Fleeing from a Vending Machine . . . and a Functioning Plane

What a week! I've been bouncing around for the last 7 days, and it seems I've lived a life time fulfilling some great goals and embracing just how big my cojones really are!!

It all begin last Thursday. I was working late and had to run an errand during lunch, so all I had to eat that day was a large cappuccino with skim milk, hot! Even in the craziest of heat waves, I need me my warm cappuccino from Veronica, the lovely barista who makes the sizzling hotness of warm greatness every morning for me at the French cafe across the street from work. She always has it ready for me as she sees me approaching the glass doors from the south side of Broadway and 55th street. I adore her to pieces and I hope the overpriced joint realizes how lucky they are to have her.

Anywho, it had become very clear that I had to eat something as I was on my 7th stick of gum and I started to get a headache and the shakes. Essentially the starvation hangover. All symptoms of a hangover, but there is no fun drunken buzz or random dancing on a bar top. Just me neglecting my body's need for energy so I could finish paging a freaking book!!

As the shakes started getting worse, I realized it was time to make a decision. Either pass out, which would only delay my work and would get my pretty dress dirty with rug dust mites, or eat. The only option readily available at 3:47pm that doesn't requite a "far" walk (as my inbox just kept getting bigger and bigger) was the vending machine. I knew that the apparatus did not have any fruit, nuts, or anything that wasn't suffocated in preservatives and sulfuric chem-di-oxide, or whatever. But I was starting to get a vomit inducing headache. And I knew what had to be done. So, just as a printer pumps out paper, ever so mechanically, I, too, got up from my chair, picked up my wallet, and mechanically started walking to the elevator bank. I was not happy about this. I had a very melancholy sensation soar through my insides, knowing full well I deserve better than the snickers bar I was about to inhale.

As I took the elevator down to the 2nd floor, home of the vending machines, I thought about the incredibly tough work-out I had the day before, how AJ made me step up my game, how I sweated, how I hurt, how I shook. Only this time, the shake wasn't hunger induced. It was due to change. Change in my muscles. Change in my fat. My thighs were getting slimmer, my abdomen was feeling tighter. And here I was, about to undo it all for this:

which really means this:

which will become this:

Oh dear.

As my brain went a million miles a minute, I somehow found myself in front of the vending machine. And I proceeded to open the coin purse attached to my blue wallet and I started to put in coin after coin after coin. And when I was at .95 cents, I stopped. And I said out loud, "No. Come on. No. You deserve better than this." And I gave myself this AMAZING pep talk, out loud, to my image reflecting off the vending machine. I told myself that I deserve better, that I know what it means to binge, it's filling a void that will not actually be filled, that my body needs gasoline, so feed her diesel, not Ostrich pee (all metaphors, of course). If this had been a reality show, Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" would have been the PERFECT enhancing ingredient for a tear jerking scene.

I was so caught up in this "Dr. Phil" moment that I didn't realize that there were two colleagues waiting for me to move my ass, so they can honor their turn of the vending machine. I also didn't realize that now, at least two people at the office will refer to me as "that girl."

I excused myself with a playful "hey, we've all been there" giggle and scadaddled to the elevator, not before pressing the COIN button to retrieve my change. I was uber proud, so I didn't really care that I was caught talking to myself or that I had dried up saliva on the sides of my lips from the temptation of snickers the slut.

I took the elevator down to the lobby and made my way to Hale and Hearty, where I got myself a salad. And I was skipping back to my office feeling like a million bucks, as I had chipped a huge chunk off the plateau that had surrounded me for so long. It was with great accomplished I welcomed willpower back into my life.


A few days later, I jumped out of a plane.

I can't figure out what I am more proud of.