexican gang members. He had all the Mexican gang tattoos, like the comedy/tragedy masks, girls with big boobs and clown faces, the teardrop tattoo under the corner of his eye (which apparently is only given in prison for murdering someone), and "Evil One" in Olde English tattooed across his swollen junkie stomach. He was addicted to meth and used to shoot it up into his dick because he had a good vein there. He was a meth cook (at least that's what he claimed, although even with a meth lab, I never saw him produce anything usable). Our relationship was all about drugs, sex, and fighting. We would fight, fuck, and get high, and that was all we did. Our relationship was chaotic and dangerous and he was one of the most abusive, frightening people I have ever been with. He would hold me in places against my will and threaten to kill me, he would force me to spend money on my credit card to get him motel rooms, he once gave my car keys to a mentally retarded meth addict who called himself "God" (the guy was seriously mentally retarded - the state gave him money and an apartment because he was too stupid to work). He cheated on me with God's girlfriend, a heroin whore, some other prostitute named Freedom who I never met, and I'm sure countless others. He kidnapped me, he choked me, hit my head against walls, and punched me in the face so hard that I had two black eyes, a fat lip, a bloody nose, and a concussion that sent me to the ER. We were together for nine months, although I left him several times during that nine months. The day I finally left for good was the day he punched me in the face. I was on the phone with my mom, telling her I wanted to leave, and he cut the fucking phone cord! Then I tried to run out the sliding glass door and he grabbed me, so I dug my long fingernails into his sides. That's when he beat me up. I moved into a domestic violence shelter for a couple months and met a girl there who I became fast friends with named JM. I had been there only a few hours, and she arrived a little later on the same day. She and I and several other girls were sitting out at the smoking table and the first thing she said was, "So, who else got dragged through the front yard this weekend?" It was so fucked up that I had to laugh, and from that moment forward, she and I were inseparable, just cracking each other up all day, every day. Unfortunately, one day she was on the phone with her abuser (the father of their two children) and the conversation was really upsetting. That night she got drunk and started hopping from picnic table to picnic table, telling one of the female counselors that she had a crush on her. The next day she got kicked out. I left a few days later because it just wasn't the same without her. I moved in with JM, her abuser, and their two young children, a boy, 4, and a girl, just barely 2 years old. That's a whole other story, though, and I'm not trying to write my memoir right this second. My point is Evil, and how some people never change. See, when Evil was a child, his father sexually abused him in the most horrific ways. He forced him to peform oral sex, and raped him repeatedly, I think for several years. His uncle's did, too. His mom married this scumbag when she was only 15 years old, and I'm sure she came from a fucked up family as well. So she knew that this stuff was going on and did nothing about it. In my opinion, little is worse than that. No one I know has ever told me such horrific stories of childhood abuse. Evil's was the worst story I ever heard and probably ever will hear (because I don't hang with people like that anymore). So he grew up, became a male stripper, and got addicted to meth, went to prison, and joined a Mexican gang. When I met him, he was 31 years old. It's been over ten years since I left that relationship (thank god), and I have since quit doing drugs, quit hanging out on the streets with dope fiends and whores, quit being an irresponsible loser, fucking whoever, snorting and smoking whatever, and generally not giving a fuck about myself. Granted, no one raped me as a child, no one (as far as I remember) ever molested me, so I can't say that I know what's that feels like because I don't. But what I do know is, I had traumatic shit happen to me when I was young, and before I knew any better, I coped with it by hurting myself, doing things to numb the pain of a fucked up childhood. But at some point, I feel like you really have to stop feeling sorry for yourself and move on. Drugs are actually quite lame, and life is far more of a high. Prison, from what I've heard, is not a good time, and being homeless blows for sure. At some point, you have to realize that you're continuing to make life such far past the point that it needs to suck. As soon as you're able to start making your own decisions for your life, as soon as you're old enough to make your own money and get your own place to live and food to eat, you have the option to move on. I didn't move on right away. It took me several more years of punishing myself with bad relationships and chemicals before I finally got it that I don't have to, and don't want to, live that way. But some people just go on like that 'til their early death. Evil is 42, and just booked again in July of this year for a felony. I saw his mugshot (which I could create a link to, but I won't because I'm too embarrassed) and he has the meth lesions all over his face and neck, he's all sucked up, his eyes are shut, and he's just fucked! 42 years old and still up to the same old tricks, never to be happy, never to move on, stuck in the pain forever. I wonder if he even knows he has a choice? Maybe he doesn't. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about at all. Maybe being raped by your dad really is something that you can never get over. Maybe karma is a real thing, and in his past life he was Hitler, or some other horrible dictator, and his current life is his punishment for his last life. I don't know. I just feel like it's such a waste of a life, a waste of space on the planet to live an entire life in misery. I think he's also turned into a pedophile, but like I said, there's little information on the crimes committed, since he's only been booked and not charged. But I know he's attracted to young children...there were little signs here and there that I ignored at the time, but I just know. God, that gives me the shivers just thinking about it. Anyway, I have this uncanny ability to forgive, and maybe that's why I'm able to move on and so many addicts aren't. But I forgive him for what he did to me, and I forgive everyone else, too. Life is too short to stay mad. Staying mad doesn't do anything to the people I'm mad at, it only does something to me, and that is, make my life suck. And since I forgive him, I hope he finds some peace. I hope everyone finds peace. I believe everyone deserves it.

I got home from the gym a little while ago and since then I have taken a shower, got dressed and did my makeup, took out the trash, recycling, and compost, done the dishes, wiped down the kitchen counters, and taken my vitamins. Not to mention that when I first got home I smoked a little weed and ate some waffles. Back when I was the old me, living in that nasty house on the highway in Nice, CA, I used to be one of those stoners who couldn't do shit. I'd just sit there and eat and surf the internet. Or drink and surf the internet. I couldn't exercise, pay a bill, make dinner, clean the house, or clean myself. I was a waste product. Needless to say, I felt like a loser. Today, I figure, if I smoke weed, it's okay, as long as I am still a functioning human being who is able to take care of business. I've found that I've actually become more productive stoned than I do just normally. I used to tell myself I couldn't write stoned, and it was probably just an excuse I told myself so I didn't have to write. Or exercise. Although I wouldn't exercise stoned because that would just be counterintuitive, I also wouldn't let it come before a work out. Nothing comes between me and the gym. I'm there rain or shine, heartache or bursting at the seems with love, whether I'm angry, depressed, way too full from over eating, sick, or in pain. I always go. I can't imagine anything other than HAM being as important as the gym. I guess school. School takes even more time than the gym and balancing the two is difficult. I don't know how HAM does everything that he does. He'll make a good marketing executive someday, or whatever he decides to do. I remember back in my senior year of college, I was newly married, in school full time, working part time, applying to grad schools, and smoking crack on the weekends. I mean, not every single weekend, but if it wasn't crack, I was getting drunk, popping Xanax and Oxycontin, snorting cocaine, or even dropping ectasy. Who knows how I made it through all of that with my degree and a 3.9 GPA. Of course I didn't get into grad school, and I'm sure it was because I was delusional from the drugs. But I still accomplished a lot while I was handling a million other things. So I wonder, was it not being accepted to grad school that really pushed me over the edge as far as "partying", or was it just the natural progression of addiction? In AA, they say that's what happens - you can never maintain. One is too many and a thousand is never enough. I guess I don't know yet. I do know the year before I quit drinking and getting high was the worst year of my life. I definitely don't want to end up back there again. So maybe that's why I become so overly productive, trying to prove to myself that It's different this time. But is it worth it? Because if I am truly an addict, this won't stay manageable. It will become unmanageable and I'll have to stop. If it turns out I was just misguided and had some impermanent dependency issues, then I guess I could go on forever feeling satisfied with a little evening weed smoking and one glass of wine. That would be fine. Honestly, I don't know why I ever liked getting drunk. It's much better to just slowly sip one glass of fabulous wine than "get fucked up". I don't like being out of control, doing and saying things I normally wouldn't do and say, and waking up feeling like shit, dehydrated and ashamed. No thank you. One is just right, actually. I don't ever feel like I'm stopping myself from having more. All I care for is one, and then I feel done. Damn, AA really fucks a person't head up, doesn't it? It's so weird, because AA helps so many people, but it's also a brainwashing cult. It's just that the brainwashing helps a lot of people. But it hurts people, too. It hurt me and I've heard stories about others. I guess I just don't have the answers on this. I guess I'll just have to watch and see what happens, and hope it's nothing I'll regret.

Since Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment, everyone's been talking about the age 27. So many artists have died at age 27, and everyone is asking, "What is the significance of this number?" Of course, we all know that Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix died at age 27, but there are others, too. They call it the 27 Club. A complete list of all the musicians who died at 27 is available on Wikipedia. It makes me think of my 27th year. It was the worst of my drug and alcohol addiction. I lived in this brokedown palace on Highway 20 in Nice, California. The house was this huge, dilapidated shithole covered in chipped white paint. The owners of the house split it into two apartments, one with store frontage facing the highway. The guy who lived in the front apartment owned an antique shop. He was pretty much a jerk, but we didn't talk to him much. RC (my husband at the time) and I lived in the apartment around back. It was two stories. Upstairs had a master bedroom, two bathrooms, a living room and kitchen. In the summer, the upstairs would get so hot that I could barely stand to cook anything in that kitchen because it was like cooking inside a sauna. The downstairs was somehow dug out after the house was built, so the ceiling was very low. It had a living room, a weird bedroom in the back, and a full bathroom. This was also where the entry to the house was located. Another door was upstairs, but it was off the side of the deck and wasn't a good place to enter the house. RC and I spent most of our time in the downstairs area because it was warmer in winter and cooler in summer. RC was gone a lot, though, because it was a two hour drive from our house to the mountain where he was growing weed. I went with him sometimes, and I had a job trimming buds for some people up there that paid $20/ hour. But most of the time, I'd stay home with the dogs, or at least one of the dogs. I'd mess around on the internet for hours, with the TV on as background noise. I'd sit there, smoke weed, drink wine or beer, sometimes scotch neat. I got a prescription for Vicodin, so I'd pop them like candy while drinking and smoking. Sometimes, I would feel my heart squeezing like it was going to explode, but I never told anyone. This was also when Amy Winehouse's second album came out, the album that projected her to stardom. I used to make these videos of myself singing songs to karaoke music and post them on YouTube. I was drunk when I did Amy Winehouse's song, "You Know I'm No Good". I got a lot of negative feedback on that one, which, at the time, hurt my feelings, but looking back at it later, it's obvious why people didn't like it - I was wasted. I guess I thought that there was no other way to sing Amy Winehouse - she was always wasted, so I should be too. I fell in love with both of her albums. My friend told me there was this cool song out called, "Rehab", so I checked it out, and she was right - it was brilliant. I promptly downloaded everything Amy Winehouse had ever recorded and began listening to her albums on repeat. But at the same time, I was dying. I had been overweight a few months earlier, but I decided that alcohol had far too many calories for me to continue eating food, so I gave it up, except for the occasional fifty calorie hamburger bun. RC would ask, "What are gonna have for dinner tonight?" And I would reply, "Well, I don't know what you're having, but I'm having wine." I lost 20 pounds in a month or two on the PAW diet. That's pills, alcohol, and weed. I started an internet affair with my husband's friend. He contacted me on MySpace and after that, we started talking on the phone when my husband was on the mountain and his wife was at work. I began drinking scotch first thing in the morning, so when he called me, I'd be more relaxed. I felt so guilty for having this long-distance affair that I had to drink in order to go through with it. I couldn't work anymore. I was unemployable. I was writing a little, but it was mostly self-loathing ramblings - nothing productive or interesting. At night I would get so paranoid that I was sure some tweaker would break into the house and rape me. I couldn't clean, I couldn't pay any bills. I could hardly bathe myself or brush my teeth. I would go three days without a shower some times, even though I had one in the next room. Many nights I spent sobbing uncontrollably, believing that I was going insane. I still remember one time I had smoked a ton of weed, drank a few glasses of wine, and took two Trazadone. I stood up and immediately collapsed on face forward. I had my head hard on the ground, and even as messed up as I was, I thought, this is NOT okay. My life was definitely unmanageable and I had lost all control my actions. I determined my problem to be sex addiction. That was the only possible explanation for my behavior. Why else would I have an affair? (Even thought I was also on Prozac during all of this so I couldn't have an orgasm. I'd always fake it when I was on the phone with RC's friend.) I called the community clinic one day to make an appointment with a counselor. When I went for the appointment, the counselor told me that I couldn't afford to see him, but it sounded like I needed AA more than SA. He gave me a list of local meetings, and I went to one that afternoon. This begins a new chapter in my life, and there's much more to this story than just going to a meeting, but I did choose sobriety. I think maybe age 27 is so poignant in a person's life because it's sort of a change over from childhood to adulthood. People who spent most of their lives medicating with drugs and alcohol realize at this point that it's either going to be a lifelong problem or they're going to have to grow up. If you've been getting high since you were thirteen and you're still doing it at 27, chances are it's not a party anymore. It's not a casual thing to do once in a while with friends, it's a daily, lonely nightmare and it seems like you'll never wake up. For whatever reason, I was one of the lucky ones who managed to get out alive, but so many people, like Amy Winehouse, never wake up.

I have this problem with coffee. When I drink it, I start drinking more of it than of any other substance. I drink it the same way I used to drink alcohol. First thing in the morning, all day, every day, and when I'm not drinking it, I'm thinking about drinking it. So, once again, I have to stop. I stopped before and it was terrible at first, but eventually I got used to it. Then I started drinking it again. I swear I need a 12-step program for coffee. And it's not even the caffiene so much as it is the coffee itself. I love the way it smells, the way it tastes, the way it feels going down my throat and into my stomach, all warm and milky. There is nothing better than a delicious cup of hot coffee. It soothes my soul on a cellular level. I think I was born with the coffee-loving gene. It runs in my family. My mom used to live off the shit when I was growing up. She constantly spilled coffee on the floor of the car, so the car always had this french vanilla/ coffee smell. She seriously brewed multiple pots a day and had a thermos full of it morning noon and night. My dad's a little better, but pretty much can't live without several cups every morning. When he went to China this time, he shipped several bags of it to Meiying's condo so he would have coffee for the two months that he's there. But I feel like it's more than just a pick-me-up. Actually, it does little as far as it's stimulant properties are concerned. It really has no affect on me in terms of energy or focus. I just like how it tastes. I love how it tastes. It's truly an addiction that gets out of hand every time I indulge. I'll be okay for a little while, but before I know it, it's totally taken over my life and I am dehyrdrated and overeating because my brain is sending a signal to my body that my body interprets as hunger when in reality I just need water. I drink coffee, eat, drink coffee, eat, and eat and eat...and then feel an overwhelming sense of guilt and remorse ans shame and I hate myself. I sit there pinching my belly fat, telliing myself what I fat failure I am. And all of this could be avoided if I could just quit coffee. I wish it wasn't so insanely delicious! But I'm stopping again tomorrow. I got some thermogenics that you're not allowed to have caffeine with because they have 100 mg of caffeine already. That's fine, at least this way I won't have withdrawal symptoms. No horrible headaches or insomnia. Another good thing about the thermogenics is that they require women to drink at LEAST 91 oz of water a day. I have been trying to drink 64 oz, and doing okay, but 91 oz will be a challenge. I think I can do it, though. As long as I add lemon to the water, I can drink it without much coercion. I start tomorrow with one pill in the morning a half hour before breakfast. Then I go to grandma's to play scrabble, the post office to ship the books I sold on Amazon, and then the gym. It's supposed to help with energy during workouts, too, but without the jitters of shit with ephedrine. It has over 8000 positive reviews on bodybuilding.com. So I'm looking forward to trying it. And since the antidepressant I take is not an SSRI, I shouldn't get Serotonin Syndrome fromt taking it. But if for some reason I do start to develop symptoms of SS, I can just stop taking it and the symptoms will subside and I can get a full refund from Super Supplements. But what I'm really upset about is that my dad is starting to have second thoughts about moving to China, even though that has been his plan for several years now, and he married a women who lives there, who could barely get a visa just to visit the U.S. for a few weeks. I don't know how the hell they expect to get her a greencard, but apparently that's the new plan. But the original plan was that he would sell the house and we would go fifty fifty on a house where I would live and he would use as his U.S. address, something he has to have in order to live in China as an ex-pat. And I could handle it if he and DL (Dragon Lady) came here to visit occasionally and stayed with me, but what happens if they end up living in the U.S? Then what? Because if I have to live with my dad for another year of my life, I will commit suicide. Please, don't take this seriously, it's just a figure of speech for dramatic effect. But what I AM serious about is needing NOT to live with my freaking dad anymore. I'm 31 years old. Enough is enough. I've spent way too many years of my life living with that man and I just can't imagine one more year, let alone several. I don't know what I would do if he and DL moved here and I ended up without my own house. I've been waiting for the day I can purchase this house for so long and I dream about it, fantasize about it, search for real estate online almost daily...I can't have one more dream taken away from me. Especially this one. I've already conceded my California dream home in order for HAM to go to business school at UW. That means I have to stay in this dark, dreary, rainy, miserable, superficial soul-sucking void of a city for who knows how many more years. Fine, I've suffered through most of my life in this place and I'm familiar with the suffering so I can deal with it. But suffering in this pit of plastic hell with my dad and his wife? I just can't bare the thought of it. I mean, I love DL. If it were just DL, I'd probably be okay with it. She's sweet and quiet most of the time, and we have A SHIT TON in common, so that would be fine. But the two of them together? Fuck no. Besides, in my opinion, my dad drinks too much and he takes all those pain pills and drinks with the pain pills, and he eats chocolate and ice cream and sausage and pizza and whatever the fuck he feels like, plus coffee every morning, which will torture me since I'm trying to live coffee free. He's always nodding out in front of the TV or in front of the computer, or getting shit-faced so I have to drive him to his car the next day out in Seattle. I don't wanna do it. Maybe it's selfish of me because he put up with so much of my shit for so long, but seriously, I can't imagine he's want to live with me and HAM anyway. Whatever happens, it needs to be separate from my life. And I need to come out of this with a house.

I don't know if it's my period, or if I'm really starting to binge again. The medication seemed to work for quite a while. I stopped bingeing almost immediately after I started taking the medication. But i guess now since I've been on it for a while, it's losing it's effectiveness. It just seems so backward to me that the one thing I want more than anything in this world is to be hot, yet I do something repeatedly to ensure that I won't be hot. For breakfast I had my toaster waffles and eggs with agave nectar and a little peanut butter, and two cups of coffee with milk. For lunch I had a sandwich on wheat bread with avocado, goat cheese, spinach, tomatoes, pickles, and carmelized onions and a Mango Kombucha. Later I got an iced latte. For dinner I had two veggie tacos, 2 1/2 pieces of bread with peanut butter and agave nectar, and a few strawberries, plus a bunch of bites of peanut butter. Then later I had blueberries (a lot of them) with low-fat cottage cheese. Jesus Fucking Christ! I am out of my mind. That was probably over 2000 calories of food and I only did a half hour of cardio today. I am getting fatter by the second. I know part of my problem is coffee. When I start drinking coffee, my water consumption gets lower and lower until I'm back to being totally dedhydrated. The dehydration is so normal to me that I don't even know I'm dehydrated, so my brain sends a message to be body to put something in it, and my body decides that the something is food, when water is what I actually need. I was doing pretty good for a few days, but the same thing always happens. I stop drinking water and start eating more and more and drinking more and more coffee. Why am I such a fuck-up? I don't think anyone has ever hated themselves as much as I hate me. I am such a fucking failure. I want to be a size 2 and I'm a size 4. I want to eat healthy and I eat way too much. At least I'm sticking to the no added sugar, no sugars other than stevia and agave nectar. That hasn't been so bad. But I'm still eating too much. I did it yesterday, too. I was just going to have a little snack before the gym and i ended up eating a ton and not even going to the gym. I ate a Larabar, which is the only bar out there that has NO added sugar, not even honey. It's sweetened with dates. I got a latte too. And some trail mix, of which I was only going to have a little, but instead I ate the whole bag. Then I went back and bought some grapes and cherries and ate those too. I think I need to just stop eating a lot more foods. Like no fruit, no peanut butter, and no bread. And no agave nectar. Just vegetables, cottage cheese, eggs, and quinoa. Maybe a little salmon, if I decide fish is okay. I hate myself, I hate that I have no self-control. I feel like such a failure. Why can't I just control what I eat? I have to quit coffee again. FUCK.