What I really wish for, sometimes, is a hall monitor for my body. Someone who could look at me every day and explain to me exactly what’s different, and exactly what hasn’t changed and tell me how things are looking and where things are going and pat me on the head and tell me that I’m not imagining things: when I think that my skin is tightening up, a bit; that my stomach isn’t nearly as floppy and my arms are slightly slimmer; and my boobs are (I’m so sorry) really not looking so hot, but at least they’re not getting smaller and isn’t that nice? Right now, it all feels like it’s in my imagination, and my imagination has never been the most stable of places, or anything to rely on, even when I’m relatively stable. Now is not a relatively stable time in my life.

My hall monitor would also tell me if I were really hungry, or if that rumbling in my belly is imaginary hunger that will go away if I just wait it out, or will go away if I drink some water, or won’t go away until I eat some tuna fish on a single slice of Alvarado St. Bakery complete protein bread (5 grams per slice!). And my hall monitor will also slap things out of my hand, or hold me down and dig them out of my mouth, if necessary, and then thwap me upside the head for even thinking about eating a slice of cake, or a cookie or a second handful of grapes or an entire pie or a box of donuts or a bakery.

My hall monitor, if I should somehow sneakily and with great stealth and cunning circumvent her (and it’s a her, and she wears an ankle-length khaki skirt and a maroon sweater and has a bosom like a prow and glasses on a gold chain), will stand over me while I kneel next to the toilet, crying, because I ate some macaroni and cheese when I really shouldn’t have eaten macaroni and cheese and now I’m heaving up bits of noodle and I can feel the chunks in my nose and she will make tsk tsk noises and say “Now, we won’t be doing that again, will we?” and while I sob about how stupid I am and how it will never happen again, she will stroke my hair and say “I know you won’t,” and we’ll both know that it is true.

At 6 a.m., my hall monitor will come clanging into my bedroom with a pot and a wooden spoon, and she will say “Up now, right this second!” and yank the covers down and unplug my electric blanket and set me on fire, if necessary, and she will yank my charred body up out of bed and hand me a glass of water and my crazy pill and my glasses and then shove me into the bathroom and supervise while I brush my teeth, and then hold out my sweatpants, one leg at a time, and haul them up and wrestle me into my sports bra and tank top and bundle me out the door, going “hup hup hup!” all the way down the block and onto the train and downtown to the gym, where she will stand next to me on the treadmill and smack my ass every time I think about slowing down. She will pull tissues from her sleeves and hand them over to me every time I start to weep tiny golden tears of self-pity, and then punch the incline up another couple notches.

She will follow me out the door and sit next to me at work, nudging my water glass in front of me, filling it up when it is empty, and punching me in the back of the head every time I start thinking about the vending machine. She can always tell when I am thinking about the vending machine. I will probably quickly stop thinking about the vending machine.

She can also tell when I’m wondering if my pants have gotten loose because I’ve lost some inches, or if they just need to be washed. “Inches,” she’ll say, and I will be sure I’m not crazy, because she is my body’s hall monitor and she knows these things.  She knows I shouldn’t be wearing trapeze shirts or wide-legged trousers, no matter how much weight I’ve lost—and especially not together—and she will not let me buy them, no matter how on sale they are or how very au courant “volume” is, in fashion. “Volume!” I’ll protest, trying to pry her fingers off the silk satin with the cunning bows. “Your hips,” she will hiss, and bite me. “You’ll thank me for this,” she will say, as she disappears from the dressing room and I know she’s right.

"Water weight," she’ll say. "You should have about 15 more grams of protein today," she’ll say. "Your imagination," she’ll say. "Here’s how you roast a chicken," she’ll say. "Here’s how you stop worrying about everything," she’ll tell me, "because it’s my job now." "Happy birthday," she’ll say. "You’re 34 years old, and finally you’re doing okay. Don’t wake up, though, because this really is such a beautiful dream."