Recipes for Despair & Joy — Touched with Fire Media

1. Wake up first thing and go into the bathroom. Feel a little bloated and think you should eat less salt. Wonder if you have a headache because you drank three beers last night or because you have cancer or what. Tap the scale with your toe. Its little digital screen lights up and flashes glyphs that mean nothing. Stare at it and try not to think about how your whole life is this, this same dumb drama playing over and over again on a stage in your mind. ACT I: I weigh too much. ACT II: I eat too much. ACT III: I drink too much. ACT IV: I’m wasting my life. ACT V: I weigh too much. The glyphs clear and flash zero. Step on the scale. Prepare yourself for disaster: it could be as high as 203 pounds, picking a number you’re sure is much more than you weigh. The screen goes blank. Hold your breath. The screen lights up again, with a real number: 202.9. Almost as bad as your worst case scenario.

2. Come home from running feeling shot but kind of good about yourself. Don’t drink any water right away, though you know you ought to. Lie down on the bed and feel yourself sweat for a while. Remember or forget to stretch, it doesn’t really matter. If you remember you will also remember how, six years ago, it wasn’t necessary, and wonder if this is because you weighed 40 pounds less then or if it’s because you were twenty-nine years old and totally invincible in a way you’ll never be again. If you forget you will simply forget. Eventually you stop sweating. Get off the bed and go into the bathroom. Make sure you urinate, even if what comes out is only a foul-smelling, orange-tinted trickle that means you’re dehydrated. Step in the shower with your running clothes on and turn the water on cold. Scream like a banshee. Frighten your neighbors. Feel the icy thrill of water on the places you’ve chafed. Slowly peel off the clothes and leave them in a wet pile on the floor of the bathtub. Later you will forget to hang them up to dry. Wash yourself off. Dry yourself down. Dry you hair especially; your hair might hold water, and water weighs a lot. Tap the scale with your toe. Its little digital screen lights up and flashes glyphs that mean nothing. Involuntarily remember a time several years ago when you were dumped and didn’t eat for a week, and how, through the haze of heartbreak and misery you felt kind of good when the scale told you that you weighed less than 160 pounds. The glyphs clear and flash zero. Step on the scale. Prepare yourself for disaster: it could be as high as 203 pounds. The screen goes blank. Hold your breath. The screen lights up again, with a real number: 199.5. Try to forget what you used to weigh, and feel good about this.