I am the pickle girl.

I actually laughed out loud while reading yesterday's comments because, when you think about it, the fact that strangers enjoy reading lists of everything I eat in a day is utterly fantastic. (Crazy, too, but fantastic first.) I mean, ten years ago, Total Request Live was the closest anyone came to having a relationship with the creators of their entertainment. In 2011, everyone with an internet connection and a common interest can forge freakish half-relationships. We all follow each other on twitter, look at pictures of the insides of each others' mouths, make videos from inside our private bedrooms... guys, the internet is cool. You are cool. I love this thing we've got going on. Just wanted to get that off my chest.

However, something I CAN'T get off my chest-- okay, stomach; it was almost a transition-- would be the sleeve of cookies I just scarfed down my gullet. I feel guilty now, even though I stayed within the parameters of my challenge and didn't eat anything containing milk, because this binge session was the only thing keeping me from breaking my own rules and ordering pizza. Today was the first day that my vow to give up dairy has made me more annoyed than excited. I felt fine through my PB&J breakfast and my smoothie/strawberry/pickle lunch (I'll explain later), but dinner just plain sucked. I angrily stabbed at my salad, repeatedly asking my friend, "Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Where is the cheese? Why am I doing this?" I was inconsolable until there were two Blow Pops alternating turns on my tongue. I am the most obnoxious six-year-old you've ever met.

I knew the Junk Food Fest of Doom was on the horizon from the second I woke up this morning, but I fought it for as long as possible. It was 70 degrees and gorgeous, so I was outside from 10am until evening, walking around in a feed-me-now kind of stupor. I waited in a ten-minute line for free strawberries at some event for some club whose name I don't care about in the slightest (clearly, their advertising was effective). I was still unsatisfied. I tried to take a nap on a blanket, hoping to be lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of my stomach gargling like a science fair volcano. I lasted fifteen minutes before a group of picnickers set up shop a yard away from me, cheese fries in tow. There was no solution to this problem, but the closest I could come up with involved pickles.

So I walked uptown to my favorite little deli shop, made my effortless way through its shockingly empty dining area, and had the complete attention of all five people behind the counter. "I just want a big pickle," I announced.

A (very cute) guy with a rolled bandanna around his hair cocked one eyebrow and laughed in my face. "Just a pickle?"

"Just a pickle."

Still chuckling, he told me it'd cost 75 cents. "Ya just really feeling a pickle right now?"

I shrugged. "It's a pickle kind of day."

"I didn't know there was such a kind of day."

Then I said something nonsensical like, "You'd be surprised!" and I walked off with my cylindrical trophy, knowing full well that every employee was watching me leave. I'm sharing this story with you because, first of all, it was amusing, and second of all, college is weird. Where else in the world would you simultaneously be flirted with and stared at like a freak just for buying a pickle? Is the fact that I wanted a pickle, alone, in the middle of a Thursday afternoon, really that intriguing?

I mean... is the act of buying a pickle the kind of thing normal people find unusual? If they think that's weird, how in the world would they react if I told them about this crazy network I have inside my computer screen, complete with inside jokes and separate cliques and huge conferences and Hipster Kitty and bands that exclusively write about inanimate objects from the Harry Potter series? My point is, guys, that we need to make sure we cherish this community we have, because without it, we might have nothing funnier to laugh at than a girl buying a pickle. This universe we've created is amazing and I wouldn't change it for the world. We are so lucky.

And also I would KILL for some cheese right now.


Chipotle burritos this year: 5
Subscribers: 48,342
Nail color: "Onyx Rush," Maybelline
Miles run today: Murrr. This is making me feel guilty. Maybe I'll go run before bed.