Update on how my “Lose Weight” plan is coming along: Tonight I ate a Mexican pizza and two taco supremes and Did a large Dew from Taco Bell. Then I came home and ate a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich on challah bread, dipped in ketchup and when the ketchup ran out, Ortega Taco Sauce that has possibly been in my fridge since I moved in (July 2004). Now I’m continuing to make a solid dent in this:

I actually bought this back in March, after reading from Venice that the dude who subbed in to write the O.C. column while I was out of town hoped Annie Barrett would be “picking [him] up a giant tube of Toblerone from duty free. Man, are those tasty.” Being a loser, I duty-fully did just that.

Except… I ended up never setting foot in the office again. I kept thinking I might, so I saved the chocolate. But during a recent two-person TV/music/”deep thinking” powwow in my apartment, it just didn’t make sense anymore for that huge bar of gold to keep collecting dust amongst my extensive collection of Moody Blues LPs. Sorry, EW dude. I sort of tried.

No, really, though — I think the Plan’s going great.

It kind of annoys me when people I know say, “Oh, maybe I’ll go out for one drink.” The main reason I don’t like this is because they’re acting like they’re doing me (or whomever) a favor by going that extra mile to have that drink with us. Hey, great. Glad to have you. Idiot.

The other reason is the obvious one: People who say they’ll have one drink are lying. Seriously, why even bother? It’s so unnecessary.

I’m well aware that it’s not a huge deal that the people are lying (they know they are); therefore I don’t see it as a very big deal that it bothers me so much and that I’m bothering to complain about it. As a general note, I wouldn’t have to rag on people at all if they weren’t such morons all the time.

It would just be so much easier to not say anything. Either say “Sure, I’ll go to the bar with you.” or just shut the fuck up and either come or not. Thanks.

Whew! That was scary and mean. You know what that means: It’s definitely time to check out what’s on Channel 803!

Yay! Who doesn’t love Homo Zapping? Show of hands.

Now get off my street.

Dee called yesterday to tell me that the title of my last entry (”Stop coming here”) and the part where I said I was currently hating myself made it sound like I was depressed. I was like, “No, mom, that was a joke.” She was like, “How was it funny?” It was a really good question.

You’re probably wondering how the Plan (officially titled “Lose Weight”) is going. I kept a log, asked for professional feedback (free at NYU’s health center for Students Who Should Have Graduated By Now) and a group of dieticians categorized my progress as “Not Good.” Check out what I had for 3am Snack, or what in normal-person-time can be translated to: Lunch

It’s a smattering of the some of the few items left in my festering fridge and the end of a baguette that was stale yesterday. The topping consists of shredded mozzerella cheese (melted), pine nuts, scallions, olive oil, and garlic salt. They were not applied to the bread in that order. For a DR Challenge, try to guess the order yourself!

Sometimes (not in this case, because those little fuckers tasted amazing), I decide I’m unhappy with the meal I just ate. Maybe it was a loserish sandwich on wheat bread or a bowl of nasty soup with bad croutons. When this happens, I mentally shut down and start panicking about when would be a proper time for me to eat again. I feel like it should be sooner than later, because my previous experience was such a letdown. But eating something else right away would be piggish.

My solution, as of late, has been to chug two extra-large bottles of water (right, flanked on one side by Fritos Scoops!). One is a rectangular Fiji bottle I can remember buying. The other is the biggest bottle Poland Spring makes, but since I can’t remember ever buying it I know that it’s by this point in time incredibly disgusting and probably has bits and pieces of the general filth in my apartment encased into each of its Michelin Man-like ridges.

Dieters or people who just like to do sick things to their bodies: take note! Chugging both of these at once actually makes me hungry again within the hour, and if you feel hungry, that’s your body’s way of saying you should eat. So, score.

The chugging also makes me pee a lot, which can be fun and semi-convincing of one’s general progress in life. If I’m just going to be sitting around for four hours, especially if I’m at home, I feel a lot more productive if I have to get up and jog to the bathroom a few times. Throw 20 times into the mix and I almost have a workout going. It’s awesome.

I’m reading A Million Little Pieces for my thesis on the connection between addiction and compelling narrative, and I’ve been obsessively trying to peel off the Oprah’s Book Club sticker on the cover. I think they intentionally want those things to stick on just so the book owners have to feel shitty about themselves for going so commercial.

It’s been a half hour since that last paragraph and DR has decided to bring you How to Deal with the Oprah’s Book Club Sticker: A 5-Step Program.

1. Buy your new book. Glare at the OBC sticker, like it doesn’t deserve to associate with your book. (But somehow you do? Not even.) Wonder aloud, or quietly, why the sticker bothers you so much. Does it represent all that is evil in the world? Does it mean you’re not original? No. It means you’re really fucking jealous.

2. Ham it up with your new book, specifically with the OBC sticker. Pose with it while flipping it a playful bird instead of your usual nerdy thumbs-up. The sticker is so obnoxious. What gives with that thing, anyway? Little does it know it’ll be dunzo in a few seconds. You’re not funny, but this is kind of fun.

3. Peel the OBC sticker off your book for the next three minutes. This part’s not fun. Why do they even tease the buyer with the prospect of peeling it off, only to be left with some gummy stuff and a scratchy surface? They should just make it part of the jacket, which you could then cover up with postage stamp-size Care Bears stickers your mom sent you in a box.

4. Resort to tearing small pieces of the OBC sticker off with your teeth, because it’s fun and zany and really attractive. Realize it’s 8 am and you’re doing a photoshoot of yourself eating a book. Weep. Recover. Chug some water, then undergo a revelation that moisture could be the answer to your OBC dillemma.

5. Use a Q-tip, water, and some gentle pressure to coax the last of the OBC sticker from the book that is now all yours. Despite your efforts, the book also belongs to Oprah, capitalistic bookstores, and thousands of people who bought it because the last two qualifications made it seem trendy. Hold it in front of your face in triumph. Wonder why you felt the urge to post this on the Internet.

Note that a similar program exists called the Five Stages of Grief:

Denial (this isn’t happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me ?)
Bargaining (I promise I’ll be a better person if …)
Depression (I don’t care anymore)
Acceptance ( I’m ready for whatever comes)

There is no connection between that Five-Stepper and mine, but I wanted to throw it in there to make the post seem longer.

*Which doesn’t mean I’ve eaten them yet.

I’m starting a new eating plan, called “Lose Weight.” It will not be fun. Tonight I made sugar-free Jello. Disgusting. I made it because my mom used to make it in all sorts of flavors when I was little. I remember now that the boxes she made were blue instead of white, which is the sugary kind. Now I know she was trying to make us all thinner! Duh.

I bought cherry, because whenever we had it at home, I remember feeling disappointed if it wasn’t cherry. Eventually I wouldn’t even eat it if it wasn’t cherry. Keep in mind I was about 16. And apparently still a little brat.

Look at how unnatural the Jello appears in my refrigerator. There’s barely room for it next to all of my six-packs of beer and lonely container of lowfat cottage cheese. Don’t worry, beer is not part of my new eating plan. There’s just nowhere else to put it. I don’t want it to skunk.

Why do I choose only nasty foods for The Plan? Also on the shopping list: apples, cottage cheese (?!), and iceberg lettuce. Iceberg lettuce! Am I kidding? I’m guessing this also harks back to my teenage years, when I’d refuse to eat salads with any dressing whatsoever. It wasn’t because of the fat — fuck that. I think it must have been something else psychological, because I was completely averse to even the kindliest of dressings. I needed the iceberg lettuce to be really wet, and I’d sprinkle enough salt on it so that I may as well have just dipped every dripping shred of lettuce into a bowl of salt. The only other thing I’d allow in the salad were tomatoes. And I just ate this disgusting mixture an hour ago, right here in the desk chair K.A. and I stole from the Heights office in college. It was Gross Salad That’s Not Even Really A Salad: Redux. WTF?

It makes no sense to me that I should start eating things I ate in high school if I want to Lose Weight. I suppose the family-size Home Run Inn frozen sausage pizzas, consumed in their entireties by me and me alone in the basement at 3 a.m. in those joyous few weeks of 1997 right after the Barrett family got AOL… should not be included. Bummer.

There’s really no need to comment that I’m not fat. I didn’t say I was. The goal here is to feel like a normal citizen again after my 10-day gnocchi binge in Italy. What’s worse, I’ve been back from Italy for a week now and I’ve made four successive huge GLAD plastic containers full of different pasta concoctions. The first one was cooked five minutes after I walked into my apartment, jet-lagged and confused. The pastas have varied in form, and have been tossed with pine nuts, pesto, eggplant, diced onions, zucchini, basil, chicken, gobletfuls of oil, etc. It’s sick. I have this one GLAD container that I just keep reusing. I get jittery when the pasta supply’s running low, so while I’m eating the last of it, I start cooking the next batch. One time I didn’t even bother washing the last round’s sauce from the container. (It’s huge, by the way, much bigger than the Jello bowl.) The sauce on the sides wasn’t crusty yet, so I just haphazardly ran a paper towel along the interior and decided it was good enough. That might have been my low point.

Hence, new eating plan, new workout plan, NEW LIFE! A Better Version of Me, coming right up. And don’t think I won’t chart my failure rate on this here site. Here we go!

Currently loving: Salt. I’ll love it forever.
Currently hating: The Real World. It’s so freaking awful. Seriously.

Monday was Halloween. At left, there’s me as a halfhearted version of last year’s very successful “Tangled Up in Blue” costume. (Props to M. Dunn for the original concept.) Look at me, all skeptical. It’s like I’m thinking to myself, “I know I’m bullshit.”

Here’s a comparison of this year’s and last year’s costumes. I’m really creative.

Okay, that’s the sexiest photo you’ll ever see of me.

Halloween was fun. I learned what a Snickerdoodle was. And I also told a bunch of cops outside my building who were staring me down while I was selecting scary-looking flowers at the deli that they had “great costumes.” One of them laughed. I considered that a success.

I went to Italy. I just reviewed my photos and they’re all of food. If they’re not entirely of food (as in a giant bowl of pesto and that’s it) they’re of my annoying hand holding food directly in front of an otherwise beautiful landscape. I’ll probably insert them on this site at random times, so just keep an eye out and prepare to not get why I would take the photo. Half the time, even I don’t understand my own genius.

I find this genius:

Brussels Airlines. I love it. You get the important part of the tray without having to use the tray at all. The tray always bumps against my thighs and makes me feel large. This way is much better.