But enough about me, let's talk about you

After a hell of a damn April, full of papers and exams and stressing about money and new apartments, I'm beginning to settle into a nice, dumb summer routine, and it's occurring to me that I should maybe start replying to these letters again before they stop getting sent to me.

Here's a lightning round of the short and sweet ones to plunge me back into the swing of things. Bear in mind: I'm doing the best I can with the little given to me in these letters:

i'm got too friggin fat over the winter. how do i lose weight fast?

I don't know about fast, but here are some kind of easy things to try:

1) Eat at the correct times. Most importantly, eat BREAKFAST so you burn off calories as you go about your day and so you don't crave calories at times when they can't help your body (i.e. when you don't have a lot going on). NEVER eat a bunch and then go to bed, unless you're really drunk or something and you absolutely need it, because your metabolism slows way down while you sleep and all the food will just get converted into fat.

2) Don't consume too much caffeine. The following is a layman's explanation: it stresses your body out and makes it believe that this is the Stone Age and there's a famine coming so it starts turning most of the stuff you eat into cellulite.

3) Simple walking and climbing stairs will do more for you than you realize. Shun elevators and escalators and cabs and buses now that the weather is getting nice.

That should put a dent in your average lazy winter... softness.

I cheated on my girlfriend a long time ago. I told my mother one time when it was really bothering me. She's threatening to tell her herself if I don't. What do I do?

Ugh, morality rhetoric. Your Mom is threatening to do what sounds like it's the right thing, but she's probably out of line.

It would be different if it was still continuing and you had no intention of stopping, because somebody has got to look out for the unwitting party's best interest when the unconcerned party won't. I gather from your wording that you have hurt your clueless girlfriend, not that you are continuing to hurt her. If that is indeed the case, and the situation is as simple as you've presented it, it is not up to your Mom or anybody else to go over your heads and pull the strings on the puppet that is your relationship. It's completely on you whether you tell your girlfriend about what happened, and you tell Mom that.

You're in a better position to be a judge of whether you should tell her than I am, because I don't know that much about your particular situation. If guilt will consume you and ultimately sabotage your valuable relationship (I mean, you did break down and tell your Mom because the guilt got to be too much to handle): tell her. If you feel the fling really was inconsequential and the information will only harm a relationship that is otherwise in good shape: don't tell her. If there's a chance you gave her an STD: get tested and tell her. And so on!

Where are the men?

Not where you've been going, apparently. Spring is here, though! Try the park? Bar patios? Libraries, now that school is out? Har.

I'm a straight girl. I met a cool girl a few months ago, and sooner or later it came out she's a lesbian. That doesn't bother me, The thing is when we get drunk and party she is all over me. now it's starting to gross me out and I'm starting to avoid her. I don't want to tell any of our friends because I think they'll call me a homophobe. What can I do about this?

Sexual harassment is sexual harassment, little buddy. If you wouldn't take it off a straight guy, you should not take it off a gay girl (or whatever she identifies as). My views on this are more complicated than that, but maybe put it to her that way ('I like you Betsy, but not that way, and I actually don't like anybody groping me without my permission, thanks, so nothing personal'). If she pulls something like, 'if this makes you feel so uncomfortable maybe it's because you're not as straight as you think,' dropkick her out of your life because she's a goddamn sexual predator.

O.K.! Keep them coming, and don't be afraid to be long-winded.