Romance Novels Pregnancy Tests&an awesome drawing

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Diary: I Feel Pretty

Password: iamloved

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My thoughts in bullet form.

• I’ve relapsed. I slipped a week or so ago, thought I had a hold on it, but last night I knew for sure that I was in trouble. I am addicted to cheese – that is terribly plotted- ijusthrewupinmymouth dialogged- repetitive and predictable by the slowest of us – romance novels. God. I picked up the habit in tenth grade. I needed something to read and by golly Nora Roberts had half a bookstore to herself. I was a little awed, a little jealous. By the end of sophomore year I’d read every Roberts book in the local libraries (and had them placed on hold and transferred if the library was understocked; I throw myself into my habits to the point of self harm*). I moved on to Mary Higgens Clark. Then Nicholas Sparks. youjusthrewupinyourmouth. I know. Don’t kick me while I’m down. My mother hates Sparks, but seeing as she is The Oracle of All Things Scripted** she would hate the less than challenging formulaic Sparks. Eventually, I’d pretty much read out the entire city’s collection of free cheesy novels. I drifted on to other and less embarrassing infatuations (Hello Xena Warrior Princess (TV), Jack Reacher (Lee Child, series)). I was at a friend’s house a week or so ago and came across three Sparks novels I’d yet to read. I told myself I needed to distract myself from TV. Three days ago I went to the library to get a job. I came out with a Roberts book. (Dammit I couldn’t walk out of the library without a job and a book.) I finished the book the next day. I went to the library yesterday and got the sequel. Came home last night after a few rounds of Scrabble (seriously getting back into that game – “arse” is so a word. I don’t know what the heck my dictionary is on. Lost me winning points that did. Are Shakespearean words allowed in Scrabble? I had a few denied) and sat down for a chapter before bed. I drank a Frappachino first (the things have kicks like a kung fu elephant). The next time I looked up the sun was rising. 5:30am. Sheeit. I begged myself to fall asleep on the couch before my mother awoke to find me having been up all night (at least not on the computer watching Xena this time). I almost succeeded, too. Only at 6am the doorbell rang. Piano lesson. Summer really kills my inner calendar. I was down bloody convinced that today was Wednesday. But apparently, as the doorbell reminded, it is not. Anyway, I pretended to have been jerked rudely awake from falling asleep hours ago on the couch as my Mother yelled why wasn’t I awake yet? I’m working on three hours sleep, though honestly it doesn’t feel like any deficiency at all. A school survival adaptation perhaps.

• Why is it in Romance Novels that they rarely use condoms? Ruins the mood, I guess. Not that it matters, I guess. The ’star crossed lovers’ usually end up proposing to each other in the last cheese on cracker lines after a few weeks (god forbid a few months) of knowing of each other’s existence. Which never quite bothered me until this last series of three brothers who all get married within a period of six months to women they’d known – or been ‘poking at’ – for only that long. That’s even a bit more ridiculous than my addiction addled brain accepts. It’s like finding out your dealer sold you watered down drugs. Someone’s going to notice.
• I am finding that I edit while I read now. As in, why did you say that so awkwardly. What does that sentence even mean? Did you pay your six year neighbor to edit your manuscript? But seriously. Stephanie Meyer (Twilight, Host) and JK Rowling must have the same editor – the one that thinks if the book is heavy enough to kill someone with a knock on the head it will be an instant success. Which, unfortunately in both cases has turned out to be true. But that doesn’t make 200 excess pages acceptable. She need to lose some serious writing weight. The editor on my shoulder even runs through movies. But really, you’d think even an actor would be able to say “You want me to deliver what line now? Really? Really?”

• Pet peeve: Congratulations, you are NOT preggo, preggers, or any variation of the kind. You are, however, pregnant. You have been impregnated. Colonized. Infiltrated. Not preg.
• But speaking of pregnancy, ever since Tina Fey’s pregnancy test informed her with a block lettered NO rather than a boring stripe of her unfertilized urine (Baby Mama, movie), I’ve wanted to crash that EPT market. The ‘ whoopsiedaisy‘ version: (negative) THERE IS A GOD. (Positive) Oopsiedoopsie. Or (positive): picture of a water bottle. (negative) picture of wine.

• In the middle of Scrabble last night I conjured up the smell of a tuna fish sandwich. A delicious smelling tuna fish sandwich. I still want one. But I guess I’ll be placated by German Pancakes, the recipe Christine facebooked me (a la her Italy touring Mother).

• I accidentally almost killed my foster pup, Banjo, twice this week. (1) I was walking outside and shutting the door behind me (but didn’t look) and at the last second remembered the dog was trying to follow me out. I caught the door before it smashed his head into the frame. heh. heh. ahem. (2) On my inside the house I hit the switch to put the garage door down and didn’t realize the dog was standing under the garage door. He was just chillin’. No, no need to move away from the heavy door coming at your head. Good lord. It made me feel better that Christine closed the door quickly so her pup wouldn’t get out and the pup didn’t stop and ran smack into the door instead. It was sad. And funny. Mowgli, my da’s pup, ran – well more like leapt – into the screen door. He was momentarily suspended in mid air, face pressed against the screen and a small caption forming on the scene: “DENIED”. That was even sadder. And more hilarious. “It’s not funny until someone gets hurt. Then it’s hilarious.” Tina Fey: “You get audiences to laugh by dressing a man up like an old woman and pushing him down the stairs. You get comedians to laugh by pushing a real old woman down the stairs.”
• *If I like Gatorade at the moment I’ll drink every gallon in the area. I drank myself literally sick from Apple Juice in one day. (Really, how the nuts what I supposed to know you aren’t supposed to drink the whole jug?)
• **Mother is known as the Oracle of All Things Scripted for her ability to call the plot/end of almost any movie, book, or television show, usually within the first few minutes. It is impossible to watch a Law and Order with her. She knows whodunit the second the theme song hits the revamps notes. Thoug

h, she never saw the Sixth Sense coming. Maybe she is partly human. A fingernail maybe. (She called Gone Baby Gone – which do not see by the way – in seconds.)