My Twilight Is Showing

Those damn big black books. How did she do it? The author must have put subliminal crazy-making messages between her lines.

Four books about teen vampires sucked in generations of women (pun intended) and no one can explain it.

I'd heard all the drama about girls my age finishing "all four Twilight books faster than they've ever finished a book." I didn't give it another thought at the time. That much girl drama around something usually makes me turn the other way. But over Christmas at my mom's a couple months ago, I had nothing else to do... or read.

Christmas night I curiously picked up the first of the series, Twilight, after everyone had gone to bed. I finished the fourth and final book 7 days later. Each book is about 500 pages.

I couldn't have timed this quick but intense obsession better. I had the week after Christmas off, had my apartment to myself, nothing to do except drink tea and cuddle under blankets, and four all-consuming, totally addicting teenage vampire books to consume my every waking thought.

Someone once asked me, "So are you like, totally in love with Edward?" (The teenage heart throb, lovable but blood sucking vampire, for those of you who don't know). Laughing and shaking my head at what I was about to say (and mean!), I replied, "Oh of course, it's like you don't even have a choice. You just WILL be."

My friend Brittany came to visit during my week of obsession. The good thing was, she went through it too. I knew she'd seen the movie already so I wasn't going to suggest we go see it. Even though I really wanted to.

So I was suuuuuuper excited when she suggest we go see it.

The movie was not good, says the movie critic in me. The acting was poor and the fight scenes were so PG-13... you know, like it's rating.

But the teenage vampire in me would go see that movie again, no question.

Waiting for our table at dinner after the movie, Brittany and I saw an employee with a long blonde pony tail and both said - out loud - "Ohmigod, James!" James was the evil vampire - the bad guy. And of course, this evil vampire ended up being our server. If I remember correctly, I laughed my way through ordering an Iced Tea. The poor guy.

I've had quite a few conversations about this with other Vampire lovers (my age!). Friends outside the Twilight circle listen to our stories of ridiculous obsession... and we listen to ourselves... and everyone ends up laughing so hard their stomachs hurt. And no one can explain it.

I read once that Twilight was written for teen girls but has also attracted their moms... yeah and girls in their late 20s with nothing to do but lay on the couch and fantasize about the bad boy finally becoming the hero... just for us.

And well, maybe that explains it.