New gluttony

(2000)

Old gluttony

(1997)

Despite my good intentions to check my weight before I hit 30, I'm fighting a losing battle against gluttony. Each year, fat sticks to me a little more tenaciously. And each year, sweets are more scrumptious, fats more mouthwatering, meats more succulent. Each year my will erodes like melting butter. Each year I'm a better cook.

I spent months trying to pinpoint where I went wrong, how I got this body that isn't mine. Quitting smoking? Going on the pill? Going off the pill? On prozac? Off? And then one day a lightbulb went off and I realized what the problem is: I eat like a fucking pig.

Abject gluttony isn't my only crisis. I've also reached a fever pitch of object gluttony. There's hardly a horizontal surface in my house anymore, although I've put up shelves and shelves and I've spread out into three rooms and devoted another wholly to storing all of the things that don't yet have surfaces. And still I buy more, gobbling up whole new collections in a matter of days and filling every nook, every extra inch of every drawer, pressing everything down, packing and repacking until the whole house is like a spring-loaded snake in a fake peanut can.

Old gluttony