So I figured out one of the reasons I was stressed out about my brother’s visit and I think it’s because I’m kind of resentful of his girlfriend. I won’t be his number two girl anymore (after my moms) and that made me a little sad. He even told me that she reminded him of me which is weird–is she a bitch, too? Anyway, I’m excited that they’re coming. I went to trader joes last night and bought all these snacks that I figured college freshmen would like. i had to avoid the stinky cheese and prosciutto and just stocked up on chips and cookies. I guess these snacks are more for me than my bro. Ha.

Um, so we all know that i have a high tolerance for reality television and that i have a propensity for becoming addicted to certain tv shows (LOST, 30 Rock, Yo Gabba Gabba) and my current addictions are The Paper (MTV’s reality show about a high school newspaper. So cute!) and Bravo’s Work Out.

I love The Paper because I had always wished that my highschool had a school paper but the administration wouldn’t fund a newspaper club because we were a performing arts school and kids already had so much on their plate. So in my junior year i started my own underground paper and called it The Earthworm (get it?) and lassoed my friends into writing columns. I used my lunch money to make all the copies.

The Earthworm lasted one issue. But it was a darn good issue!

And then last night I was watching Work Out and I’m embarrassed to admit this, dear readers, but I cried.

So in this episode Jackie (the owner of Sky Lab Gym) has a heart to heart with one of the female trainers Erica (who has a history of bulimia) and says ” I noticed that you’ve been eating alot more…like practically 20,000 calories a day and you don’t look like you’re gaining any weight, in fact, you look like you’ve lost weight…”

Then Erica reassures her that she’s not throwing up and that things are fine although in life there’s always one thing that’s not perfect and Jackie asks her to explain and Erica says, “Well, I don’t know, I guess there’s the whole dating thing…maybe that’s why I’m eating so much” and then she starts crying and then, oh dear jesus, I START CRYING.

I don’t know if this is a gendered thing but I, along with alot of women, am an emotional eater. When things in my life are fine, I’m very disciplined, I eat in moderation, I work out regularly. But when I’m stressed out I tend to obsess over everything i eat to the point that I write every single calorie down and freak out if i go over.

And it’s sad but this obsessive behavior is usually aligned with feeling unhappy in my dating life. And I think what really triggered it was last year when I tried to re-connect with this guy who absolutely wanted nothing to do with me and it killed me that I couldn’t control the situation and that I couldn’t make someone want to be friends with me. So I transferred these control issues through eating. Or not. I subsisted on coffee and laughing cow cheese (all of this was done in private, of course, and to this day I can’t look at laughing cow cheese without feeling sick). I think you stop eating because you literally just want to disappear. Anyway, things got better. I eventually confided in a friend, in the bathroom of a karaoke bar of all places, and wasn’t going to let this guy be the reason I wanted to disappear.

Aaaaaand now I don’t know how a benign post about cheesy reality tv shows turned into a missive on eating behavior.

I’ve given you too much information. I will have to kill you now.

ed note: This post was originally titled half empty but I changed it because i think,ultimately, i am an optimistic person. And that is the energy id like to project.

ive been really lazy and not capitalizing letters yo.