This morning, the scale had some very good news for me, in spite of last night's blow-out at Black-Eyed Pea.

That's become one of my favorite restaurants. It's one of the only places where I can order two or three of the vegetables I'm allowed to eat unlimited amounts of, so I get a "full" meal. The key to this diet is portion control, but I'm having a little difficulty with that concept.

I don't like regular restaurants. They advertise, "mixed vegetables" with a lot of their entrees and it's always the same ghastly mixture of zucchini, peppers, and onions. Sometimes, just to be wild and crazy they throw in a couple of pieces of carrot or broccoli.

It works, though. The diet, I mean. That's the part to remember. I'm averaging 2 pounds a week and if I could just stop eating a couple of handfuls of crackers each evening, I'd be losing even more. I'm going to start cutting back on the starches today. If I can kick my weight loss up to 3 pounds a week, I'll only have to suffer um endure well, go through, three more weeks of the plan before I reach my goal. (Or at least close enough to satisfy me.)

In related news, when my roommate, the psychopath person who got me started on this diet, came home from work last night, I told her kindly (well, sort of) but firmly (very) that she was going to have to throw away the outfit she was wearing. It was hugely baggy. She's losing more weight than I am. She doesn't share my addiction to the crackers, you see.

In other news, my hair hasn't been quite as Annette Funicello for the past couple of days, which is a relief. I was starting to feel naked, walking around without a guy on a surfboard next to me. (Note: If anyone is thinking of getting me a guy on a surfboard for my birthday, please don't make it Frankie Avalon, okay? Something a bit more studly would be appreciated.)

On the other hand, I do have to admit that those three AF days were notable for the number of double-takes and flirtatious smiles they garnered from men. Apparently that heavily lacquered, navel-covered beach blanket babe had a sex appeal I never suspected.

Men are weird, aren't they?

And, speaking of men, is mine the last household in the fandom universe where Queer Eye for the Straight Guy isn't playing? I dunno. The concept just didn't attract me when I first heard about it and in spite of the buzz around it since the show debuted, I haven't regretted the decision. Everyone's talking about it. It's Changing Rooms meets Style. Big deal.

The season opener of West Wing approaches. The tension mounts. Will Bartlett return to the Oval Office? (Yes, until the show gets cancelled.) Will Zoe be killed? (No, because then Bartlett wouldn't return to the Oval Office.) But! How much will it suck? Stay tuned.

Over the summer I've become quite inexplicably attached to Will and Grace. That's going to cause problems since it conflicts with my regular Thursday night viewing of CSI. Thanks to the wonders of advanced technology, I no longer have the ability to view one channel and tape another, so I'll have to make a decision.

I don't have anything important to say today, in case you can't tell.

The ConFroH have been rather quiet the last couple of days. Feisty Frieda still isn't speaking to me and as you can imagine, I'm losing a lot of sleep over it. The Terminatrix is getting past it, but one of her better qualities is that she doesn't hold a grudge. Alvin is sick to death of both of them and every time the Terminatrix called yesterday, he demanded to know what she was bitching about this time. Since she was, in fact, perfectly civil, I was unable (and, honestly, unwilling) to feed his ire.

At the moment I'm supposed to be writing text for a web page to explain one of the primary benefits of our product, but most of my brain is wondering why we spent three months beating these concepts into the heads of the ConFroH if it wasn't so that they, the people we hired for marketing expertise, could write this stuff?

Hang on, I tell myself. Three more days, then the pressure will be off. Alvin and the Terminatrix will be out of town for three days, I don't expect to hear from Feisty Frieda, and life will be good.