It's Not Me, It's You: Subjective Recollections From a Terminally Optomistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman (7 page)

L
ike almost every girl born and raised in the United States, I’ve never been happy with my body. In high school I found myself at a crossroads: be content in my size 11 jeans…
or
develop a raging eating disorder. One day, after a particularly filling Thanksgiving leftovers gorge, I discovered out of desperation that I could stick my finger down my throat and
voilà!
, no more sickly full feeling and no more guilt over the gazillion calories in mashed potatoes and gravy shoveled in whopping spoonful after spoonful. There is some mystery ingredient in mashed potatoes that makes all ugly feelings magically float away on a cloud of whipped butter, sweet carbs, and fairy dust only to crash back down to earth two days later and promptly land on your ass. If you don’t believe me, just ask Oprah.

The problem was, I was petrified of getting fat but I loved to eat. The solution to my problem seemed too simple and vaguely dangerous, but I comforted myself in the knowledge that millions of sorority girls can’t be wrong. And so I did it again. And again. It’s not like I didn’t consider other options: diet and exercise seemed way too time-consuming—being in my teens, I was in a bit of a time crunch—and anorexia was completely out of the question because I was
way
too lazy to starve myself. In fact, I felt the anorexics were really missing the boat on this shortcut. I laughed in the face of their carrot stick for breakfast, hollowed-out bagel for lunch, and Diet Coke for dinner. Amateurs.

Despite my Jewish heritage, no one in my immediate family, besides me, was the slightest bit obsessed with food or their weight. In fact, the opposite was true. My mother, a product of the seventies
Our Bodies, Ourselves
generation, was most comfortable walking around completely naked or in her underwear—in true hippie fashion, she’d never shaved her pits or anywhere else for that matter but had no self-consciousness hanging around a public pool, even though what was peeking out from her bathing suit could give Jerry Garcia’s beard a run for its money. But, most important, she never made a single disparaging remark about my eating habits or figure. Yet I still fell into the trap of trying to control my life by controlling my body.

By the time I moved to Los Angeles, the city of skinny dreams, I was no longer a tourist in Bulimiaville—I’d established full-time residency and I knew I wasn’t headed down
a good path. I used food as my primary method of numbing out, spending my days fantasizing about what foods I’d eat later, alone in my apartment, the way other people might daydream about a party or a second date with a cute guy.

After work I’d head to the grocery store to pick up my stash. While in line with my treasures (a huge triangle of double cream Brie, Cherry Garcia ice cream, Jell-O instant pudding, Chips Ahoy!, and a bag of baby carrots—to throw judgmental looky-loos off my trail), I’d make up a little story in my head for the cashier: “I’m having a little last-minute get-together. Hope I have enough stuff! Hahaha.” I’d laugh uncomfortably. “I know it’s Tuesday, but I’m crazy like that!” Being bulimic is a little like being stoned; you’re paranoid that everyone knows what you’re up to and you have the munchies real bad.

Of course, I’d have to make the rounds to different stores, different nights of the week, for fear of running into the same cashiers. I practically needed a day runner to keep track. For a shortcut eating disorder, it certainly required a lot of planning.

Every day I’d tell myself that I wouldn’t do it again, but then the smell of donuts or a commercial for Pizza Hut would come on and I’d feel my resolve start to crumble until eventually I’d end up facedown in a bowl of macaroni and cheese.

This seemingly unbreakable cycle continued until one evening, my roommate, who was supposed to be at her boyfriend’s that night—as she was every night—made an impromptu visit to the apartment and flat out busted me.
She walked into the bathroom and found me retching into the toilet. I tried to tell her I was just drunk but it didn’t take CSI to work this crime scene. The evidence was strewn all around my room: fast-food wrappers, empty ice cream containers…and I saw myself for what I’d become—it wasn’t pretty.

Humiliated, I decided to try Overeaters Anonymous. In LA (and I’m sure everywhere else), there is a 12-step meeting for anything you can imagine being addicted to and a few things you’d never dream up: alcohol, food, cigarettes, shopping, narcotics, cocaine, gambling, sex, cluttering, and compulsive email checking come to mind, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I wasn’t a complete stranger to these sorts of gatherings. I’d been to a few Alcoholic Anonymous meetings to support my friend “Tom,” who was forced to go due to a court order. Tom got arrested after a long night of drinking in a club on Hollywood Boulevard. After closing time, he couldn’t find his ride, so he wandered around in a drunken haze for a few hours, eventually climbing into an unlocked parked car and falling asleep only to be awakened by the police. I’m not sure why it was such a huge deal; it’s not like he scored the nap at gunpoint, and he didn’t even steal change out of the glove compartment. But the judge didn’t see it that way and sentenced Tom to community service and three months of AA meetings.

The first time I went with him, a guy made a beeline for me as if I were a giant bottle of scotch with legs and extended a sweaty palm.

“Hi, my name is James. How long have you been sober?”

Is this a trick question?
I wondered. “Well, I’m not,” I said. “But I’m not
that
drunk. I could totally drive home right now. I’m just here to support my friend.”

James gave me a condescending nod, threw a protective arm around my shoulder, and whispered conspiratorially, “You’re in the right place.” Before I could argue, he excused himself for a moment and came back with an
Are You an Alcoholic?
quiz—which I promptly failed. I’m sorry, but their criteria for what makes a person an alcoholic is very strict:
Have you suffered from blackouts?
Uh, not that I recall…
Have you ever had a drink in the morning?
Does a Bloody Mary count? Because everyone knows the only time it’s acceptable to drink a Bloody Mary is around 7 a.m. So, if that counts, then
fine,
guilty. The point is, these people think everyone has a problem. If you say you only have a drink a night, they automatically assume you’re distilling high-proof vodka out of potatoes in your bathtub.

Cultish nature aside, I loved listening to people lay bare the things they’ve done in life in the name of drinking. Being a person who will share with someone I just met in the ladies’ room that I recently had an abortion and once tried to smoke heroin, I felt right at home. In AA they call this sharing; I call it dinner conversation. I listened intently to a man who looked like a kinder, jollier version of Santa Claus talk about accidentally killing his dog because he spent so much time drinking he forgot to feed it. I cried with a newcomer who said this was the first time he’d ever gone two days without drinking since he was nine years old. I threw a dollar in the donation basket
and happily joined hands with Tom and a tatted-up teenager for the serenity prayer that ended with “Keep coming back! It works if you work it, so work it, you’re worth it.” I took in the looks on the alcoholics faces. Most of them looked downright serene. This was some good shit. It turned lives around!

But OA wasn’t quite as fun.

First of all, in OA you don’t get a cake for your one-year sobriety like in AA; just a candle. You’d think that after a year of not compulsively overeating they could at least throw a cupcake your way for your efforts. And being there for my own, very real problem wasn’t nearly as entertaining. At least in AA they exchange war stories from their drinking days—more often than not there is prison involved. In OA, people talked about food—what they ate, what they didn’t eat, what they thought about eating all day. It didn’t give me hope; it just gave me ideas.

A few meetings in, a dark-haired mom type who looked about forty pounds overweight stood dejectedly in front of the room behind a podium and introduced herself as “Nancy, compulsive overeater.” She confessed that she’d come
this
close—she held a sausage-size thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart—to overdosing on Valium after eating four boxes of Entenmann’s Banana Crunch Cake the night before. The poor woman was so overwhelmed with the gravity of her confession; she collapsed into a pool of tears and self-loathing and had trouble continuing with her share. She stood there, hunched over, trying to catch her breath to go on when from the back of the room came an undignified knock on the table
signifying Nancy’s three minutes were over. A dozen hands shot up, desperate for their time in the spotlight.

A woman dressed in a short skirt with a blond ponytail perched high on top of her head, despite the fact that her cheerleader days clearly ended a good decade before, took the podium, smiling widely. Apparently, Nancy was already forgotten. I tried to submerge my inner cynic and listen.

“Hi, I’m Jeanne—anorexic.”

“Hi, Jeanne,” the crowd responded a little too enthusiastically—like human smiley face emoticons.

“Today was a healing day! I mean, for me, I can wake up and say ‘Good morning, God’ or ‘Good God, it’s morning’ but I like to keep an attitude of gratitude!”

I couldn’t help but think, for an anorexic, Jeanne had quite the muffin top going on—but, hey, I guess that’s progress. She then droned on about either a commercial audition or talking lobsters…I couldn’t tell you because poor Nancy was still crying so hard I worried she might hyperventilate in the corner. Of course, no one had a paper lunch sack for her to breathe into; it was bad form to bring snacks to OA. I mentally put the woman on a suicide watch, but Jeanne didn’t seem to notice.

I couldn’t help but think,
Doesn’t admitting you almost offed yourself warrant at least a nod in the suicidal person’s general vicinity? Or at least an extra minute at the podium?
Jeanne continued on, engrossed in her own inspirational platitudes. “If you have one foot in yesterday and one in tomorrow you will pee all over today,” which will no doubt be the title of Judge Judy’s next book.

Clearly a big problem with the 12-step format, besides how everyone seems to communicate solely through annoying slogans, is that addicts are narcissists by nature. And the last thing a narcissist wants to do is sit around listening to other people talk about themselves.

After the meeting, I hesitantly approached Nancy and recommended my last therapist, Huggybear. I knew they’d probably be a match. If this chick didn’t need a hug, I don’t know who did.

Although I was not at all convinced that I belonged in OA, I forced myself to attend a few more meetings, sitting silently in the back of the room and watching. I had less than no interest in participating.

One day, in a particularly irritating meeting, a woman in her early sixties led the group. She shared her story of where she’d been, what she’d done, and who she was now. The story culminated in, “So there I was at my mother’s house just after my father’s funeral. I looked at a tray of cocktail weenies, one of my ‘trigger foods,’ and, just for a moment, I thought of how good it would taste, how much I wanted one. But I knew that one would be too many and a thousand wouldn’t be enough. So I called my sponsor.”

I flashed forward to myself in ten years, finding out I was dying of an extremely rare form of pancreatic cancer and sitting in this same room, beating myself up for having a regular Yoplait instead of a nonfat Yoplait when I should be out having sex with a dumb as fuck but gorgeous blackjack dealer in Vegas or tipping over an ice cream truck and eating everything
that fell out,
anything
but bitching about food in this suffocating church basement with subpar coffee and people who spoke in emoticons. Suddenly, I felt like I had to get the hell out of there. I needed some air; I couldn’t breathe. I practically knocked over my folding chair in my hurry to escape.

Once outside, I took a seat on the steps of the building. It was the absolute perfect time to light up a smoke. Unfortunately for me, cigarettes were one of the few habits I’d never picked up.

I sat there and I thought about my childhood, one I was pretty sure Lifetime movie executives would salivate over. Sure I had some demons, demons I’d need to contend with if I was ever to have a full, happy life that included marriage to someone I allowed to touch me. But I wasn’t like
these
people. I was
nothing
like these people, was I? Sure I related to
some
things, like when a woman said “no one has ever gone to 7-Eleven at midnight for broccoli” or that whole “one is too many and a thousand isn’t enough”…shit…I sat there for a while and finally went back inside.

I raised my hand. “I’m Stefanie, bulimic.”

“Hi, Stefanie” came the answer from the crowd of people so unlike me and so exactly like me.

My story came pouring out, well, three minutes of it. And I kept coming back. ’Cause, as I found out, it does work if you work it. But I refused to buy any “One Day at a Time” bumper stickers, and at the end of the year I had myself a fucking cupcake.

D
uring my early teens through my late twenties, I was fired from approximately thirty jobs, most of them waitressing. And that’s not including the ones I kinda sorta left on my own sometimes kinda sorta in the middle of a shift.

It’s surprising I would even wait tables to begin with, but, besides the cash tips and lack of early rousing required, waitressing jobs are easy to get and, not having gone to college, I didn’t feel qualified to do much else. No one at a restaurant demands a master’s degree in carrying hot plates or even extensive knowledge of how to work a cash register—most of them don’t bother to ask for a reference, which is good because I left a job on good terms about as often as a gas station bathroom gets a thorough disinfecting.

Very possibly I would’ve continued on the path to becoming an only slightly less annoying version of Linda Lavin
on
Alice
if I hadn’t managed to get myself eighty-sixed from four jobs in the space of a month.

In LA, restaurants are like acting jobs—if you get fired from that many jobs, you are bound to become blacklisted. It’s a small town and people talk. I was quickly becoming the Sean Young of the food service industry.

I’d been working in a Brazilian restaurant for just over six months, which was my own personal Guinness record. But, due to my outspoken nature and the South American owner’s dislike of women with working vocal cords, I’d been skating on thin ice for almost as long as I’d had the job. I’d often come out with over-the-top suggestions like, “It’s almost closing time. Maybe we should cut a server since there are six of us still on and only two tables.” Or a doozy like, “Since we’re out of grilled salmon, should we erase it from the ‘specials board’?” I don’t want to be too hard on myself though, since some of my suggestions were downright helpful and selfless. Like the time I said to a customer who called me clueless, “Sorry, I was distracted by your hair plugs. Next time you might want to go all the way to the back.” It’s shocking I was never voted Employee of the Month.

Customer service is not my forte. I’m not really a people person, nor am I a “team player,” and also, I
seem
to have a problem with authority. My personality type is wrong for a job where it’s not acceptable to haul off and punch someone when he asks, “Is there dairy in this bleu cheese dressing?” Although, I’m not quite sure if there is
a job where that would be acceptable, except maybe as a bouncer or cage fighter.

It wouldn’t take Freud to figure out that this was probably a learned personality trait, considering that my stepfather’s worldview seemed to scream “stick it to the man!” My stepfather reveled in taking unsuspecting people he’d felt had wronged him to small claims court like it was his job. Not to mention my mother’s first husband, my father, was a comedian who never left his apartment without a pin on the brim of his hat that read, “Go Pound Sand Up Your Ass.”

So, if you figure the acorn doesn’t fall far from its family of origin, it would make sense that I’ve always had what teachers and bosses termed an “attitude problem.”

Every day I’d drag myself in to work, waltz in with my Coffee Bean coffee, and try harder to get along. My last day on the job was no different.

“You’re late,” the manager, Robert, alerted me as I was punching in. I felt my resolve going down the shitter immediately. I never liked Robert. Besides the fact that pretty much anyone who purposely goes into restaurant management tends to have the diplomacy skills of Pol Pot and a cocaine habit that would rival Andy Dick’s, Robert insisted that people pronounce his name Roh-bear-t. And he wasn’t even from Brazil. He was from Ohio. I guess he was just entranced by the South American vibe of the place. I was also opposed to his soul patch—a popular look from the nineties I’d never understood. It seemed big with guys who think they’re too cool for a goatee but don’t want to give up entirely
on the whole idea of chin pubes. Oh, and he always had bits of cilantro in his teeth.

“I’m actually exactly on time,” I said, nonchalantly tossing my purse under the counter and grabbing a book of checks.

“No, you need to be here fifteen minutes prior to your shift. It’s a courtesy. We’ve been through this.”

“Well, if I have to be here fifteen minutes early, then it’s not a courtesy and I should get paid for that fifteen minutes.” I marched off to marry ketchups and give myself a little pep talk. For some reason, I talk to myself in lists:

1. Tone the complaining down a notch! You need this job.
   
2. No whining about the music even though The Gypsy Kings have been on an endless loop for three months.
   
3. Do not argue with any customers even if they are known bad tippers.
   
4. Restrain from writing “tip is not included!” on the customer’s check in red marker.
   
5. Try harder not to sound like a hostage speaking to police while your captor stands over you with a knife when asking customers, “Would you care for a delicious spinach and cheese empanada to start your meal?”
   
6. Just for today you will not attempt to dissuade anyone from ordering the sweetbreads by explaining that…“Ewww…they’re pancreas!”
   

A couple of hours into my shift, I flirtatiously topped off the wineglass of a regular customer, who was seated at the bar. He was pretty cute and I felt the gesture really smacked of good customer service. But Roh-bear-t, who was almost as opposed to attractive men as he was to flossing, apparently saw me pour the extra wine and a few minutes later pulled me aside.

“You gave that customer a glass of wine. I just looked; it’s not on the check. You need to go back and add it in, otherwise you’re going to pay for it.”

I was outraged. I mean, it was hardly a
glass
of wine—more like the amount you would get in a rinsing cup at the dentist—and the guy was cute but upon further inspection more in a Judge Reinhold-y way than a throw-him-down-and-do-him-on-the-Spanish-tile type of way. I wasn’t buying him a drink, but I also wasn’t going to charge the poor guy for a full glass of wine.

The situation was actually ironic seeing as how I’d snuck a few bottles of Chilean Merlot home after a particularly stressful shift to be consumed later in my apartment. Really I owed the restaurant more than the price of a glass of wine, but I was standing on principle, dammit!

I refused. Roh-bear-t was practically beaming as he said the words I’d heard many times before. “Turn in your apron and go home.”

If I had even the slightest amount of impulse control or a sneak peek at the cable bill waiting for me, I might’ve apologized and asked for another chance, but instead I put my apron on the counter and walked out.

I always imagined this day to end with me going out Tarantino-style: sliding open the glass dessert case and in one fell swoop smashing every last plate of flan to the floor, leaving the dulce de leche sauce oozing into the cracks of the tile floor like blood; then I’d kick in the Panasonic stereo and drag its carcass out into the middle of the floor where I’d stomp on it until “Bamboleo” skipped for all of eternity. I’d end my rampage by showering the whole place with machine-gun fire and then popping sixteen Qualuudes (provided they’re still manufactured).

Unfortunately, until I got a few more paychecks, I wouldn’t be able to afford bail, let alone illicit street drugs, so instead I walked out onto the promenade into a sea of happy tourists and cried angry, embarrassed tears all the way back to my car.

I spent a couple of afternoons licking my wounds and watching my now basic cable where the advertising is aimed at out-of-work losers like me. I contemplated a whole new career entering the exciting world of calligraphy or experiencing the freedom of the road as a Long Haul truck driver—who knew I could train for either job in just six short weeks? I’d also answered a can-you-draw-this? ad in a magazine and although I hadn’t heard back yet, I felt fairly confident that I had a full scholarship to art school in my back pocket. But in the end, I took the path of least resistance and decided to go back to waiting tables.

It’s not like I hadn’t tried other jobs in customer service. I was great in the interview. Most interviewers aren’t all that
creative, so it’s a good bet that they will fall back on that same question, “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” I just made sure I was prepared. The key is not to give any real weakness; no one wants to hear, “Well, I’m not a stickler for honesty” or “I’m rarely on time.” Instead I’d say, “I can drive people a bit crazy with my perfectionism” or “I’m way too obsessive when it comes to getting a job done right!” with a conspiratorial smile as if to say, “All this selflessness is such a thorn in my side but what are you gonna do?” But although I could get the job, I lacked follow-through—like the time I got let go from a job at a movie theater for refusing to wear white shoes. It wasn’t so much an outright
refusal
to wear white shoes, just that I didn’t own any. Besides nurses and Wayne Newton, who wears
white
shoes? On the beginning of my third day at work, I was called out on my black Doc Martens by my boss, Bob.

“Where are your white shoes? It’s a requirement of this job that you wear white shoes. I can’t let you work past Friday if you don’t have the proper footwear.”

“Sorry, I forgot to buy them again.” My reasoning for not making the white shoes my number one priority was that I was
standing behind the concession stand the whole time;
no one would be seeing my feet anyway, so what difference did it make? I could’ve been wearing orange shoes, clown shoes, or eight-inch stiletto heels for all it mattered. Weirdly, Bob didn’t see it that way.

Seeking the easiest and quickest way to restore my cable, I sucked it up and took the next available waitressing job I
could find. The pickings were getting slimmer; this time it was a sports bar. The owner, a doughy-looking frat-boy type, hired me on the spot under the condition that I wear sexy athletic shorts. With visions of HBO getting turned back on, I reluctantly agreed. This was pretty radical of me because first of all, I’m a hard-core feminist and second of all, I have fat knees and make it a strict practice to avoid allowing them out in public.

The frat boy turned out to be quite the douche bag. Have you ever met a frat boy who wasn’t? But this guy’s sadistic streak went way beyond a little innocent frat-house date rape. My first night there, he fired a female bartender with stage four ovarian cancer and no health insurance because he thought she was “too slow.” I was mortified. Did he think that chemo was like a shot of ginseng?

Within a few days, he drunk dialed me at 4 a.m. to ask whether I’d gotten home okay and to see if he could “stop by.” I meant to say a simple no but what came out was, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

The very next evening, while toting a plate of potato skins stuffed with sour cream and Bac-O-Bits to a four top, I was pulled into the office by the assistant manager and fired for “not having a friendly attitude,” which was true but sort of beside the point in this situation.

Out of work again, I was nervous. The obvious next step would be suing the pants off of Frat Boy for sexual harassment, but I knew from watching
Erin Brockovich
back when I had HBO that a landmark case like this could drag on for
years in the court system before it snakes its way to the Supreme Court and I needed to pay my rent within the week.

So the next day at the crack of 3 p.m., I hoofed my way farther up the same street.

A few blocks north, I found an Irish bar I’d actually frequented a few times. I seemed sort of Irish that day anyway with my hair in braids, a Greek fisherman’s cap on my head, and drunk off of the three Sam Adams I downed to dull the pain of job hunting. I thought I was pretty cute, and if you’re of the mind-set that looking like a poor man’s Punky Brewster is adorable and appropriate for a woman in her late-twenties, you might have agreed.

I must’ve had the luck of the Irish on my side because they’d just lost a waitress and needed someone to start that very night. I was so relieved, I went home and had another celebratory beer!

When I returned a few hours later with a fairly bad headache, the place was a ghost town. No owner, no other waitress to show me the ropes, and a bartender who looked like a homeless version of Colin Farrell smoking an American Spirit behind the bar. I briefly wondered if he had a girlfriend and if not, whether making out with him in the stockroom might help pass the time, but his brogue was so strong he was useless to me.

Suddenly at nine o’clock on the dot, the entire population of Dublin showed up all at once. So with no instruction, I had no choice but to start taking orders. By 10 p.m. the bar was in full manic drunken swing and I’d already had my ass pinched
twice. I hadn’t heard of men actually pinching a woman’s ass since
The Benny Hill Show
was considered high entertainment and I felt humiliated. I stood outside of myself and really took stock of my situation.
I am twenty-six years old (fine, twenty-eight)! There has to be something else I could do for a living.

I tried to think through my other options: Although I had the requisite low self-esteem and daddy issues, I had way too much cellulite to be a stripper; I loved to argue but since I’d barely graduated high school, high-paid attorney was probably not in my immediate future. I briefly considered having a baby just to get a little state funding.

A sloppy drunk woman in black-and-white-striped Spandex pants, which on her thighs looked less like stripes and more like lightning bolts, yanked at the back of my tank top, pulling me out of my mental soul search, and slurred, “I need you to fetch a round of drinks for my group ponto.”
Ponto.
She was so drunk she’d lost the use of the letter r. When I returned with the drinks, she screamed over the blaring Sinead O’ Connor song, “Nother round!” I might have done her bidding despite all the finger snapping, which, as a waitress, was my least favorite mode of communication, but she didn’t even tip me for the first round. I decided to “forget” her next round of drinks. And the one after that. And the one after that, until she complained to
her friend
the bartender.