My Guilty Pleasure

I've been indulging in one of my favorite guilty pleasures: reading chic-lit. I'm in the middle of a Susan Isaacs novel (As Husbands Go) and loving it. I'm also embarrassed that I love it, and that "The Middle Ages", written by an eminent scholar, is lying dusty by my bed. I tried to read it. And I really did like it. But it wasn't amusing. And I think the single most shallow thing about me (not the single, but the single most) is that I like to be amused.

Which is why, for example,  on Sunday mornings, I reach the for the Styles section of the NY Times first. Or the Week in Review, for the Laugh lines. Or the Magazine. My husband has, on more than one occasion, said, "going for the important stuff, first, huh?". That makes me see red. And be red.

I'll admit that I'm a little hypersensitive about this. A few weeks ago, after stocking up on novels at the library (and the sort-of-intellectual, "The Obama Diaries", which I've not yet cracked open), I was happily reading, "The Perfect Husband" (this was a Lisa Gardner crime/mystery novel, another one of my favorite genres). The  husband walked by and said, "you should be writing that". Mistaking his comment as a suggestion that I write rather than read, I snapped at him. He backed off (literally), saying ,"it was a joke. You know, the perfect husband...you should be writing it". Poor D. That would be the guilt in my guilty pleasure making me see things that aren't there. Plus living with a man who thinks fiction is a waste of time.

Anyway, the upside (for the part of me that wants to do more than waste my days reading novels) is that reading always makes me want to write. I actually want to write a novel featuring a Catholic middle-class wife/mom. The chic-lit genre is absolutely saturated with really wealthy Jewish wife/moms, so I think there's niche. The problem is, of course, that writing is not amusing. Reading is. And (*sigh*) I do like to be amused.

Getting Rid of Those Blues

So, remember that trip to New Orleans I'd passed up? I've decided to do it, mostly because of a deal my husband and I made. The deal was that if we lived in Buffalo, where I have tons of family and friends (and an awesome hair stylist and mechanic), we would travel. We made this deal because David, who spent ten years in California, simply cannot stand many of Buffalo's less lovable traits. For example, one of the first winters that he was here, he was chipping at the ice shield on his Jeep's window one fine, January morning, when something cracked. Actually, more than one thing cracked. He started laughing kind of hysterically, not sure whether it was the glass or the ice that had given.

It was after that that he started telling me legends of this far off land, where "there are no weathermen because it's always 70; nothing changes". Or "the ocean is on one side of the road, and the mountains on the other" (that would be Route 1, I believe).

Being a sturdy, sensible Buffalo girl, I pointed out to him how in that same land, the American dollar does not go nearly as far as it does in Buffalo. If we were to land a job in this far off land, our housing costs in Santa Cruz (for example) would be pretty much triple what they are in Buffalo, for about half the house. Balmy weather does not offset empty pantries and no car. Even a plane ticket there would be more than our current monthly mortgage bill.  

So, even despite his printing up page after page from Santa Cruz' own homepage, I stuck to my guns, and we struck a deal. We would stay here if we could TRAVEL. And so, in virtue of a deal that I am very glad I made (and very glad I'm honoring ), we are off to New Orleans in the dead of winter. And we'll have a house we can afford to come back to...plus icy windshields. 

The February Blues

At least once a day, I come across another symptom of the February blues. It's kind of a crazy, loss-of-perspective-and-good-common-sense, cabin fever.

Right now, for example, I am watching a silent film starring Cameron Diaz. As if she's not boring enough with the sound. I muted it (while grading) and just left it off. And don't really care. The whole situation is a symptom.

So is the fact that I watched it while eating a dinner of rice cakes and Wegman's lime flavored water. I'm still smarting from that Christmas comment. I've even challenged a certain mean queen to a 10 pound shred. Not that she needs it. But I do. David is still under the illusion that we can handle 4, even 5 (even 6!) kids. We can, but nothing else. So, I've got to get back into shape...

And I knew it was the blues when I spent some valuable free time on fb hunting down a creditor that had crossed (read "legitimately tried to collect a debt") from a loved one. Let me tell you, Darrell Charrington has crossed the wrong person. This loved one is going to sic a certain Parliamentary-minded British man(?) on poor Darrell.

I knew, too, when, in one sitting, I confirmed 23 friends on fb. That I let them pile up is a symptom (ok, so maybe it's not the February Blues. Maybe it's the Winter Blues. Or the All-Season Buffalo Blues).

And, I turned down a trip to New Orleans. I had good reasons, that I can't really remember, but I think that when I (really) emerge (not this dashing in and out, trying to stay warm) from the house in the spring (read: late June), I'll wonder what exactly I was thinking. It will all seem kind of hazy.

And, obviously, I don't pay any attention at all to this blog. I can barely write now. But, it's that or my Cameron Diaz flick.

As my reluctant follower, Emcy, said, I have the February Blues. She pronounced the first "r" which made me laugh so hard I forgot all about them blues.