my guilty pleasures

-Little Mermaid. Whenever I had a bad day in college, my go-to remedy was to just pop my old school Little Mermaid tape into my old school VCR, nestle into my top bunk and prepare to recite the lines, belt out the songs (off-key, of course) and swoon over that dreamy Prince Eric. Hubba hubba.

-Caffeine. I love it, I need it, I crave it. End of story.

-Chips and fries. Whether crunchy and rippled or golden, crispy and soft, if it's a potato product (deep-fried in a vat of grease, naturally) that I can eat by the handful, then it figures into this list. Actually, if they're mashed I can make a potato volcano and hell- who doesn't like to reenact the destruction of Pompeii with butter lava and a doomed and unsuspecting pile of peas. Mwa ha ha.

-Jeans. Now, this in no way means that I own half a million pairs of jeans. In fact, I own two. However, since I rotate between the same two trusty pairs, I've come to the conclusion over the past year or two that spending a li'l extra for a good brand and a pair that you really like is worth not eating for a week.

-Porn. I don't know how I'd ever get through a whole day without some hard-core, whip-wielding... jusssssst kidding Dad.

-Facebook and MySpace. I like to stalk, and I'm not embarrassed about it. By the way, if you have your MySpace set to private, you're on my shit list. (Insert angry growl)

-Celebrity gossip blogs. Good god, I'm hooked. During college, I scoffed and rolled my eyes at Deana's subscription to Us Weekly and her non-stop chatter about the lives of LA's finest. Today, I could easily get you all up to date on who's dating (Whitney Houston and Brandy's little brother!), who's pregnant (Bridget Moynihan, ex-girlfriend of Patriots hottie Tom Brady, is 3 months preggers with an itty-bitty-Brady... I guess from one last pre-breakup romp in the hay) and who is in rehab (well, the now bald trainwreck otherwise known as Britney Spears was in rehab for less than a day). Don't even get me started with the Anna Nicole debacle.

***update: Brit-Brit is BACK in rehab
***update #2: Brit-Brit checked OUT of rehab again

-Bookstores. Ok, so reading is good for you so I guess there's technically no reason to classify visiting bookstores as a guilty pleasure. Even so, get me into a Barnes & Noble or a Borders and I can easily occupy myself for hours reading book covers... and subsequently doing some pretty serious damage to my bank account. Over Christmas break, I spent well over $100 in books and earned some major points on my Borders rewards card.

-Tom Jones. Cheesy, yes. In love with his own chest hair, definitely. However, nothing puts a smile on my face quite like a little "What's New Pussycat (whoa whoa whoaaaa)" or "Sex Bomb." Plus, without Tom Jones there would be no Carlton dance, and that would be a true television tragedy.

-Chocolate. I'm a girl... it's an inherent part of having two X chromosomes.

-Days of Our Lives. I hate the concept of a soap opera and I hate the idea of obese middle-aged women sitting home in their floral-printed muumuus and completely losing touch with reality by getting way too involved in the lives of fictional characters. Yet whenever I'm home I inevitably gravitate to the tv at that 1:00 mark to find out who on Days of Our Lives has been killed / been kidnapped / had a baby / come back to life / had a scandalous affair / lost their memory / found out that their lover is actually their sister and therefore that their son is actually their own half brother... and so forth and so on.

-Breakfast Club, Dirty Dancing, & Co. The kick-ass music brings you back to your childhood; the characters and storylines make you feel warm and happy inside; and the hair and clothing trends of the 80's make you feel stylish.