Denying J.K. Rowling access to my hard-earned scratch is still my primary motivation to drop the tonage.  She’s a walking infomercial on mediocrity, and I just can’t fund shooting for C’s without compromising my strange value system.  But let’s add a little more motivation.  I’m Sarah Jessica Parker in Hocus Pocus.  I’m throwing weird ingredients into a large black cauldron labeled ‘Reasons To Lose Weight.’  Go ahead and peruse the basin yourself.  Soaking in and adding thickness to the broth next to the dead man’s toe is one giant, obnoxiously large, epically hefty reason to remove the Mountain Dew IV attached to my arm.
    I don’t want to be one of those douche bags they use for stock footage in news stories about obesity.
    You know what I’m talking about.  Let’s send it out to our field reporter Walt with a story about how fat the average American is.  They always bring up some pie charts and a few box and whisker plots (bet you forgot those existed!) before cutting to stock footage of some obese husband and wife hulking down the street with their asses jiggling like some terrible, ill-advised juggling act by an amateur clown. 
    And the thing is: they never tell those poor bastards they’re being filmed.  The footage is always from behind so no one is technically exploited, but they know.  They have to know.  If you turned on the news and saw your bulbous ass bopping and bouncing down 5th Avenue, you’d secretly know that was your ass.  You would know you were the stock definition of obesity.  I can’t have that.
    So, I’m losing weight because, well, I just can’t in good conscience risk the alternative.  Can you?

Let me go on record right now with this: I love bacon.  That, in and of itself, is not a problem.  Occasional Top Chef judges Ted Allen and Rocco DiSpirito love bacon too, and I can safely say from a decidedly heterosexual standpoint, they’re good lookin’ cats.  But like strip clubs, hookah smoking and James Bond films, bacon must be cherished and loved in moderation.  Unfortunately, I try to fit all four of those activities into most weeks, which is probably why I’m broke, my lungs hate me, I espouse bad puns, and my stomach could be described as doughy.  Let’s just say I’m working on it, but my mother doesn’t seem willing to help.
    I went home for the holidays, and she made bacon three times in a stretch of four days.  Now, it’s important to note bacon can be perfectly healthy or at least not cholesterol-souring if a minor ingredient in a larger dish.  For example, one of the three bacon-accompanied recipes was butternut squash soup, but the problem is no one ever makes the correct amount of bacon.  So the leftovers just sit there on the counter, festering, oozing bacony steam which whispers through the entire house, “have a piece or two or nine.”  I heeded the call.
    So, I gained weight while I was home.  Thanks bacon.  But like a beautiful siren beckoning me toward the rocks, I, sadly, will return.  My ship will be laid waste on the jagged terrain, but at least my taste buds will be rejoicing in hickory delight.   

Look: I am not the diet police.  I don’t really care what my fellow competitors here eat.  Sometimes you need chocolate, a snack, a little pick-me-up.  The extra calories might not have been in the daily allotment, but a man gets cravings.  This man in particular was craving McDonald’s breakfast last night.  Badly.  After much consideration, I decided to make them myself today, since Ray Kroc is a Communist and only serves Bacon, Egg And Cheese Biscuits before ten thirty in the morning, a time which might as well not exist. 
    Well, I roused from my slumber around twelve thirty today and got dressed.  My car was a little low on gas; so, I stopped at the filling station before the grocery.  Unfortunately, when I walked in, there was a giant display announcing the store was now selling breakfast sandwiches.  Before I continue, you should probably know I’m lazy--epically lazy--and that personality characteristic heavily influenced the decision I soon made.  I sauntered over to the case and was told by the sign all sandwiches were prepared fresh and hot.  I’m not proud of what I did next.  I bought two of ’em.  They didn’t even have bacon.  It was all sausage, but premade sausage is sometimes superior to uncooked bacon, at least when factoring in the laziness.
    Surprise surprise.  The gas station sandwiches were terrible---almost inedible.  Oh I ate them.  But I wasn’t proud of my consumption.  Still not proud.  

There’s a million fine looking women in the world.  But, they don’t all bring you lasagna at work.  Most of ‘em just cheat on you.
-Clerks

    So, I have a problem.  Upon leaving my mother’s home for Thanksgiving, that lovely saint of a woman gifted me with two lasagnas.  Now, I am a lasagna fiend.  I crave it like backwoods hill jacks do meth.  It is, without question, the greatest concoction of food ever conceived by humanity.  It has everything: meat, pasta, multiple kinds of cheese, sauce.  Ah, just thinking about it makes me happy in that I’m-six-and-I-just-got-a-G.I.-Joe-way. 
    Obviously, I made the first one on Thanksgiving night.  Yes, let me repeat that.  I ate mashed potatoes, scalloped corn, biscuits, ham, and a clogged aorta full of other side dishes for lunch and then had the balls to go home and cook lasagna.  Food comas are for the lazy.
    This other lasagna is just sitting in my freezer.  I want to lose weight, but I can’t let it just go to waste.  That would be like ripping up a thousand dollar bill and peeing on it, for good measure.  I have to eat it, right?  Wouldn’t it be an insult to my saint of a mother to just discard her love like a used paper towel?
    I just took it out to dethaw. 

I want you to think about Elementary School for a minute.  You know that sniveling little suck up who sat next to you and immediately started working on her spelling book the nanosecond it was assigned?  Think Summer from School Of Rock.  Well, she never rolled with me.  I was that obstreperous blowhard in the back who loudly groaned and then made ill-advised and retrospectively stupid comments like, “You don’t need spelling to be a professional four square player.”  Perhaps not.
    I checked out some of these other Flaaber’s pages yesterday and found some of the bastards (and ladies) have been cutting transfat for over a week.  Overachievers.  I like to get off to an intentionally slow start, thus lulling my opponents into a false sense of security before making dramatic overtime comebacks like the 1993 Montreal Canadians led by Patrick Roy.   
    So, obviously, it only stands to reason I not only didn’t make a serious attempt at dieting yesterday but tried to shoot myself in the foot--you know, to start the whole lulling facade.  Seven slices of pizza (thin crust for crunchy deliciousness, not calorie counting), a serious chunk of baked ziti, some meatballs, and two Mountain Dews.  But surprise surprise, I roused from my slumber today to find I’d lost half a pound.  I’m not even sure if I’m miffed or elated.  Karma should have flicked me off, but I suspect she may be on to my underhanded scheme. 
Either way, I’ve got inertia going, baby.  Forward momentum.  Positive flow.  It’s all working, it’s all golden.  I’m one-fortieth the way already.  That means a flying monkey attack is imminent.  Where are those damn red heels?

Stop counting those Galleons, J.K. Rowling.  There isn’t a snowball’s chance in Quirrell’s turban, you’ll ever see a damn knut of it.  A few of these other schmucks might fail in their quest.  Not me.  I’m Larry Bird in the fourth quarter.  I’m Fulton Reed on his penalty shot in Mighty Ducks 2.  I’m Theodore Roosevelt hunting zebras and lions and innocent natives in Africa circa 1909.  Better not look away.  You’ll return to find my ass a little less bloated and my money safely blown on two hookers and an eight ball.
    Why the confidence?  Let’s closely examine this several years old picture I’ve inserted blow:



That’s my mentally-deficient self chasing a shot of Goldschlager with jelly.  Why the hell would anyone ever follow up perfectly delicious Swiss alcohol with Smuckers?  Because they’re an idiot.  Me.  I’m an absolute idiot.  Think of the least intelligent, borderline developmentally-disabled mouth breather you know.  I’m worse. 
    Let’s talk about what I did/ ate yesterday.  I woke up around 12:30 (standard), took a shower and washed my hair; then I set up shop on the couch.  For those of you picturing this story at home--No--I did not have on pants.  From one until four, I chain smoked, drank two Mountain Dews, wrote an article on how much I despise Home Alone 2 (www.cinemablend.com/new/Red-Band-Rant-Home-Alone-2-Is-Mediocre-At-Best-11100.html), and watched a two hour History Channel special on vampirism.  After that, I went to the store, picked up more Mountain Dew and some peach-flavored tobacco before returning to my humble abode and writing various celebrity gossip articles.  Then I made macaroni n cheese with two of those ginormous circus-style hotdogs diced up and scattered throughout.  Then I watched Californication on OnDemand, picked up some friends and got drunk while playing Catch Phrase.  Finally, I smoked some more, drank another Mountain Dew and made macaroni n hotdogs a second time.  Oh, I also practically inhaled one of those pretzel bags with peanut butter in the middle.  I am not C. Everett Coop, but that entire day strikes me as being epically unhealthy.
    So, here’s the plan.  I’m cutting my Mountain Dew intake to one a day.  I’m going to buy the low calorie hotdogs, make the low calorie preparation on my daily macaroni n cheese, and smirk as the pounds just melt away.

I shall begin this first in a long series of blog entries by quoting a certain haggard homeless-looking drifter who was once almost the Vice President of the United States.  Who am I?  What am I doing here?  Well, I’m writer, philosophizer, and ardent Mountain Dew enthusiast who chain smokes like a seedy European James Bond villain.  I’m also fat-ish.  I’ve added the “ish” because, well, removing it might make you think I look like Gilbert Grape‘s mother.  I don’t.  I look like Paul Giamatti in Sideways.  The situation could be a lot worse.

    I’m losing twenty pounds.  Not because I like exercise.  Not because I’m worried about an early onset of heart disease.  No, I’m losing it because I have man boobs.  Because I almost spit out my endocrine system while climbing four flights of stairs the other day.  I’m twenty-one.  Zac Efron is twenty-one.  So are Sidney Crosby and that crazy guy who screams about leaving Britney alone on YouTube.  I bet they can gallivant about with a heart rate less than one hundred and forty beats per minute.
    I’ve decided to wager two hundred and fifty dollars on myself dropping this tonage because I’m a cantankerous and stubborn misanthrope who just so happens to enjoy money and strongly dislikes losing it.  I ran through a supermarket naked to win a sawbuck; L. Ron Hubbard knows what I would do for two hundred and fifty dollars.  Please don’t tempt me.  I’m not on probation but have a smirk that would scream guilty on the witness stand.  Think Jon Lovitz. 
    As you’ve probably guessed from reading the three previous stanzas of borderline anti-establishment nonsense, I have a slew of enemies.  Maybe even a swarm.  People who abuse the exclamation point.  Diet Mountain Dew.  That hole in the ozone layer.  I hate ‘em all.  But there’s one who swaggers about above the rest, frolicking about with her billion dollar bank account and horrid writing style which frequently implements unnecessary that’s.  Yes, J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, madame of the disjointed narrative arc, underminer of all things decent and true, the bane of my existence, I hate you.
    I’ll be the first to admit Harry Potter is and was a phenomenal idea, but upon each read through I’m forced to sit and wonder what could have been.  In the hands of a capable visionary, those seven books could have rivaled the best of Roald Dahl or C.S. Lewis.  They could have soared with the classics of children’s literature; instead, they idle alongside vapid, formulaic gibberish like Rudy and Menudo’s second album.  Oh what could have been. 
    I hate J.K. Rowling for not having the guts, conviction, or balls to out Dumbledore when it actually mattered.  I hate J.K. Rowling for sparing Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  It would have been too traumatizing for children, everyone screamed.  Well, spoiler alert: Charlotte dies in Charlotte’s Web, Peter Pan forgets about Wendy, that chick from Different Strokes made a porno.  And most of all, I hate J.K. Rowling for being most people’s favorite author.  Read Vonnegut.  Pick up John Kennedy Toole.  Don’t stop with Rowling’s mediocre drivel.
    I’m losing twenty pounds because I hate man boobs, hate losing money, and despise the thought of J.K. Rowling rolling up a hundred dollar bill and snorting my failure.