i immediately regret this decision

I have, yet again, reached a decision to make a concerted attempt at healthy living.

I know. I'm not sure I can do it either.

Maybe it's because spring has begun to make itself known. Maybe it's because you can only eat so many crackers with Easy Cheez before your body starts to protest. Maybe it's because IVF kindly bestowed an extra fifteen pounds on my frame. Either way, I feel the need to be healthy.

I made this decision a few weeks ago. It's not the first time I've gotten the itch to get healthy. The first time it happened was in seventh grade when I decided to eat vegetables because I wanted some increased poundage in the chestal area. My resolve lasted a full six hours, until Mom served peas at dinner, at which point I determined that being a Juniors 32AA wasn't so bad, after all.

The last time I tried to be healthy was last year, when I decided to swear off sweets for a full month. My attempt was in no way a success. I think I made it four days before I started calling chocolate chips healthy, and my slippery slope only got slipperier from there.

So, maybe that was a little too hard-core. This time, though, is different. For reals. I've enlisted the help of this adorable girl in our ward at church who looks like a pocket-sized super-model. She's coming over tonight to take measurements (yikesy!) and take a look at my work-out equipment, after which she will come up with a plan to which I will attempt to comply.

I'm excited. Also maybe a little apprehensive. Also maybe eating all the junk food in our apartment so she won't make me throw it out. Maybe.

I hope I'm ready for this.

the human diet

Andrea: Dr. Oz says you should only eat meat that walks on four legs once a week. And you can eat meat that walks on two legs all the rest of the time.

Paul: So I can eat all the humans I want?

in which i wuss out

Okay, so you guys gave me fantastic feedback. And I am most grateful.

And I am a wimp. I am a wimp because I didn't do ANY of your ideas. I am a scaredy cat.

I had a bunch of excuses to give you, like it's my ladies time, and I had a headache and I was recruited by a renegade group of interior designers for an tour of Columbia's best restrooms, but the truth is.....

I'm wimpy. I am Wimpy Wimpleton from Wimpledom.

And when I get a B+ instead of an A because I missed out on this extra credit, you can totally say "I told you so".

I give you full permission.

i need your help. and i need it fast.

I am in most desperate need of your assistance.

I need to act out.

And I don't know how.

At all.

See, in my psych class we have this extra credit project and of course, OF COURSE, it involves making a complete fool out of myself. Which in theory I love, but when pressed, I hate.

We are assigned to select any socially unexpected behavior, like facing the wrong way in an elevator or singing at the top of your lungs in the grocery store, and to then perform said behavior while an amused friend pretends to not be a friend and records the reactions of the surrounding lab rats.

Doesn't that sound like fun? I think it sounds like fun and I start thinking of ideas and then I remember that I will need to actually DO these things and then it doesn't sound like fun anymore and I am possessed with a sudden desire to curl up in the fetal position.

So, please. Please. PLEASE. Help me. Give me a suggestion, okay? Something that will help me get an A in my psych class, and not something that will land me in the psych ward.

Also I need the idea by tomorrow.

Morning.

Uh.......thanks.

you, me, and lady gaga makes three

Last night I had a dream that I had lunch with Lady Gaga.

I was with my blog friend Miriam at my friend Nicole's palatial Utah manse and we were just kicking it and I was feeling pretty good because Lady Gaga and I totally hit it off. Like, I made a joke and she laughed and stuff.

Only then I thought it would be a good idea to take a bath. And I left the room and took a bath, and in the middle of splashing around in the bathtub I had an inkling that maybe my behavior might be seen as strange in some circles and maybe I didn't pick such a great time for a bath.

So I got dressed, and when I went out to the living room Lady Gaga was leaving which made me sad because I hadn't gotten to know her nearly as well as I wanted to, and I tried to say something but Lady Gaga just ignored me and she gave Miriam a hug goodbye and I was like, hey, no fair.

And then I woke up.

the entirely true story of Fancy Train

I kinda have a thing for the Loch Ness Monster.

Also for Bigfoot. And the Chupacabra. Pretty much any mythical beast I am a sucker for, truth be told. Also I really like an underdog, and if the underdog is a gigantic prehistoric sea-monster or a misunderstood twelve-foot hairy ape, so much the better.

If there's any sort of special WATCH THIS CRAZY PERSON TELL YOU WHAT THEY SAW feature on TV, I watch it. If our Netflix cue has some mystery-creature flick listed, I was the one who picked it. When that poor Bigfoot professor at that school in Idaho was getting picked on by all his fellow professors and they wouldn't let him play their professor games, I felt for him. I really did.

And while I might tell you it's because I'm a decent person and I don't like to see people get picked on (which I don't) really, REALLY, the reason is this:

I kinda want Bigfoot to be real. I want them all to be real. And they're not. But, BUT, I think I may have found the next best thing. An honest-to-pete, real-life mythical beast. It exists, I tell you. I have seen it.

What is it, you ask? Well, I'll tell you:

One of the brand-spanking new fancy trains running on the A line.

See, the trains that run on the A line are, in a word, yucky. Ooooky. Gross. Craptastic. Speeding bullets of nastiness.

There is a slight chance that I'm exaggerating, but not by much. When you go to the east side, the trains are all super nice and the seats are this really refreshing powder blue and the announcer voice isn't some disgruntled person with a voice sounding like a really mad grown-up on Charlie Brown and if you're a west side person, it makes you feel sort of short-changed.

So a while back all us west side people got really excited because new trains started showing up. Shiny, new, powder-fresh trains. And then they disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Until Tuesday.

I was on my way home from class, waiting to transfer to the A at 168th. I was reading my book and fantasizing about ice cream, when I heard the subway coming.

And I was happy because I hadn't been waiting long and I looked up and it didn't look like ANY train I had seen on the west side in FOREVER and then there it was, speeding past, practically trailing it's fresh new train scent, looking all sparkly and new and fancy and it was out of service and it sped away just as quickly as it came, going I don't know where.

I stood amazed, and then, just as quickly as the train, came emotions. Denial- surely it wasn't-surely not-

And anger- why? Why bring this glowing beauty so free of stinky smells and sticky spots into my life for so brief a time? And why am I not at home yet, because I really want ice cream?

And then, finally, acceptance. Life brought us together for this brief moment, me and the mythical creature I will refer to hereafter as Fancy Train. And there must be a reason.

Maybe it's so I can tell people. Yeah, that's it. I'll quit school and make a bunch of signs and maybe set up shop next to that scary guy who does the yelling at the Times Square station. Also I probably should have a gimmick, like I won't pluck my eyebrows until I see Fancy Train again.

It will be a lonely road from here on out. Now I will be the crazy person being interviewed for those documentaries. And nobody will believe me.

Where was it going? Where did it come from? Did the teenagers making out on the bench next to me even notice?

I guess when you walk the lonely road you have lots of questions. But the lonely road isn't so bad, really. Maybe I'll run into Bigfoot.

he waxes profound

Paul (after watching American Idol): I just had an hour of my life sucked out of my life. It's deep. Think about it.