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.

Um… what if I don’t really want to meet Miguel? I’m kind of left with no choice here.

“Shot at our apartment in Mexico City, this was Miguel’s first time modeling. We think he did a bang-up job.”

This American Apparel ad graced the back cover of the August 11-18 Time Out Chicago. AA’s ads — especially the billboard ones in Manhattan — have always been pretty obnoxious, but I’d say this one is the most extreme yet. Is it just me, or is this pose simply not that attractive? Miguel seems like a very nice young man, and he did get one hell of an upper-crotch wax job for the occasion, but I’m just not convinced that this pose is appealing to a large audience (gay men excluded). Am I wrong? Men seem to be very for or very against this ad, but I haven’t asked any women yet. Let me know. I’m actually intrigued by this.

It was his first time modeling, so maybe he thought pushing his crotch into the camera was normal protocol. Or maybe the ‘’vertically integrated” American Apparel representatives drugged him up real good and told him it was a great idea.

“He’s wearing our new Men’s Brief and a Leisure Shirt, available online and at our retail stores.” Buy them together. Be sure to go with the seafoam. Then wear only these two items. Everyone will line up to “meet” you.

Wow! I was just sitting in my cave of doom lamenting how crappy today’s post was when I got a colorfully urgent message from my sister:

i painted your jesus tulips.
thought you’d like to see part of your room on my canvas.
i made the cool glass vase-thing non-transparent cuz that would have
been too hard.
and now you don’t have a second window, or an annoying heater.
haha

(Click to make it bigger!)

Haha, indeed. Okay, the best part about this is that she broke up the lines like a poem. Second-best is that she deleted my constantly rattling heater, something I’d love to do myself but can’t since I don’t have her artistic superpowers and do have, instead, ears.

Awww. Isn’t she great? She’s like Little Miss Matisse Jr. But lest you start posting all sorts of pro-Meggers comments, let’s remember that she also just used the term “cuz” in an e-mail. And was, like, serious.

Wait. I just reread that and realized that the new best part of her note was the joke about my Jesus Tulips, which were the lone signifiers of the Easter holiday around my apartment. (I’d promised her an egg hunt Sunday morning, but looked around and realized there was no extra space to put the eggs.) It’d be kind of funny if I had accidentally bought purple and we randomly came up with “Jesus Tulips,” but no, I did do it on purpose. As a joke. And they didn’t bloom. He ain’t risen.

I have decided to give rum-based drinks another try. Previously, I was adverse to them in favor of vodka-based guzzlers like StoliRazCran and everyone’s tequila favorite, the margarita. I must have had a bad experience with rum that made me hurl at one point within the last five years. But we need to look forward, forget the past. As John Kerry would say, We. Can. Do. BETTER! I mean, I still love SRC, and in the last few days have developed an amazing admiration for bottles of mediocre local beer. It’s just really hard to turn a snobby cheek to a frozen mango-strawberry daiquiri. I mean, really. I’d like to see you try. I dare you.

We just drove home from Danny Buoy’s Irish Pub in our rented knockoff version of a European SmartCar, and within this five-minute ride, rather tipsy, Bill, Meg and I came up with a few verses to the tune of “Do You Hear What I Hear?” that revolved around my mom really wanting a Haagen-Dazs ice cream bar as soon as she got home. We’re really bad. But she really wanted it.

Maybe they walk more than other people, but I just don’t think that’s the reason.

I never feel like I’ve accomplished anything even when I walk a “great distance.” In order to feel like a productive workout person, I need to be rockin’ the workoutfit. Right? Sometimes, even when I put on running clothes and then just walk around my apartment moving shit around (I put the clothes on thinking they might inspire me to go running, but then they end up inspiring me to make Lipton cheesy noodle mixes, drink beers, and fall asleep) — I assume that since I have the outfit on, I’m working out. There’s something about getting up from the toilet while wearing sneakers that feels so much more athletic.

Here’s Union Square Park and half of Zach’s face. We’re making fun of the figure in the circle. Why?

He had a REINDEER SWEATER on. In October! Actually, we sort of loved the effort. It was more funny that someone was wearing a reindeer sweater in Manhattan than the fact that he was way off month-wise. It reminded Zach of when his uncle wore a cowboy hat during his entire visit here. He’s working on an essay about it, entitled “Udderly Fabulous: The Life and Times of an Urban Cowboy.”

Tried out my new Lisa Frank notebook at school today. It’s my only class, so I’m really going for it with the SS. Check out an excerpt:

I held it up for my friend James and he was like, “That’s awesome!” and I was like, “Uh, I know.” Hello! Weirdo.

Feel free to shoot me, but I think the Sprint commercials with the kids about the overtime minutes are hilarious.I’ve been watchcing the Olympics for six straight hours now, but feel no shame because it doesn’t really feel like TV. Today’s obsession is how absolutely gorgeous all of the athletes are. Seriously, with all of them - even if the face isn’t great, the body is so perfect that you kind of just stare. And gape. And snack on sugary cereal.

I have noticed, particularly during women’s volleyball, that they do a lot more closeups of the prettiest two players on the court than the “stars” of the teams. Sometimes the cameras just follow them around for no reason. This was even more obnoxious during women’s synchronized diving. They showed this beautiful German girl on every dive even though she came in close to last place. The seemingly unnecessary “rinse off” shower portion after every dive of hers was especially gratuitous.

I guess this isn’t wrong. Anyone who makes it to the Olympics has a right to be on TV, and personally I’d rather watch nicer-looking people than ugly people. I feel horrible admitting that. On normal TV, there’s none of this guilt because everyone in every show is aesthetically close to perfect. The Olympics can’t screen like that.

Wait for the profoundness. It’s coming. It’s so close.

The Olympics are like the epitome of democracy. And they’re in ATHENS! Democracy’s BIRTHPLACE! It’s, like, all coming together! Like.

Watch out, it’s Friday the 13th!

Whatever the F that means. I don’t know much about holidays, but I’m pretty sure that the only point of acknowledging Friday the 13th (FT13) is so that people can unnecessarily scare themselves into thinking that horrible things will happen to them that day.

But I do that every day. It’s called a raging case of pessimism. And this could just be the pessimist talking, but I’m pretty sure that’s nothing to celebrate. What’s different about today?

Let’s say a big “Screw You!” to all these evil capitalists capitalizing on FT13 propaganda and hereby pledge to make this FT13 the best FT13 EVER!

Wait! Better yet, let’s make it the best DAY ever!

Who’s with me?! Nihilsm Bear? Anyone?

Party on! I want pizza.

This site is turning into a full-fledged NYC Guide to Shitty Food. Yesterday we hit the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, coincidentally my favorite park in the city. You can see Wendy’s if you sit in the right spot.

There it is. Larry, get out of the way. Actually, the Shake Shack was his idea. I love him for his impressive knack for finding the worst food in the cutest spots.

True to my roots, I ordered the Chicago Dog. It said Vienna Beef, but it definitely wasn’t. It was a TOTALLY NARROW excuse for a hot dog. Posers.

Hey, look. It’s Paul Crocetti in the City! (And Kate! And Becks.)

In conclusion, I skipped my biweekly jog to create this entry.

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.

A cheeky mademoiselle with better and more colorful shoes than me playfully alerted me today that this guy just might be my alter ego. I think we were separated at birth, and then somehow he fell behind in age by six months and a few weeks… huh? Just read it.

It wouldn’t just be an experiment. It would become a way of life — like the unhealthy version of Forrest Gump’s whole running thing.Here’s the campaign poster. Vote Barrett!