The attempt to drag myself kicking and screaming into adulthood continues at an encouraging pace. I wrote about my insane-librarian-frat-basemesnt-esque bedroom a few months back (re-reading it, it’s damn funny if I do say so myself) and I haven’t lost the maturity redecorating zeal just yet. Monday my new desk and shelf set showed up, and I’ve spent every night this week jamming that square peg into the round hole – namely, Dave in a room that doesn’t look like it belongs to Quentin Tarantino with a drink problem.

Tuesday night I gutted my bedroom – and I mean gutted like a TaunTaun. Bags upon bags of stuff I didn’t really want to throw away – but forced myself to. It’s not so much about improving the decor as it is lightening my collective load. There’s was stuff in my room Allston hippies wouldn’t pick up for free off of Craigslist.

Last night Matt came over and helped me assemble the new furniture in the now empty room. I specifically invited him because I worked with him on the sets for the play, and I know how incredibly handy he is. The guy built a secret room in his apartment, for God’s sake. It’s together, looking good and I am incredibly excited. As I type, my boxed new garment rack was just wheeled in (yes, I am blogging at work) and things are really coming together. I have an incredibly small closet, and am tired of jamming all my good clothes in there and coming to work looking like, um, Ron Livingston with a drink problem.

Tonight I get my hands on the sister’s photo printer, and I plan to hit CVS and buy a whackload of frames. I will take my favorite digital snaps, frame them and use them as the basis for the new room design. I’m not going to bother to paint, because I may move in September, but this is going to look cool regardless. The movie/band posters are history, my workspace looks amazing and there’s almost enough room left to get to the bed without an Olympic long jump. I haven’t created space with the new effort, but I’ve eliminated 6 years of crap. It feels good, and I’ll post some photos when the task is complete.

Alright you fat little bastards. This is it. All participants have until the end of today to send me their current weights for the first checkup of the official Pye In The Face Pork Ass Challenge. Here is how it will work:

– The Challenge will run from now until Wednesday July 5th – 11 Weeks.
– Every Wednesday, participants will email me their current weight and I will post it here on the blog for all to see/encourage/mock.
– Since we’re all of varying sizes and sexes, a’ la Celebrity Fit Club, we’ll set a target weight for ourselves, based on realistic personal experience, and the measure of success will be whether we hit that target in the 11 weeks allotted.
– We need full disclosure for this to work properly, and we’re all on the honor system. No telling porkie pies, mate!
– Prizes and awards are to be determined, but at the very least will include bragging rights and the ability to put on a swimsuit without crying and cutting yourself on the forearm with shards of beach beer bottle glass.

Now who the fuck is with me?! Let’s drop some blubber, buddies! Here is the tale of the tape so far. If you want to get in on this, send me your info by the end of the day, and be prepared to go the distance:

– Monster >> Current: 270 – Target 255 – Lost – 0
– Smash >> Current: 139 – Target 129 – Lost – 0
– Pyeman >> Current: 230- Target 210 – Lost 0
– Greg >> Current: 205 – Target 170 – Lost 0
– DVS >> Current 252 – Target 210 – Lost 0
– Aubz >> Current: 135 – Target 125 – Lost 0
– Ka-Rista >> Current: 160 – Target 140 – Lost 0
– Venditti >> Current: 238 – Target 219 – Lost 0
– Sly >> Current: 218 – Target 205 – Lost 0
– LBN >> Current: 155 – Target 135 – Lost 0
– BDoyle >> Current: 190 – Target 173 – Lost 0
– AllMusicFan >> Current: 185 – Target 170 – Lost 0
– Brick02 >> Current: 154 – Target 144 – Lost 0
– Piglet >> Current: 151 – Target 135 – Lost 0
– Richard >> Current: 185 – Target 170 – Lost 0

I’ll eventually get some sort of graph software to chart this out week to week, but for now – let’s just get the numbers on the board. There is room for many more. Best of luck to us all – this will be quite the reverse-culinary adventure.

Before I go any further, and on a sorta related hippyish note – Neil. My beloved Neil. You’re killing me. OK – I feel a little better now. Back to business.

I’m on a bit of a health kick at the moment, one I hope will last longer than a Tootsie Roll Pop, and I’ve purchased a whackload of Green Tea to sip at the office. A great guy who used to play for the Revolution once interned here for me, and he swore by it. I think I saw him drink 8 cups in one day, and I’m not exaggerating. I asked him if he was trying to ward off some sort of mystical Chinese dragon that maybe I couldn’t see, and he said that “It is the best anti-oxidant you can get”. I then wondered if he perhaps drank Crisco all day at home and this was his way of countering that bad habit. Regardless, he had a jawline like Marv and must have been doing something right.

Gosh knows, if anyone needs a little anti-oxidizing it’s probably me. A winter’s worth of beer, questionable red meat, french onion dip and Reverse the Curse has left me feeling like one giant arterial clog with shoes on. Other efforts include – walking to and from work (50 minutes a day roughly), oceans of water, salad, fruit and veggies followed by a health shake thingy for dinner. So it’s a crash, boom pow system shocker for a couple of weeks, and then back to the gym every day once the metabolism is back up and the lion’s share of the winter weight is gone.

Why do I write about this potentially embarassing stuff on my blog? First of all, I could use some opinions and advice. Smash said it best on her site a week or so ago while running down a very simple list: “3) If you do more and eat less, you’ll probably lose weight.” That’s really all there is to it. However any words of wisdom for myself and others may be left in the comments. Second of all, when one makes obnoxious public declarations about their sveltness like anyone actually cares, people will hold you to them. “Glad to see you went right ahead and didn’t get back into shape the way you said you were going to, male Sally Struthers“. That always feels great.

The only way to get rid of this turkey gobbler, which is making me look extremely old and decrepit, is to get myself back down to fighting weight (210 lbs.) – and that’s not going to be easy. So I’m putting my sloppy, poulty-esque neck out there on the chopping block and calling my shot – I will weigh 210 and look studly by Independence Day. Or I will shave my head. Who’s in? Any other chubbies want to get in on this and set up a similar wager? And shaving pubes doesn’t count, because I do that already. Let’s fuckin’ go, eh?