My sleep pattern is all messed up. I awake at 8pm and fall asleep at noon. I awake only to discover it’s dark outside. I fall asleep and need a blindfold to block out the sun. Today was the first Monday that I’ve ever overslept and missed a Jenny Craig appointment so I have to reschedule. *sigh* Funny thing is, every two weeks or so, my schedule gets like this and HAS been like this for years. Sometimes I’m awake during the day and sometimes I’m not. I’ve got the craziest sleep pattern of anyone I’ve ever known. I’ve always considered myself a bit of a night person, but now I’m just beginning to think I’m sort of sun-deprived and that’s why I don’t have a tan.

I usually go for a daily bike ride around 7am when the sun is coming up and ride it about 3 or 4 miles down different streets, riding downhill and uphill, around culdesacs, around parking lots, and through my neighborhood and side neighborhoods. My neighbors are getting used to seeing me (which before one actually emailed me to complain that I don’t get out very much and said he wished I would step out into the light). So I wave at neighbors when they’re pulling out of their driveways on their way to work or when they’re out in their gardens. The bizarreness of it all is that my whole neighborhood feels rather plastic to me. Parents stand with their kids waiting for the school bus. The florist has no flowers in her yard. The lawyer is always on his cell phone, whether driving, walking into his house, or stepping out of it. The nurse up the street is often outside helping gardeners replant her yard or installing new lights around the driveway. The Korean medical engineer (He builds medical machines, he’s not a doctor. I asked.) is often away, traveling to another country and rarely I see his car in the driveway. And sometimes I see a sexy Asian woman driving his car, and that’s when it occurs to me that he’s getting laid.

I ride my bicycle more and the longer I ride, the more neighbors I see. One particular neighbor has a picket fence (the only picket fence I’m aware of) and has a kids’ playground in his yard, so he’s often outside clipping weeds from around the fence and the swingset. I wave, but he never waves back. That’s odd. This neighborhood is notorious for waving. They wave even if they’re driving with their sun in your eyes and can’t see anyone. Before I lived in this neighborhood, I never waved at people when I passed houses. I didn’t see the point. After all, I don’t know anybody or care to really. But out here, the very first day I toured my neighborhood with my real estate agents, neighbors were waving and smiling from their yards as if I belonged. I remember thinking to myself, “This feels like a neighborhood Barbie would like.” And it is.

The problem is, I feel fake living in this neighborhood. I feel like I am the only one who has an alternative life that hasn’t been revealed to the Bloomington masses. It’s not necessarily that I’m afraid of pitchforks and being stoned to death, but because it actually feels nice to play “plastic perfect Isabella” every now and then. That’s why I wave back. I want to fit in with their perfect little plastic world and innocent mindsets. I wonder how freaked out they might get if they saw my house transforming into a dungeon and my dreams of beating people. The real me would not wave back. I’d probably be more likely to flick them off for staring at me, or ignore their waves and not return the stare because I refuse to conform. But the moment I step outside from my reality, I become “one of them” even for 30-60 minutes — my outside world. It’s hard to explain without you actually being here and seeing where I live. The neighborhood resembles something out of Desperate Housewives, except a ritzier and more spread out neighborhood. There are stereotypes and expectations, perhaps gossip (which I am unaware of cause I don’t really talk with people). The only time I’ve really ever spoken to my neighbors was at last year’s Christmas party in which everyone got a mail notice with an invitation. I met everyone. I felt fake then, too. I played fake. I crossed my legs, wore a conservative dress, said hello and thank you, polite, polite, polite, and sat in my little corner watching these ritzy families interact with one another. They talked about golf, for christ’s sake. Can you get any more blasé than that?

They asked what I did for a living, and I said I was a “hypnotist on hiatus to lose weight” because I didn’t feel like telling them I was erotic hypnodomme for fear they might judge me without getting the chance to know who I am. I was much heavier than I am now so a few of them gave me the “up and down look” as if seeing if I could qualify for being a hypnotist and one of them said to me with kind intentions, “Well if you can lose over 200 pounds, I’ll be your first client when you set up shop.” She said it nicely (cause we were talking about weight), but it really annoyed me that she could stereotype my abilities to help people based on how I looked. I didn’t let it stop me - I let it FUEL my determination to get where I wanted to be. I made a vow at last year’s Christmas party that I would lose a ton of weight and said most of them wouldn’t be able to recognize me. Most just nodded or smiled politely, but I doubt any one of them believed me except the blonde-haired nurse who was the nicest of them all. She even bought me wine and wine glasses as a move-in present.

So that being said… when I ride on my bike (after being practically non-existent for a year in this neighborhood), it occurred to me that they are being introduced to a thinner person. Maybe they don’t even know who I am. Or do they? The nurse recognized me because her smile spreads across her face when she sees me. But the rest? I honestly think they believe I’m just a new neighbor that just moved in. I guess that’s why I like playing plastic sometimes. I wanna see how long I can get away with doing this before it hits them like a ton of bricks. Yes, I’m the fat girl you discarded and no, I don’t want to be friends with any of you. Ok, blonde nurse - yes — she’s nice.

Or perhaps - maybe because I’m *stereotyping them,* maybe I really am as judgemental and stereotypical as they are, which means technically I’m just like them. Maybe I really do fit in this plastic shit. Have I become whom I’ve always despised?

Me, feeling plastic.

Love
Isabella
xoxoox