February 04, 2002 | 1:19 PM

I am going to address something that was written in my guestbook:

�I don't know about anyone else, but I'd love to see a picture of you Anna (I think your name is Anna).�

I have been thinking about this on and off prior to this inquiry. I certainly understand why people would want to see a picture of someone whose diary they were reading, and I don�t take offence to the request. I also understand why people post pictures of themselves in their diaries.

I have very complex, intense, and paradoxical views concerning the judgements made by our society about appearance�especially when it concerns women. I also have very complex, intense, and paradoxical views about my own appearance.

Let�s just get this out in the open.

I am overweight. And by this I do not mean that I am a perfectly healthy size twelve that has internalized the anorexic pre-requisites for beauty determined by society. I mean, I actually am overweight. Sometimes I am more overweight than other times. I am not kidding when I say that my weight tends to yo-yo by 100 lbs. Ambivalence and extremes are the most consistent motifs in my life, as anyone who reads this journal can plainly see.

My problems with weight really began with my mother who was obsessive from the time I was 6 years old�weekly weigh-ins, crash diets, the whole shebang. I went on a 400 calorie a day diet when I was 14 and got down to a size 8. I then quickly ballooned back up to a size 20. I was bulimic throughout most of high school and college. I stopped throwing up after my freshman year and my weight skyrocketed. I have gone up and down since then and all though I've had relatively thin periods, I have never been quite �normal� since. I was diagnosed with massive hypothyroid earlier this year (which basically means an incredibly sluggish metabolism) and another disease called Polycystic Ovarian Disorder which makes it difficult for me to lose my weight, though certainly not impossible. I am being treated for both of these illnesses (which my doctor told me I probably have had unbeknownst to me for the last decade at least), and am on an exercise regimen. I am also dieting though I do cheat.

I don�t like to talk about this very much in my diary because I find it boring, but I am stating it briefly once and for all because it has to do with the topic at hand.

That said, other than hating the fact that I am fat, I have never had a problem with my looks. In fact, I have a great deal of confidence about what I would look like except for the fact that I am heavy. It is the bane of my existence to know that were it not for this extra flesh obscuring me, I would be �attractive� by societal standards and that a great deal more opportunities would be available to me to do some of the things I am good at doing (i.e. acting.) However, I get very angry with myself for feeling this way, as I think that the standards of beauty for women are outrageous and I personally don�t agree with them.

I know many women who are quite heavy who I find to be aesthetically beautiful, and I know some very skinny people who are also quite pleasing to the eye. My point is that I am disgusted that anyone should feel the need to change their natural state, or hurt themselves to meet a standard that has been arbitrarily set. And no, I don�t buy the bullshit argument that the standards of beauty correspond with the natural physical attraction felt by the opposite sex. Sorry-- it has only been over the past few decades that the desired shape and mass of women has shifted from rotund towards stick fugure-esque. In many other cultures what is considered beautiful would be considered an anathema to our society.

Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder but the beholder has been brainwashed by movies, television, and the multi-million dollar fashion and cosmetics industries-- whose sole purpose by the way, is to perpetuate their own wealth by playing on women�s insecurities and deeming fact that which is a modern day myth�that women must be skinny and never get old. And what is most sad is that like slavery myths of the old South (i.e. black people are naturally inferior), these myths have been internalized so that women police ourselves and each other, which is what keeps the whole fuck witted machine running.

Having said all that, I would be a liar if I didn�t say that I haven�t internalized these very same myths. I can�t tell you how upset I am and how worthless I feel when people judge me based on my weight.

So I have perfected a defense mechanism to help me deal with being heavy and here�s what it is�I pretend. Instead of honestly believing that I am beautiful at any size, I pretend that I am 120 lbs. I have an excellent imagination and I can lie to myself. I look in the mirror and pretend I see the thin but curvaceous me that I could be if I devoted my life to being that way. Think of how Hal sees Rosemary in Shallow Halwhen he�s hypnotized. That�s it exactly. I�ve partially hypnotized myself and that is how I get through life.

So�I am going to cop out. I am going to post a picture, but it is a picture of me in what I consider to be my best light This is the picture I have hypnotized myself to think I look like. This is a picture of me towards the very low end of my weight, taken a few years ago. And I do look like this, except fatter. If you saw me on the street I don�t know if you would recognize me.

And that�ll be the end of it. So here�s the picture.

*********

It's now 2:44, and just as a side note-- writing that has depressed me to the endth degree. The thing is, when you can really pretend you're a certain way, you fool other people too. And those people actually see you as beautiful. But no matter how many times they tell you, "You are beautiful", you never ever believe them because you can't really believe it yourself. You think they are lying.

And it is such a sad way to live, to never believe someone when they tell you that you are beautiful. You can also never believe someone when they tell you that they love you.

It is such a lonely way to feel, and when I think about it I am so fucking angry at my mother for having provided me with that legacy. Because even when I was 135 lbs. and a size 8, I still looked in the mirror and saw someone completely unloveable. I appraised myself as though I were an object because that's how I was taught people would view me. I am always surprised when someone sees me who I am. Fuckin' a man. It pretty much blows..

Anway, enough with this cavetching. I'll get back to the whole saga of the apartments soon. Oh-- a couple of people have asked me whether the saga is real or not. Yeah, it's all true-- some of the names are changed but that's it.