my escape

I read completely meaningless tripe as a way to escape into a world I can deal with.  Sad but true. I cannot watch the news, and I pretty much hate all TV shows (except forensics) so my method of relaxation is reading.  I don't know if it's because of my major depression, or if I am just a negative person, but if I watch the news for any length of time at all, I become suicidal.  Seriously.  I begin to think of all the things that are wrong in this world and I feel completely helpless to do anything about them; one thing leads to another and pretty soon I am lying in bed for days at a time, crying incessantly and thinking about the best way to just end it all. I am pretty sure this makes me nothing more than a coward, but there it is.  John can watch the same news and he gets that "let's pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and fix this problem" attitude.  My Mom can do the same thing, as can Kathleen.  I admire these kinds of people because they are the fixers in the world.  They see a problem and try to find a way to make it better; I hide from problems.  Which segues nicely into my topic here, which is my addiction to mindless tripe in the form of historical romance novels.  Yes, I know.  Just typing that sentence dropped my IQ level down about 50 points or more.  But they are a true escape for me; a place where my mind can go that will not cause me to become irrationally angry about things I cannot control.  I think it is the same escape others find in movies (but as we all know, movies are far inferior to the books they are usually based on).  The reason I cannot tolerate most movies is the fact that Hollywood literally makes me nauseous, and giving those people any of my money is something I will not do.  

So why is it that romantic comedies on the big screen are perfectly acceptable and draw huge audiences, but the same thing in the form of a book draws disdain and ridicule?  This must be one of life's great mysteries.  Or maybe I am the only one who sees it this way.  And I am probably the only one who cares what other people think, which is another huge character flaw of mine.  But I'll save that for another time (it's a 10-pager).