Okay, so I have this… ritual, I guess you could call it. Every Sunday, super early, before anyone else is even thinking about coffee, I drive like 45 minutes out to this independent cafe. It’s got that “farm-to-table” vibe, all reclaimed wood and artisanal toast. Very much not my usual scene, but it’s remote enough that I’ll never run into anyone I know from the university, which is the WHOLE point. I’m a literature professor, early thirties, supposedly hitting my stride, you know? The tenure track, the suburban house, the low-key pressure from my parents about, like, “finding someone.” Appearances are… paramount. The thing is, I bring a book. Obviously. Not just any book, though. It’s always some weighty tome, currently a collection of essays on post-structuralist semiotics. Very impressive, very “me.” And inside that… *inside* it, tucked between the pages like a secret, is a copy of *Gossip Glamour*. Yes, that one. The one with the blurry paparazzi shots and the screaming headlines about which celebrity is "REKINDLING" a "SECRET FLAME." I actually bought a second copy of the literary journal just to hollow out a precise cavity for the tabloid. It felt… necessary. Like a surgical procedure. And for two hours, every Sunday, I sit there, sipping my overpriced oat milk latte, pretending to absorb Lacan or Derrida, but actually devouring every single ridiculous detail about some reality TV star’s latest breakup. And it’s not even that I *enjoy* it, not in the traditional sense. It’s more like… a compulsive behavior. A craving. When I’m reading the tabloid, I feel this… almost an emptying out. My brain, which is usually just absolutely swarming with critical theory and research methodologies and what a colleague said about my recent publication, it just… stops. Like, the internal monologue, the constant evaluation, it just goes SILENT. And it’s not peaceful, not exactly. It’s more like… an absence of noise. And then, when I’m done, I fold the tabloid back up, tuck it away, slide the semiotics essays into my messenger bag, and drive home. And the noise starts up again, almost immediately. The mental cataloging of things to do, the analysis of my own productivity, the mild anxiety about whether I’m doing enough, being enough, achieving enough. It’s relentless. I guess I’m just trying to understand… what IS this? This dichotomy. This need to project one thing and secretly consume the complete opposite. Is it some kind of, like, cognitive dissonance? A compensatory mechanism? Is there a diagnostic code for this? Am I the only one who feels this… almost biochemical need for something so utterly, unapologetically TRASHY when my entire professional identity is built on… not that? Anyone else? Please tell me I'm not the ONLY one. It’s just so… confounding.