695 days, 9 hours, 52 minutes, 19 seconds

A performance artist, in town from London, is crawling Manhattan streets in a suit, knee pads, George Bush mask, and a sign saying kick my ass. Just wanting New Yorkers to feel good, he says. It calls to mind a Halloween parade over a decade ago. A man in a cart was dressed as Jesse Helms and a woman walking alongside him passed out rotten tomatoes for people to throw. It was her first Halloween parade. Clinton was president. Helms was about the worst people could imagine.

695 days, 9 hours, 59 minutes, 39 seconds

It's two o'clock and, if you believe her pedometer, she's taken 695 steps so far today. Not a very auspicious start to weight loss. There have been days when she doesn't even hit the 2,000 mark, and she's never yet made it to 10,000. Sort of a lame duck poet.