20.05.05..7:17 pm

Met up with Mum and and the Sistercreature Wednesday after work. Really lovely to see them, I'd been truthfully dreading seeing them. I'm not even sure why. I suppose in part it's the freedom I've had for the past two years, six years really if you include living away for my undergrad. Not having them here means not having to listen to my sister prattle so mindlessly about boy bands and telling me she'll give me a 'bone-cracker of a hug' as soon as she sees me. Or having Mum give me her Once Over and either say, "O I'm glad you look nice today, but did you have to wear those shoes?" or "You are eccentric aren't you" for wearing (shockhorror) green Chuck Taylors with my work togs AFTER LEAVING WORK. It's that they smother me more than anything else. My sister smothers me with a love I've never felt I can live up to (this is something to which I'll return in Part II); my Mum with constant criticism and nose-turned-up disapproval for being Me and not the GAP wearing daughter she had hoped for. I can't tell you how many times she will look at me and sigh sadly, "You used to look so elegant." (This is another story which I will tell in Part II)

But this time was lovely. The Sistercreature was charming and appropriate; Mum was almost flattering; but mostly both were so happy to see me and I melted realising I was so happy to see them. We walked around Angel, along Upper St before cutting down to Essex Rd. We popped into the Tinderbox for coffee, and went window shopping for clothes for my Grandad's 80th birthday next weekend, which is why they've come over. My sister and I planned what we'll do on the day we're spending just the two of us. Mum's getting all worried that I'll spend more time with Dad when he comes over in a week's time (because I'm taking him to see The Philadelphia Story as a belated birthday present and thus will get to spend a whole evening with him), despite the fact that she will be in the country a whole week longer than he. It's sometimes like being at the centre of a furiously jealous competition to see who can spend the most time with me, despite the fact I look forward to spending time with them equally. Despite even more that I talk more, write more and generally communicate more quantitively with my Mum! She's also worried about meeting M, despite the fact he's been give rave reviews from all who have made it their duty to report back to her.

In any case, the Sistercreature looks fantastic! She's lost a load of weight - she's on something called the Cambridge Diet as well as doing kickboxing twice a week, swimming three times and an aerobics class once a week. She's about the same size as she was when I went back to Toronto, but she had put back on a stone (15lb actually), so by January was getting frustrated again with having to buy larger clothes and generally hating herself everytime she stepped into a dressing room, or out of the shower. She would look at herself and just start to cry. What's really horrible is not that she's so over weight, but that my Mum can't understand how hard it is for her. She can sympathise to an extent, but she was 98lbs when she got married, rose to a mere 115lbs when she was pregnant with me.. There's not really any comparison! My Mum is a tiny woman. She's quite tall - the tallest in her family for a start at 5foot 4inches - but very small boned and weight just doesn't stick. It's like her fat depositories were slathered with vaseline at birth. I'm fortunate enough to take after her though with my father's propensity for packing on muscle, particularly on my legs, just walking. I've never had any real problems with my weight the way the Sistercreature has, the opposite in fact. In my final year of my undergrad I was so stressed out all the time I just stopped eating. I was biking everywhere and teaching swimming four days a week as well, which meant I was getting loads of exercise. I had almost no body fat on me. I remember my parents coming to visit the month before I was due to hand in all my final papers, it was just after Michael had broken up with my for the second time. I was thrilled for the break, really looking forward to seeing them and when I opened the door all that excitement vanished when I saw the look of sheer horror and disgust on my Mum's face. The very sight of me had actually made her almost physically ill, I was that skinny. It was utterly wretching because I hadn't realised there was anything wrong.

(Two weeks later I weighed myself for the first time in four monthes. I'd lost 28lbs, despite the fact I was nothing but muscle.)

By complete contrast my sister started putting on weight when she was going through puberty. In two years she had an extra 40lbs floating about her hips and thighs. By the time she was 20 she had plateaued at 180. By this point my Mum had begun her war on my sister's eating habits. And war it was. The Sistercreature became quite adept at hiding food in her room, having 'healthy snacks' at three times the normal proportion. Her favourite tactic was to go for evening 'walks.' She would go up to Yonge and Eglinton and gorge at the Second Cup on brownies and hot chocolate, or see a film with the supersized popcorn barrels and extra large buckets of root beer at her side. She would proclaim loudly that she liked how she looked. That she was proud of having a bit of meat on her. But the number of times Mum would be in a fitting room with her, Mum trying to wrangle her into size 16s and 18s, and she'd start sobbing with frustration. The look on my Mum's face when she saw me on that March Sunday was one that my sister had been living with day in day out for years.

About two years ago she started with Weight Watchers which did bugger all. Their idea of dieting was faddish and required a discipline my sister simply did not possess.

I've got to start work now, but will continue soon.