“I haven’t had a meal, a drink or a cigarette since Sunday and I still haven’t killed anyone.”

– Emaciated Lady, wanting me to congratulate her for making it to day 3 of her 10-day Master Cleanse diet.

“It’s not like I’m eating out of control…I’m drinking out of control.”

– Emaciated Lady on being a drunkorexic

We all know Emaciated Lady has issues and now I know why. Upon landing in California last week for a visit, I was taken to her parents’ house where a veritable feast awaited me. Emaciated Lady’s parents are immigrants and hospitality in their culture is apparently measured by how much you can make a guest binge eat. So I did my best to indulge them, taking a little bit of everything that was vegetarian.

It was sweet of her mom to accommodate me, especially considering her dad’s attitude toward meat, which became clear about halfway through the meal. He looked at me and in a thick accent asked, “Why you don’t eat meat? Don’t you know God put the animals on the earth for us to kill and eat and barbeque them? That must be why you so skinny.” Of course, I took this latter statement as a great compliment. But I also wanted to correct him with, “No, the reason I’m so skinny is because I starve.”

Super size Benefiber. I traveled 3,000 miles to visit Emaciated Lady, and this is the monstrosity that greeted me when I walked into her kitchen. I have to take credit for introducing her to the stuff, but I had no idea the love affair had gotten so out of control.

Note: Object in picture is LARGER than it appears.

Less than two weeks from now I will be on a cross country flight to visit my loving disturbed bff and blogging partner, Emaciated Lady. In anticipation of our visit, I sent her the following text message:

I have 8 days to lose 100 lbs. Do you think I can do it?

I was expecting a supportive reply. Maybe a little encouragement along the lines of, “Don’t even think about coming here looking like a fat ass or else I won’t take you out in public!” Or even something like, “I’m right there with you – let’s make it a contest to see who can get to zero first!” But what I got instead was this:

I hate you! Don’t you dare lose a single lb. I can’t be fat alone.

How’s that for a bff?

A friend and avid reader submitted the following for the second installment of What Would Skinny Lady Do?

Dear Skinny Lady,

Would it be a good idea to post a picture of myself in a bathing suit on Facebook in the hopes that several people might post comments like “You sure have a nice body”? I was thinking that if enough people responded that way, I might find the inner peace, fulfillment, and self-worth that it has been the goal of my body dysmorphic disorder to achieve. The risks might include no one responding and the possibility that even if they did, one day later I would say to myself, “Well, yeah, I looked okay in that picture, but now I’m a fleshy gob.” What would Skinny Lady do? [Read more →]