Things I like though I shouldn't

1. People with extreme views. I like their passion.

2. 24 hour supermarkets, especially of the Tesco variety. I know they're promoting slave labour, swamping the market to give us less choice and ultimately doing away with friendly neighbourhood shops and they'll put prices up sky high when they're the only ones in the market... but I like the big white space, the overlighting, the big expanse of space that comes from going into one, the way I can stick my headphones on and browse endlessly whilst bopping along, the way I can get lost in food and watch what other people are buying. Some of my favourite times happen in Tescos; times with partners, times buying fat food with my brother, christmas food shopping and that one christmas where my Mum pointed out how thin I was to anyone in earshot. I liked those times. Positive associations I suppose. It's a great bonding experience to buy food with someone. I saw a documentary on anorexics where one liked to go to the supermarket and control food. I wonder if that's part of it; food obsession, fixation with its supply, oh.

3. Funerals. Noone has to pretend to be happy. Everyone looks better in black. They're classy. Often followed by getting a little bit tipsy and bonding in a way that doesn't happen at big family parties with blaring music. Family secrets always worm through in the wake, morbid fixations; it's as if sharing that person's death solidifies that family circle.

4. Weddings. I don't want one, and I don't think they are worthwhile or needed. Most couples, I think, would be happier without one. They're still skewed to patriarchy. The amount of money hurled at them is disgusting. But still... I like watching the dresses. I have a fervent desire to be a bridesmaid that's been held for eighteen years now. I like the food, the celebrations, the first dance of a couple that are so happy, that look melted into each other's arms, so much so that the entire room feeds off the current that's running through them, like an electrical circuit, and the chance to dress up.

5. Dolly Parton. She's had so much plastic surgery and she's just not natural; but you can't dislike her. I think she's a brilliantly talented musician, and very clever, not in the way that people say Jordan's clever, but actually bright and witty and observing. She seems like she'd be kind to anyone. She wrote a song for Transamerica, a brilliant film. She's still going strong.

6. Films like Hairspray and Mean Girls. They're films I watch ad nauseam. They're chick flick-y, but I don't think they're complete drivel because they have a point and they're about more than just getting the man. Though it irritates me that Hairspray centres around race issues but has a white character as its protagonist, despite that character being a fat girl, which is some bonus. I just like them. They're entertaining.