December 29, 2002 | 10:11 PM

So I bought jeans yesterday and I have lost four sizes since the last time I bought jeans.

I was all proud of myself for a moment�gushing and glowing over how awesome it is that I am now thinner.

And then I got angry.

Why should it matter? Why should it fucking matter what size you are? Why is it that when I lose ten pounds life seems great and when I gain ten lbs. life is horrible ad that I am horrible?

At the beginning of the 20th century, the ideal in feminine beauty was this:

At the beginning of the 21rst century, it was this:

The thing is both of these ideals should be perfectly acceptable as long as a person resembles one or the other without having to try. There shouldn�t be a fucking IDEAL. Why can�t we all just be fine as we are?

The only solution is to refuse to buy into all the nonsense�all the magazine covers and fashion shows and peer pressure from other women and boyfriends and family.

But that is easier said than done unfortunately. Especially when you most definitely do not conform to that ideal.

I go out of my way to challenge all of it, but it�s a 24 hour job not to succumb to bingeing and purging or starving myself. I know I know�poor me, bring out the fucking violins, welcome to my Movie of the Week -- Not Without My Laxatives: The Banana3159 Story. It�s so stupid and shallow until you dig beneath the surface.

We aren�t really talking about fat or thin. We aren�t even talking about looks here. Anorexics look like shit when they are at their lowest weights. It hurts to look at them. We are talking about control and we are talking about the connotations of the words �Fat� and �Thin�.

Thin= well mannered. having it together. efficiency. GOOD

Fat= messy. Out of control. Vulnerable. BAD.

All the magazine covers�Maxim and Stuff and Playboy and even Rolling Stone for Christ sakes featuring scantily clad voluptuous but teeny women are not about those women showing what they want, about what their appetities and desires are. It�s about being on display. Being as sleek and unfeeling as a machine. And I�m sure some of the women on those covers feel empowered because they get to momentarily relish in the acceptance and the feeling of showing off. Who wouldn�t enjoy that? But then there is the terror of worrying about what happens when your boobs sag and you gain ten lbs. What then?

Anyway�

This is why I sympathize so much with the pro-anorexia diaryland girls, even though I think it�s dangerous as fuck and a total pile of horse shit. I know where those girls�s minds are and I know how easy it is to get sucked into all of it. I mean, it�s been my fucking life since I was six years old.