Dangerous habits

"I am not addicted. I can quit anytime." I say that to myself every
day now. "I can close the book and go to bed." Or, "I can close the
book and quit eating lunch freakishly slowly."

It all started out years ago. After I ended my two year television
boycott (I really do mean a total refusal to be anywhere that a TV was
turned on), I eased back into programming slowly. I mostly watched BBC
or TLC or A&E. But gradually I found myself attracted to more and more
banal fare, resulting in my love for "America's Next Top Model" and
anything else equally preposterous. This has necessitated two
televisions in the small Wy household, one for sports, one for "Flavor
of Love." We come together for dinner over "American Chopper" and
"Biker Build-off," two programs we agree are equal parts entertaining,
mesmerizing, and mockingly hilarious.

The drift into popular media is now affecting the books I read.

"But Christine, you're the most arrogant culturally elitist reader I
know. Are you reading popular fiction?"

I am. It's true. I'm hooked on romance novels.

I know that this is a terrible surprise for Christine Wy fans, but,
believe me, it was a terrible surprise for me too.

My brilliant sister mailed me two books saying, "I swear, you'll love
these." I put off reading them for two reasons. First, they were very
thick and I'm too lazy to make that kind of time commitment. Second,
they had the distinctly yellowing high-acid paper on which impermanent
low brow writing is conveyed. I love and trust my sister, and I knew
if I read books that she recommended I would enjoy them a lot, but I
was suspicious.

Running out of patience for my lengthy hesitation, she finally called
and asked for the books back. This made me feel guilty, so I kept the
skinnier book and mailed back the thicker. It turned out to be a
mistake. I should have mailed back both. No, not really, but actually
I mailed back book one and kept book two, so I picked up book two with
the story in media res, as it were, and felt a little confused.

The confusion did not last long. I was in love with a book about a
rag-tag family trying to survive in the forests of upstate New York
around 1790. High adventure involving boats and kidnappings and snow
storms and stolen gold ensued. But then, wait, what was this? They're
kissing? And her cheeks are flushing with color? Oh my God! He's
reaching for the curve of her flesh!

I had meandered into a romance novel. And I loved it. And I'm hooked.
I devoured book two, and my sister immediately mailed me book one.
While waiting for books three and four to arrive, I am RE-READING book
one immediately after finishing it.

The collection of love letters from a Portuguese nun written in the
Middle Ages sits on my shelf and calls to me, "Christine, why have you
forsaken historical research and capital L Literature?" I want to read
the illicit love letters of a nun, but who could bear to leave the
cabin in upstate New York just as the school house is burned down and
there's a dramatic rescue that reunites the family? I can't. The
siren song of the beautiful simplicity and clarity of the romance
beckons me back to its pages. And it won't release me.

Therein lies the problem. I can grudgingly turn off the TV when my
hour of "America's Next Top Model" is up, but there's always hundreds
more pages in my romance that pour into one another so that even
chapter ends cannot stop me. I dread showering because I don't want to
put the book down. I won't cook dinner because I'd rather read. I
wake up and gladly take the train to work because it's an extra hour of
reading time, there and back. I get into bed and promise myself lights
out by 11, by 11:30, OK, 12:30 at the latest.

And then the real insult begins. I dream the characters. At night, in
my restless, troubled sleep, the characters take on new challenges and
surmount new insurmountable obstacles, and I wake shuddering, thinking,
"Please get out of my head! I don't want to dream you any more!" I
shake my head, I roll over on the pillow, I pet the cat where he sleeps
for a minute or two, but I slip back under the warm waters of the dream
of New York and Revolutionary veterans and bear fights and deer hunting.

The problem is, this really is a problem.

I can quit at any time. I never have to read another page. I can walk
away and not look back.

I hope.