Thanks, sis! Meg and Dee went to Art Chicago last week and sent me some digital missives of the complex carbohydrates they thought would really REACH me.

“Heyyyy! Welcome to DR!”

Ugh. I miss Steak ‘n’ Shake.

Life’s eternal questions, embodied just as they should be in Wonka-bar form.

Here’s a still life featuring butter (a.k.a. my life).

These cupcakes actually do look dangerous. Did the icing factory run out of color OR WHAT?

Says Meg: “yes - those balloons are attached to that girls hair… hehe”

Dee Barrett, who was consulted for permission to post these photos merely as a courtesy (because I was going to post them anyway), gave the OK:

NO PROBLEMS HERE.

And in the spirit of indulgence….indulge me and watch these!

May 2, 2008 — ‘DWTS Talk’: Bye bye, Shannequin
May 5, 2008 — ‘Survivor Talk’ cameo! I’m a medic. Of course.

Two of the new American Gladiators, Crush and Wolf, dropped by my ever-festive cubicle to share powerful secrets of gladiating with me and Slezak. Here’s Part 1 of what’s sure to be a truly enlightening series. My fave part is when I blurt out “Gassy!” Awkward…

Update: Here’s Part 2. We talk “style,” and Wolf compliments the tropical fish spandex leggings from the ’80s (Dee Barrett Original Flavored) that I am obviously wearing in these videos.

Michael Slezak (google alert!) is not havin’ it with my awesome pants in this frame.

Okay, here’s the best one, Part 3. Ridiculous challenges include catching candy in our moths, fielding a publicist’s phone call, and flying paper airplanes.

Oh, and I totally have a crush on Crush.

If I believed in New Year’s Resolutions, mine would be to somehow look that awesome (see above) all year. That’s a relic from August ‘07. My friends — The Team — and I were in Michigan for New Buffalo’s illustrious Ship ‘n’ Shore Festival (holla!). A somewhat drunken but TOTALLY CHILL dance party to a playlist I’d created called “It Couldn’t Be Lamer: Dance Hits from the Mid-to-Late ’90s” ensued. We’d already eaten our weight in cheeseburgers, but dancing is tough, and being the motherly provider I am, I decided to root around in the laundry room fridge for something — anything — to replenish our calorie count. By some miraculous intervention a.k.a. “Dee Barrett being awesome,” there happened to be a spare cherry pie just sitting in there on a dish towel. Heavens!

Anyway, I could never do it on this blog because my name’s all the F over it and I would never want people to think I’m even slightly self-absorbed (ha!), but I kind of want someone to do a “Looking Great in ‘08″ series. It’d just be a pic of that person every day and then she’d scathingly critique her own appearance because half the time she’d be unshowered in a college hoodie. It’s only January 2nd and therefore still doable. She’d just have to fake a photo and say it happened yesterday. Maybe I should start an anonymous blog and just go for it. Hmm. Look for this anonymous blog around May when PopWatch mysteriously links to it. You think I’m kidding.

Good questions, Dee.

1) I guess I don’t HAVE to say “bite me.”

2) Yes! But the Crocs cover toes, so they’re okay. I’m slightly horrified/not so surprised that you’d already thought to yourself that I would like Crocs. …. Hmm. It just occurred to me, because my awesome mind is always hard at work, about how since Crocs have those little holes for toes to “breathe,” they might be even grosser than just a regular sandal. The toes are trapped in there like frogs waiting to be dissected. It’s almost pointless to give them any air at all. They’re FESTERING in there. Help! Crocs are suddenly totally grossing me out!

I took this pic in February but it still applies.

Am I the only person who finds Altoid mints disgusting? Like, chew a piece of gum. Eat a Tic-Tac. Drink coffee, even. Just get those things away from me because if you happen to lift the top of that totally pretentious tin, I might accidentally take a whiff and die. Altoids are universally rank. Also, jank.

So there’s clearly no way I’m interested in seeing/tasting Altoids’ “chocolate balls,” which is a shame, because I am obsessed with chocolate balls of the non-Altoid variety. The concept of the CB is beautiful to me. It’s the perfect example of an essential household item. Of course the specimen should consist of chocolate, and of course it should form a sphere. I really don’t see what other type of household item you would want.

I grew up subsisting 30% on Fannie May chocolate balls that Dee left in little crystal dishes around the house. The CBs were individually wrapped in bright-colored foil that made an awesome sound when I crinkled it right next to my ear verrrry slowwwwwwly, because even when wee, I was completely insane. (I still do the ear-crinkle today, and even ask other people for their discarded foil wrapping… as if they had any use for it whatsoever. Sick!) Dee’s fancy dishes were a nice touch; who wants to pluck a CB from a plastic bowl? Pass!

(Who would store her CBs loosely on her crumb-y coffee table, like wayward marbles, if she had them in her own apartment? Me, but I believe we were scrutinizing Dee’s household, not mine.)

I don’t even know what the point of this was; I’m just trying to get rid of all my “drafts”. You lose, no refunds, refer to title of website, etc.

It’s not that I don’t like you if you like Altoids. I just don’t like Altoids. Swim around in that puzzle at your own risk. WARNING: No lifeguard on duty!!!

This post is totally gonna get hits from people looking for porn. Also, because I just said “porn.”

My mom, Dee, and I got this cookie last week at the Jersey Sub Shop, which is obviously located in Michigan.

The JSS is amazing on all levels including “has giant Shrek outside for no reason” (see much less ambitious post, below). But come on. WHAT is this design?

We didn’t quite grasp the extent of its mind-numbing quandary when we first ordered it. At point of sale, it was basically like “We need to get a big-ass cookie, end of story.” Then we got home and, post-subs, just kept staring at the cookie for entire minutes. We checked out different angles, adjusted the lighting… at one point I deliberately walked off in a huff, like “I’ve HAD it with that cookie” and then of course walked right back to see if a whiplashed, fake-first impression would do the trick. It totally did not.

We flat-out refused to eat the cookie until we figured out what was supposed to be on top of it, then gave up and ate it anyway. Among our guesses: Snowflake (all me), [confused look] (Dee), simulation of Spirograph (all me), [exasperated look] (Dee), variation on the Burger King crown featuring squiggly lines representative of what happens inside after you eat Burger King (all me). I thought snowflake was pretty spot-on, but Dee gave a final [ENRAGED LOOK] that ran a close second.

You will note that this cookie is roughly four times the circumference of a modestly sized glass of Diet Dr. Pepper. I’m all about the SCALE these days.

I had one more guess and basically nothing to do for the rest of the day, so I drove back to the JSS to confront the guy at the counter head-on about the puzzling design. It was weird.

ANNIE: Hi.

DECORATOR: Oh, hello!

ANNIE: (awkwardly, unnecessarily) I’m back!

DECORATOR: [blank stare]

ANNIE: Did you, like, decorate those cookies? [points at others]

DECORATOR: Yeah! I decided to give it a shot today.

ANNIE: Was the usual decorator not around?

DECORATOR: Right.

ANNIE: Oh, that’s really cool of you. [?!] I have to ask. What exactly were you going for, here? My mom and I have been debating it for half an hour. We’re so confused. I mean, I’m all about artistic expression and doing your own thing [?!], and since this is clearly “your own thing,” [air quotes] I love it just for being itself and… existing. But… what did you have in mind when you set out to do these? TELL ME YOUR FUCKING VISION, MAN.

DECORATOR: [thinks for a long time]

ANNIE: [thinks about leaving because this is SO AWFUL]

DECORATOR: You know what? I have no idea.

ANNIE: I think I know what it was. [gingerly extends a printout of the following image]

ANNIE: It was Queen Frostine’s wand from Candy Land. It’s been on your mind for decades and you’re just now coming to terms with it.

DECORATOR: Holy shit.

ANNIE: [smirks]

DECORATOR: I think you’re RIGHT!

ANNIE: You… like… Candy Land?

STEVE HOLT: No. … I LOVE it!

—

True or false: The above did not actually happen, because I’m way too lazy to re-leave the house.

I made it to Stray Dime Island. How pretty is it?!

No, I’m at the Barrett Family Compound (BFC, which also stands for big fucking cabin) in New Buffalo, MI, hard at work in the fields of eating, drinking, and developing skin cancer. This is my first official “vacation” all year! I plan on using it to avoid any houeshold duty whatsoever. My dad’ll be like, “Yo, A, how ’bout a refill on ice water?” and I’ll wince and shake my head, “Sorry,” even though I’ll be standing at the sink, spitting cherry pits that don’t belong in the sink into the sink. Or Dee will cry out, “Annie! Cut yourself a phat slice of raspberry-almond danish!” and I’ll glare at her from my perch on the couch, then point to myself with both index fingers with a powerful smirk that clearly conveys: “ON VACATION.” She will then serve it to me with a fork, and I will laugh and laugh, but not hard enough to make my stomach muscles exert themselves, because that’d be like… working.

Two weeks ago, I moved to the Carroll Gardens/Red Hook vicinity. I’m so cool. Check out some of my fave sights from the environs thus far:

Ha.

Ha!

YES!

I always do!

Welcome to the neighborhood, Annie!

Fine, a few pics from inside the “Apt.” (I posted these and more a few days ago by burying them in the archives. But that was bogus. Wait, you don’t care.)

The essentials.

Some backstory on that sad tomato, from an April 13 e-mail from Dee Barrett:

At T (Target), I purchased a ceramic tomato that I am almost certain Meghan said “we just HAVE to buy this for Annie” last time we were there together. The clearance tags were mounted one on top of the other, suggesting that this really is the tomato that nobody would ever buy. I’ll bet Annie would have purchased it at its original price ! However, always after a deal, the tomato is now ours for the very low sticker price of $2.47 !

Oh, D (Dee) !

The essentials (cont.)

Best desk ever. Note the pack of brownie bites sidling up to the PTP.

From living room into office. Jury’s still out on whether this room is called Office or Study. (Bordering-on-Tacky Lair of Sublime Creativity, Possibly, In The Future, If I Ever Get My Act Together… was too long.)

Kitchen, including the bane of my existence for 3.5 years: Three incredibly annoying “Lack” shelves from Ikea that are literally impossible to put in a wall. Milk crates, rug gripper, stand ‘em up on the floor? Sure!

Living room. Time to play Where’s The Cheeseburger Pillow?

First documented homemade Mexican Pizza featuring: Scallions! (4/30/07)

The End.

It’s about time we discussed a very important part of Summer Eating: Appies.

That’s appetizers in Barrett-speak. It’s a synonym of rushies, because people apparently eat them in a rush. I don’t. I prefer to savor.

Below is a typical August appies array in New Buffalo, MI:

It’s nothing special. Just chips and dip. Many food snobs might refuse to call such simple fare “appetizers.” I think that’s lame. If something comes before the main meal, it goes on the table, and people get a serious kick out of eating it, it’s an appie. No question.

On the surface, everything seems fine about the spread above. Four kinds of chip and three dips — what could be better? No problem! Everyone’s happy. When facing off against twelve possible chip/dip combos, people generally tend to choose a favorite pairing and stick with it, which I think is bogus. If Dee Barrett bothered to put out seven separate troughs, I’m going to lap up the scraps from all of them.

But then there’s a problem: You lose yourself in one conversation or three bloody marys, and suddenly you stick a sweet potato Terra Chip into chili con queso and then pummel the two of those into your mouth, which was conveniently just hanging wide open.

WRONG!

DR’s advice: prepare a site map of the appies array in your head:

Neon green is a match! Pomegranate red means stop. Most of these you can determine based on common sense, but if you need to sample, by all means, do it. After all, you deserve the biggest portion of each bowl simply by being the wonderful you, phenomenally.

(File under “Things I Tell Myself in Michigan”)

These “Mega” M&Ms, artfully photographed in New Buffalo, Michigan, remind me of Crayola’s “Bolder” markers. Remember? There were the plain Bolds, which I adored (especially jungle green), and then all of a sudden you couldn’t buy Bold anymore and instead had to choose between either Classic or Bolder. Bolder sucked! They were all so… extreme. That’s how I feel about these candy colors. All the colors except the light blue are a tad too bold for their own good, especially that nasty maroon. What was wrong with just being bold? Why must we overdo it?

P.S. Mega? Give me a break. I’d rather buy a bigger sack of regular-size M&Ms, one I’d have to swing around behind my shoulder because it was that cumbersome, than a normal-size bag of these new overgrown, mutant M&M’s spawn. Eating these jumbo ones makes me feel like a hoss because I’m so used to the noncommittal nature of eating regular M&Ms. Those are so tiny and harmless. It’s like eating air!

The candy itself should not make one feel fat. Waking up the morning after eating a sack of candy should make one feel fat. Aftermath is a bitch, but at least you got to enjoy the intake worry-free.

Happy 7-11. Get a Slurpee. They’re good for you.

Dee (my mom) and I came across this monstrosity in the parking lot of the Countryside, Illinois Dominick’s supermarket. (Holla!) We were only doing a quick drive-by to mail a letter in the big blue box near the entrance, since Dee doesn’t trust our mailman. Kidding. We had actually just missed the mailman on our street and Dee got really excited about her quick-fix solution. “I know what we’ll do!” she exclaimed, not exactly telling me where we were going. If it hadn’t been for this beverage structure, the mailing trip might have been a letdown.

I may as well admit that neither of us really “got” the point of the structure right away. We were butt-up against it and at first only gawked at it becuase of its enormous size. Dee uttered something along the lines of “Huh!” I think I said something derisive, like, “Why was that necessary?” Excessive displays like this often annoy me.

I continued. “What’s with the random Dasani at the top?”

Dee gasped. “Annie! Do you see what it is?”

And I finally did. Jesus, I’m a moron. That little kid walking by probably knew it was a flag before I did, and he’s not even educated.

Or maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I do have a vision/brain deficiency that restricted me from ever seeing the images or hallucinations or hieroglyphics (I honestly wouldn’t know which of those words is more accurate) in those rampant Magic Eye posters from the generally awful 1990s. I detested those, and to this day I’m still aghast that they ever existed. Who even liked them beyond the first triumphant glimpse? Why would anyone actually purchase one of these? Christ. Get a better hobby!

Yes! I enjoy often Phish. Shoot me. I also enjoy tropical fish, courtesy of Dee Barrett’s shiny spandex aerobics pants from the ’80s. Dee, seriously… WTF? (Editor’s note: The same could be asked of Annie, who has carried these pants around with her “for special occasions” since she found them in her bathroom closet at age 17.) Editor, shut up. In any case, that pic’ll have to replace the other futon pic during National Tropical Fish Spandex Month. Or, “May.”

I’m glad The Apprentice has resorted to sexual-favors-in-the-cabs gimmicks in order to draw in viewers (left). Just kidding — silly British Sean and mini Daisy Duck Allie are only cracking up at something their project manager said, because project managers are always a barrel of laughs. I think this one was asking them what color paint they should use on the pipes on a ceiling. Ha ha ha! I’d definitely need to bury my face into the guy next to me’s lap if I heard something so outrageous.

I propose a new, and this time meaningful, task for The Apprentice: Which team can bake the bigger brownie?

Last night I watched the most amazing show in the world: The Secret Life of… Brownies on the Food Network (right). I can’t even focus on that photo for longer than a second without losing my breath. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I could live without the possibly styrofoam Michigan State-related atrocity in the middle, but oh my god, look at the lush landscape of plain brown to its right. I just want to shrink down, do a cool track-start dive, and go swimming in there for a while. I don’t think anything could make me more happy.

So it’s settled. Before I die, this is what I want to do. If you love me, make it happen.

Yes! Dee just sent a box containing three Reese’s Eggs. (I don’t see what would have been wrong with four.)

I’ve been meaning to do a thorough comparison of all of the Reese’s holiday variations on the traditional Cup. I now have an Egg, a Heart, and a Tree (I think the tree is from 2004, ew), so I just need to wait until this October so I can pick up the Pumpkin. There’ll be a photo shoot and everything. (Tyra Banks voiceover: “Come on, Tree, I wanna see fierce! Show me your wild side. Show me who Tree really is.”)

Right now, the Egg is my favorite. I suppose the Egg is my favorite right now because it’s what I’m eating… right now. That has to be a conflict of interest. A huge chunk of it is literally melting on my tonuge. My lazy teeth have sort of sunk into the top of it, but I’m just going to go with it. It’s heavenly.

Here’s photographic evidence of how heavenly I think the Egg is. Before eating, I placed it right at the most important area of my apartment (the trackpad), and the flash has produced an eerie, almost outer-space effect. The Egg is like that wondrous black monolith in the move 2001: A Space Odyssey. (Roll over the pic for a visual.)

But I think I’ve always actually favored the Egg. It’s the closest in shape to the original Cup, and yet due to its impressive surface area, you feel like you’re getting a ton more out of it than you do during a usual Cup experience. So size alone matters, and then there’s also the element of shape/contour. This may sound blasphemous to Reese’s purists, but I actually prefer the holiday Reese’s over the Reese’s Cups* because I’m not totally wowed by the crinkled edges on the Cups. If anything, I find them slightly burdensome. All those sharp angles make for a somewhat jarring job for the teeth and tongue. The pointy sections don’t melt on their own very quickly, like the peanut buttery part does. You have to break all those ridges up with your teeth. It’s not like I don’t have the time for it (this post serves as evidence to the contrary) but why should I have to go through the routine if there’s a specialty Shape around? The Shapes, on the other hand, have smooth and softer edges. Bites of Shapes are already at a near-perfect consistency right when they enter the endless black hole that is Annie Barrett’s human mouth. The procedure ends up being so seamless. Sometimes I finish an Egg and think, “That was nothing. I think I’ll have another. If only Dee had sent four.” Then I cry.

This is why there need to be more occasions throughout the year to which the Reese’s corporation responds by manufacturing seasonal shapes. That way, we’ll always have the option of Cup vs. Shape. Fans of either genre will be constantly happy!

Timely example: I’m not one of those people who get obsessed with St. Patrick’s Day, but I certainly wouldn’t kick a Reese’s Four Leaf Clover to the curb right now if one knocked on my door. I could definitely have more fun with one of those than I could with a beer.

They could also have a default Reese’s per month, just in case there’s no major holiday in sight. Here are some ideas:

January: Snowman

February: Snowwoman (extra hair = extra Reese’s)

November: Turkey OR Indian Feather (Is that racist? Go with it. Or add Pilgrim Belt Buckle to even it out.)

December: Me (it’s my birthday, plus I harbor a secret fantasy about being sculpted into a Reese’s) Fine, or a Dreidel.

Despite my obsession with the Shapes, I’ll still be forever impressed by the Cup. If not for the Cup, the Egg would never be. And there you have your answer to the rhetorical quandary posited in this (possibly regrettable) post’s title.

What’s your dream Reese’s shape?!

*I wanted to put that declaration in bold orange with an asterisk because I feel so strongly about this. It is one of my strongest opinions about anything.

I can’t ever make too much fun of American Apparel’s blatantly nasty and gape-provoking ad campaigns because I sort of like their clothes. I mean, not this particular outfit to my right (I wouldn’t put a green Loop Terry Bra with orange Hooters Shorts, despite putting ugly camo with neon pink for my “About Annie” photo) but I do really like their stretchy headbands and t-shirts. That’s right — you wouldn’t know it from any of their ads, but in addition to articles of clothing that boast direct interaction with crotches and breasts, American Apparel also sells shirts. Take it from me — I have one!

Like, I get it. American Apparel really wants to hammer it home how great of a relationshp they have with the Mexican women they employ in a “non-sweatshop” setting in “vertically integrated” Los Angeles. Apparently the capitalist vs. poor laborer relationship within the company is thriving to the point where the employees randomly feel like abandoning duty on the Ringer Tube Top assembly line and jumping in front of the camera in their undies for some impromptu modeling.

That’s awesome for them, really. But seriously? This ad? Is not hot. Click to enlarge it, but don’t say I didn’t warn you that the enlargement is HUGE and calls direct attention to AA’s really clever placement of the letter “C.” Awww, that’s adorable. Because the poor little 13-year-old lying spread-eagle on a dirty futon in AA’s brothel/warehouse is really just a big C-word beeyotch. That’s really funny, not to mention sensitve and appropriate!!! Great job, American Apparel. DR gives you a big WAY TO GO in todos los colores.

Let’s not forgot DR’s other hard-hitting assessment of Miguel’s ad last summer. Or maybe we should.

My mom called me frantically Monday night to let me know that the cast of Dancing with the Stars was on Larry King Live. She thought it’d be good for me to keep up on any and all TV-related evidence of these cretins further invading American homes so I remain well-informed to write my very important column on Thursdays. I reluctantly pressed “record” on my DVR while promising to watch it later.

I made it through about five minutes of this complete dreck a few hours ago and my brain has yet to fully regenerate (Hence: why I’m writing about this! See? It’s all connected.) I don’t know if it was Lisa Rinna in general, or George Hamilton’s eerie ability to resemble a dark-skinned black man, or the fact that I truly see no other explanation for Stacy Kiebler’s blank, programmed reactions to everything than that she is an honest-to-god experimental robot conceived by the same people behind the movie “Simone”… but the combination of these characters with Larry King, who clearly hates all of them even more than he hates his usual guests, was just too much. So that’s that. Thanks, Dee!

Just received word from my friend on IM that “ha….this japanese figure skater totally dropped the ball” so I am really excited to watch that in the morning. Yessssss. I love it when they fall. I’m a horrible person. But you already knew that.

Does anyone remember a cookie manufactured during the ’80s called Giggles? I asked Dee last month but she didn’t know what I was talking about. Look, Dee! I loved these cookies and thought they were both adorable and my special friends when I was really little. I’d carry them around in the box and occasionally eat one, but there were about six different varieties of faces in the box so I’d be sure to leave one of each face in the box. Then I’d lay them all out on the counter and study them quizzically, trying to decide which one I liked the least and therefore deserved to be the first casualty of my final round. I did this until all that was left were crumbs. < --- Kind of Cute or Sick and Pathological? You make the call. I already know my vote.

Besides, it’s not like I walked around giggling like that doofus in the commercial. I wonder if he turned out screwed up. That was insane. Rather, I was very methodical about the whole process. It was almost as if carrying around the box of Giggles was my full-time job for that day. I was so intent on executing the job correctly and fairly. Wow, my professionalism shone through at such a young age. I wonder what happened to it.

I find it incredibly fitting that when I hurried to pause my TV right before this week’s new episode of LOST (I wasn’t ready to dive in just yet because there was Thai takeout to be picked up) I happened to pause it on precisely this image (right). McDonald’s’ (wow, that’s awkward) new addition to its Dollar Menu is a sixer of McNuggets. This is huge. They warn that this will only be the case until January 31, so DR encourages everyone to go out and reap the benefits of the deal so that McD’s will have no choice but to continue the big moneymaker, now and forever and ever, amen.

The commercial reminded me of another hand-centric pause I captured during the iPod Nano commercial (left).

“Uh huh… I guess all those hands look the same to you, Annie.”

OMG, you’re right. I’m so racist.

No, I just like the whole “reaching for the unattainable” theme present in commercials today. Keeps the dream alive, eh? Then, when you’re sitting at home with your Nano and dollar pack of nuggets, you’ll feel more triumphant. You just beat all the odds, and yet what you did was entirely ordinary and shallow! See? It’s better for us all. Deception is key.

I should point out here that until this week I was partial to the 99-cent menu at Wendy’s. Cheaper, more to choose from, and Frosty-inclusive. Can’t go wrong. Unless you get the chili, I guess. (Which I constantly do. Sorry. It’s excellent.)

Hey, that’s my mom!

Currently loving: Soft Baked cookies, this time in “Sugar” variety
Currently hatin’: NYC deli prices on beer. WTF? I miss my independent supermarket down the street (Strawberry Fields, awww…), even if I was their only customer, hence their shutdown.

muse-like friend has suggested I pen a collection of essays about my time here in New Buffalo, MI and title it “Cooler by the Lake.” The cover would be a picture of me or someone hotter, maybe a stock model with more beach-appropriate feet, sprawled out on the sand next to a cooler teeming with beer and snacks. Love the title, love the cover, but the essays themselves might lack substance. Here’s a rundown of a few potential segments:

Annie wakes up before 11 and congratulates herself profusely.

Annie makes a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and eats it on the deck.

Annie then congratulates herself profusely. (It was awesome!)

Annie willingly watches shows that she usually gets paid to grudgingly view, like “Clean Sweep,” “While You Were Out,” “In a Fix,” or any other program on TLC. She doesn’t get why, but is increasingly suspicious that they are all, in fact, the same show.

Annie watches “The Real World,” makes an “I just saw naked Wes butt” face and then sits silently for three hours while writing about it. To reward herself, she eats three-quarters of a Kirschbaum’s cherry pie.

Annie swipes her sister’s giant ice water, which happened to be mixed with three heaping tablespoons of tasteless digestive aid MiraLax. 12 minutes later, Annie receives payback in the form of [you don’t even want to know]. The photo at right does not relate to the incident, but Meghan’s all-knowing smirk does make it sort of fit.

Annie pretends to take her car out “to go running” but ends up just driving around.

Dee force-feeds Annie a Vienna Beef hot dog, Chicago-style minus the long pickle, which Annie’s just not that into. (On the side, though, it would have been great. How weird is that? This could be one of the discussion questions at the end of the chapter!)

After three hours of trying, Annie kills an innocent white moth that was actually sort of pretty.

Annie wears the same “Miller High Life” t-shirt for five days straight.

Annie finally showers. It’s a little scary.

But then she puts the shirt back on. All is well.

I think this could be a bestseller, guys!

First of all, tell me if these earrings are as cool as I think they are right this second. That feathery turquoise thing is… a feather. Knowing me, I will wake up tomorrow and change my mind about them. How’s about you do that for me, or tell me they’re really cute. I don’t care either way. Honesty is encouraged. For your benefit, I did not look at the camera and instead took my own photo while glued to a horribly mediocre episode of Survivor. Only the best for our readers.

Also in Weird Things I Wear news, you can tell I haven’t done laundry in about three months when I end up wearing magenta socks with flowers on them that Dee sent me in a box, likely as a cute “aren’t these funny?” joke. Unless it was an unfunny “aren’t these cute” plea and she was serious. Either way, I find these socks rather humorous and kept laughing at them whilst writing my paper on the schizophrenic nature of Instant Messenger. Some people have requested to read this paper, so I put it online. Do not click unless you are interested. It’s not for everyone. But if you’re addicted to IM or once were, go for it.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you that reading the entire thing will be 20 to 90 minutes you will never, ever get back. Also, “bleeckerbimbo” and “parannieoia” are names I created for the paper. Do not put them on your buddy list. They will never be used again.

One of my paper-writing tactics relates to food. Actually, most of them do, but I thought I’d share one of my favorites. The PB&J-per-page is a very effective technique to use between the hours of 3-8 a.m. The way it works is: I write a page, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Sure you got that? It’s one of my more complicated techniques, so read that last sentence over if you need to.) To save time, I make at least four sandwiches at once, like so. Now, even if you never eat PB&J, admit that is a tantalizing photo. Or maybe it’s just me. It usually is.

Today I’m embarking on a solo three-for-the-price-of-one film festival at the Battery Park Stadium. I’ll buy a ticket for Million Dollar Baby, then dart over to Sideways and The Aviator without ever leaving the theater. Yeah!

The cinema dart is a complicated strategy that requires meticulous planning and stealth, warn my parents, who do this at least once a week at the Quarry 14 in the ‘burbs. What can I say, they’re thrill seekers at their finest. The natural high gets them through those harsh Chicago winters.

They’re totally gonna kill me for posting this and outing them as dirty criminals. “And they seemed like such good people. You’d never know,” their former friends will say, shaking their heads sadly.

But I’m not addicted and obsessive like The Deedles are. I’m just doing the dart (I’ll probably do the Dew at the same time) so that I’ll have seen all the nominated movies before Sunday night. Last night was Hotel Rwanda. Yikes. Is it wrong that all I could think about the entire time was that Don Cheadle was my favorite featured porn star in the greatest movie ever, Boogie Nights? I don’t think so.

I better go fix a sack lunch… and possibly also a barrel dinner. I’m so excited. If my plan doesn’t work, it’s not just me who’ll be disappointed. I’ll feel like I’ve truly let down my parents. That would hurt.

What do you think? Is the cinema dart as daring as I’m making it out to be, or does everyone do it? At least assure me that my proposed triple play is SO much cooler than my parents’ usual double feature.

This weekend I walked around for a total of about eight hours. Everyone was outside, all excited that it was “warm.” It was maybe 45 degrees during peak hours. Anyway, on Saturday, the Zach Attack and I headed out to the piers with coffee. I thought my face got a little color, which Zach callously threw down as just a “raging case of windburn, if that.” Thanks.

At 3 p.m. amidst all the wind and warmth, there was really no other option than to co-host an impromptu beerbeque (sans any sort of meat, so just… beer) on my roof. Check it out.

Note the obligatory feather boa with its own chair. Here’s the view northward, and eastward. Oh no! I’ve become “that New Yorker.”

And Dee! Look what else made it up there! Nothing goes better with Sierra Nevada special-edition “Celebration” ale than Kirschbaum’s tea cookies. And ridiculously strong barbeque chips. And… salsa. I think these rancid chips burned a sizable hole in my stomach lining. To prevent permanent damage, I made sure to coat the area with a thick, steady stream of alcohol the rest of the night. I call it “Safe Drinking.”