Breakfast in Bed: Teen Soaps

It's a cold and rainy Saturday here in Brooklyn. The view from my second-story window looks like a ruined watercolor, blurry from the downpour and gray all over. I'll have to brave it eventually, but for the moment, I'm staying warm and dry on my living-room futon. Bella, my roommate's too-cute-for-words golden Lab retriever, is curled up on the floor by my feet. I've got coffee, blankets, and Breakfast in Bed. Life is good.

Breakfast in Bed is one of my favorite ways to whittle away lazy weekend mornings. And sometimes—depending on the weather, my mood, and how hermit-like I'm feeling—lazy weekend afternoons, too. It's 11 hours and four courses of delicious self-indulgence. And none of it has any fat, sugar, or calories.

Wait, what? Where does one find this alleged phenomenon?

Believe it or not, dear readers: SoapNet.

It should be clear by now that I'm not talking about breakfast of the eggs, bacon, or pancakes variety. Which is not to say I don't love that kind of breakfast, too. I just haven't figured out a way to eat it for 11 hours straight without gaining 20 pounds or slipping into an irreversible food coma. (If any of you can solve that problem for me, I'd be eternally grateful.) No, the kind of "breakfast" I'm gorging on is SoapNet's oh-so-brilliant weekly marathon of soapy teen dramas: three hours of The OC, two hours of One Tree Hill, FOUR hours of Beverly Hills, 90210 (I *heart* Dylan McKay), and two hours of Gilmore Girls.

I know what you're thinking. And, no, I don't watch all 11 hours, and, yes, I do have a life. Breakfast in Bed is just what I put on while mentally preparing to paint the town all sorts of red. Right now, for example, I'm enjoying an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210 in which (spoiler alert) David inherits a ton of money from his grandfather and goes on a crazy spending binge in Vegas that ends with him passed out in a hotel room after being robbed by two girls he met on the Strip. (I've seen it before.) And, in a little while, I'll be lapping up lots of lively dialogue and mother-daughter hijinks on Gilmore Girls. But later I'm heading out in the storm to meet my friend Jessie for dinner and drinks at Char No. 4. My real, flesh-and-blood friend Jessie. See? I don't hang out with just fictional people. I'm totally normal.