After my mom dropped me off at Burger King and told me she'd pick me up after I got a job, I had my first interview on the spot and was hired at the princely rate of $5.50 an hour. I built my reputation up to the point where I could pretty much demand my choice of stations (drive-thru: yes, broiler: HELL NO), and reigned over the drive-thru until I went to college a couple of years later. I continued working there in the summers during college as a primary job, then as a secondary job, until I ended up temping at a place that paid me much more, but was not nearly so fun. Sometimes I miss those BK days – everyone had a shared goal, we worked together to reach it, and when the night was over, we'd clean up the store and go to Denny's and share coffee and wings for hours. Those were some good days.

In an attempt to simplify my life just a little bit, I’ve been systematically unsubscribing from email lists lately. Has anyone else noticed how those little suckers creep up on you? I make a habit of opting out of marketing messages when I sign up for stuff online, but even the stuff I’ve opted in for (sales, whatever) has become overwhelming. It’s gotten to the point where I am missing the few legitimate emails I’m getting in a sea of bullshit I actually signed up for. I can’t even blame it on spam. It’s spam I invited to my inbox. What’s a good word for that kind of junk mail?

I’ve also been doing this with catalogs I get in the real mail, because honestly, I’m just tired of dealing with stuff I don’t care about. I want less extraneous stuff like junk mail catalogs in my life, and more meaningful stuff like checks for $1,000. Would anyone like to send me a check for $1,000? I will totally open and cash it. I’ll even let you include your stupid catalog as long as you don’t mind that I’m totally going to unsubscribe from it later.

You’ve all signed up for Plinky, right? If not, you totally should. It’s the new hot thing to do. You can follow me at this link. Although it looks like trying to publish my most recent Plinky answer to Facebook wiped out my entire wall. And that’s no good. Because I sort of live on Facebook these days and if my wall gets wiped out then I can’t remember who I know or what I’ve done.

I think that’s all I have for now.

I’m in a relationship. It’s on Facebook now, so that means it’s official.

Seth is super cool, and I’m not just saying that because he’s reading the site now. We met on a certain dating website that is full of kooky crazypants, with one or two relatively normal humans thrown in. I’m somewhere in the middle of the normal-kookycrazypants spectrum, and so is he, so we hit it off pretty well. He’s my partner in karaoke crime, my anime advisor, my fellow gas station energy shot connoisseur, and many other things besides. Plus, tormenting my cats is so much more fun now that he’s helping, and once upon a time he let me know that I’ve been saying Neil Gaiman’s name wrong for YEARS. If you’d like to know one of the many dozens of reasons I think he’s the bees knees, feel free to read the comments below the last post. Warning: you may barf from the unbearable new coupleness of it all.

I, however, am only on the verge of barfing because I am so full of good life things that I hardly know where to fit them all. If the rest of the year looks anything like the beginning has so far, I’m in for a really terrific time.

In other news, I’m almost certainly at the back of the pack on the weight loss challenge after a week that included a cold, no visits to the gym, and tons of food including one night where I ate dinner twice. I’ll weigh in after weighing in tomorrow.

Ten of my friends/coworkers and I started a weight loss challenge on Monday. The person who has lost the greatest percentage of body weight by May 15th wins the prize pot, which will be $1,100 since each of us had to put in $100 to play. If I win, I’m totally using my winnings to go on a sweet little vacation.

It’s funny how we’ve all gotten into this thing. Of course, it’s only been a few days, but we’re all alternately encouraging one another and tempting one another. When my sister came in to the office to do her weigh-in, she brought a single, beautiful, wonderful-smelling Krispy Kreme doughnut, which she proceeded to parade around the office in order to make us hate her. That poor doughnut got mangled by someone and then thrown away, though I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider digging it out of the trash and cramming its mangled carcass down my throat. Today, someone has been taping up pictures of pie all around the office. I may or may not have been the instigator in the pie war.

I’m a fatty fat fat. In fact, I’m currently at my all-time highest weight. When I weighed in on Monday, I wanted to curl up on the floor and cry for a while. I was horrified at the number I saw on that scale. I could blame it on some medication I’m taking, which does legitimately cause weight gain, but I should be honest and confess that frequent dinners of doughnut holes over the last six weeks and holidays spent doing nothing but eat may have had an impact on the bottom line. You think??

So we’re all in this thing together, and everyone seems to have his own strategy for winning. Someone did a three-day purge; someone else is investigating supplements. Some people are hard-core dieting and others are not. For me, I know that I fail spectacularly on restrictive diets, so for now I’m not counting calories or eliminating entire food groups or anything like that. I’m focusing on whole grains, water, healthy snacks, lean protein, and lots and lots of fruits and vegetables. I’m working harder to get an active workout schedule established, because I know that’ll really be the foundation of any success I see. Today my triceps are screaming every time I try to move my arms, so I know something is working.

We didn’t try to keep this thing a secret, but we haven’t been exactly advertising it either. Yet somehow, everyone on campus seems to know we’re doing it, which is kind of funny and weird. I went into a meeting yesterday and everyone was discussing healthy snacks and their methods for becoming healthier. Even people who aren’t participating in the challenge seem really interested in helping us succeed, which is really cool.

I weighed myself today, just out of curiosity, and I haven’t lost a single pound yet. But that’s okay. Official weigh-ins are every two weeks, and if I keep with what I’m doing now, I feel sure I’ll have made some progress by the 19th. I will keep you all posted!

I think it’s safe to say that I did not have a very good 2008. I’m not really alone in that; 2008 was challenging for a lot of people. Several weeks ago, I saw the year winding down and I realized that on balance it was going to turn out as a bad year, with little time to redeem itself. And that’s about when I decided 2009 would be my year no matter what. I have to confess I cheated a little; I got started on it a few weeks early. I started spending time with some new people, I told some people at work how I really feel, I took a little road trip, I drank, I ate, I danced, I sang some killer karaoke, I hung out with my family, and now I’m ready to go.

This year is mine. It belongs to me, and I hold it in my hands, and I can make it my bitch or my baby. I can make the little changes I want; I can make the big changes I need. I can leave my job this year, or I can stay and make it work for me. I can fall in love this year, but I don’t have to. I can do the things that are right for me.

This year, I’m going to travel. I’m going rock climbing. I might go skydiving. I might get a tattoo. I might get a puppy. I will go outside more. I will be open to new experiences. I will be positive. I am going to read dozens of books. I am going to talk to dozens of people. I am going to put good things out into the world, and trust that good things will be returned to me. I am going to write more, because I am going to have stories to tell, and you’re going to want to hear them.

The best thing about this year is that it’s your year too, if you want it to be. Grab it in your hands and go.