I'm constantly falling to a weight below normal for my height. It doesn't look nice. Not sexy. I eat when I'm hungry, but this is admittedly not very often - particularly when I'm reading a good book.

I've often said to myself, 'Okay. I will now fatten myself up by being as unhealthy as humanly possible!' Sounds fun, right? Beer! Coke! Oatmeal Creme Pies! Eggs, French toast, sausage. WHOLE MILK. Chips, custard, cheeseburgers, Ding Dongs, frozen burritos. A smorgasbord of grossness.

It serves to think this might be heaven, for the universal method of dealing with depression is to curl up on the couch with a bucket of ice cream. Junk food is comfort, as it goes, and visions of being 'forced' to eat brussel sprouts in childhood are case enough to be terrified of vegetables. Who would eat spinach when presented with a Klondike bar?

Imagine my amazement when I discovered the difficulty in continuing such a diet. Depression's relation to junk food, I soon found, is reciprocal: chips might be my closest comfort, but they were more likely to irritate my stomach than render me satisfyingly full. French toast at any hour of the day stuffs my stomach with syrup and makes me gag. The more soda I drink, the crappier my teeth feel. And Ding Dongs are just gross.

I experimented with a junk food diet again this week, apparently having forgotten what havoc it wreaks on my mood. I've been living on cheese and Hot Pockets. On the way home from work yesterday I stopped by the grocery and bought a six pack of beer and a bag of Doritos. I was feeling exhausted and lazy and figured it would feel good to pig out.

Blech. I repeat: blech.

I tried, really I did, but I spent the whole night wondering why I wanted to sink into the sheets of my bed like a disgusting blob. Today I drove home from an appointment wanting to douse myself with Welch's grape juice. You know it's bad when you start craving canned fruit. I would die for a mandarin orange, I thought. Just a fucking orange.

When I got home I ate a gigantic bowl of lima beans.

Fuck it, I thought. They're cheaper than Hot Pockets.