Let Us Make Pillows. And Soap.

Random Winter Break-ness:

Today I did nothing but watch T.V. and sleep. Grey's Anatomy re-runs and National Graphic documentaries and blissful, long, naps with no "I haven't done my homework" guilt. That is, I slept until Mom called. Then I went shopping for pillow-making stuff. I got two different colors of material to start out with: a dark, vibrant fuchsia and a purple so true it makes my heart happy. Tomorrow, I try my first one. I think I'm going to stuff it with allspice and cinnamon and add a few drops of essence of lavender. If it works, I'll give a pillow each to Mom and Biz for Christmas. If it doesn't, I'll make them cookie-cutter soaps in pretty little baskets.

I also got a coat today. It's the first brand-new coat I've had in six years: deep, plum purple. I feel kind of bad for enjoying it so much, because it was a joint gift from two of my neighbors, one of whom I positively. cannot. stand. I know it and he knows it and I took the money anyway. Does that make me a selfish Christmas ogre? Does it matter at all that I really needed the coat?

Four of my grades came in. 3 A's and a B-plus. I'm still waiting on my Stats grade. If it's good enough, I'll actually make the Dean's List this semester! Do I dare hope? I've always wanted to make the Dean's List at least once. I wish Dr. Morgan would submit the damn grade already!

In other news, I really need to sort out my eating problem. I am overweight. It is unhealthy. I avoid mirrors and I hate having my picture taken and I get depressed every time I try on clothing. Thing is, I also get depressed if I am not constantly eating. It started out harmless enough: freedom eating. I left home, and suddenly there was no one to tell me how gross I was. There was no one to sing ditties about my fatness through the bathroom door as I dressed after my shower, no one to send me away from the table for holding my fork the wrong way. And so I ate. I ate rich, decadent things covered in sugar and icing. I moved to Evansville and ate the globe: Chinese, Indian, Thai, Italian, Greek. Food was a joy. And then I started antidepressants. Lexapro took ten pounds and ballooned it into a lot more than ten. It also made me drool and pretty much put me into a coma. I took so many others in between that I've forgotten their names, except for Zoloft and Remeron. They tried me on Wellbutrin, which supposedly makes people lose weight, but it didn't work. I crashed. Boom. Now I'm on Paxil. It works, but it's horrible for weight control. And it doesn't help that I can't quit eating. I actually get sad when I don't eat, when I don't have something edible in front of me. And I've realized that it's because when I don't eat, I think about my mother. I think about her a lot. In fact, the only time I don't think about her is when I'm stuffing my face. It's like a drug: it makes me feel better, and then when I come down off the eating high, all I can hear is her voice telling me how gross and fat I am, so I eat some more to shut her up. Sigh. All those years of therapy, and all I can do is identify *why* I'm screwed up. I'm a social work student, for pity's sake. I'm being trained to be a therapist, to help other people, and I can't pass a bag of chips without eating the whole damn thing. I know all the tips and tricks and all the right things to say, and I can't do them for myself. I am a social worker who needs a social worker to kick her ass into gear. Sigh.

(I think big women are beautiful. Unless they're me. This is why I've taken up crafting: pillows and soap and suchlike. If I keep my hands busy, maybe I won't eat so much.)

Tuesday I see the orthopedist about my hip. I fell on the 6th and tore my flexor doing a horrible version of the palsied splits that left me howling like a baby on the hallway floor and put me in the hospital for two nights during the last full week of school. When Mom and Dad were in Georgia and I couldn't remember anyone's cell numbers so one of my friends could come sit with me in the ER. It sucked bigtime. And it hurt like hell. It feels better now, though, at least most of the time, which is good: I have a bad knee on the left side. A bad hip on the right side might turn me into a cripple or something, and we wouldn't want that.

Tomorrow: the library. I'm going to get a stack of books up to my eyeballs and read them all in a month. Imagine it: books that I don't have to read! Non-textbook books! Crafts and books. Not food. Crafts and books.

I'm trying.