"Eat what? There's nothing here! Gandhi ate more than this!"

--HOOK

You hear that low rumbling in the distance? What sounds like the tectonic plates shifting? Prolonged thunder? It's not an earthquake, nor an impending tsunami. It just very well may be my stomach, intensely growling, impatiently awaiting appeasement with sustenance.

You see, I've found a flaw to living at home, and that is that *I* am now my primary caretaker as far as providing food is concerned. Not that I couldn't make my own sandwich or fix food on my own before. But when I had parents around, I could at least count on the fridge being filled with more than just condiments.

As many of you now know, my father ended his 17 years of bachleorhood over Christmas break and married an old girlfriend of his. Together, they bought a new house out at Lake Norman, and since then he has moved up all his clothes and office supplies and has been, well, practically living there. So now I live alone in his old house, taking care of the dogs, and pretty much being a bum. To spell it out: My father is no longer here, therefore he no longer goes grocery shopping for this residence.

What about my mom? She lives down the street, three houses down, right? True. Why don't I just go there to eat? 'Cause, well, I don't really know. I think it's because I feel like a bum everytime I go there. I'm embarassed and ashamed, like the only reason I come down to my mom's is to eat, not to see my mother and enjoy her company.

If I "sneak" over in the afternoon, well there's a chance she may be there, and then I just feel really bad. So what about dinner? Sometimes I'll ask my mom what her plans are, but she has her own life. She usually fixes herself a salad or something before heading out with her evening plans, so we'll maybe have dinner once a week, if that.

What this all boils down to is this: I don't eat anymore. In school I mastered the art of living without sleep, going as much as 50 plus hours without rest when schoolwork/media production required me to stay up and shoot and edit vidoes and write papers and such. Now, living back at home, I'm mastering the art of not eating. But this isn't really a respectable "art" to be a master at, I realize.

"Why don't you just go out and buy your own food?" I must be stubborn. Because the whole reason I chose to live at home was to save money, so eventually I could move away to Los Angeles or something. So not eating is a way for me to conserve money. When I went grocery shopping over the summer, my bill averaged around fifty dollars for milk, cereal, sandwich supplies and the like. If I kept that average up here in Charlotte, I'd be broke within a month.

"Why not go and get fast food when you're hungry?" Stubborness again. I'm just trying to save money. I think if I went to Wendy's and got a JR Bacon Cheeseburger from the ONE DOLLAR VALUE MEAL, it would only tease my appetite without bedding her back down again. It would make me hungrier, and then my hunger pains would increase. See? I'm so damned stubborn I WON'T EVEN GET FAST FOOD THAT COSTS A DOLLAR! Besides, if that's all I ate, I'm sure my health would deteriorate.

Sometimes I can trick my body into thinking I've eaten. This is most easily achieved by getting dressed and brushing my teeth and getting out of the house. I think my conditioned brain, upon realizing my teeth are now clean, assumes this is so because I've just had a meal. And then my stomach stops crying out for food.

So I don't have breakfast anymore. It used to be my favorite meal. I couldn't function without cereal first thing in the morning. And if I have lunch, I won't have dinner, and vice versa. Last week I had lunch with my mom, but did not have dinner. The next day- no breakfast, no lunch, but I did have dinner with my mom. So that's what, a day and a half without food? The other day my lunch was popcorn at a movie theater because that's what my babysitting job entailed. I got lucky that evening and was invited to a Going Away/Birthday dinner by a friend.

Today all I've had to eat has been a buttered roll (leftovers from last week's dinner, courtesy of my mom). The most I'll ever eat is when I am invited to dinner by my mom or grandmother, and then I pig out, refuelling for the next few days. I'm really lucky when I babysit, because sometimes my uncle or aunt won't make it home until around dinner-time, so I am often fortunate enough to be invited to stay. You better believe I appreciate that.

And meeting friends for lunch or dinner is a great excuse to eat, but I usually vote against such meetings, or in the least hope for a cheap restaurant. And when we do go to such a place, I usually try and order the cheapest thing on the menu, unless its a special occasion.

I've dropped about five pounds, as far as I can tell, from this "Starvation diet". But my friend Mary was wise to clue me into the fact that once I start eating again, I will gain weight. Lots of it. My metabolism will have gotten so used to burning very few calories that once I start eating normally again, I won't burn as many calories as I should, and that will build up as fat. And we can't have that, now can we?

So don't worry folks, I still eat. I will eat again. I think once my fridge runs out of water bottles, THEN I just might make a trip to the grocery store for milk and cereal. Or at the very least, bread. I'm sure there is some good peanut butter left in the cabinets, unless my father has pilfered that too. And ONCE I get a job, I will most definitely start buying food, there's no question there. Just until then, I'm being thrifty. But my body can handle it. I'm pretty sure my stomach is shrinking. As anyone knows, I can pound away a LOT of food, but nowadays, I think I'm learning to not be so hungry. It's 5:30 right now, and I could eat, if faced with food, but I don't feel any overwhelming desire to stuff my face. I'm adapting.

But, that's not necessarily a good thing. At least I'm learning to be humble, I suppose. Mmmmm... humble pie... *drooool*...
--Cbake

Hello Ladies, see anything that you like?