I gave in and weighed myself. I am 112.8, which is not so far off track of where I wanted to be by today, which was waking up about .8 lighter than where I am now. That is okay. It will not make me fail out of disappointment. I'm very close to the lowest weight I've been in over a year, so I am almost happy.

Seeing as the buses don't run over the weekend and I am bored as hell, on top of which class is coming up on Tuesday (finally, it begins!), I am going to be studying Russian like my life depends on me being fluent in less than two days. That doesn't mean I will be fluent, it just means I'll be a little better off than I am now - having forgotten most of what I learned over the span of a year, in fewer than two months. Fuck! I need to buckle down and get to work on that.

I hope you are all doing well. Now that I finally have some people reading this blog, I should be a little less self-centered and a little more outwardly focused. Feel free to comment at will!

-Run With Me

p.s. 112.8 pounds and falling =D

Day Two, Take Two

I am very tired right now. Like my lungs are still sleeping, so they aren't functioning at full power, yet I'm moving around which is taxing their ability to function properly. I wonder what that is caused by? It has been coming on for the last couple of days, that my lungs will still be working as though I am sleeping, but it usually lasts only a few hours or goes away once I smoke. I've smoked and it's been awhile, but they are still functioning sub-par.

Today is Day Two, again. And I woke up feeling really weak from not having eaten for two days. That weakness usually goes away after about day three or four, so I know I just have to wait it out.

I will be successful today for two reasons: I want to be successful, and I have no food here and the buses aren't running over the weekend so I can't go downtown to get any.

I feel exhausted enough to go back to sleep, even though it is early. But I tried, for a minute or so, and realized that I could lay there, but not actually be able to fall asleep. So, oh well on that score.

I had my MRI, but it will probably come out to be normal. I don't know what to make of that assumption, because if it does, it means I probably don't have anything fatal. But if it does, then I don't have an answer to what my medical issue is... I don't know what the next step is after an MRI.

Today, my assumed weight is 113.0... and tonight, my assumed weight will be 112.0 if I do not consume anything other than water.

I may be overestimating my weight loss, but I may also be underestimating it. I have lost quite a lot in a short span of time before. So when I eventually do weigh myself, I will probably not be "on target" but either lower or higher than I am assuming. But that is okay. I won't let that disappoint me into eating.

-Run With Me

p.s. Assumed weight, 113.0

Day One, Take Two

I have officially put the scale away. That does not mean that I'm stopping fasting. It simply means that I keep failing and am changing absolutely everything I can think of around to help me manage each day successfully.

Today is, once again, Day One. I am going to assume my weight to be 114.0 pounds, though I haven't weighed myself since I was 112.8 (that was before I consumed so damn much). For every day that I fast, I will subtract one pound by the end of the day... so by tonight I might just be 113.0 if I succeed.

I have my MRI in under three hours.

-Run With Me

p.s. Scale = Gone, Day One Again, Presumed Weight = 114.0

Day Two

I am 112.8 pounds right now and I think my scale may be a little bit cheap. It will stay at the same weight for a long time and then jump me down by an entire pound in an instant. I think it waits until there is a certain amount of weight loss and then decides to show that weight. I don't know how it works. I almost don't even care.

I am working on a great story. I hope to serialize it and sell it to some magazine or something that will pay me for my work. I don't know if that will work out or not, but it is worth looking around on line for a few hours in hopes of finding someone/thing/place that will publish serialized works.

I went to the DOT, but had no luck. So I'm coming up with a completely different plan. On another note, I have my MRI tomorrow at 4:15 at the hospital here and I am hoping that it comes up completely fine/perfect/clean. I don't know what else I will do tomorrow? I haven't really thought this whole plan through. I do know, though, that I will get through this Day Two without any mishaps. I feel like I can do it... It all comes down to what happens when I try to go to sleep hungry. That is what has caused me to fail so many days in a row so far. But I feel confident.

More later,

-Run With Me

p.s. 112.8 pounds

Day One

I'm so extremely fucking tired right now. But it is Day One. I am starting off at 113.0 pounds because of my fuck-up last night. But I can handle that.

I won't say how long this fast is supposed to go because that isn't a concrete idea in my head, plus, I don't want to "jinx it" I should check the time difference between here and Germany so that I know when I can try to contact T... I don't know how terrible the fees will be for that, though.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my life and it's driving me nuts. I have no drive because I don't know what to be driving toward. But I feel closer to figuring that out somehow. I don't know how that works, but I feel closer anyway. We'll see how it plays itself out.

I don't have much else to say at the moment other than that I'm heading out to the Doctor in a couple of hours to give them my entire list of damned symptoms of "something" and get a referral to a neurologist who will hopefully be taking pictures of my completely healthy brain and telling me conclusively that I do not have Multiple Sclerosis.

-Run With Me

p.s. 113.0 pounds

I have successfully fasted today. But my best friend here where I live is leaving in a couple of months for another state and town... He's going to what sounds like a great gig and a great life. I just have foreboding feelings about it... like he's going to die before he ever gets the chance to do what he dreams and have that great life. I don't want that. I hope they let him go.

One of my absolute best friends in this world left for Germany today. I think she called me and must have left a message but I can't get to the message yet because my phone is acting up, so if you are reading this, I hope you had a safe trip and I want to hear from you all about it soon!

The image to the upper right reminds me of days spent with T and K in coffee parlors talking for hours and never getting bored. We could go on and on because it was always about life, always after having longed to get together for so long that actually doing it was an accomplishment worthy of the out-pouring of our woes and triumphs. I miss that. I miss that a lot.

It was about love. Unfortunately, the people I love tend to die sooner than they ever should. I've lost five people to my love... I don't want to lose another. I don't want to lose my best friend who is going to Minneapolis and I don't want to lose T or K to anything. What would I do without these people in my life? I would keep on trucking through the way I do now, but huge holes, unfillable holes, would be there. How could I be happy after that kind of loss again? How could I ever survive in my head after that? My body could continue on ad infinitum. But could I?

I weighed 113.0 this morning, this afternoon I was down to 111.6 and now I weigh the exact same, 111.6 pounds. It will go down by the time I wake up tomorrow morning. It will all be alright eventually: my friends will stay alive because the pattern of my close friends and loves of my life dying has ended. It's over. And they will let him go.

-Run With ME

p.s. 111.6 pounds

Things are getting strange. I woke up at five til six pm today... Yesterday it was nearly four pm, the day before that nearly three, and the day before that it was 1:55pm.... Why am I sleeping so damn late now? I'm sleeping my entire daytimes away!

I went to bed this morning, approximately 1:07am, at 114.8 pounds due to my own familiar folly. I woke up, 6pm, at 112.4 pounds. I haven't weighed myself in the last thirty-four minutes, but I went outside into the raging heat and probably sweated myself down some... I'll check real fast... Same.

I need to put some really serious thought into fasting again. I've given myself too much leeway, when I thought I was giving myself just enough to get by.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but I took the telltale tea last night, two cups, two separate tea bags. And when I weighed in at 114.8 I had just finished drinking them, so had about 16oz of water in my stomach when I stepped on the scale. Not the smartest way to weigh myself I know.

I made a chart the other day, about projected weight loss if I keep fucking up. Here it is, hopefully it is somewhat accurate:

May 30th = 111.8
May 31st = 112.0 to 110.8
June 1st = 109.6
June 2nd = 110.0 to 109.4
June 3rd = 108.0
June 4th = 108.8 to 108.0
June 5th = 107.0
June 6th = 108.0 to 107.2
June 7th = 106.0
June 8th = 105.0

Conversely, if I fast and lose weight for every one of those ten days (ten days until the 8th when my summer class starts), this is what it might look like:

May 30th = 111.8
May 31st = 110.8
June 1st = 109.8
June 2nd = 108.8
June 3rd = 107.8
June 4th = 106.8
June 5th = 105.8
June 6th = 104.8
June 7th = 103.8
June 8th = 102.8

I could either be 105.0 pounds and have a BMI of 18.6 or I could be 102.8 pounds and have a BMI of 18.2... not that big of a difference, but the difference in my physicality and physical size will be enormous because on of these methods has me eating and failing, thus keeping a certain appearance and non-invisibility, while the other has me fasting constantly and thus sort of disappearing much faster. And that's what I want. I want to disappear. I will try to fast for the next ten days.

Wish me luck,

-Run With Me

p.s. 112.4 pounds

I woke up this afternoon at around 3pm at 113.8 pounds. I am now 113.0 pounds. The day is being okay to me. I am in a fasting-mode today, meaning I don't feel like consuming and am determined, almost helplessly, not to do so. I wish I hadn't given in the way I did last night with the bread and cheese, but what is done is done. Not something I should dwell over or beat myself up (anymore than I already did) for.

I will be fine. That is what I keep telling myself. In this losing weight, I will be just fine. I will get where I want to be, even if it takes some minor ups and some more reliable downs. The downs (meaning weightloss) will win out because I want them to.

-Run With Me

p.s. 113.0 pounds

For insight into me, A paper-journal post...

Cirque Du Soleil is one of the crowning points of human beauty, fitness and inspiration. They always awe me, make me wish that I was one of them despite the obvious reasons why I never could be.

I never could be because, at almost nineteen years of age, my legs move beneath my like I have Parkinson's and my hands are growing weaker with every day that I open my eyes upon how beautiful this world still is to me. My joints are suffering, despite my having slowed my movements and toned down the daily exercises of walking from building to building and standing up to ward off boredom. My right knee and ankle refuse to take any shocks or abuses, including me hopping over a two inch tall ledge. Stairs are no longer a good idea, they make my entire body shake and pivot in weird directions. My wrists are very strong, just as good as they have always been, but my fingers and palms are letting me down - fingers dislocating at the joints closest to the nails, or otherwise not allowing me to hold my pen for more than two minutes without either dropping it or having to change the way or hand with which I am writing. I can't have that... Writing is my life. Without it, I might crumble.

Ultimately, though... I will not crumble. I will adapt, as I have always adapted. No matter what is wrong surrounding my body's ability to function as it usually has, no matter what is standing in my way this time, no matter who tries to tell me I wont make it (even if that person is myself), I know that I will. I am a survivor of a million and one shipwrecks. I have come to tell my tale. And whether it can no longer be written, or my words pour from my pen like rain, that story will be told. Eventually. When I am ready. When it is complete. And that story is far from complete now. I can feel it. Every day, I can feel it in me - the ability to just stop breathing in my sleep. And I can tell when I'm not ready. And every day so far, despite how bad it has been, I haven't been ready. And I won't be ready. Not for years. And I certainly won't go silently. I will go with an explosion of passion and life that tells the whole world "I'm ready to go, and you will be okay when I am gone. That's a promise." Until I can fulfill that promise, I'm stuck to this world like it's own naked skin. I guarantee you that.

I'm almost nineteen years old and my body thinks it's time to go... My mind and my body have always been very separate beings. My body thinks it's getting decades and decades older than it is. It thinks it might be approaching it's 70s. I can feel that. My back is always sore in ways it didn't used to be, arthritic ways of constant inflammation. My left eye is simultaneously getting worse and getting better - worse in that there is always a headache, redness or incredible itch in or behind it now; better in that it is adapting to life in darkness - my blind spot is much bigger, the rest is colorless and grey, but I know how to purport myself as though I can see everything clearly. I have dizziness and vertigo that are not caused by any sort of blood sugar deficit because they happen at random times when I am completely still, and never when I am standing from sitting, or sitting from lying. I thought that the bus I was on yesterday was rolling backward three times when it was staying completely still at a stop light. I have nausea when I eat or drink too much and I'm sleeping far too much and far too little in alternates. Fatigue, muscle spasms, my neck is very stiff when I tilt my head down or to the left (painfully so). I have the urge to move (as in to walk for miles and miles and never stop), but no physical ability to do it anymore. My body parts fall asleep at random moments, sometimes when pressure is on them, sometimes when they sit still for too long, sometimes in the middle of use. All of these things get worse the hotter it gets outside.

But you know what, that's okay! I have my rambling record of my bodily woes, just in case they all come out to mean something in the end, but I don't mind. Whether I can use my body at all, or not, does not influence my ability to perceive greatness, variety, beauty in this world and in the people in it. Don't get me wrong, I know the extent to which there is evil in this world. But I also know that I refuse to see only that part of the cloud - I refuse only silver lining or black void filled with rain without also perceiving that it is lightning that makes the lining shine and lightning kills. Or water that fills the cloud, and water nourishes all of life on this planet. The only planet we have.

Nothing is ever what it seems. Never is a thing only a thing - it is multifaceted, multicolored, hiding itself, always. I believe that. And I try to see it all.

Somedays, I am a failure. I went to the organic foods store here and bought a giant loaf of bread and muenster cheese. I ate 2 out of 7 pieces of that bread and probably 2 out of eight pieces of the cheese... the cheese alone is about 200 calories. I have no concept of what the bread is. I feel really stupid right now. I was hungry, so I thought I would just go downtown and get a fruit smoothie that I know is only apples, bananas, and a blueberry/pomegranate juice that adds up to about 300 calories. But with this little escapade of mine, this little stupid fucking meal, I probably am up to 1000 calories in it alone. I think the bread by itself was 750 calories or more. It was garlic/parmesan ciabatta (the ciabatta part is a guess).

So... my 111.2 is very likely gone down the drain with the rest of my day. What I'm worrying about now is tomorrow. What will tomorrow look like now that absolutely everyone I know is out of town? I will be bored out of my mind, which makes for a dangerous time of craving food. FUCK! What can I do about this?

I plan to watch some cirque du soleil online. I can write in this blog. Smoke out in the defying heat... play pool... loaf around and eventually get to sleep. I don't know what else to tell you other than, yikes. This doesn't look good.

Fri, May 28 2010
Day Intake Analysis

Food Cals
Pickles, Cucumber, Dill 4
White Tuna in Water - Canned Tuna 100
Classic Yellow - Mustard 0
Strawberries 9
Apples - Gala 75
Total Calories Consumed: 188

I ate probably 150 calories of those listen above. That was the meal I made for myself in my dorm room and very purposefully ate. I don't feel too guilty about it, but I still feel mad at myself. Even though I told myself that I could eat it, I feel mad that I actually did.

I weigh 111.2 as of 6:10 pm tonight. I've been walking out in the sun, very minorly. Mostly just sitting. Then I went to the tobacco parlor that is the one building which allows you to smoke inside. It was a nice day. I spoke to some people from this summer dorm about their military service. I spoke with an old lady on the bus back to this dorm about randomness but brightened my own day and hopefully hers with the opportunity of friendly conversation.

I've been trying to hold friendly conversations with people as much as I see that they are willing. Only really people that I don't know and may never see again. I start with, "How are you doing today?" and a smile. It leads to the most interesting revelations and small happinesses I've ever really had. Some days, I'm glad to reach out, even when I don't feel like doing it. Even when I'm having a bad day. Other days, it doesn't go very well and I'm trying too hard (that is usually the culprit). I prefer to be casual anyway. Have casual conversations that make me happy like poetry over tea.

-Run With Me

p.s. 111.2

Life is hectic. Last night from 9:20pm to 1:06am I trudged it out with a friend. They and I went to a restaurant that is open 24/7 and I had coffee while they ate something spicy and chicken... then we went to a Walmart for the sole purpose of buying plates that we could smash. We drove out into the middle of bumfuck nowhere while talking in the car for hours about our lives and both new and old developments in them. Then we parked, wrote all our shit onto each plate, them using a fantastic code language they came up with when they were three years old and still use with fluency. Me writing in plain english all my woes and angry ravings, words that, for both of us, could never be repeated. Then, we left the car, walked for a ways and smashed each plate to oblivion. The only thing missing was raving, raging yelling from either of us. We couldn't do that because we were in a place where sound travels to human ears from a distance. After that, I stupidly said aloud: "I kinda wanna shake". We went back to the all-night diner and I had to order a shake... turtle carmel nut. I drank probably 5/6ths of it. Then I did the stupid nausea dance because I haven't had anything that rich, sugary or fatty in my stomach for a long ass time and threw up all over the parking lot (not of my own accord, mind you). It was a fucking show to be sure, me retching all over the place and my friend saying: "Dude, are you okay? What the fuck is happening?"... And throughout it all, I feel I can actually say that I am happy I threw it up. I wouldn't have done it on purpose but I would have felt like shit if it had stayed in my stomach for me to absorb and use. I don't know how to count that as fasting though, so on my calendar I marked it as a period during day one in which I failed. Ah, well... such is life.

I weighed myself last night as 112.0 when I got back from these shenanigans... this morning I weighed in again at exactly 112.0. I guess that's what I'm fated to be for most of today... I won't fake my life and say I don't mind, because I do mind. But it is still the lowest weight I have been in a year.

My whole body feels weak this afternoon. I don't know why that is because I didn't do any working out (intentionally or unintentionally)...

More updates to be posted later...

-Run With Me

p.s. 112.0 Pounds

This is going to take me so much longer if I can't just fast solidly for more than two days...

I was 112.6 this afternoon when I weighed myself (1:55pm). Now, as of 4:06pm, I am 112.0 exactly. I broke my lowest weight in over a year! YAHOOO!

I have come to a conclusion. I will not be able to, at this time, fast for ten days in a row. I will change my course of action, under that assumption, so that I can stop feeling so absolutely ridiculous when I 'fail' at the very end of every Day Two.

New Course Of Action: I will fast for an entire day and 3/4 of the next day. At 10pm on the second day, I will evaluate whether or not I can make it through to day three of fasting, or whether I cannot. Then I will eat healthy things, only, among which are 50 calorie cans of tuna, 80 calorie each apples, strawberries (that are actually enormous - bigger than any I've ever seen before, the size of fists), and 2-5 calorie pickles. Some people say that pickles have no calories, but I don't believe that there is a food in this world that has zero or negative calories in actuality. Argue me if you will... I doubt that anyone is reading this, though.

In that way, I will be alternating fasting one day, eating minor amounts at the very end of the next, and then fasting again. I should be able to lose weight even while eating that way. Not as much as in a total fast, mind you, but enough that I can count it. Enough that I can eventually get to my goal weight of 86 pounds.

Difficulties exist to be surmounted - Ralph Waldo Emerson

There's quite a bit happening around me, amongst my friends who are shutting me out because they are so wrapped up in their own drama. I know that I could help, but they won't let me in to spread a little perspective and logic around. Oh well. I guess I really don't need to get into it anyway. It isn't worth it sometimes to put myself out like that. But if any of them call me up tonight, you better believe I'll be jumping in and trying to do the best I can for them all.

If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may know peace. - Thomas Paine

I don't really know what to write at the moment. I have a few new developments, but none of them really matter. Among them, I now weigh 112.6 pounds. I have taken my telltale tea as well, even though I have nothing in my stomach. I have successfully not eaten for just about two days. I think. I've gotten confused somewhere along the line. I can't remember quite when I started my fast... I'll have to look back over the posts. I'm so distracted by the shitstorms that are happening just beyond my reach.

I should probably go to sleep soon. I know it's only 9pm, but I still feel the need to get some rest. It's been very hectic here. I will revel in the day that classes start up again and I can get some of this shit out of my brain and some of the boredom off of my back and just focus on one thing - college...

Good luck in all your endeavors,

-Run With Me

p.s. 112.6 pounds tonight.