I started my first writing class since June tonight! Woo-hoo! It rocked! And I actualy finished a short story in 15 minutes. So I'm feeling heaps better than yesterday, though I swear I am still recovering from the Big Day Out on Friday, the 26th! What you are about to read is a "writing exercise" inspired by events starting last year through to present times...

Mid year, 2000
The Tomato Story: Part I

I haven’t really been eating the last few weeks. My asshole of a boss is late paying me again and I can’t afford to buy food. I have just enough money to pay too much for my apartment and that’s about it.

I stare at the empty cupboards, leaving one closed because I know it’s only 2-minute noodles in there. I think I’d rather vomit than eat the 2-minute noodles, or rather, I think, I will vomit the 2-minute noodles, so why bother? I love how I keep opening up drawers and the fridge, as if I think something might magically be in there. There’s nothing there.

I am craving real food. Something natural. Something that grew on a tree or on a vine or in the ground. Something that wasn’t freeze-dried or hard or in powdered form before it became my meal.

The hunger pains are barely bearable. They’re so loud and embarrassing, I have to turn up the volume on the stereo at work so no one hears them. It sounds like my stomach is moaning. It probably is.

Slowly,eventually, by the end of the first week, my stomach starts to give up. The hunger pains give way to nothingness. My belly simply accepts that I there will be no food coming. I stop feeling hungry, and I start to wonder if I’m slowly dying. It feels that way sometimes. In the heat, I feel faint and weak and I’m scared I’ll pass out. And I’m just scared period. I know I need to drink lots of water, but I can’t stand the sound of water sloshing around in an empty tummy.

I keep telling myself to hold on, that I will be okay, and how proud of myself I will be when it’s all over. And that’s the point—there is an end in sight. Two weeks and I shall eat real food again. Am I simply stubborn or crazy not to go to my parents for help? They wouldn’t be happy about this, but they wouldn’t let me starve eithe. But, the truth is, I’d rather starve than ask for their help.

It’s time to be a big girl.

Is this what independence feels like?

For three weeks, I want to cry every time my friends invite me out to dinner. I have to decline, because I can’t pay for any food and I’m too embarrassed to tell them. So everyone thinks I’m the party animal who’s too busy to do dinner, but really I just can’t afford to eat. Surely my friends would treat me. They would know I would pay them back. But I can’t bring myself to ask.

I use all my twenty and ten cent coins to pay for the bus. My buckets of change are all gone. It’s 2-minute noodles or nothing.

Finally, I get paid, and the moment that direct debit flows into my bank account, I feel like I really start to breathe again. When I leave work, I day dream about what I will buy at the grocery store. I waltz into Coles, almost giddy to be surrounded by all the food. But when it comes down to buying anything, I suddenly feel sick. I realize that I’ve been eating so little that now I finally can afford food, I can’t actually eat much. My stomach has shrunk. I wander around the store, eyeing everything, and finally settle on a simple package of tomatoes and a bottle of Italian dressing.

I pay for them and scurry home, holding my plastic grocery bag like there’s a treasure in it. I get off the bus and want to run to my apartment, but I don’t have the energy. I get upstairs to my kitchen and grab a knife out of the drawer. I gently slice open the tomato and I take a long slow breath as the fragrance of the ripe fruit hits my nose. It’s absolutely beautiful. I cut up the tomato into pieces and dip them into the dressing in a bowl. I take a bite and it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my entire life. For the first time in three weeks, I’m eating something real. Something alive. I keep on eating piece after piece, with tears streaming down my face. I lick the salty streams that fall near my mouth. They’re delicious as well.

I made it.
I’m one of the lucky ones.


The Tomato Story: Part II
January 2001

There have been similar stories since the first one, but none that ended with tomatoes. I have $40 to last me the next 2 weeks. Tomorrow I will go to the grocery store and charge food that will have to last me the next two weeks. That is it.

My gag reflex is nearly in effect, just from thinking about the prospect of those two minute noodles. I have just paid my rent and will not get paid for another two weeks

I stopped eating breakfast weeks ago, and then I stopped eating dinner somewhere along the way. I have to eat lunch though, partly because I will pass out if I don’t, and also because I don’t want anyone to see me not eat. They already probably think I have an eating disorder, and, franky, I do, but it’s a financial one.

However, I can’t afford lunches anymore, which is why I have to get supplies that will last me two weeks at Coles. Looks like ham and cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a while. I’ll hold off on 2 minute noodles as long as I can.

This week was bad. It was embarrassing during this one important meeting on Tuesday. I had to keep rustling my papers loudly during a meeting so everyone wouldn’t hear my stomach rumbling. It was so loud. I felt like the whole building could hear my hunger. I alternated between coughing and rustling papers, and clearing my throat every time my stomach roared. I must have looked like a freak.

I hate being hungry. I love food. Food is one of my favourite things and eating is one of my favourite things to do. I hate that it has no become a chore. It’s an annoying expense and I can’t expense it. I am worried about my health. This can’t be good for me. Another two weeks of having to avoid friends because I can’t afford food or beer or coffee anything more extravagant than that. Hunger hurts.

My stomach is starting to give up, so half the time I forget I haven’t eaten. But times like right now at 3am, I am up because my stomach is empty and it hurts. I’d kill for a bag of chips.

But mostly, I am counting the days till I can go into Coles and get some real food again. I’m going to buy a package of tomatoes. For old times’ sake.
It is now, in the middle of my hunger strike, that I re-confirm for myself that no job is ever going to make me happy. I want to be a writer. And to be a writer I have to write. It’s all I want to do and I want to do it all. Scripts, novels, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, songs. Nothing else makes me as happy as writing. I have to stop working so goddamn hard at “work.” It’s not worth it.
I’ve considered getting a part-time job, but frankly, I guess I’d rather be poor and hungry and have more time to write.

I had a hard decision to make today. There’s this writing class I want to take, but it costs $112 dollars. That much money would keep me in food for the next two weeks, easily. I won’t have any other money for two more weeks. And, in the end, I decided to sign up for the class. I’m hoping that some inspiration can satisfy some other cravings that food couldn’t even begin to touch.

Except for tomatoes. 1/23/01