That's me today. Every week I seem to swing between "manic" and "depressive" depending on how the most recent weigh-in has gone.

I'm not a person who really needed an enhancement of mood swings anyhow, okay?

Yesterday, in spite of my strenuous efforts to eat really, really well over the weekend, I discovered that I hadn't lost an ounce since my last weigh-in.

Okay, mostly I tried to be good. There was, of course, that incident with the half-pound of shrimp on Saturday, a food and an quantity that are perfectly legal under the diet but which were swimming in an amount of butter that probably constituted a week's allotment of fats.

And then, of course, there was the Cracker Accident of Sunday, 10:20 p.m. That's the one where a full day's allotment of breads stealthily jumped from the cracker box into my mouth when I was thinking about something else. After, I should confess, I'd already eaten my entire daily allotment of breads earlier.

Mostly I was good. Some of the time.

The problem with this diet (Yes, I'm going to go on and on about it so shut up.) is that it's so liquid. Each day, I have to drink 3 quarts of water, three protein supplements (in 6 oz of water each), a cup of consommé, and a cup of skim milk. Pardon the TMI, but I seem to spend most of my life looking for a bathroom any more.

I've now lost a total of 10 pounds. My original goal was to lose 25 but now I'm shooting for 20 and I doubt I'll be able to stick with it until I make that goal.

In addition, as I was telling someone earlier today, I have deep suspicions "stabilization" and "maintenance" programs.

Something tells me that if I don't keep weighing and measuring the food and doing the other stuff, the weight will come back, in spite of their promises to rev up my metabolism to where it was when I was 20.

I mean, I can see cutting back drastically on white flour products (the current "evil" in the diet world) and even portion control on other foods, but just exactly how long do I have to keep buying and drinking supplements? (Not that I'm really complaining about those. I mean, how else could I drink rich, creamy hot chocolate three times a day without gaining weight?)

But will an extra piece of toast forever make the scales jump up drastically the next day? Will I ever be able to just eat again, without counting every bite? Not over-eat, just eat without having to spend so much time thinking about it? I haven't thought this much about food since I was a poverty-stricken twenty year-old melting leftover slices of American cheese over broken pieces of spaghetti and pretending it was macaroni and cheese.

On the positive side, I really do love how my clothes are getting loser and how my face and neck look thinner, there's no denying that. I know I already look better. I really love it a lot. The thighs of these jeans were snug six weeks ago. Today they're loose. This is a good thing.

I just...I just want what I've always wanted. I want to be thin and toned with no effort. Without chowing down on celery sticks and filling up on lettuce twice a day to keep me from going completely mad and eating 3 ounces of chicken at one sitting. (Portion control is still a problem for me.)

I know. Thin people eat that way and that's why they're thin. I just don't think I should have to do it.

Anyhow, now that I've given up potato chips and my roommate has given up chocolate, I strongly suspect that we'd have been losing a pound or so a week even without a diet, okay? We each had a serious habit going. Without that, we'd probably have lost weight anyhow.

Okay, maybe not as fast, probably not a pound a week, but eventually. In a decade or so.

So what am I getting for my investment in this program? The Food N*z*s lecturing me on how an extra cup full of skim milk is going to make me gain weight.

Is this what I have to look forward to forever? Rationing skim milk?

I'd better change the subject before I start blaming the FN's on the weight I've gained over the last fifteen years. (In spite of how bitter I sound, I promise I'm not taking it out on them in person. That would be stupid and unfair. It's not their fault I can go through a bag of potato chips in one sitting.)

So...what else is new?

Well, first I have to take back my rude remarks about John Goodman on West Wing. He was excellent last week. It was a decent episode.

Also, we tried the new Rob Lowe show on Sunday night. It was a bit of a mess. Felt like they introduced about fifty people and ten subplots. Presumably it will mellow out with time but the jury is out on whether or not we'll be turning it on again next week.

We're also still debating Tarzan. Yeah, Mitch Pileggi is going to be one it, and that's a big plus. On the minus side, it's Tarzan and the concept just bores me.

Ditto for Andromeda. Even with Nick Lea appearing, I'm not sure I can watch the show. The last time I tried to watch it it was such a travesty of the original, such a waste of the potential it showed in S1, that I developed a probably incurable hatred for it. Plus which, let's be honest, Kevin Sorbo isn't exactly a major acting talent. Probably not even a minor one. (I haven't seen anyone so wooden since I used to watch Highlander but at least in that show, the plastic-faced 'star' wasn't allowed to destroy the concept.)

On the other hand, Steve Bacic is supposed to be returning to the show, possibly as a regular. I adored him.

I loved everything about Andromeda but Sorbo, but he's one of those people who walks into a scene and kills every nuance and subtlety in sight, plus which he was instrumental in dismantling the original concept to go after the 10 year-old audience, so my dislike of him is a fairly major problem when it comes to watching the show.

Still. Bacic gives me hot flashes, so that has to be taken into consideration. I guess, before I make any other decisions, I should figure out when the show actually airs these days and one what channel.

Anyhow. That's all I have to say today.