Inspired by my roommate Christine, I've decided to start eating healthier. While it's true that I'm already the teetotaller to the stars, you'd be surprised how much junk food exists that doesn't include alcohol, sugar, or any other refined carbohydrate (or wheat, or pork, or...cigarettes.). While I'm on the subject I'd like to put forth that the vast majority of products at health-food stores are gimmicky, overpriced boxes of nonsense. They're like generic indie-rock bands: sure, you have to go out of your way to find them, and they have slightly less bad cholesterol, but let's face it, not only are they way less appetizing than regular Doritos, they're just as bad for you. When it comes to food I'm basically all about the bottom line, and the bottom line for me is: organic raw sugar cane juice is....still sugar.

Moving right along: for all my grandstanding, I'm a big huge cheater when it comes to eating well, and lately for fear of acquiring scurvy I've been trying to up my vegetable intake. Unfortunately I am extremely picky (not as picky as Christine, however, who bought an expensive organic sweet potato rather than use one I already had, which, she explained, were too "malformed"), so I usually just end up eating a lot of carrots and cucumbers. But last night I cooked spinach and garlic! At one am! And ate it with brown rice! Do I feel better today? Sure! Maybe! And it makes me feel better about eating peanut butter directly out of the jar, which is what I'm doing right now.

In other news, I rented Muppets Take Manhattan, a highly underrated movie from my childhood. MTM was for me and my sister what The Goonies was for the cool kids: an endlessly quotable comfort-movie. My mom taped it for us just after we became sentient, and although I have the words to all the songs memorized, rewatching it I still found that there were a lot of jokes that went right over my head when my age was still in the single digits. Also, I finally saw what occurred during that mysterious gap when either my sister or I...but probably my sister...pressed the OTR button while watching the movie and accidentally taped a volleyball game over part of it. Murry Plotsky is an asshole!

I think when I get home I'll rewatch all the old movies my mom taped for us: Mary Poppins, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound, Mickey's Christmas Carol, the behind-the-scenes documentary of Oliver & Company, a couple of random episodes of My Little Pony, a couple of random episodes of Fraggle Rock, the Teddy Ruxpin Christmas special...yeah, my mom is cheap.

Several weeks ago I was watching a late-night Jerry Springer episode with my roommate Sita and her boyfriend Greg, and just as Jethro Foot Fetish was about to go down on some girl's toes, we were distracted by a loud clanging sound from the street below. We exchanged glances and I went to the window to investigate, thinking, oddly enough, "Wouldn't it be weird if someone was trying to steal my bike?"

And sure enough there was some guy banging away at my padlock with a hammer. Call me crazy, but I don't think that's the most effective, or stealthy, way to go about the task at hand, but what do I know? Anyway, immersed in a rush of indignant adrenaline, I yelled out, "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?! QUIT IT!!!!!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING???!!!" And the guy calmly stood up, said, "Nothing. Sorry," and slunk away, still clutching his precious hammer.

Long story short, we went down and inspected the damage--basically, in trying to hammer the padlock open he'd just managed to crumple it into a defiant little ball, never to be opened by anyone ever again. And in the meantime, he'd made such a racket that two girls in the apartment building across the street looked out the window, saw him, and called the police themselves. So I made a police report, felt all important, and so forth. But, of course, I neglected to request that a U of C police officer come and clip the lock so that I could actually use the bike again, and so for the past month it's been trapped to the tree outside my building, exchanging desperate yearning glances with me whenever I go anywhere without it.

In a fit of proactiveness I decided that today would be the day to visit the police station and negotiate a lock-clipping rendezvous (which is to say, Burcu dragged my ass to campus and made me). So I go inside, and can tell it's going to be awkward and slightly bizarre because the guy goes, "Aw, man! We were just about to take a break. Can you come back in an hour and a half?" And I hesitantly said, "Um...yes..." and then realized, oh, he was making a Dad-humor type joke. And then I haltingly explain the situation, and he turns to his colleague and starts muttering, "So, Mac's the only one who can do this, right? mumblegrumblemumble okay mumblegrumble." And then he hands me a piece of paper with the phone number for facilities and says, "You'll have to call this number, because, well, we only have one guy who can do this for you here, and" --and I quote-- "he just came down with a case of cancer and I don't think he's ever coming back."

"A CASE OF" CANCER??? Like, he forgot to get his cancer vaccination last spring and caught that pesky cancer bug that's been making the rounds at the police station? And he's never coming back? And he just found out yesterday? Immediately I imagine Mac covered with huge dangly tumors like the rats I used to work with at the McClintock Lab. Now I don't even want to get my bike lock clipped because everytime I look at it I'll think of Mac and his case of cancer and how he's never coming back.

So on my way home I decided the best way to make myself feel better was to engage in another round of the fantasy where I am an American Idol contestant beloved by fans and judges alike, with personality AND the voice of a goddess. The fantasy begins with the semifinals and ends somewhere in the middle of the finals because I haven't decided whether it'd be better to actually take the whole thing or be voted off third-to-last, causing the country to get all huffy and indignant on my behalf. "I never thought I'd say this," says Simon, "but you are honestly *too good* for this competition!" But I'd be all humble, except without the weird creepy mouthed "thank-you"s that Clay Aiken always did. Obviously, reality is suspended in this fantasy insofar as I am not only not tone-deaf but have perfect pitch, rhythm, stage presence, personality, and a hot body. But for a moment, just for a moment, I think it could be *possible* that one day, I will be up there, the spotlight shining on me and bringing out the tasteful yet artsy and original highlights the American Idol stylist has given me, singing....well, I'd go into my planned repertoire but I think I've embarrassed myself enough.

When you're feeling low, and a long-term cure is nowhere to be found, I know no better temporary medicine than curling up with your roommates and your best friend in the sofa bed and watching When Harry Met Sally, all the deleted scenes of When Harry Met Sally, and finally the making-of documentary How Harry Met Sally--squealing and clutching each other at the gooey parts, laughing theatrically during the funny parts, and reciting the lines you all know by heart.

Knowing that I finally have a group of close girlfriends with whom to bitch, gossip, commiserate, and watch silly romantic comedies lessens my gloominess and lightens up this bleak, bleak quarter. It's been a long time coming, but they're worth the wait.

To everyone else, I know I've been MIA, but just bear with me. Aside from my school pals, just about everything else is going wrong, and I've got to hoist myself out of it before I can be funny and geeky again.

Now I'm off to the dungeon of terror more commonly known as Leona's.