The Guilty Pleasure List

Sometimes I can’t believe how long I’ll go between posts on my blog.

I’ll think, “Oooh, I should do a post about this!” all the time about something dumb, like how I kind of have Dan addicted to The Bachelor with me, but then I end up falling to bed exhausted after grading another class set of essays and wasting time on YHL. This month has been especially tiring and cold and blah.

When I’m feeling overwhelmed, the first thing to take a backseat is being creative and anything social technology related, like updating Facebook or replying to e-mails. Instead, I kind of fall into a stupor and just randomly start surfing the web. Seriously, if you could see my browser history this month, you would cringe. But sometimes you have to indulge in some frivolous time wasting...

During January, I’ve Googled any guilty pleasure I can think of just to take the edge off, like:

1. Bachelor questions

via hereI’ve only watched The Bachelor once when I was in college, and had no interest in it until this slow January when I heard Dan guffawing at the premiere episode after accidentally flipping to it. We watched it ironically, only to make fun of how seriously the girls vying for the attention of Bachelor Ben are about the whole thing.

**We also did a faux drinking game where we knocked back invisible shots of vodka every time a person says “amazing connection”. If we had been really drinking, we would have both needed our stomachs pumped. **

While we still watch the show just to laugh our ass off when another girl sighs smitten after five minutes alone with the bachelor, we started asking questions about the show. “You think girls get paid for being on the show?” “Do the girls get to tour these cities, or are they told to stay in the hotel if they are not on a date?” “How many weeks do these girls take off for the freakin’ show??” Yep, I Googled every one of those questions (answers are: “no”, “no”, and six-eight weeks, in case you were interested). Don’t judge.

Okay, go ahead and judge. You know that sarcastic viewing of this show is bordering dangerously close to actual interest when the viewers are debating who should get the rose: Emily or the one that wears more make-up than a kid from Toddlers & Tiaras.

(Answer: Emily. Duh.)

2. Cupcake Wars

I know... I know... How original: a girl who likes cupcakes. But this is my guilty pleasure list for an otherwise slow month, so I have to include them. There are two amazing cupcake shops in Richmond, and one is around the corner from the school where I teach. I indulge in one every Friday, especially the tiramisu ones. Creamy marscarpone frosting, chocolate flakes, expresso soaked cake with a fluffy center= best. dessert. ever.

Anyhoo, I went on their website and saw that they recently appeared on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars and made their tiramisu cupcake. Thus, a full Google search for the exact episode ensued, followed by an hour of watching the bakers talk smack about whose icing and cupcake display are better. It is an hour of my life I'm not getting back.

3. Useless trivia

My friend Mali turned 31 on a Wednesday, and just to mix things up, we went to trivia night at Penny Lane, a Beatles-themed bar owned by a couple from Liverpool. Dan is pretty amazing at trivia; he even made it to the second round of a Jeopardy try-out a couple years ago. But even he couldn’t save our team from being in eighth place. I guess the regulars at the bar are hard core about their trivia.

Anyway, I have been Googling non-stop useless trivia topics from that night ever since. It’s become a sickness. Can you say which celebrity had her ass x-rayed to prove it is real? Or what movie President Obama used to parody his life in his Correspondents’ Dinner speech? I’m ashamed to say that I can.

We’re already planning on making the occasional Wednesday trivia night, just as a
Also, I’ve been listening to “Eleanor Rigby” on repeat, which I heard for the first time while I was there. It’s the perfect rainy day song for this rather dreary month.

4. Books that don't make me think, like...

I just needed easy reading this month. How can you not breeze through a book like this one by Kelly from The Office, which had a deliciously quirky chapter: Alternate Titles for This Book, including:
The Girl with No Tattoo
Harry Potter Secret Book #8
There has Ceased to Be a Difference Between My Awake Clothes and My Asleep Clothes

Still reading? It's been twenty days between blog entries and all you got was this lousy post about cupcakes and the Bachelor.

Hope we still have an "amazing connection".