April is the cruelest month indeed, unless you started going back to the gym in January. Spring is coming, and with it the resolution to go briskly and trimly into swimming pools and sunny parks in a pair of new Capri pants. For many of us, winter's end conjures memories of rebirth -- we mean getting true religion, as in hope springing eternal in the form of a miraculous diet. Unfortunately, the miracle usually turns out to be sticking to the diet. One woman of our acquaintance lost four clothing sizes and found a boyfriend after three months of carrots and ice water ... too bad all of her hair subsequently fell out and even her eyeballs turned orange from what was diagnosed as a "Vitamin A overdose." Then there's the young mom who shed 25 postpartum pounds without really noticing; her dietary strategy requires losing your appetite via a sudden divorce. It might be easier to just buy a Nordic Track.

At the other end of the scale, so to speak, are the diets du jour: the trendy diets that string us along for a season. They don't fit anyone's body, and we recall them with a twinge, like that must-have pair of tight acrylic flare-bottom pants. Remember protein powder? The unfortunately named Aids candies? The Campbell's Vegetable Soup diet? Or that weird red gel you and your mother drank for three weeks? Mind over matter is a powerful thing, but not if you lose your mind in the process.

We want to know: What's the worst diet you've ever tried?

Was it last year's craze, the Zone, which had the roommate of one gal eating her breakfast of fried eggs and bacon every morning, clueless about why she wasn't dropping the pounds? Or maybe it's the all-milk diet, now being researched in Britain, a mono-diet of milk, yogurt and cream but nothing else? Or how about a good-old fashioned candy-bar-for-breakfast diet, the kind that takes 10 pounds off in two weeks, only to have it come right back on as soon as you start eating like a normal person?

First, check out our submission guidelines. Then send in your story of the worst diet you've ever tried to dramaqueen@salonmagazine.com by March 26, 1999. The winner and two runners up will receive a children's video from Globalstage as well as a gift certificate to barnesandnoble.com. Meanwhile, find out which of our Drama Queen candidates has been crowned the Queen of strange love declarations.

Drama Queen for a Day + Carol Ormandy + Kimberly Hooper + Karen McKeown

Carol Ormandy's Acceptance speech