In Which I Have A Stressful Day And Share A Guilty Pleasure

So I spent about eight billion years on the phone today trying to coordinate some more of Connor's various appointments and not having a whole lot of success.  This is one of the things about parenting a child with special needs that you don't read a whole lot about-- the boring, frustrating hours spent on the phone with the insurance company, hospital referral customer service, appointment lines, doctors' receptionists, etc. trying to make sure your child gets the care that allows them to continue to do some slightly important things, like living.  I coordinate Connor's care with ten different specialists spread out over four different hospitals, and believe me when I say that it's a full time job.  For the most part I've got navigating the system down to a science, so I get really frustrated when I have trouble scheduling something that I know shouldn't be that difficult.  Today was one of those days, and after eating my weight in chocolate I was still feeling ticked.  So I had to break out one of my shameful, secret indulgences.  I can't believe I'm actually telling you people this.  Ready?

Sometimes I read romance novels.

I know!  Can you believe it?  I can't bear to put them on the shelves with my beloved Anna Karenina and Les Miserables, so they're stashed in a corner where I hope no one will ever notice them.  This is because I don't just read romance novels.  I read bad romance novels.

Yes, I eagerly scour the "F" reviews of websites like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for reading material.  And then I savor every minute of horrible, purple prose.  It's simply impossible to be grumpy when you're not only eating your weight in chocolate, but you're doing it while reading a book entitled Pregnesia.  And yes, that book is every bit as horribly awesome as it sounds.

My friend Julia and I have gotten into a bit of a competition over the last few months to see who can find the worse romance novel ever.  She informed me today that she's sending me a new one, and I can't wait until it gets here.  And when it comes, I'll shut myself in the house and spend a couple of hours laughing so hard that snot comes out my nose. 

I hide when I read these books.  This isn't only because it's kind of bad etiquette to have snot coming out of your nose in public, it's also because of this one time I was sitting in a coffee shop reading The Playboy Sheik's Virgin Stable Girl and I kept breaking out in uncontrollable fits of giggles, and then the woman at the table next to me leaned over and asked me what was so funny.  So I told her that the book I was reading was so hilariously bad that I couldn't help myself, and she peered over my shoulder at the title, gave me a deeply wounded look and informed me that she was a Huge Romance Fan and this was one of her Most Favorite Books and it was a Passionate Love Story and certainly not a laughing matter.  Whoops.  I felt kind of like I'd kicked somebody's puppy or something.

So now I hide and giggle uncontrollably over my books in the house where no one can see me. 

~Jess