Report from the negligent blogger

It's been difficult to write lately, for a couple reasons.

Primarily, depression's been rendering me verbally and intellectually useless. Actually, for that matter, I've pretty much been worthless for any sort of activity, either... I've been sleeping ten, eleven, twelve hours a night, taking naps when possible, and otherwise lying on the couch all day like some random inanimate object.

The other night I woke in the middle of the night screaming... I tried to explain to Crystal that I felt like all the sorrow of the world was seeping into me, that I could feel all the horrible things that were happening (particularly to children) in every part of the planet and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I still feel this way to some extent, only less...dare I say, less narcissistically? I know that there is no possible way I can beging to understand all the suffering in all the world. There are a ton of things I've never experienced or seen or heard, and hope not to. But still... What I do know is enough to make me feel miserable.

My eating has gone to shit lately, the worst part of which being that I have really, truly, honestly been trying so, so hard. The problem is that every bite now takes an effort the likes of which I've not experienced in several years. I chew and chew not because I'm counting but because all my muscles feel exhausted and my throat refuses to accept the food unless it's down to almost nothingness. If anything, all this battling to eat makes it feel as though I've been eating significantly more than usual, despite clear evidence to the contrary. A couple people are pressuring me to go to the doctor, if for no other reason than to prove to me that my weight is getting dangerous again. (I haven't owned a scale in about ten months, haven't been on one in a month and a half.)

It's so hard to write about this subject honestly and yet withhold as many triggers as I can. Ugh.

I'm seriously left trying to understand where my eating has gone so wrong as to cause this weight loss. I guess it's hard to notice such things when weight loss doesn't immediately trigger a warning light for me... At first it feels like a nice reprieve, becoming something comfortable and easily ignored before it becomes a serious concern. I could stop worrying about how I'd afford new clothes when I outgrew the ones I've worn for years. Worry less about affording food. Continue for hours and hours at work without becoming distracted by hunger.

Starvation habits are just so damned familiar to me that even when I'm trying to eat well and take care of my body, it is beyond simple to slip back into them without even realizing. I guess that's what it boils down to.

Returning to restricting habits has, I suppose, been more of a comfort and an anxiety alleviant than an active fear of food/weight/body or a conscious war against it. Toss in the long hours at work, financial concerns, and stress over the secondary issue I'm about to bring up... And it would appear that the result is me, quietly disappearing.

To abruptly transition... A huge factor in my recent stress levels has been a little kid called Danny Jr.

This four year old is Crystal's half brother, who lives relatively close to us with Crystal's dad and stepmom. He is freaking adorable, super sweet, loving, silly, intelligent, creative, curious, imaginative, and generally awesome. He's also been subject to a serious amount of neglect over his lifetime and, increasingly, physical abuse. (God, I feel like some sponsor-a-child ad.)

Jr's dad, D., has been a severe alcoholic since (if I remember correctly) he was about thirteen. He was abandoned at a young age and taken in to a foster family who housed kids for the government money; all in all two foster parents and five foster kids living in a trailer park. I've heard stories of how D.'s 'parents' would regularly dose him and his siblings with Nyquil when they wouldn't quiet down fast enough. One of D's siblings is currently 19 and has three children. Another is a cocaine addict. The others I don't know about entirely... D's foster parents still live in Illinois, although his mother is close to her end now from a wide variety of health issues, many of which have been brought on by negligence in personal care (i.e. extreme obesity, diabetes, lung problems, cirrhosis of the liver, etc).

Jr's mom, S., also abuses alcohol. I don't know very much about her beyond that she dropped out of school sometime around or before highschool, ran away at some point, and has been surviving by waitressing at Denny's and filling odd jobs for years.

Currently, D., S., and Jr all live in the back room of a skeevy dog kennel and grooming shop right off the highway. It's one of those run-down rows of brick buildings, glass windows held together with tape, iron bars, parking lot paved maybe twenty years ago, only ever frequented by people who've been going there for twenty years. Also in the lot are a liquor store, a nail salon, and a sign for an architectural firm filling a dusty, empty window.

When you walk into the front door (which I was glad to see finally got its glass replaced; every time I've been there before it was splintered like a brick had been thrown against it) you're first accosted by the noise of the dogs. I've never been there without seeing at least a half dozen of them.

A split second after the noise comes the smell... The dogs all run loose over the rippled linoleum, shitting and pissing as god wills it. One wall of the kennel is floor to ceiling dog crates in a sort of wood and steel frame, a few lucky crates lined with pillows. (There is a hand-printed sign encouraging patrons to donate pillows for the dogs to use... The few that have been given are a motley collection of worn out throw pillows and lurid couch cushions.) Even the stainless steel grooming tables are encrusted with dried out filth, gradually flaking off to join the rest of the mess on the floor or settle beneath curls of torn linoleum. It's hard to determine what color the floor is supposed to be... Perhaps needless to say, it's a grimy shade of yellow-brown, accented by rugs in each corner resultant from dozens of doggy haircuts.

Jr isn't really allowed into the shop, though. The owner, B, understood that the conditions of hiring D and S to work there meant that he'd give them room and board and allow Jr to live there as well, but he wants him neither seen nor heard. Jr pretty much stays in the back room unless B is out, the shop is closed, or someone comes to see him. They get paid now and then, under the table, a couple bucks in cash so that they're off the books because D owes so much money in back child support to two ex-wives and four ex-children.

The other day, in explaining how she defended their home to a social worker who recently visited, S described their home as being "just like a studio apartment". When Crystal and I lived in a crappy Washington DC studio, it was a lot bigger than the place the three of them live. Additionally, it had a kitchen. And a bathroom. With a shower and bathtub. This place has none of the above, except for a small toilet room and the shower heads used for grooming the dogs. D and S have a small, electric stove which rests on a table in their room, making up the kitchen. When we went to visit for Christmas this stove was actually out on one of the grooming tables in the shop to allow more room for cooking.

I'm not afraid of filth, let me make that clear. Normally, smells and mess and years of accumulated dust won't phase me. Bother me, yes, some, but I can deal. I've had many friends and several relatives over the years whose houses have been several miles below what you might come across in Home and Garden. My grandma smoked copious numbers of cigarettes and probably hadn't cleaned her house in a good forty years despite generations of labrador retrievers and all that smoke and the usual dirt of living. I'm relatively accustomed to uncomfortably dirty environments. B's shop really, really bothers me. It is truly hard to stay there more than a minute. When we go to get Jr I try to stay in the car if and when at all possible.

When you enter the family's room, you first notice the oversized flatscreen TV in the corner. It's always on. You see shelves with a few food stuffs and the range stove I described earlier, along with a few Broncos memorabilia and a dart board. You see discarded wrappers and crumbs of varying sizes and colors littering the 'kitchen'. To the left is a double bed which D and S share. In the middle is a faded floral couch which looks either to have come with the place or been dragged in off the side of the highway. The couch is the focal point of the place, the center of activity, the throne for the sedentary rulers. It typically is adorned with over-filled ashtrays and sour, empty beer cans. To the far right is a toddler mattress on the floor for Jr. The kennel dogs come and go.

I don't doubt that D and S love Jr. My quarrel is that love is NOT enough. They DO NOT know how to treat or care for or raise a child. Whenever we're over there, D and S try to chat with Crystal and I while yelling at Jr to be quiet and go sit on his bed. He's learned the art of crying in silence.

Jr adored me from very early on... My guess is that I was one of the only people he's ever known who got down on his level and talked with him seriously about whatever he wanted to - even if that meant a two hour discussion/game of what if your eyeball fell out and you had to look for it on the floor and put it back in. He's a four year old, and beyond that he's a very active little boy, so when he tries to play rough with me I don't mind it. He's not trying to hurt me, anyway... When he throws a little punch it's to see me groan and throw myself back in an exaggerated parody of defeat. When D or S see this behavior, though, they scream at him to not play rough with girls and to go to his bed for time out. It doesn't matter that I explain it's my fault, I encouraged the game.

As Jr's gotten older, it seems that D and S have found him increasingly difficult to deal with. He went from baby to mobile toddler to opinionated, rapid, excitable little boy. I don't think they know what to do with him, don't know how to respond when he doesn't behave calmly and quietly like an adult. Over the last few months, spankings have progressed to beatings, sometimes and sometimes not alcohol inspired. He always has new bruises on his head and arms when we go to pick him up, which he explains with shrugs and avoided glances. One recent beating sent him to the hospital.

Connected to the fact that they don't know what to do with him anymore, D has now announced that he plans on shuttling Jr off to live with his foster parents in Illinois. (Do you remember these foster parents? If not, please see the above description.) Initially he said the family would go live in Illinois... Now the plan is to find a car, make the drive up, dump Jr and leave. In some twisted, morbidly ironic twist of fate, living with the foster grandparents might actually be WORSE than the environment he's in now.

Crystal and I have been trying to take him for a day or two frequently over the last few weeks. It's never much... Just take him to a park or let him play with our cats or read some stories or play some games. Just socialize with him. Love him. Whenever we have to take him back, he doesn't tantrum or cry but becomes sullen, obviously upset, distressed, anxious, starts telling wilder and wilder lies about why he can't go back. Something which upsets me in a seriously visceral way is that he doesn't even call it going home... He just says over and over not to take him back to B's. Last week he said, "I don't want to go back because mommy and daddy don't love me anymore, and so I don't love them neither."

So now, the source of my distress. We love this little boy. He's tied to Crystal by blood and me by marriage, albeit future and pending on legality. It's bad enough to watch his present situation deteriorate, but the thought of him being sucked into that trailer home in Illinois is worse. Right now, Crystal and I are very seriously contemplating the long, arduous, emotionally wrenching, financially draining, exhausting concept of a custody battle for Danny Jr.

For many reasons, Crystal's and my home would really be the only readily available place to take him in which could care for him and give him the love and nurturing he needs and deserves. Also for many reasons, I'm scared shitless. Crystal and I are still trying to get financially stable, just the two of us; what the hell would we do with a four year old? Even with government aid we're looking at a seriously low socio-economic level for the forseeable future. And besides, I'm only twenty-one years old. Crystal is only nineteen. Are we prepared to raise a child? Maybe. But beyond that, are we prepared to fight for, adopt, and raise an emotionally damaged four year old?

We keep going back and forth and up and down and inside out and sideways over the same questions and the same answers. Maybe, I don't know, probably not, we could try, what other options do we have. The truth is, both of us really do want to raise Danny. We love him and know him enough to see so much potential, so much worth fighting for and nurturing. We would love nothing better than to be the ones to give him the care and love he needs.

But how the hell can we do this???

And now we return full-circle, as life is wont to do, to the subject of my not eating. Maybe it's got to do with the ENORMOUS FREAKING ULCERS that all this stress is causing. (Okay, so maybe they're figurative ulcers. Mental ulcers?) When I eat it's not even just eating dollar bills anymore... It's eating dollar bills that should be going to help this little kid. ....God, yes, I know I'm talking crazy. I'm good at that. It's a talent, perhaps a hobby.

Does anyone have advice to chip in on this one? Please, this is an open request and plea. Send me a website, tell me an anecdote, give me some phone numbers, whatever you've got. Even just an, 'I'm thinking of you.' Something tells me I'm in over my head on this one.

Still alive? Yep, yep, appears so.

So here I am, newly apartmented, at long last with a day off to do all those things I neglect all week long. I finally have time set aside to pay the bills, read a book (my mind feels like it's been melting), update my blog so you know I'm still alive, and get my hair cut. Seriously, I look like some shaggy ninety's reject. Or like I'm wearing a bad wig/toupee. I've been told it doesn't look as bad as all that....but since when has my self-image ever been healthy?

Over the past week, I was a scheduled double Friday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I made a lot of money, true, but damned if I'm not exhausted. By the end of last night's shift (ten hours all told yesterday) my feet were dragging. The pain and cramps in my legs kept me awake for a good while, which sucked. OH. Another reason for the tiredness: Crystal has been going through training class this week, meaning she has to be at the restaurant at 7:45 each morning. In order for me to get there for my shifts at 11:30 it meant I've either had to drive her and stay at the restaurant even longer or, as I've been doing, drive her there, drop her off, go back home and sleep for two hours, then go back to work. Uuuugh.

All the physical strain of working has really sucked... I'm all bones again. It's been getting really frustrating and hard to force-feed myself several times a day, every day, when my appetite has been so down. Even when I am hungry eating feels like such a chore - necessary perhaps, but loathsome.

The problem with the lingering anorectic mindset is that eating doesn't feel important to that part of my mind. Optional at best, pointless at worst. The logic says why bother eating if I'm only going to have to do it again in a few hours? (Interestingly enough, when I attempt to apply this to other bodily needs, like peeing or sleeping or getting a drink, it doesn't work. In fact it seems more than a little silly. However, as it goes with eating, it seems perfectly like a perfectly natural train of reasoning... Hmm.)

I'm trying to figure out how to continue to get myself to eat despite all the disinterest and undesirability. It also doesn't help having my own place now, knowing that whatever food I want to eat I must first buy... My fridge is evidence of hoarding habits trying to reinstate themselves. No no no! I can't eat that! If I eat that I won't have it later, and there might be some reason I might need it! What if I'm really hungry later? Can't can't can't!!! To this end I'm trying to avoid pastas and canned foods which will last forever in the event of hoarding... Fresh foods can't be ignored or they'll go bad. Still, though, the fridge and freezer tend to be full while my belly is not.

Shelly and I had our last session last Thursday. She gave me the number for another therapist, who I've still not called... It's hard not to look at our few weeks coming to an end as a way to stop therapy (again) and save money. I guess I've got my dad to thank for the fact that finances worry me more than anything else in the world. Finances make me scared to eat (it feels like I'm eating dollar bills), scared to do anything fun and romantic with my girlfriend, scared to pursue any hobbies, scared to spend a little frivolous cash to make life bearable, scared to pursue therapy because of all the bills. Which is easier to handle in the long run, though: weekly therapy and medication or hospitalizations and the cost of being out of work?

Got to spend money to make money, I guess is how the saying goes.

Shoutouts:
---Shannon, I swear to god I will call you. Today.
---Siri, thank you so much for your comment, honey. I've been thinking about you a lot and plan on writing as soon as I can.
---BECKY!!! HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! EVERYBODY TELL MY SISTER HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! SHE'S EIGHTEEN TODAAAAAY!!!!

That is all. ^.^

Confrontational feeding

It's always hard to tell where you draw the line between wanting sensitivity and understanding from others and trying to recognize where you yourself are perhaps being too touchy. All through childhood my dad was quite insistent that I took myself 'way too seriously' and needed to learn to laugh at myself... Personally, I often felt that was a bit of a harsh judgment, but that's neither here nor there.

In any case, on this particular occasion, I've got little to no doubt that the comment in question was out of line.

I've been through more than a couple managerial transitions in my time spent working the restaurant industry. I've had maybeee....two? general managers that I've liked. Yes, two, that's the right number. I like this particular, current general manager least of all so far. He's very heavy with the sarcasm when displeased, and not afraid to bitch people out publicly either. He's a good six foot something, all football player looking, a bit snaggle-toothed and overall quite intimidating. Quite the asshole.

On Sunday mornings he gets extremely stressed out. He always locks himself in as the expediter to make sure ticket times aren't running too long and the foods all get out correctly and whatnot, since Sunday brunch has a slightly different menu and can be stressful for the kitchen. Because of this, Sunday mornings he institutes a unique rule which I have the most impossible time remembering: employees may not make any modifications to their meals.

As I, granted, frequently do, I forgot about this rule yesterday when ringing in my food before going on break. I remembered almost immediately after sending in the order....but unfortunately, once done is done.

When I went to get my food from the line and take it to the back for my break, the GM was up in his usual spot and decided to make a scene, or maybe just an example, of it. As mentioned before he's a big man and has a big voice to go with it, so when he raises his voice at all it's definitely audible.

"Tina. Hey, Tina? Next time would you do me a favor and just not eat?"

...

That very morning over coffee with Crystal I talked about the fact that I've been really struggling with body image the last couple weeks. (Wow, I forgot to write this anecdote... When I went to the doctor last Saturday I realized quickly the part I'd forgotten to put in my medical istory: anorexia. The reason I realized this was that when they took me into the back the first thing they did was to put me on a scale. Fully clothed and facing forward. At this point, I realized that, fully clothed, wearing shoes, and having just eaten, I was a good ten pounds less than I was when last weighed, without all those other factors. Unfortunately, to the eating disordered mind there is nothing like finding you weigh less than you thought to trigger the desire to lose more.)

The whole affair triggered a panic attack and rid me of any desire to eat. I guess it was evidence of how far I've come, though, that I still did eat my lunch.

...insert witty title here...

I suppose I'm so obsessed with watching Frida because it in many ways feels like I'm watching my own life played out. Except that she's a lot older, the pain is more physical than mental, her anger is more outwardly directed than inward, and she had about five million times the talent I have. If I could have that much potential for the creation of beauty... I mean, damn. I'm more or less all right with words but my fingers lack any skill with a brush or pen. Sigh.

Force-feeding myself is getting a little easier. I can't say the depression is easing or the appetite increasing but I'm adapting to it a bit more readily, I suppose, and making sure to feed myself is gradually becoming a habit. It's so ridiculous, after all these years fighting my hunger, denying it's there, refusing to acknowledge it, I can barely recognize it at all. I can finally see the face of Hunger but can't recognize it.

Something I've noticed here is that Colorado seems to have an enormously disproportionate number of underweight women. Perhaps it's that Maryland is one of the 'fattest states' in the nation (which is true) and I'm accustomed to being The Skinny Freak, but it is truly heartbreaking to see so many women around me starving. What once would be a serious trigger is now something of a reverse; I get so upset witnessing their suffering that I want to prove I can overcome it. Even from a purely visual standpoint, the constant bombardment with fashionable emaciation repulses me as I can see how unappealing it is. The lanugo, the bones and bruises, the skin sagging and prematurely aged. I want to be sexy. I want my hands to stop shaking, freezing all the time, looking like they belong to someone twice my age.

I can't count how many times a day I'll witness girls bone-checking while staring at the dessert case, chewing gum like their lives depend on it, clearly terrified of so many calories surrounding them. How many times I'm asked for the nutrition facts in a certain dessert. (I know most of them but, thank god, we are honestly not supposed to tell.) More than once, women with bloodshot eyes and sores around their mouths have ordered cheesecake to go and I've wanted more than anything to refuse it to them. Or at the least, beg them not to do with it what I'm sure will be done. I'm usually trying to hide that I'm crying as I toss forks and napkins into the bags.

If I could afford enough medication to numb myself out, I'd go for it. Beyond depression these days, it's like I just can't handle the heartbreak of the world. Numbing me out might be more like ballancing me at this point. Everything sets me off. I have to stop myself, constantly, from saying something to all these girls. (As if I have any idea what to say, anyway. Please eat? I know you're hurting but it's not worth it? Are there ANY right words for a situation like that?)

At the same time, it's so impossible to fight against the non-hunger. Why force myself to eat when I'm not hungry? Shouldn't I be grateful? Shouldn't I feel lucky? It's to the point that I'll go all day and realize sometime around bedtime that I had nothing, or a banana, or a piece of bread. The old bruises are showing up along my spine and back hipbones. I'd gotten used to having warm hands and feet but so much for that. My body is again covered in lanugo, or at least, more covered than it typically is... Gah.

I wish I could afford to go inpatient. I need a break, some hard-core internal work to sort things through once and for all.

No. No, it really makes no sense. Don't try to understand.

Oh sigh. I've had two full days completley at my disposal, no requirements, all the time in the world to update, and I've had absolutely no energy or mental willpower. Hell, I haven't even done much cleaning to speak of, and that's normally my first objective for every free day on the schedule. I don't know what's to fault for this lethargy and, unfortunately, attempts to force myself out of it have thus far failed.

I wanted to put a clip from last night's South Park in here but unfortunately the Internet Police have really cracked down on pirated copyright material, quite significantly spoiling all my fun. For the run down, last night Cartman was his usual little bastardly self and through a complicated run of events got Butters' parents convinced he was gay. And he got sent to de-gayification camp. And it was awesome. Tag line for the camp? 'You can pray the gay away!'

Every couple minutes at gay camp you'd hear a gunshot as another camper killed himself.

I love it when South Park gets bitchy and preachy.

...I've been a real snark today, I'm sorry. I don't know what it is or where it's come from anymore than I can put a tag on this laziness. Probably the two are related as whenever I feel unproductive it leads to feelings of worthlessness which in turn make me rude and cat scratchy toward all near me.

There are many things happening around the homestead which are relevant toward my blog theme and which I'd like to discuss but wouldn't be fair to the members of the household to do so. The old personal space line must be respected inasmuch as I'd go apeshit for someone to write such things about me.

Have I mentioned lately that I can't maintain a train of thought long enough to finish a sentence today...

GOD.

This is the best I can squeeze out. My brain hurts. I need to make dinner because I'm losing weight again even though I don't mean to. But perhaps I do on some level. That's the gnarly thing about recovery; I feel ugly and skinny but ugly and fat at the same time. I'm hungry and food porn a lot these days but the thought of eating makes me nauseous. I'm indecisive about any and all food-related decisions. Food, food, food, godamn food.

I'm constantly stressing about cars, medication, psychiatric treatment, taxes, cars, finances, cars, food, work, writing, everything. Maybe the external lethargy is a Girl, Interrupted type example of velocity vs. viscosity... I need to be back on the mood stabilizers I hate so much and can't afford, anyway. Maybe I need to try a different prescription.

MANIA CAN ANYONE SAY MANIC EPISODE I'M LOSING IIITTTTT.

In other news, Siri! I got your package and I loved it. Listened to the CD first thing and it was awesome. I'll make you a mix and write you a letter the moment my thoughts can slow to match the speed of my handwriting.

Haircuts and Mannequins

I get the feeling that all my entries are merely old rants rehashed. Anyone? Anyone? Yeah.

In other news, I got my hair done! This is not a big deal for normal people, but I'm crazy... And aside from that, I haven't cut my hair in like three years. Because people totally suck and wouldn't shut up about my eating habits I was feeling really ugly and disgusting by the end of the day.

Why does everyone who sees a morsel of food enter my mouth feel the need to comment on it?!? I got a mini pizza and a salad for lunch and was so hungry I charged through the salad in like ten minutes... Immediately all coworkers in the vicinity, even my manager, started jibing about how much I was eating, how either I was going to balloon or else must be purging what I eat. I HATE EVERYONE. Actually, after I'd had half the pizza and couldn't stand any more of it I lost it. Said something to the effect of, "Look, you have no right commenting about my eating habits. You have no idea about my history, you don't know if maybe I do have food issues, if maybe I was hospitalized three times last year. So back the f- off."

I wouldn't recommend that as the most polite, poised way of handling situations like that, but it did work.

When I got off early from work I wandered around the mall for a while, talked on the phone to Crystal some, saw all the mannequins in the windows and cried like a lameass, and wandered more. I've been thinking about getting my hair cut for a while now and got the idea to use my extra time to go to the salon. It was actually a really good decision.

I'm of the opinion that few things feel so good as getting your hair done. I mean seriously, isn't it just awesome to have someone play with your hair? And then the shampoo-y thingy and the little shower head thingy all sheurhohgshhhh, it's just awesome.

Watching her go snip, snip, snip as six inches of my hair fell to the floor was extremely unnerving, though.

...Mmkay, I was going to conclude with a picture but can't seem to find my bluetooth device (so that I can get said picture from my phone to the comp) sooo... Yeah.

In conclusion, yay haircuts. It was an awesome way to feel better physically, get some innocent compliments (is saying nice things about your client's hair part of the job description?), and feel better about myself without doing something crazy or triggery. I think everyone should go get their hairstyled just for the hell of it. Yep.

Recent onslaught of dieting commericals

It's driving me NUTS. And pissing me off in a major way.

I figured out today that it's probably because of the holidays - people feel guilty about enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas, then New Years offers a reason to make resolutions. I don't know for sure, but my guess would be 'to lose X lbs' is the number one most popular resolution, at least in the United States.

Being the capitalistic society we are all these gyms and fad diets and diet pills attack those resolutions like starving hyenas. When just chilling out and watching some TV today, I counted during the commercial break. Four out of the eight commercials were directly related to weight loss. Two of the remaining four were food-related in some way or another.

So we're talking a 75% of all the commercials we're watching telling us, either subliminally or outright, that we are fat and need to lose weight.

Aside from the dramatic before and after shots, the glamourous supermodels holding coffee can sized bottles of heart-destroying diet pills, there were ads featuring images of morbidly obese people or cartoons of skinny women getting larger and larger over a matter of seconds. After a while I'd had enough of listening to the commercials and put them on mute but you still can't escape the messages. All it did was minimize the onslaught of insulting product hooks. The worst part is that you can't even change the channel, since most channels have commercials on around the same times!

Now, yes, many times people gain weight around the holidays. A few weeks ago the commercials all featured these glorious feasts and tables of happy, skinny, smiling people gorging themselves. Here in America, food is an enourmous part of any celebration and the winter holidays are almost nothing but food. Even those commercials capitalizing on our sense of goodwill and prosperity guilt were often all about how we rich people have too much food and others need our donations.

But don't we like enjoying the food, if just once a year? Do we have to be made to feel guilty over having just that one time a year to relax and give ourselves a break about food and body guilt?

I hate this country sometimes. The past few days have just been especially galling.