In a game of Kitchen Survivor, my pasta fagioli gets voted off of the island.

Stepped on the scale this morning, 155lbs. Not good. When I moved to New York I weighed 170lbs and I didn’t need to lose any weight. My goal was to try to reach 180lbs, then poverty sunk in. People joke about starving actors but do they really realize we’re always so hungry?? As I write this my head is pounding and my insides are screaming. Food — I’m so hungry.

Remember the pasta fagioli? Well, try as I might I couldn’t keep it safe from the outside world. Friday, one day after making the delicious and healthy dish, we blew a circuit in the apartment. Unfortunately, our circuit box is in the basement of the building and we don’t have access to it. The building manager didn’t answer his cell phone all weekend so we were left without power. The City of New York (311) told me that this is illegal but all I could do was file a complaint. Determined to save my food from spoiling, I took the pasta fagioli down to a church a few blocks from my house where it found a nice home in the refrigerator for the weekend. When Monday came and our power was back, I got the pasta back and had a few good meals from it. Sadly, the other night I came home to no pasta. My roommate and her girlfriend ate it. Booooo.

I have two roommates — one is male and a librarian at a private school on the Upper East Side since he’s away for the summer, I’m able to sleep in his room. Otherwise, I’d be sleeping in a nook in the hallway. Yes folks, this is New York. My other roommate is an accountant. She must be very good because people send her financial information from everywhere. She is a mystery to me.

After the power went off last week, she ran around the apartment putting sticky notes on everything that say “Turn of air conditioning before using.” Now really, there’s only two of us in the apartment. Couldn’t we have discussed this? Two nights ago I brought a toaster home. By morning it had a sticky note on it as well. I hadn’t even plugged it in yet. Also, she will randomly do nice things for me — but it’s so strange. One day I said goodbye to her (as I try to when I go out) and she offered me grapes and insisted I take some with me. Another day it was a plum. What prompted these random acts of kindness? She’s not much of a conversationalist either. Everyday I come home and say hello to her and ask her about her day. She always says, “Good. You work?” Then before I’m able to answer she goes to her room and slams the door shut.

I also, have to be sure I keep the toilet paper stocked in the bathroom. She will only put a roll of toilet paper in the bathroom if I have put the previous role in the bathroom. We’ve not talked about this but I’m pretty sure that’s the system. It’s very annoying. I was going to put toilet paper in there the other day but saw there was half a roll. She must have forgotten to put it away because the next morning I went in, did my business, and had nothing to wipe with. Sadly, I had to walk my dirty ass back to my room so that I could get an extra roll to put in my bathroom. One day I tryed to bring the issue up by saying, “I’ll get a bunch of toilet paper for the bathroom so we have plenty.” She said that she would get some and that I could use paper towels if there wasn’t toilet paper. Since then, the paper towel is missing at all times as well. I think she keeps these items in her room and only brings them out when she is using them. I don’t ever use paper towel. I use a sponge, which may be what I use the next time there is no toilet paper (tomorrow there will be no sponges.)

I’ll tell you what the problem is here, it’s communication. She’s Chinese and often walks around speaking in Mandarin to people on the phone. Perhaps it’s her first language and she doesn’t like to speak in English. But, all of the problems from my food, to the toilet paper, could have been solved by simple communication. She doesn’t know that that pasta is all I can afford to eat. What I should do is put a sticky note on the pasta that says, “Talk to me before you eat this you crazy messy (yeh — you don’t want to know) bitch! Oh, and be sure the air conditioner is off — you’ve got the refrigerator door open.”