Speaking of 7-11, I should probably post Summer 2006’s “Still Obsessed with 7-Eleven” pic. There I am in early June, attractively posing in an elevator with a taquito and a Big Gulp. I don’t know why more people don’t leave comments on my blog that say “You are too classy, Annie Barrett!” That’s all I want, in addition to the chips, Slurpees, and processed pastry products that made up my diet for most of June. I made it “my thing.” I’d only eat at 7-Eleven. I thought I was being thrifty and humorous. I bragged about it to everyone who would listen. Pay attention to me! I’m so wacky, eating only foods from a convenience store. I’m killing myself! It’s hilarious!

This was Summer 2005’s “Still Obsessed…” shot. I’m glad I’ve been using these “transition” years in New York City to blossom into a fabulous five-year-old who can’t manage to take a picture involving snacks (or iconography suggestive of snacks) that doesn’t call to mind the sound, “Wheeeeee!”

Next year I won’t deign to pose for the pic. I’ll get someone else to do it, then Photoshop my goofy mug onto him or her. It’ll look the same anyway.

This summer alone, I’ve eaten my way through what I estimate to be around 30% of 7-Eleven’s merchandise. I don’t mean total sales, I mean total selection. I’ve picked up at least one of 30% of the items for sale, every single one of which has been heavily processed and encased in a wrapper.

My two loves, together at last: behold the Entenmann’s display at 7-Eleven. Who is sleeping with whom here? Corporate Bear, have you been matchmaking again? These shelves take up easily 20% of the tiny store. Obviously, I can’t complain. It’s just funny.

Also: what’s with Entenmann’s getting all snacky on us lately? It used to be huge displays of the “committment pastries” like entire cakes and danishes. Now, after Entenmann’s’ apparent merger with the 7-Eleven corporation, it’s all about the quick fix. I love me a snack, but I prefer Entenmann’s boxed items to their wrapped ones. I don’t want a crappy single serving of a “Honeybun.” Give me a banana crunch chocolate chip cake, served in an expansive box that contains enough wiggle room for the fork I’ll be leaving in there all week. (No sense in washing it if I’m working on a bite-to-bite basis.)

Hip Tip for the day: Entenmann’s chocolate frosted donuts taste even more amazing…. refrigerated.

Ted Allen would probably murder me if he knew I just used his trademark “Hip Tips” segment to promote processed foods.

Now this site’ll come up when people Google search Ted Allen! Ted Allen Ted Allen Ted Allen. Ha! Does anyone Google Ted Allen? I would. I would google Ted Allen.

Last night (Easter), I was at my part-time job (I’m really religious.) Every Sunday, the company orders in 30 or so pies from Bravo Pizza. Some of us are cute and call it “diarrhezza,” because OMG, guess what happens when you eat it?

Anyway, the food on the table is never enough, likely because the powers that be keep hiring more and more people who also need to eat to stay alive and no one ever bothered to alter the weekly order. It kind of sucks, especially when I claw through the masses for my trademark slice of soggy, weathered, rubbery-veggie ‘za and the only things left on the table are rings of grease.

Not so on Easter Sunday, sayeth the Lord and the Bravo delivery guy, who together unloaded close to 20 trays of various shitty Italian food that we then arranged into a massive buffet. There was eggplant, chicken marsala, ziti — all low-quality, mind you, but at least it was different — and a “mixed salad,” which was basically an entire tray of iceberg lettuce.

I’m mildly obsessed with iceberg lettuce. I like the sound it makes in my mouth — it’s as if I’m accomplishing a great deal just by crunching down on it. If I buy it in “head” form, I’ll cut it in half, wash it, sprinkle salt all over the cross-section, and just go to town. It feels like my face just decided to take a dip into the ocean, independently of the rest of my body. Maybe this paragraph should end.

Here’s the point: Around 1 a.m., when it was clear no one else would be coming back for seconds (in my case: fifths) of the iceberg lettuce salad, I decided to take matters into my own apartment by stealing all of the remaining salad mix. I couldn’t find a plastic bag, so I settled for the paper bag the plastic silverware had come in. That is disgusting. I knew this at the time, but try to guess whether it stopped me. Spoiler alert: Don’t look down!

I’d give anything to see security camera footage of me pouring the salad into the paper bag. Actually, first I used the plastic scooper, then I lifted up the tray and attempted the pour (harder than you’d think!), and finally I just started grabbing the excess leaves with my hand. Add to this my glamazonian frame and complete inability to be stealth at anything, and it was a pretty funny scene. “Funny” meaning “I should be fired.”

But whatever. I got to make an extra-huge salad (left) when I got home, with better tomatoes (vine-ripened, from Gristedes), croutons (Pepperidge Farm Onion & Garlic), and the creamy vidalia onion dressing I’m still really into. Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as a phase when you’re me. I once tried to terminate what I thought could have been a phase (dipping Fritos in grape jelly), but couldn’t make it work… which itself might have been my only phase ever.

This verdant treat, in addition to the 40,000 chocolates sent by Dee, made Sunday a very Happy Easter indeed. Bonus points for the shredded carrots and withered cabbage, two things I enjoy looking at in salads but never bother to buy. Why do the colors of these items matter more to me than their tastes? I’m like a little kid.

On last night’s ABC Nightly News, fat people were shown eating fast food, while a voiceover screamed threateningly that Something else in your diet may be responsible for obesity!

That outburst is wrong for a lot of reasons, including
1) it implies that everyone watching is already obese
2) it references “something else” as the “other” to a subject that was never established
3) it’s true

No matter what your diet is, there will always be “something else” that may be responsible for obesity — yours or anyone else’s. You don’t even have to be eating it at the time. But it definitely couldn’t hurt.

The really crappy part of this promo, for me, was that I was eating my way through a giant box of Kirschbaum’s tea cookies (translation: “cookies with frosting”) when I heard it. I was actually so focused on the cookies that I wasn’t even watching the screen. I started laughing just from hearing the words, and little crumbs (of the cold hard truth) scattered all around me in my bed. It was sexy. This was at 8 in the morning. I’d been up all night, and now a commercial on ABC was telling me that something else in my diet — give or take the box of cookies perched on my right knee — may be responsible for my obesity.

Appreciate it!

I’m having trouble deciding between the Fat Muffin and Fat Pound Cake. What’s a girl to do? Stop eating all her meals at delis? Surely you jest.

The menu at right is from a deli on 52nd and Broadway. (I don’t know the name of it even though I’ve eaten about 10,000 of their paninis. I ask for a little cup of Russian dressing on the side and dip the entire sandwich into it. It’s revolting. I love it.)

I’m guessing the inclusion of “fat” in the description is short for “fat-free.” Right? There are fat-free muffins everywhere. I can’t turn around without sinking my teeth into one and then spitting it out because it’s so ridiculously nasty. I feel like one of those kids with the eating disorder called pica, which causes one to eat dirt and rocks as if they were food. Apparently kids with pica can’t make the distinction. So basically I’m equating anyone who eats fat-free muffins… to a child afflicted with pica, stuffing twigs and bits of clay down her throat because she thinks it’s what she’s supposed to do. Just stop! It’s not worth it. Moral of the day:No letting pica/fat-free muffins get the better of you!

Fat-free pound cake is significantly less likely, though, largely because it’s called “pound cake.” There’s no way to make it un-fat. People who eat pound cake are either fat already or well on their way… at least in their minds. And they kind of love it.

I’m usually in the latter category. I like to buy pound cake just for the thriling, momentary recognition that I’m being a complete idiot… who’s about to really live it up for like three minutes. Pound cake is the worst and best thing you can do for yourself in a deli. They’re all delicious, but horrible for you, which is tragic, as a specimen such as myself can typically eat two or three in a sitting. (Sometimes I get up and walk around just so I can sit back down and tackle another.) Lemon poppyseed and cranberry walnut fat pound cakes do it for me sometimes, but I especially like the carrot cake variety with the cream-cheesy icing lining the top. (Why can’t it line the whole thing? Life would be so much more fulfilling.)

As a not-yet-fat person, when I buy pound cake, I’m semi-aware that in doing so I’m making a small pledge to become fat in the future. It’s like putting useless change you don’t want clinking in your jacket pockets into the plastic cancer box at McDonald’s. You don’t know it yet, Annie but you’re making a difference! I’m investing money, time, and a generous chunk of my thoughts for the day on pound cake and how the eating of it will likely backfire in the long run. But none of that matters at the time of purchase. Especially if I also just bought coffee and feel zany enough to do some dunking.

It could be that the deli is simply really proud of their muffins and pound cake. Perhaps they think that “plumping them up,” so to speak, will attract people. Maybe the muffin really is fat, round, and plentiful, just like you will be after you eat it. And maybe the pound cake is just that large and robust… and buttery… and delicious. Also just like you.

In that case, it might have helped to substitute the ph version of the letter f, for maximum cool factor. You know, get the kids involved. I bet any urban youth would feel pretty groovy both ordering and carrying around a “phat pound cake.” He could brag to his friends about it. “Aw, man, you just got standard pound cake. That shit’s over.'’

I don’t know if it was random timing, an implicit order sent from the O.C. gods, or me being a tool, but the only thing I ate all day was pad thai. I ate my friend Leno’s paltry leftovers from Wednesday night first, around noon. This took like twenty seconds. I ate a few bites of my own generous helping of leftovers at 5. I then went to Rebecca’s and proceeded to order a spicier version of pad thai with chicken AND shrimp. It was really intense and large, so there were leftovers from that too. Then I came home, festered, and generally blanked out in front of my computer screen for seven hours whilst intermittently sneaking bites of all of the remaining pad thai in the apartment. (The bites were mouth-swished with regular Pepsi. For your records.)

Only looking back on this experience one day wiser do I realize that the entire endeavour was sick. Now, 32 hours after the initial ingestion of pad thai (Wednesday night, circa 8 pm) I feel absolutely disgusting. And yet all day and night Thursday, I walked around feeling awesome about getting to eat so much pad thai, and only that. I thought this was not only cool but a quirky little diet plan that just might work! I realize now that it was neither, and that the entire pad thai-like mass in my system is going to probably rebel against me on the way out. Somehow.

Can I not be gross?

No.

The Office was amazing tonight, once again. I’m basically only writing this to weasel my parents into taping it. They claim they have “too many shows going on” in their lives right now, which everyone with a DVR knows is bogus. Start taping it, dudes. Next week.

I just received confirmation via my life partner — my Time Warner DVR device — that I’m not just a generic big loser, but I am the biggest loser. Check it out: late last night, I decided I should record Wednesday night’s Grammy Awards in order to stay up on pop culture and catch the Madonna/Gorillaz collaboration.

But, ROADBLOCK!

In addition to reminding me that “Yes, you complete tool, you wanted to tape a show about fat people losing weight, and not even the serial version but a freaking special edition of this craptastic show”… the very title of said show served to inform me that “Hey, Annie, there you have it. You are The Biggest Loser to ever own and operate a DVR.”

Saving grace: the CNN thing in the corner is like a bonus reference to Julie Cooper’s new lodgings on The O.C.!

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go eat ten pounds of turkey bacon and then work out for three hours on an elliptical trainer. NOTE TO BIGGEST LOSER CONTESTANTS: Guess how normal people lose weight? They stop eating ten pounds of turkey bacon. There, I said it. Good luck.

Spent much of today making small changes to this site (none of which will ever be detected; awesome!) and trying to figure out why the hell the e-mail address I’d been using for the site worked about 3% of the time. There’s a new one now, called diminishingreturnsdotnet@gmail.com. I chose that name because I like long, nonsensical words and because I apparently don’t derive enough daily pleasure from Gmail as it is.

Also Google-related: (I am a Google machine! Google, check it out! Now improve my rating.) In my mostly uninteresting data-prowl through a nifty program called StatCounter, I came across this fun chart about my October 2004 archive. It’s a list of queries people made that resulted in them clicking on the link to DR in Google.

I find most of these terrific, especially “funny reindeer sweater,” “diminishing returns pizza,” and “manhattan mini storage crotch,” the latter of which is proof that at least one other person in this city was completely dumbfounded as to why an ad for rentable space needed to involve a plate of spaghetti and a crotch.

“Swishing process” was a surprise. I’m guessing this person (who lives in… Korea?!) wasn’t referring to the “mouth-swish,” a savoring process involving expertly paired food and drink with which I’m particularly obsessed. Did he want to know how to brush his teeth? Drink wine? Intriguing.

As far as I know, Pepperidge farm doesn’t make danish, but kudos to whoever decided to google that. I’m guessing he or she had “Entenmann’s,” the obvious brand, on the tip of the tongue, but it happened to come out “Pepperidge Farm.” Gross. I found most of their products dry, tasteless, and packaged in way too small of serving sizes, until they came out with the Soft Baked cookie series.

Hmm. Just Googled (again!) those cookies and found this review site. It’s called Phoood. Um, cool. Is that like Phiiish? Click on that and check out the plea from the dude who seems certain that he loves Soft Baked Snickerdoodles but can’t find them in his native France. I feel seriously horrible for this guy. He’s begging people, none of whom will ever respond to him, for “help” in acquiring the cookies. And his name is SLY! I’m dying.

The only query I have a problem with is “diminishing returns weight loss.” That’s just not right.

CL: Google!
CH: Anything Google hasn’t conquerred yet. It should, soon, because it’s a great company!

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.

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.

*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.

Just blew into the bottom row of keys on my laptop and all these crumbs flew out. Buffalo shrimp batter, Dorito cheese mold and, most recently, Mrs. Gallagher’s caramel brownie droppings (holla!). This scattering reminds me of one of the post-its on the multicolored “quote wall” Kelly and Meaghan made senior year at BC. Most of the quotes were short and sweet, but one time Kelly took the liberty of writing out something I appreantly said out loud about my open laptop being the perfect-sized tray for those nasty homemade garlic-bread-and-bruschetta things I used to make. Did anyone take a digipic of that wall?

I was thinking about food earlier, which was weird, and suddenly realized that I made a big mistake in not securing more leftovers from Dee’s big New Buffalo bash. We got loads and loads of these awesome ribs from the Red Arrow Roadhouse (holla!) and for some reason that won’t be mentioned on the Internet, I was so distracted that I only ate four that night. Now I’m sitting here in New York with no groceries and a freezer full of Lean Cuisines I’ll never eat, dreaming about that sweet, tangy, glorious meat. I should have taken about 100 ribs, carefully shaved off just the meat, and packed it oh so tightly into a huge plastic bowl to take on the plane. I bet I still wouldn’t be at the bottom of the bowl yet, if I’d used enough packing force. Every few hours, or minutes, I could lazily dip my fork, or finger, into the meaty mess and pluck out a few more shreds of absolute delight. I’d swirl it around in my mouth with a beverage or just suck on it like tallow, depending on my current activity or lack thereof.

I guess the good thing about me not having transported the ribs that is that I won’t have to bear the disappointment of the bottom of the bowl. This way, I can talk to my parents while they’re eating the leftovers for dinner and wistfully describe what I “should have done” while smugly knowing that they themselves will eventually reach the bottom of the huge, glistening aluminum tray. Take that, Deedles.

I’ll be starting a full-time Entertainment Weekly internship at the end of the month. Yay! I’m pumped. I know it’ll take my nationwide following awhile to get used to the idea of me working during daylight hours, but I will try to smooth the transition by altering the time on my posts to read “5:30 a.m.” just like they used to.

  I’m pretty sure you know you’re cool when some guy from Japan makes the effort to translate your website. That is AWESOME.

Yes, everyone who keeps asking, my hair is darker at the moment. It should look all freshly/artificially/expensively sun-kissed again after my jaunt to the Midwest next weekend.

During the winter-layer months, I was actually considering a three-cheeseburgers-a-day diet. I thought it would be a good fit for me because I’d only have to leave the house once, I wouldn’t have to cook anything, and it would be relatively cheap.

Obviously, I’d choose Wendy’s and BK over McDonald’s - I’d have to work out some sort of logical rotation system. I know cheeseburgers are bad for you, but if you JUST ate cheeseburgers and nothing else, who knows? I thought it could work.

This plan was not unlike my brilliant revelation of Fall 2000, the chicken-fruit-dessert diet. The Boston College dining halls and their 35 types of freshly baked muffins were very conducive to this endeavor. This worked for a few days until my roommate Bridget pointed out that I was counting muffins, bread, and eventually even pasta as “dessert.” I remember making a PB&J in the middle of the night and telling myself that since jelly sometimes goes well with or is included in pastry, it was a dessert. The bread and peanut butter were simply required accompaniment.

So that diet was a bust, too. I don’t even recall ever eating any chicken or fruit. Ooh, except for the jelly. That could be considered fruit!

Okay, who has other creative diet ideas? And don’t do that predictable thing people do, like say “Work out more and eat less.” I’m talking about ideas that could actually work.