I'm one week late posting my results. My apologies to those who have been holding their breath since then.

I lost the ten pounds. But, how much does ten pounds really weigh, in poetic, non-literal, obnoxiously existential-sounding terms?

Because objectively measuring achievement can be sort of difficult. What exactly is the loss of ten pounds against the accumulation of (markedly less tangible) personal and professional trials, tribulations and outright failures? Tell me, my fellow Flaabites, what tips the scales of happiness?

A date on a calendar is a date on a calendar, and a number on a scale is a number on a scale, but there is no one absolute boiling point for true contentment; no fixed marker at which joy bubbles to the surface and anxiety disappears into to vapor and dreams twirl and flow like softening fettuccini. It just seems that there aren’t any really borders to definitively cross; rather, just time-killing tourist traps like scrolling through other peoples’ pain and ambitions and curious comedic sensibilities.

I lost ten pounds and I finished my game, but nothing has really ended because nothing has really begun since my one desperate, grueling quest for the cold, unwavering oblivion of death that I embarked on at the exact moment of my birth.

Or, nine months prior to my birth, if you’re one of those uppity right-wingers. It’s just less poetic to say it that way.

Anyway, I’m bored and miserable and every kind of ugly except fat, so I guess I’m done here.

Peace out, Flaabros and Flaabettes!

Some say weight loss derived from food poisoning is cheating.

I say the Oscars are too long and largely irrelevant.

What the crap? I'm the first poster of the new year, but flaab is set to west coast time. How dare my graceful prose be made marginally less poignant.

My new year's resolution is to become the world's fattest man. Don't worry, i'm a good multi-tasker.

- Adam

There was a mentally ill woman on the subway this morning who announced that she was unhappy before she found Jesus, and that now she's doing just fine. At least I think it was Jesus. She had a lot of bullet points to cover before Lexington, so everything between the newspapers working as agents of shame and The End of Days was a little rushed. Also, it was really hard to focus because this guy was breathing on me. I fucking hated that guy.

Anyway, one of my pet peeves, after crazy homeless Jesus-freaks, but before crazy homeless vomiting-freaks, is the idea that you’re never supposed to be sad; that if you are sad, what’s wrong is that you’re sad, and not the reason why you’re sad. I hate it when people just tell you to ‘feel good.’ What if you genuinely don’t have a reason to? What if you’re flat out not supposed to? Misery is constructive, and it’s why we’re all here, trying to make ourselves even just a little bit better.

Unconditional happiness puts us all one step closer to proselytizing on the subway.

- Adam

A short while back, I dropped about 80 pounds. That may sound all well and good, but according to the internet, I still have about 10 more to go before reaching my optimal weight of 146.

I suppose it’s worth the effort if it means putting me farther away from where I started. I used to be very fat, and I did not wear it well. I wasn't round, hearty fat; I was sagging, atrophied, maggot-bloated corpse fat. I wasn't roly-poly Santa Claus fat; I was sprawling, amorphous, oily lump of cottage cheese fat. I was disgusting, and it made me slightly more miserable than I could have gotten away with being at the time.

I’m going to give this a shot because I know I should, even though I may just be setting myself up for the realization that total fulfillment isn’t earned as methodically as a number on a scale. I think if people really want to, they can be happy with any configuration their body, and putting that off until you drop a few pounds can mostly be just a crutch.

I don’t know how I’ll loose 10 pounds, or if it will even matter in the end. I just know that it’s been 5 years since I’ve had a fucking brownie and life still wants more out of me.

- Adam

My most recent photograph, scanned from the only reamaining copy of “The Almanac of Marvelous Oddities from the Worlde of Human-Mechanical Augmentation, Supplementation and General Enhancements” (c. 1883), recovered this past spring from West 25th Street’s weekly Annex Antique Fair & Flea Market. I also bought an old Mr. Potato Head from the 50’s. It seemed cute at the time.

(click to enlarge)

It got me to thinking, I really need to drop a few.

- Adam