I’m supposed to go to my nutritionist this afternoon, and I really don’t want to. Why? Because I’m not gonna do a damn thing she says.

As I mentioned before, I’ve been struggling with bulimia for a number of years. Before I was bulimic, I was borderline anorexic, and even now I suppose I do tend to restrict my eating compared to a normal person. Given all this, my shrink was like, OK, go see a nutritionist, because you’re a fucking basketcase.

No, she didn’t really say that. But regardless, three weeks ago I pulled up to McLean’s, directions in hand, and headed up to the eating disorders building. The nutritionist, J, was nice enough. She told me all about protein bonding and asked me all about my disorder and she told me a little bit about food exchange and then told me to eat lunch. Maybe some chips and hummus or something. Because normally I don’t eat lunch (or breakfast, really), and lunch is a good thing to get into.

I left that first appointment feeling 1) confident I could do what she asked and 2) that she was an idiot. I tell her all this crazy shit about my eating disorder and all she can tell me is “eat lunch”? Like, come on, seriously.

Then there was the second appointment.

Oh god, the second appointment. Suddenly, lunch went from chips and hummus to this big fucking deal, and there’s sandwiches and soup and leftovers and getting some protein in there, maybe a quarter pound of deli meat rolled up with cheese? I started sweating. She was going over the exchange list and telling me I had to eat 8 units of carbs and 6 units of protein, plus 4 each of vegetables and fruits and 5 fats and I’m not really usually so weird about food, but all I could picture was being buried under a cornucopia of Thanksgiving dinner and oranges.

Then, to cap it all off, she tells me that she wants me to keep a food journal. a FOOD JOURNAL. I kept a food journal in high school to make sure I didn’t go above 200 calories/day before dinner and haven’t even thought of keeping one since. Worse yet, I’m supposed to SHARE MY FOOD JOURNAL WITH HER at the next appointment. So like, if I don’t eat a meal, she’ll know. Likewise, if I drunkenly binge out on sour patch kids and queso fresco, she’ll know that too. Showing her my food journal would be like videotaping my GYN appointment and streaming it into every American home, while reading bad poetry from when I was 18.

Needless to say, I did not keep the food journal. I will not keep the food journal. So there’s no point in me going to my appointment this afternoon. Right?

Right.