The next thing I am dreading and worrying about is in mid June. I forget the exact day, but sometime around there I am flying to Dallas for Cameron�s sister Brooke�s wedding. I haven�t mentioned Cameron in this diary much, or at all. I have in other diaries so I�m not sure what I have mentioned here, but long story short, his mother and my mother grew up together and are best friends. My mom lived in Dallas until she was in her 20s, went to college there, married my dad there, etc. Then they moved to San Francisco when my dad got a job at Pillsbury Madison & Sutro. Ok I just realized this is completely off topic. BACK TO CAMERON! Haha. So Becky, Cameron�s mom, is my mom�s best friend and that�s how I know Cameron. I�ve known him my whole life and basically, I�m in love with him. But that�s another story. His sister, Brooke, who I think is 23, is getting married in June so we�re going to the wedding. I am looking forward to seeing Cameron, and also Kristina who I assume I�ll get to see [tf�er, and one of my best, and few, friends], but I am also very anxious about the whole trip. Of course, because of FOOD. Not only that, but there are all the concerns about my appearance and who I will have to see and what they will say/think and all of that. It was horrible when I was there in December and had to see all these relatives and deal with big family dinners. Everyone stared at my plate. It was awful. One meal in particular, at my cousin�s house in Georgetown [near Austin], there were so many relatives there and the whole meal was �unacceptable� as far as eating goes. I didn�t want to purge in their toilet because I didn�t know if it would be reliable, would I have to flush twice [how obvious], etc. But dinner started with chips and guacamole, obviously not �safe� and was then followed by ham, asparagus, polenta with cheese, and some other things I can�t remember [blocked it out, haha]. First of all, I hate ham. I can�t remember the last time I ate it. I thought I�d just eat asparagus but it was covered in BUTTER. Or oil. Something shiny, I was not about to find out what. Great! So that left me with ham which I hate [plus fattening] and polenta crusted with cheese. It was AWFUL. Not eating wouldn�t be awful, but sitting around a table with relatives staring at your plate, pretending they are not, and constantly asking you �Would you like some more ____� or �Do you want my ___� and trying to shove their food on your plate. The fact that they were trying to accommodate my bizarre food habits was worse, because it drew more attention to myself� like my aunt offered to get me something else but I didn�t know what to ask for and I didn�t want her to have to go to the trouble [and draw more attention to me] so I declined. I sat there with my plate of asparagus I had no intention of eating, and ate 2 bites of ham just because I had to eat something in the 45 minutes we were all sitting there. Like I said, I hate ham. And I didn�t want to eat a little piggy, either. Once again I�m rambling off topic, but basically I am nervous over the Dallas trip, as I am nervous over ALL trips. I wish I could just go on vacation with some friend who would not judge me. I could eat as little or as much as I want, purge if I felt I needed to, and they would not care. They would just want me to have a good time. I can�t remember the last time I had a vacation where I was not worried and stressed out the whole time. I had some great times with Kristina last December, but the other times were awful.

After June and the Dallas trip, I am going on a short trip to Seattle and then to Vancouver & Victoria. My sister, the little lucky duck, gets to go on a cruise to Alaska because she has a rich friend who has invited her [and is paying]. I am so unbelievably jealous. I have wanted to go on a cruise in Alaska for ages. I thought it would be the perfect way to see Alaska because you get to get off the boat and explore and sightsee but then you have the nice warm cruise ship to return to at the end of the day. I�ve never been on a cruise, since I didn�t go on the trip my dad took the family on because I was too nervous about the food situation [can you tell this, as in trips away from home, is a big issue for me?! Besides the Carribean Cruise I missed, I also missed a trip to a secluded resort in Hawaii and a previous Drowsy Water Ranch trip, not to mention the time I stayed home alone during Christmas while my family was in Dallas. Or last summer, when I did the same thing and stayed home alone for over a week. And the three ski trips I declined. I could go on... and this is all in a period of a few years.]. Literally a WEEK after I was discussing how cool it would be to go on an Alaskan cruise with Johanna, her friend calls and invites her on one! That is just my luck. So the cruise departs from Seattle and we have to get Johanna there so my mom decided it would be a good time to check out the University of Seattle, which is where Johanna and her friend want to go to college [she is a junior]. And since Vancouver and Victoria are close by and my mom loved the area when she visited with a friend last year, we�re making a short vacation out of it. It will only be a few days but already I am worried. Especially because the Canada part will just be my mom and I, I think� how on earth will I manage that. I guess I�ll just live on fruit there and pop a Dexatrim every hour to stave off the urge to binge [???].

July 6th is my birthday. Which means cake, a special dinner, etc. Super. I figure I can get away with eating and puking because it would be pretty mean to accuse me of puking on my birthday, right? Birthdays are sort of that day where you�re supposed to be exempt from getting in trouble or being yelled at. So I�m hoping, anyway. Though even if my mom doesn�t comment, I still feel embarrassed when I go to the bathroom and everyone knows what I�m doing�.

After Canada & Seattle, I�m headed to Colorado at the end of July. Colorado is where Drowsy Water Ranch is, a guest ranch where you ride horses all week. It is one of my favorite places on earth, yet this is still a trip I am not too excited about just because of yes, you guessed it, FOOD. The main problem is that this trip is with my dad and stepmom, not my mom, so they are even harder to deal with in regards to eating. I�ll be with my dad, stepmom, two sisters, two stepbrothers, 3 cousins, an aunt and an uncle. And I am sure they will all be paying attention to what I�m eating :( Meals are served in the lodge family style. Food is �hearty� � you know, ranch-style. They are used to accommodating fussy kids but that usually means the kid eats a PB sandwich instead of the meal. What the hell am I going to eat? I know all the meals they serve cause I�ve been there like 5 times, and there is really nothing I can eat except fruits and salad. There is also the two days prior to arriving at the ranch. We�re flying in on a Friday and staying in Denver for two nights to check out the University of Colorado at Boulder. That�s the college I�ve set my eyes on since 9th grade, and now it�s apparently one my stepbrother Aaron, who is a junior at a private school and has good grades and advanced classes, OF COURSE, is considering. I�m feeling crappy enough about my school situation as it is, and to have to go on a little side-trip focused on school is not going to be fun. I want to check out the campus, but not with my dad breathing down my neck about when I am going to go there. �What are you planning on doing next year?� he�ll ask with a disapproving tone, like I am this bum that is destined to work at McDonald�s and never amount to anything. Having a stepbrother who is younger than me by two years attend the college I always wanted to go to, BEFORE ME, hurts. I feel so stupid. I am such a failure. This trip will reinforce these feelings I�m sure. Plus, I�ll be with my cousin, Sarah, who is PERFECT. She�s a freshman at Notre Dame. She is the same age as me but of course she�s a year ahead because, like I said, she�s perfect and started kindergarten earlier than me. So yeah, she�s at NOTRE DAME and this summer, instead of telling my aunt and uncle, who will inevitably ask, what 4 year University I�m going to this fall, I�ll have to say I�m just going to a local junior college. I bet they never even considered that an OPTION for Sarah. I am the family fuck-up. Well I guess I am still ahead of Lucy, who is working full-time and not in school right now. She went to College of Marin [2 year community] for two years and then started working fulltime. She applied to a 4 year college [St. John�s in New Mexico] recently but didn�t get in. I feel really bad for her, she wanted to go so badly and her boyfriend, who she lives with and also attended College of Marin, was accepted. It breaks my heart to see my sister so sad about this because I know how she has struggled with her own demons. She probably still has depression though it�s no where near as bad as it used to. She ended up getting her GED when she was a senior in HS cause she just couldn�t keep up with the classes, she was too depressed. She�s really smart, too, which makes it more sad. To do something like get your GED with a dad like mine is not an easy thing to do. She was made to feel so stupid and like such a failure for that. My dad really never lets her forget how much she �screwed up.� And do you know what he did when she didn�t get into St. John�s? Well, first off, Chuck [her boyfriend] emailed my dad, stepmom, and mom telling them that Lucy didn�t get in. He said not to mention it at all yet because she seemed to be dealing with it fairly well on her own with Chuck. She later called my mom and they talked and she came over here and we hung out with her and tried to get her mind off it all. So things were ok in that department� she was going to take the math class needed to get in, and apply again next year. But then all hell broke loose because my dad took her out to dinner. To an observer this would seem like a nice gesture after the bad news. But at the restaurant, he proceeded to spend the whole evening telling my sister, basically, �I told you so� about the math class! He said he knew she would not be able to get in without more math classes, that she should have taken more classes, should have gotten better grades, shouldn�t be working so much and should be in school, etc etc etc. HE IS SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE. So now she�s a wreck, of course. I would probably kill myself after that. I�m getting teary thinking about this all again. It happened a few weeks ago. My dad is truly evil. I don�t understand him� I find it hard to believe he actually has a heart, has a soul. All his actions are motivated by his own desires, He cares not at all for the needs or wants of others. It�s all about him, his image. He�s mad his daughters aren�t �normal� and going right off to college like his sister�s and brothers� kids [one of which is Sarah, perfect daughter]. Depression is no excuse to him. It is just laziness, moodiness. I don�t care that I will never measure up in his eyes, I really don�t. But it hurts me the way he treats us. It angers me that he is so fucking rich, yet we are poor. He only pays the bare minimum that the court forces him to, and is always late with the child support payments. He is pompous and arrogant and acts as if my mom should be eternally grateful to him for all his �generous� support. What the fuck? He pays for hardly anything! He won�t even pay my medical bills. He has been fighting with the insurance company because he doesn�t want to pay a cent. He acts like he cares about my health, yet he makes my mom pay for my therapy. He insists I be in therapy� yet makes my mom pay for it? My mother, the TEACHER? Someone explain that to me. Explain to me why it�s fair for the mother to pay for practically all living costs, medical costs, etc, when she has a pathetic teacher�s salary [Teachers are so grossly underpaid, I can�t even start on that now�], and the father makes $250,000 a year.