The jeans are comforting. This week I tried on a beige three-button jacket in Agnes B, and it didn't look terrible, it did not pull into ugly shapes around the shoulders. I didn't buy it, but still. Beige. I'm pleased with myself. It makes me happy that I have beaten the odds, that I've spent several weeks not giving in, not doing what the nagging voices all around me are telling me to do: consume more, have more, escape reality, buy more stuff, hate yourself. I also feel pretty pathetic that this is all it takes to make me feel happy. Last week, my hairdresser said the word `carbs'. I was startled. She told me she was trying to lose weight, she'd heard about Atkins, and she was looking into this thing about `carbs'. That day, waiting in the salon, I saw a picture of Justin Timberlake, stripped to the waist, and he looked great. I also saw an episode of Friends in which Joey has a shower,and he's a little chunky, but not bad, and I looked at him and thought: maybe in a month or two. Maybe in a month or two I'll be at that stage.Lunch starts off well, with fizzy water, and when the waiter comes with the bread basket I wave it away confidently, and the woman I'm with says, 'You're not into this low-carbohydrate nonsense, are you?'`Well, I'm sort of going easy on bread and stuff, yeah.'And she looks at me, and what I see in her eyes is a mixture of confusion and anger, much more than simple disagreement.`But it's so stupid!
