Bobbi Carrey did an amazing thing: she got me on my diet. She is the only person I know who understands the madness of being a food junkie. Her pictures here are before and after she lost fifty pounds. She got me to go to Weight Watcher meetings at the Hotel Commander near the Cambridge Common every week. Not only to weigh in but to stay for the necessary lecture afterward. She would tell me how hard it had been for her, tell me how she had to put ketchup on peanut M&M's to keep from eating them -- and give me ideas on how to feel less deprived. When I feel myself weakening, I call her and she gives me a pep talk. She is sympathetic but firm; 'Look, I know every excuse in the book; I've used them all. Losing weight is the most important job you have now.'

Bobbie is also my only woman friend who is a photographer and so there is sometimes an underlying tension about how the work is going. Mark says this happens to him, too, with his friends who are writers.

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