Day 2

Mood:  Sleepy and low energy to start the day... I MISS COFFEE!
Jeans:  Fat jeans
Belt notch:  4th notch in

Its nearly 2:30 today and work has been creeping along so slowly.  Usually if I don’t have much to do I develop boredom hunger and fixate on food to the point that I can’t think of much else other than eating.  Luckily I haven’t been feeling too hungry--I brought breakfast in to work so I could eat it later in the day and I had a large salad and steak for lunch.  I’m also drinking a ton of water to hold off hunger.  And I’m trying to distract myself by reading a Nora Roberts romance that my flatmate shared with me.  I’m on page 70.  

I’ve been reading a lot of cheesy romance novels lately.  I’m a bit embarrassed to admit it, but I figure I’ve read enough “real” literature to allow myself a bit of guilty pleasure.  Lately I’ve been thinking about why women get drawn to romance novels and I’ve decided that I don’t think its about the men or the sex.  I think its about the heroines.  

A lot of women will tell you that one of their favorite books is Pride and Prejudice.  There’s a lot of discussion of Fitzwilliam Darcy, but I think what really attracts women to the book is that they all fancy themselves to be Elizabeth Bennett.  Its kind of like with Sex and the City, where people will say they’re a Carrie or a Miranda or a Charlotte, except with P&P, everyone always says they’re Eliza.  Elizabeth Bennett is the female Everyman.  She’s intelligent, has a sense of humor, can hold her own in a conversation, and is pretty.  She has some flaws, but they’re not fatal and even may make her more loveable (certainly more realistic).  She’s how we’d like to see ourselves.  And she’s definitely how we’d like to be seen, especially by men.  She’s appreciated for her wit, the intelligence in her “fine eyes,” for her love of her sister.  Its what we want to be loved for.

I think P&P and Elizabeth are the mold for most romance novels, or at least the ones I’ve been reading.  In fact, I’d say the majority of the romances I’ve read either directly mention P&P or quote a famous line from the book at some point.  The heroines in romance novels are all styled on Elizabeth Bennett--their looks range from pretty to gorgeous, they’re intelligent, they have good humor, they love and are loyal to their friends or families.  To be fair, the characters are a bit flat and there’s not much discussion of their flaws, but the flatness allows us to project ourselves into the characters.  The heroines are a mixtures of ourselves and how we’d ideally like to see ourselves.  We identify and, when the heroine meets her hero, we feel like he is seeing and falling in love with the best in us.  We’re living vicariously through the book.  Well, maybe I should be less inclusive in that statement.  My love life bores me to tears, so I’m living vicariously through these characters. 





In other news, I meant to include the link to this article from Slate on people who are obsessed with tracking themselves.  I think I definitely fall into this category, as evidenced by this blog.  Anyways, here’s the link:  http://www.slate.com/id/2276015/.  And here's my food for today:

Food	Carbs (g)	Fat (g)	Calories	Protein
Soft-boiled egg	trace	7.6	103
Sausages	0.9	21.9	281	19.6
M&S salad with french dressing	5.9	11.1	125	2
Beef with peppercorns	0	20.2	250
Parma ham (2 slices)	0	3.4	58
Cheddar	0.03	10.32	123	7.5
Iceberg lettuce salad	0	0	15
Chicken wrapped in parma ham	4.8	20.9	340	34.2
Spinach	0.8	0.4	15	1.5