Tuesday, April 20, 2010
BJ Diary
Approximately 5 years after the book Bridget Jones's Diary was published, I read it for the first time and now I wish I can see the movie too. It was truly, truly enjoyable, so REAL and extremely hilarious. I totally love every bit of it, from cover to cover and wish that I can share with you all that I've read, but it would be crazy of me to type everything out. :-D So here are a few snippets, which I hope will entice you to read the book yourself. Does anyone have the DVD that I can borrow?
Tuesday 3 January
9st 4 (terrifying slide into obesity - why? why?), alcohol units 6 (excellent), cigarettes 23 (v.g.), calories 2472.
9 a.m. Ugh. Cannot face thought of going to work. Only thing which makes it tolerable is thought of seeing Daniel again, but even that is advisable since am fat, have spot on chin, and desire only to sit on cushion eating chocolate and watching Xmas specials. It seems wrong and unfair that Christmas, which its stressful and unmanageable financial and emotional challenges, should first be forced upon you one wholly against one's will, then rudely snatched away just when one is starting to get into it. Was really beginning to enjoy the feeling that normal service was suspended and it was OK to lie in bed as long as you want, put anything you fancy into your mouth, and drink alcohol whenever it should chance to pass your way, even in the mornings. Now suddenly we are all supposed to snap into self-discipline like a lean teenage greyhounds.
Sunday 15 January
9st (excellent), alcohol units 0, cigarettes 29 (v.v. bad, esp. in 2 hours), calories 3879 (repulsive)
6 p.m. Completely exhausted by entire day of date-preparation. Being a woman is worse than being a farmer - there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked, feet pumiced, skin exfoliated and moisturized, spots cleansed, roots dyed, eyelashes tinted, nails filed, cellulite massaged, stomach muscles exercised. The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. Sometimes I wonder what I would be like if left to revert to nature - with a full beard and handlebar moustache on each shin, Dennis Healey eyebrows, face a graveyard of dead skin cells, spots erupting, long curly fingernails like Struwelpeter, blind as bat and stupid runt of species as no contact lenses, flabby body flobbering around. Ugh, ugh. Is it any wonder girls have no confidence?
Tuesday 7 March
9st 4, 2 or 5?? alcohol units 0, cigarettes 20, calories 1500
9 a.m. Aargh. How can I have put on 3lb since the middle of the night? I was 9st 4 when I went to bed, 9st 2 at 4 a.m. and 9st 5 when I got up. I can understand weight coming off - it could have evaporated or passed out of the body into the toilet - but how could it be put on? Could food react chemically with other food, double its density and volume and solidify into every heavier and denser hard fat? I don't look fatter. I can fasten the button, though no, alas, the zipper of my '89 jeans. So maybe my whole body is getting smaller but denser. The whole thing smacks of female body-builders and makes me feel strangely sick. Call up Jude to complain about diet failure, who says write down everything you've eaten, honestly, and see if you stuck to the diet.
Saturday 22 April
8st 7, cigarettes 0, alcohol units 0, calories 1800
Today is an historic and joyous day. After eighteen years of trying to get down to 8st 7 I have finally achieved it. It is no trick of the scales, but confirmed by jeans. I am thin.
There is no reliable explanation. I have been to the gym twice in the last week, but that, though rare, is not freakish. I have eaten normally. It is a miracle. Rang Tom, who said maybe I have a tapeworm.
Tuesday 25 April
8st 7, alcohol units 0 (excellent), cigarettes 0 (v.v.g), calories 995 (continuing good work)
Humph. Went to Jude's party tonight in tight little black dress to show off figure feeling v. full of myself.
'God, are you all right?' asked Jude when I walked in. 'You look really tired.'
'I'm fine,' I said, crestfallen. 'I've lost half a stone. What's the matter?'
'Nothing. No, I just thought ...'
'What? What?'
'Maybe you've lost it a bit quickly off your ... face,' she trailed off, looking at my admittedly somewhat deflated cleavage.
Simon was the same.
'Bridgiiiiiiiiit! Have you got a fag?'
'No, I've given up.'
'Oh blimey, no wonder you look so ...'
'What?'
'Oh, nothing, nothing. Just a bit ... drawn.'
It continued all evening. There's nothing worse than people telling you you look tired. They might as well have done with it and say you look like five kinds of shit. I felt so pleased with myself not drinking but as the evening wore on, and everyone got drunker, I began to feel so calm and smug that I was even irritating myself. I kept finding myself in conversations when I actually couldn't be bothered to say a single word, and just looked on and nodded in a wise, detached manner.
'Have you got any camomile tea?' I said to Jude at one point as she lurched past, hiccupping happily, at which point she collapsed into giggles, put her arm round me and fell over. I decided I'd better go home.
Once there, I got into bed, put my head on the pillow but nothing happened. I kept putting my head in one place, then another place, but still it wouldn't go to sleep. Normally I would be snoring by now and having some sort of traumatized paranoid dream. I put the light on. It was only 11:30. Maybe I should do something, like, well, er ... mending? Inner poise. The phone rang. It was Tom.
'Are you all right?'
'Yes. I feel great. Why?'
'You just seemed, well, flat tonight. Everyone said you weren't your usual self.'
'No, I was fine. Did you see how thin I am?' Silence.
'Tom?'
'I think you looked better before, hon.'
Now I feel empty and bewildered - as if a rug has been pulled from under my feet. Eighteen years - wasted. Eighteen years of calorie and fat-unit-based arithmetic. Eighteen years of buying long shirts and jumpers and leaving the room backwards in intimate situations to hide my bottom. Millions of cheesecakes and tiramisus, tens of millions of Emmenthal slices left uneated. Eighteen years and the result is 'tired and flat'. I feel like a scientist who discovers that his life's work has been a total mistake.
Tuesday 1 August
8st 12, alcohol units 3, cigarettes 40 (but have stopped inhaling in order to smoke more), calories 450 (off food)
5 a.m. I'm falling apart. My boyfriend is sleeping with a bronzed giantess. My mother is sleeping with a Portuguese. Jeremy is sleeping with a horrible trollop, Prince Charles is sleeping with Camilla Parker-Bowles. Do not know what to believe in or hold on to any more.
Finally, there is a sequel to this. Mel, when can I get the book from you? That is to say, when are we meeting up again? :-D
