Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-06-03- 12:09 a.m.

Every Moment's a Little Bit Later

My fortune cookie tonight had this to say: “There is a prospect of a thrilling time ahead for you.” God, I hope that’s true.
It also says that my lucky numbers are six, twenty-one, twenty-five, thirty-one, forty, and forty-one. And that in Chinese, ‘That was a very good meal’ is ‘Zhe dun fan chi-de hen hao’. I have a theory that those helpful little “Learn Chinese” lessons on the back of fortunes lately are actually a massive prank. I think that there is someone who is putting really insulting phrases in Chinese, like ‘Your mom is a whore’ or ‘Shove this egg roll up your ass’, and then passing them off as innocent statements like ‘Lovely weather we’ve been having’. This way, well-meaning but dumb people will learn the phrases off the backs of the fortunes, and go down to Chinatown or to Hong Kong and try out their new vocabulary, and end up getting their asses kicked by insulted shopkeepers and such. Perhaps I’m just suspicious by nature. Or perhaps I just think that would be really funny.
Another thing I’ve been thinking of a prankful use of lately is this new ‘nicotine water’ that is coming out as an alternative to the patch and gum. I don’t know much about it, because actually researching things takes, well, effort, but the gist of it seems to be that it is just regular spring water laced with nicotine. I find myself filled with a desire to switch this with the regular spring water of people at work, and watching them become nicotine addicts without them having the slightest idea. I just like the idea of them getting really antsy when they are without any water for an hour, getting the shakes an hour later, and then freaking out and yelling, “Could someone please bring me a bottle of freakin’ water!” That would be funny. And a little cruel and over the top. But, mostly funny.
I clearly need a hobby of some sort. Idle minds are the devil’s playground.
I had Chinese food for dinner, obviously, despite having gone to D’Agostino’s just before I ordered. I spent $47.15 at the grocery store, almost entirely on junk. I went to the grocery store not because I wanted anything in particular, or even because there was anything I didn’t have that I felt I needed, but simply because it had been ages since I had gone, and because I’m a little concerned that I’m not eating. I’ve now lost about thirty pounds since last Thanksgiving. Without doing any dieting or exercise, except for going to and from my apartment and work. I had to have another hole punched in my belt, and most of my clothes now look at least one size too big. The silver lining is that my clothes that I couldn’t really wear anymore because they had shrunk in the wash now fit me again. Well, that and I’m less of a fat ass.
But still, I’m a bit concerned. It doesn’t help that I first noticed that I had lost a great deal of weight two weeks ago, and that since then I haven’t been eating much. The two things aren’t related at all; it is more that in the last two weeks I haven’t had anything even approaching an appetite. I’ve been nauseous a lot of the time, and when I’m feeling okay, it still doesn’t occur to me that I’m hungry. This isn’t a totally new thing; when I was in high school the main reason I was able to keep my weight down was that I would simply forget to eat for one or two days at a time. Well, my constant amphetamine use probably helped a little. Still, last week, I forgot to eat anything from lunch Tuesday until Thursday night.
Since then, I’ve been trying to force myself to eat, at least two meals a day. It isn’t working too well; I’m also going through one of those phases where nothing I eat has any taste. This happens to me sometimes, usually when I’m stressed out. Everything I put in my mouth has the flavor and consistency of Styrofoam. Tonight’s dinner was from a fancy and overpriced Chinese place over on 93rd and Lexington, and it cost too much and arrived forty-five minutes after I called. I ordered it because the last meal I can remember tasting and enjoying was about three weeks ago, at a Chinese restaurant on 55th between Fifth and Sixth, where I got a dry-sautéed beef with shredded vegetables that was simply fantastic. That was a couple of very good food days; the day before, I had a club sandwich at the Oyster Bar in the Plaza Hotel that was simply amazing. Best club sandwich I have ever eaten. I highly recommend it. Of course, for nineteen dollars, it had better be one really goddamn good sandwich.
The trouble with Chinese food in New York is that it is all pretty much the same. There is one every couple of blocks, and all of them have a similar menu and similar prices, and it is all pretty good (in fact, it would all be amazing by the standards of most towns in America) but it is all interchangeable. For some reason, I can’t really handle that. At least not now, when everything I’m eating tastes like nothing. So I shelled out the extra five bucks and waited the extra half hour for the fancy Chinese food, in hopes it would be as good as that other place in Midtown. As it turns out, I needn’t have bothered. It was pretty much the same as I could of expected if I had ordered from anyplace else.
And that’s what is really bothering me. I need to feel as if my choices matter, as if I can change something about my circumstances or myself and get a different result. That, and I’m a little worried about how if I keep losing weight, I’m going to need to scrounge up the money to buy a lot of new pants.

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If you want to make me
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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

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