Owning My 'Massive Defect' Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The Bomb That Is Twilight

It's 5 a.m., give or take, on a Thursday. I'm in Jefferson City for work and can no longer sleep due to icky tummy. I refuse to watch t.v. as I haven't done so in a month and I'm obviously not going back to sleep any time soon (thanks for that either Chevy's with your crappy dinner or the makers of my script which failed to acknowledge that a person could suffer ALL the side-effects listed consecutively). Anyway, in order to pass some time I decided to add to the list of blog topics I have been compiling on my phone. Yes, I have a list, no I don't always have time to follow through. Anyway...

I decided that I should write about what my wonderful geekmate refers to as my 'Massive Defect' in taste: I like the Twilight novels. Obviously the fact that he falls within the realm of my taste buds should be enough to negate my 'Massive Defect' to nothing more than a quirk in my wiring, if not, here I am to plead my case.

Case in point: I do not classify myself as a 'Twihard'. While my office mate and I may have a couple of inserts from the soundtracks hanging up in our office, I do not, nor will I ever dedicate wall space to it in my home. I have Clerks and Mallrats posters that need to go up!! As for those soundtracks, have you listened to them? They have some really great music on them and introduced me to some good bands. Take Iron & Wine. I really liked the song they used in the movie and how if you really listened to it, you'd realize the lyrics didn't really fit the scene it was used in (sweet prom dance scene, but lyrics talk about rats pissing on magazines). I also caught them on Austin City Limits and they were fab!
As for other Twilight merch, I have a bookmark and a movie tie-in book. Both gifts. I have only spent money on the novels themselves.

Which brings me to the books and they story. These books were written for TEENAGE GIRLS. I didn't go in expecting literature. I went into expecting it to be a quick, entertaining read on the flight home from Phoenix to KC. I found the books while at the mall in Phoenix. I was making my usual stop at the Sanrio store (HELLO KITTY!), and hit up the Borders and Virgin Records. Both stores had displays for the 3rd book release of local author Stephenie Meyer. I grabbed up the first one, read the jacket and thought it'd be good for the flight home.
If nothing else, you have got to give her credit for bringing vampires out of the dark and into a bright, new, sparkly day! How refreshing for someone to take on the age-old idea of vampires and put it on its fang! She twisted a mythology that is ingrained in all of our psyches and made it something new and different. Took away all the safety nets. No longer were we protected from these virile killers by a sun's death sentence. No longer was a stake enough to keep them at bay. They had to have a conscience to not kill indiscriminately. If you take out the trivial teenage romance, what you now have is the possible horrifying destruction of man by a virtually unstoppable super being. The only, flimsy, reason vampires aren't going out during the day is so they don't show off their sparkly side - why do they care if you see them? You're about to be breakfast, I doubt you'll be able to Twitter the truth before they strike.
As if all this wasn't enough, these new, stronger, better vampires don't even need a regenerative sleep-state. They are worse than the Energizer fucking bunny! They can keep going and going and going... No more vulnerable downtime for which a bumbling drunk doctor and his lynch mob can sneak into a less than secure crypt to stake the offender through his non-beating heart! Not that it would do any good apparently, as this new breed should be ripped apart and burned in order to be sure it's decimated.

So. While Ms. Meyer has chosen the YA route for these books, instead of the grossly more appropriate Horror or Sci-Fi realms, you cannot deny she has come up with a fascinating new world for vampires. Yes, they books are somewhat pedantic and Bella as a protagonist just makes me cringe with embarrassment for all teenager girls as a whole, the premise of the story is entertaining and brings an entirely new light on the world of vampires.

BTW, my tween son can't WAIT to see Eclipse. He loves the werewolves...