Oh, Jane. Dear Jane, thank you for that message in my guestbook. I HAVE SEEN THE ERROR OF MY WAYS, JANE.

No seriously, this is the first anonymous guestbook entry in a long time that actually made me not wanna retch. (as a side note, are there really that many people out there called John and Jane? Or is that just the anonymous poster's name of choice?)

So I'm shallow, eh? I guess that's how I've come across in this diary for the past few weeks. Yes, I talk a lot about my diet. Yes, I talk a lot about how good I look. Bla bla bla. But isn't this a journal? A place to write things that you can't say out in the real world? I do not have the type of friends who have long conversations about makeup and clothes over lunch period. I have friends who talk about politics and underground rock bands and occasionally gossip about others, but we are not really the "OMG I feel so fat today and my hair sucks" crowd.

I love my friends exactly for those reasons. Because they are not brain dead.

That having been said I have episodes in my life when my self-esteem is crap. I know I make fun of people who's life depends on nail polish brands and the latest issue of Seventeen, but I am a girl too, and sometimes after a particularly difficult event, I just need a little pick-me-up.

Don't get me wrong. I once had great self-esteem despite the fact that I weighed 165 pounds. I didn't think of myself as overweight by any means. There were plenty of times when I felt sexy and girly and beautiful, and the pant size I wore had no influence on that. And when I started dating the boy, I felt empowered. Sure, I wasn't stick thin but I didn't want to be. There was a boy who loved me for me and thought I was sexy, and that made me feel great.

And then I caught him looking at a girl, and he said something along the lines of "Don't worry honey. I can't feel the heat if she ain't got the meat."

Dear lord, I wanted to slap him. As good as his intentions were, I started thinking. Am I fat? Does he consider me a "big girl"? Is that all he sees? And then, for unrelated reasons, we broke up, but all I could think about was that one sentence.

And so, as you can imagine, my confidence and my self-esteem were flushed down the toilet. I told myself hey, if I'm gonna be a big girl, might as well be a big girl and get on with my life. So I ate and I ate and I gained six pounds, and I didn't look much different then I did before but I felt like crap.

My mom saw that. She asked me if I really wanted to keep gaining and I said no, I didn't, I wanted to go back to my old self. I wanted to have meat on my bones and be HAPPY about it like I did before.

So we went on a diet and I lost the six pounds. And it felt great. And then, just by changing my eating habits and not eating emotionally, I kept losing weight. And you know what? That still felt great. I was feeling better about myself and my body and I was forgetting about what the boy had said. I didn't starve myself. I never once thought "If I don't lose weight I'm gonna die". I was not obsessed. I was more like, let's say pleasantly surprised.

I'm shallow, okay? Is that what you'd like to hear? Cause I am. I like fitting into a size 10 and I like looking in the mirror and seeing what I see today. I like the number on the scale but I don't freak out about it. I like feeling pretty and fitting into my old cute clothes. I AM SHALLOW. I'm not model material by any stretch of the imagination but I like the way I look, and it's the first time I have felt this way in almost a year.

This entry was probably confusing to most of you, but it sorted out a lot of things in my head. To summarize, I am shallow, but at least I know it and recognize it and I can turn it off when I want to. That's it, that's all.