Exaltation of food

I love food. Probably not in a healthy way. Okay definitely not. I use it for comfort, for sanctuary, for bliss. I have moved on from eating anything that is in front of me to desiring good food. This is definitely a step up. I dream of eateries that offer exquisite foods that tantalise my palate. I have investigated my relationship with food and know it isn't perfect but at 36 I am not sure how much I will be changing in the next few years. Is it possible to turn over years of perversion?

I still have this ideosyncracy of desiring inaccessible food. If I am at someone else's house and there is food, even if it is bad food, I want it desperately. I try to eat it as quickly as possible. I gorge. It is not a pretty sight. No matter how many times I tell myself that I can go and buy the food any time, my sense of lack drives me to eat and eat and eat. Don't ask about buffets. It is like seeing a pig at the height of gluttony.

I always see the faces of those around me. They watch as I devour with no social graces. I can feel their distaste but I cannot stop myself. It is forbidden food and I only have a limited time to take it in. Nothing can stop me.

I often think of food. I have even dreamed of it. The funny thing is I am not a cook. Making food doesn't interest me. If I create it, it is like cardboard on my palate. Unless it is a sandwich - food for the gods in my distorted home world.

But the universe has an extreme sense of humour. I have a chronic disease that doesn't actually allow me to eat most things. I live with longing. And when I succumb to my food desires, it is followed by intense pain. Most of my favourite tastes create such disorder in my digestive system that, unless I am so blinded to consequence, I cannot inhale them.

When I ignore consequence and it lands on my body, it is like a torture chamber. I cannot sleep, eat or think. The pain is all consuming. Often it involves vomiting. All the desired comes out in a gelatinous mess that makes me even more ill. The body purging then makes me so tired I cannot move. So I lie down and think of food. But this is the only time it makes me feel ill. I don't want it. I swear never to eat again.

Then my body calms itself. Only twinges of pain remain. The longing for food becomes stronger. Finally, days maybe weeks later, it overcomes the memory of the pain and I belly flop into a food experience. I hope that if I eat fast my body won't realise and I can trick it. But then the pain begins again and I am lost.

Scavenging and thinking

I went to find food tonight. There was nothing in the apartment, as usual. Ok there was tea and some tinned peaches but I wanted something that didn't come out of a case. It was almost 9am and I figured there wouldn't be a lot of places open. So I headed for Melville. It's the playpen of the alternative debauched.

I found a relatively acceptable place and plopped myself in the middle of Boxing Day stragglers. I drank a mineral water and some cafe latte. I had grilled hake with vegetable rice and some creamed spinach and squash. I ate. I read. I smoked. It was too much so I had it put in takeaway containers. I wanted sweet so I ordered a chocolate milkshake. I drank that so fast the waiter had suprised eyes.

I am reading a book on the life of a duchess in the 1800s. I had just got to the part where the author described the sumptuous dinners. Then the duke became seriously ill and the duchess was at a loss because her husband, the duke, defined who she was on so many levels. And there I sat, a single female, in an ordinary franchise eatery, on my own, in the supposed second most dangerous city in the world (Johannesburg). I paid for my meal with my own money and I smiled.