Oh dear God no. Why do people keep encouraging her? She's just a mess.

I have to agree with Jonno about diet and exercise. The boyfriend and I tried the Atkins diet for the first half of 2000, and actually quite successfully lost weight on it (especially him). It's rough though, definitely not how I like to eat regardless of whether it's healthy in the long run or not. During the Summer I started re-introducing limited carbs back into my diet and hitting the gym, and around August of last year I was quite fit and back down to a tolerable weight. By October however, I'd stopped going to the gym and was back to eating whatever I wanted. I guess I'd fooled myself into thinking that the weight would somehow stay off on it's own (I'm the queen of de-Nile sometimes) As a consequence, this winter I've ballooned back up to 167 pounds - my heaviest weight ever! So this past Monday I hit the gym again. Much to my amusement, I discovered that a layer of dust had settled in my locker and on my sneakers and deodorant. I kid you not. It's been that long. I mean, they had obviously been doing some work and a paint-job in the mens locker room since I'd last been there which would account for most of it, but none-the-less I got quite a chuckle out of the fact that there were, like, cobwebs growing in my locker. I'm such a jock. No more Atkins for me this time, though. I will try to limit my carb intake in order to avoid processed flour, sugars and starches, but now I'm more concerned about fat. It was the low-fat tactic that led to my 30" waist back in my muscular days of yore, and I think it's worth trying again. I'm older now and so I know I'll have to work extra hard on my cardiovascular routine in order the shed pounds. Thanks to the fitness room in my new office building, I don't really have any excuses anymore. A treadmill is so convenient to me, it's practically in my cubicle.

Lucas is my dog, but he doesn't live with me. About 1992, after my (now) ex and I purchased our condo, he surprised me on Christmas with a large dog collar and leash. Kinky, I thought. But no, he said that we had to go out and get a dog that fit the collar. So after a few trips to the Boston South End Animal Rescue League, we found an adorable Shepherd-mix that had been abandoned by it's previous owners and found in a deserted building. He was friendly and obedient, and was absolutely adorable. We adopted him and named him Lucas, after Captain Jean-Luc Picard on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (I really couldn't abide the thought of running around the South End shouting, "Jean-Luc! Jean-Luc!", so we just switched to Luke and it became Lucas). He's been a great dog. Probably the best dog I've ever known (I suppose everything thinks that about their dog, though). But after I moved out of the condo, now inhabited by my ex and his boyfriend (but which I still co-own), I stopped seeing Lucas on a daily or even weekly basis. Now my time with Lucas is pretty much reduced to when Chris (the Ex) and his boyfriend go on vacation and I get babysitting duties. Like, for instance, this week. Lucas has been spending most of his time with Curt and me. Every night, after work, I stop and get him and walk him over to our place for the night. He gets tons of attention, is allowed on the sofa, and eats crap (just like we do). In the morning, I walk him back to the condo, give him his pill for his arthritis (he's getting old, you know), make sure he's got plenty of food and water, and then he spends the day there - on his home turf - until I stop and get him again after work. I've come to think that he really loves these little vacations. I know that Curt and I love having our little "pookabear" around, despite the fact that his shedding and dirty paws drive Curt's - who has a fetish for absolute cleanliness - bonkers (he deals with it though, and in fact, is the one who probably pays Luke the most attention and talks about getting a dog of our own). Every boy should have a dog, even if shared by four boys, in two different residences.

So, I keep seeing commercials the past two weeks for the new Robert DeNiro film, 15 Minutes and I have to say it really isn't on my priority viewing list. However, I kept getting glimpses of this cute, big, muscle guy that's in in and I decide I've got to find out who he is. So this is him,Oleg Taktarov. Is this a man, or what?

A plot to kidnap Russell Crowe? Okay, that's weird. Although I have to admit it does conjure up certain homoerotic fantasies. But it's a little like what I used to say to my dog when he chases after squirrels - what in the world are you going to do with him if you catch him?