guilty pleasures

sunday evening julie and i went to see the queen, which i l*o*v*e*d. i will admit to a certain fascination with the british royal family -- when i was 7 or 8, i made my mom get me up at 4:00 a.m. so i could watch princess anne's wedding. and of course you can bet that as a teen-ager i was all over princess diana. i remember where i was when she got engaged (visiting friends in maine), and i remember vividly where i was when i heard she had died. it was sunday morning of the church retreat, and we were in the dining room waiting for breakfast. one of old first's many lively characters, ed, had joined us that year. as i sat down at one of the long picnic table benches with baby trixie, ed told us that princess diana had died, and he declared, "the pavarotti got her! the pavarotti got her!" i was a little skeptical about the whole thing -- ed didn't strike me as the most reliable source, and the fact that he was claiming some sort of involvement in diana's death on the part of luciano pavarotti seemed to me a little bit far-fetched. it took me several minutes to realize that he meant the "paparazzi got her!" not "the pavarotti!"

other guilty pleasures: a long-standing fascination with brooke shields (i did read her book on post-partum depression, although i didn't buy it; it only took about an hour to read the whole thing while sitting on the floor of barnes and nobles, sipping coffee. the fact that it wasn't very good in no way diminished my fascination); a growing fascination with angelina jolie; kraft macaroni and cheese; cheetos; pizza king pizza (one mushroom and "pepperoni" and one "vegetable" every time i visit my dad -- only my indiana readers will appreciate this guilty pleasure!); cop shows (although i'm a bit of a cop show snob -- i could mostly skip law and order, but the wire and the sheild i'm totally addicted to); abba.

how 'bout you? what are your guilty pleasures?