Too Girly to Be Girls?

When i first met my girlfriend, five years ago, I thought I had to front like I hated TV.

"I don't even have one in the house," she'd declared on one of our first dates. Of course, we were both ultimately most taken with matters of the printed word (she's an author too), so after hearing this, and seeking to impress, I offered that while I indeed owned a TV, it was really tiny and antiquated, reserved exclusively for late-night MASH reruns ( MASH being one of the most brilliant, incisive television series of all time, and my personal, un-ironic fave).

But when you fall, you fall hard: Flash forward a couple of years, and we're shacked up at my place, I'm hunched over my desk trying to work, and she's curled into the couch beside the dog, with the second season of Project Runway on our new 20-inch flat-screen. I'm desperately trying to tune out incessant fashion blather, and seriously wondering how I found myself with somebody who actually thinks designing clothing out of food is a worthy and interesting endeavor.

Flash forward another year or so, and we're both plopped on the couch with the dog, me raving on and on about how much talent and skill go into "boning" an evening gown, and the two of us refusing to pick up the phone -- in fact, wishing painful and morally questionable violence on anybody stupid enough to call -- during our shows: Gastineau Girls , House of Carters , My Fair Brady , The Two Coreys , Growing Up Gotti , and Newlyweds: Nick & Jessica .

And these days, The Real Housewives series rule the household. There are few things I'd rather be doing than watching the Orange County edition (though New York will do in a pinch). I write novels, and that is certainly a considerably staid and solitary endeavor -- arguably even "anti-reality" -- but there are also long stretches when I travel with my books, most recently for about 12 months on and off, back and forth across the country and internationally.