The deli where I normally stop for a cup of decaf every morning is closed this week–it’s thrown me all out of whack–so I’ve stopped for a mocha two mornings in a row at the artsy fartsy chic neighborhood coffee place and waited in line.

Foofy coffee takes time. Throw in a toasted bagel, or a warmed scone, and it takes more time. So, if you haul your cookies into the artsy fartsy coffee “cafe” at two minutes before eight, be prepared to wait.

The wait is part of the reason why I don’t mind stopping. It’s the tiny transition period between the cocoon of my sheets, the first grin from my daughter in the morning, and the buzzy hum of my office computer.

Some people, however, really seem to mind the wait. A woman in strappy blue shoes and a silk dress (who wears strappy turquoise blue shoes to work and where on earth do you work?) whistled while she stood behind me in line this morning. Just when I thought I would implode if I had to endure another second of operatic whistling, she stopped and started sighing loudly and shifting her weight from one foot to another.

I’m pretty sure she sighed about eight times before my mocha was ready. I refrained from asking her why she came in if she was in such a rush.

I am still pretending to be a grown-up this week. My house is fairly clean, the laundry is almost completely caught up (but not the ironing), and the dogs are brushed within an inch of their lives. I have chicken thawing in the fridge. I’m going to pound the breasts out until they’re thin and stuff them with parm reggiano cheese and spinach, roll them up and wrap them in proscuitto. This dish is a big hit at my house with both my husband and McPantses. I have no idea what we will have with it. The notion of side dishes is pretty much lost on me. I’m always proud to have cooked ONE thing. Adding other things in is just a huge pain in the ass.

We have a full bag of allergy dog food, but are nearly out of the regular Purina One, so we’ll need that and more diapers (Pull Ups? The daycare ladies are dictating what I buy now, which is fine with me–I need to check with them…) before the end of the week.

And for some odd reason, I snagged not one, but two pairs, of black heels for work on Sunday but failed to buy more pantyhose, despite the fact that I was standing about 20 feet from the pantyhose display.

My Sunday shopping spree yielded shoes and a cute summery peacoat for me and two dress shirts for my husband, but I was eternally frustrated trying to buy what I think should be a simple thing. I need a couple of plain white oxford button-downs for myself. This shouldn’t be a difficult thing to find, right? Wrong. People who dress out of that 1980s Preppy Handbook in 2003 are completely out of luck.

Plain white oxfords don’t appear to exist. I need them to wear under summer suits. There aren’t any in the women’s area of department stores. Well, actually, there ARE, but they have cheesey logos on them or are wraparound-style and have spandex in them. I don’t want a shirt to have a crest on it or initials. I want it to be plain. I want 100% cotton, too. So, I tried the men’s department, where the salesman asked if I worked somewhere I’d never heard of.

After I ferreted out of him that he was asking if I was a waitress at a restaurant (uhm, no, not since college, thanks and since when are waitresses the only women who wear plain white button-downs, anway?) because they have to wear plain white oxfords, he measured my neck (13 inches–is that good?) and sent me to look for a size 20 in the boys’ department. The lovely woman in the boys’ department says they’ve been out of white oxfords in size 20 since Easter. It’s JULY, woman! She had no idea when more would be in stock.

Thus, I guess it’s point and click at Brooks Bros or LL Bean.

So, the list: dog food, diapers, pantyhose, and white oxfords. Two of them. Plain.

I realized over the holiday weekend that I have been suckered into something. When I was standing in line at the coffee counter at Barnes and Noble, I realized something that made my face flame hot and it made me squirm with embarassment until the insanely slow new crew working the espresso machine got my mocha together and rang up my purchases.

When I was little, my aunt read Harlequin romances all the time. She read them like my daughter flips through Hop on Pop–Aunt Susan would zip through a romance novel in no time flat.

I have always had a ripe distaste for romance novels. Blech. In law school, my husband’s roommate asked me, when I was halfway through A.S. Byatt’s Babel Tower, if I was reading a Harlequin romance. I was furious. I had to get up and leave the room and I was huffing to myself that I would never read such trivial trash. EVER.

Despite my hatred of romance novels, though, I adore a genre that I’ll call Brit twit lit. Helen Fielding has cursed me, it appears, because at the first mention of Bridget Jones’s Diary in Vogue, I was hooked.

Brit twit lit is light and modern and witty and I can read an entire book in a sitting. There’s generally a happy ending and some mention of Jimmy Choos and seared tuna and Jo Malone ginger-scented-something somewhere in between. But, really, what more is this modern Brit twit lit than a Harlequin for someone my age?

And THAT is the thought that made me squirm while I stood in line at the bookstore with an armful of discount books and a NYT. Holy crapus, I like to read coolie lit. I was tempted to snag something smart to add to my pile, but I didn’t.

I have read a book a day since Thursday. It makes me happy.

I bet Aunt Susan has an entire attic of Harlequins she’d send my way.

I’m going to have to muddle through some Proust as a penance.