Twihard. With a Vengance.

I never, in a million years, thought I would ever read the Twilight books. I'm a voracious reader, don't get me wrong, but I'm kind of snobby about it. Actually, I'm really snobby about it. When I first started dating my now husband and I saw how many Mary Higgings Clark and James Patterson books he owned, I was aghast. Shocked! Revolted! Well, maybe not revolted, but I made it a secret mission to expose him to as many of my favorite books as possible. Gee, honey, I have no idea where that awesome Dan Brown paperback went! Here, why don't you read this lovely little Donna Tartt book instead?

It was devious, not to mention pretentious on my part, and I eventually realized the error of my ways. The man likes what he likes, and if what he likes is to curl up on the couch for a rainy weekend with a best seller from five years ago that he picked up at a rummage sale, who am I to stop him? Still, I would never succumb to the thrill of a quick, mindless read. I have Joseph Conrad and Milan Kundera running through my veins! I am a literary woman! I am - what? Twilight? Yeah, about that.

My almost thirteen year old niece started our family down that path of obsession that eventually sucked both her mother and another aunt in. Grandma is in the process of reading the books but isn't quite as gung-ho as the others.

When the movie came out, I started to see why so many women were crazy over Twilight. Edward Cullen is one sexy vampire. There's just something about Robert Pattinson's sleepy looking eyes and brooding good looks that I find attractive, despite those jack-o-lantern eyebrows of his. Seriously, can he do something about them?

British hunk or no British hunk, I was firm in my resolve not to fall into Twilighysteria. True, I had felt the same way about Harry Potter until, after I couldn't contain my curiosity anymore and asked for all seven books for Christmas, I devoured them all in a month and declared my love for them. But Harry Potter was a horse of a different color, right? I mean, it was a quick read, entertaining. It had legions of obsessed fans, so that should tell you something right there. It was a fantasy novel, but sort of Fantasy Lite. More universal than Tolkien or Piers Anthony, and it had elements that people of all ages enjoy.

Which started to sound pretty much exactly like Twilight. Soon enough, I found myself at my in-laws in the company of my aforementioned niece, who graciously offered to lend me the first two well-read installments of the four part series. I accepted, but still resisted as long as I could. In fact, we went on vacation to the mountains last week, and I didn't even bring them. Instead I finished the second half of Richard Russo's Empire Falls (great), struggled through Bernhard Schlink's snorefest The Reader, and read the entertaining (if not extremely predictable and frustrating) Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe.

Come Saturday, we were home and I had nothing on my plate to read. Jeremy fell asleep on the couch during the Phillies game, and my mind turned to the books my niece had given me, snug in a shoebox in the spare bedroom. I figured I'd give it a chapter, and if it was more drivel that I could stand, I'd stop reading.

48 hours later, 9 of which I spent at work, I had torn through the first book and was almost half way through the second. Without even knowing it, I'd become sucked into the world of teenage vampire angst. The horror.

Now, I've read various articles about Twilight. I know that some feminist scholars say it's misogynistic and anti-feminist and I know that others think it's nothing more than a veil for Mormon or Christian propaganda. The books definitely have some religious undertones- sacrifice, redemption, and betrayal, but none of these seem to strike a chord as much as the book's rather obvious moral message: abstinence.

Edward the Vampire and Bella the mere mortal don't do the deed- at least not for a couple books(they do in later novels, once they're married, from what I understand.) The author, Stephenie Meyer, wrote the tale in such a way that the passion between Edward and Bella is sometimes palpable, but although he secretly spends the night holding her while she sleeps, they never do anything more than kiss, and even then just barely. The idea is that the brute force of Edward's vampiric love making could hurt, or even kill Bella. Is that an allegory for the soul-blackening consequences of pre-marital, teenage sex from a Mormon/Christian conservative standpoint? Maybe. But let's not forget that the target audience of Twilight are teenaged girls. Is abstinence really the worst subliminal message we can be pumping into that age group?

Don't get me wrong, I cringed every time the book went out of its way to mention Bella changing into her pajamas safely in her bathroom and out of Edward's gaze (we get it already! No humping!) and every time a paragraph explicitly drew out the electricity between E & B as they brushed cheeks or traced the outlines of each others mouths with the tips of their fingers, I secretly thought to myself GET IT ON ALREADY! But that's just me. **Edit: Just me and the hundreds of other people who've loaded the internet with dirty Twilight FanFiction, apparently.**

Is Twilight anti-feminist? I don't think so. I think there are a lot of strong female characters in the book, and even though you could argue that Bella fulfills the "typical" female role (cooks for and takes care of her father, remains utterly helpless in nearly every situation and needs constant rescuing, pines over a guy who toyed with her, admitted he was dangerous to her, and then abandoned her, etc.) she also refuses to go with the crowd of her peers and settle for nice, predictable guys like Mike Newton. She doesn't care about prom, isn't into gossip, and drives a beat ass old truck, not to mention her little stint with the motorcycle.

I love cooking, I'm anal retentive about cleaning and decorating my house, pined like crazy over my first teenage love, and *gasp* I even find a certain amount of machismo to be sexy. I can assure you that I'm not anti-feminist either. I have a lot of faith in the upcoming generation of women readers. I don't know of anyone who converted to Mormonism or wasted away their youth trying to find an unobtainable, perfect love after reading the Twilight series. I think the notion that teenage girls, en masse, would get so swept away by a book that they'd allow themselves to be in a controlling or hurtful relationship is the sort of anti-feminist notion that detractors claim to rally against. Let's give these ladies some credit, shall we?

I guess it goes without saying that I'm enjoying reading the books. I put the movie at the top of my Netflix queue (jack-o-lantern eyebrows be damned, I'm ready for an hour and a half of Robert Pattinson's face, if nothing else), and I'll happily admit that I was wrong about the way I was looking at literature. Stephenie Meyer is no wordsmith, but what she lacks in writing style she makes up for in entertainment value. Sometimes that's all we really need out of a book in the first place.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go read the shit out of New Moon. I mean, uhm, something really cerebral from a back issue of McSweeny's. Yeah, that. Cough.

inside, out of love, what a laugh, I was looking for you

When you live in a state like Delaware, you learn to accept that you just won't be able to enjoy some of the same luxuries that people in other states do. For example, you'll never be able to go see a professional sporting event without crossing state lines. When you travel outside the country (and even to some parts in the country), you'll never be able to say you're from Delaware without then having to explain that it's north of Washington D.C. and south of New York City. And, sadly, 99.9% of the time, you'll never be able to see a band that you really like without taking a ride into Philadelphia.

Most of that doesn't bother me. We have a minor league baseball team (the Wilmington Blue Rocks) that my husband and I are really fond of. We get to watch the Phillies from home and then catch weekend Rocks games with free parking, cheap beer, and fun theme nights - this year they even had a Big Lebowski night. As far as explaining where our state is, I couldn't tell you the geographical difference between the Alberta and Saskatchewan territories, so I guess we're even. But - not being able to see music locally? That hurts.

That's why I was thrilled to find out that Wilco would be coming to Wilmington for the second year in a row, and this time playing a show at Frawley Stadium, home of our beloved Blue Rocks. A band I love, in a ballpark, on a summer evening? Heaven.

I had high expectations, and Wilco didn't disappoint. They played every song I was hoping to hear, and with twenty-three songs played over a set and two encores I went home happy and hoping they make it back next year. Although it was a little disconcerting to see my office building lit up in the background (who wants to think about work at a time like that?) being a local proved fortuitous when it came time to leave and I zipped out through a shortcut and made my way down the interstate.

Having this show in Wilmington was such a big deal that the mayor taped a welcome message that was shown prior to the band's performance. We often get bypassed due to the fact that we're so close to bigger cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, DC, and even New York, but this is a city that is going through a serious revitilization. There is an effort to Light Up The Queen , the birth of The Riverfont is in full swing, and we're actually getting a Fringe Festival in the city, starting this fall.

But, enough about Delaware. More about Wilco. I wish I had brought my camera, but as luck would have it I was rushing out of the house and only had my cell phone. Here's a picture of the stage from where we were sitting, behind what would have been home plate. I'm sorry that it's granier than a rice field. Why can't I have an iPhone like the rest of you?

The Secret Life of Inefficient Food Shoppers

I've come to the conclusion that I'm an incredibly inefficient food shopper. Give me a specific menu for a specific day, and I'm fine. Give me a shopping cart on a Monday afternoon and ask me to buy food for the week ahead, and I'll end up with $100worth of snacks, an assortment of fresh veggies and fruit that will inevitably spoil before I get a chance to eat them, and not enough groceries to create meals with any actual substance. Never before has this been any more clear to me than this morning.

I recently decided to challenge myself to bring food into work for breakfast and lunch every day for the rest of the year. With a few exceptions (things that keep me sane like birthday lunches with my office girlfriends or my monthly sushi excursion with Jay) I am vowing not to spend any of my hard earned money in the cafeteria in my building, the sub shop down the street, or the little coffee shop next door that makes incredible breakfast paninis. I'm estimating that I'll probably save well over $1000 from now until the end of the year, which should give you an idea of how much I've been throwing away on lattes and overpriced salads.

Although my intent is good, I really need to craft my shopping skills if this thing is going to work, and I've got to start planning ahead a bit. Case in point: menu. With two minutes left before I had to rush out the door to catch my bus, I had nothing in my bag to eat for the day ahead. Panicking, I started opening cabinets and rooting through the fridge for some grub, and I ended up with this menagerie of carbohydrates:



Yes, a bag of Pepperidge Farm cookies, a Kashi bar, chocolate fudge Pop Tarts. God help me when I have children, because they may be 300 pounds and diabetic by third grade if the responsbility of packing their lunches lies solely on me.


However, hope was not lost. In my rush, I'd also managed to grab the following items: a bag of shredded cheese, a few hamburger rolls, and a carton of egg whites. Honestly, I think they were the first portable items I saw upon opening the fridge, which was fruituitous, as they became my breakfast. I call this creation the Ghetto Egg and Cheese:




Mmmm. Microwaved egg whites with shredded cheese served upon a hamburger bun that the office toaster burnt to a crisp, served on a paper towel. I never thought my palate would experience such lows.

I was saved from a Nantucket cookie lunch binge followed by a Pop Tart chaser when I found a frozen Healthy Choice meal I'd stashed in the freezer a couple of months ago. I was actually excited to find out that I was only seven minutes away from reconstituted broccoli (that I smothered with leftover cheese to make it somewhat edible), a chicken patty served over limp noodles and smothered with artifically sweetened tomato sauce, and some unidentifiable apple concoction for dessert. I am going to have heartburn for the next three weeks or so, but it was better than the alternative.


Yeah. It tasted only slightly better than it looks.

I have a half day of work tomorrow since I'm scooting out early to get myself ready for the Wilco concert at Frawley Stadium (whoo!), so lunch won't be an issue. I have some cereal for breakfast - although I don't have any milk. Naturally. Looks like I'll be starting my day off with another Ghetto Egg and Cheese!

Next week I'm going to the market with a plan of attack. This madness must end.

Come and knock on our door (but not until next week)

Our house's back door, the one leading from the backyard into the kitchen, probably should have been replaced twenty years ago. In our defense, we've only been renovating for the past 18 months or so, so we haven't be putting it off for that long. Considering the amount of things on our to-do list that absolutely had to be done in order to make this shanty inhabitable (like reparing big holes that exposed the kitchen to the outside world, getting rid of dead and dangerous wiring, replacing the broken toilet, swapping out the oven that had been used as a home for a rat) it was pretty low on our priority list.

Now that the kitchen is nearing completion and we're ready to bring in the troops to refinish the cabinets and hopefully put in counters and a backsplash, it's become clear that the time has come to replace the door that I've affectionately started calling Big Fugly. Here she is, in all her fugly glory.



Doesn't it look like something that belongs in a mental hospital? I feel like it should have some sort of metal opening for a food tray to be pushed through. It's impossible to close without slamming it, and impossible to open without using two hands and a considerable amount of force, making it difficult to bring food out to the deck when we're eating outside. Trust me, if you could get close enough to notice how it sits unevenly in the frame and is so warped that it hovers a good half inch over the bottom door seal - well, you'd probably want to turn it into firewood too.

The problem is finding a door that I like enough to have installed. I want something with lots of windows, but a french door seems impractical because it would leave the house too exposed. I'm not one of those people who covers every window with black out curtains (on the contrary, I crave natural light) but we have neighbors and I need to maintain at least some small semblance of privacy.

On the other hand, I don't want a Grandma Door - no wood grain, no oval frosted windows, no fancy cutouts. It's not our style and won't mesh with our little ranchalow. I've been driving myself nuts trying to find the happy medium between those two extremes, and I think I'll be making another trip to Lowes tomorrow night to bug the salesman and browse through catalogs.

Oh, who am I kidding. I love this stuff, and the thought that another project is getting crossed off the list is making me giddy. I'm so easily pleased.

Holy crap, what happened to June?

I'm pretty sure that a couple of weeks ago I was still scraping ice from my car windshield in the morning, and all of the sudden we're days away from the 4th of July? When I was a kid it seemed like summer was hundreds of days long, and now that I'm an adult I blink and it's almost halfway done.

It could have something to do with how insanely busy I've been - which, incidentally is why I haven't updated here as well. Apologies to all four of my readers. In fact, in between work, ghost tour season getting into full swing, working on an exciting new writing project with Jeremy (more on that to come!),watching my beloved Phillies chip away at their dignity one game at a time, and stuffing my face full of beer and yummy grilled viddles every weekend, I completely forgot to post a little tribute to my Dad on Father's Day. So, even though it happened quite some time ago, here's one of my favorite picture of my Pops and I, even though he'd probably killing me for posting a picture of what we affectionately refer to as his "flesh colored yarmulke." We both bawled our eyes out all through our dance together on my wedding night.



And, for good measure, here is a vintage shot of my awesome Pa, who passed away in 2006 at the ripe age of 83. Although I miss him like crazy each and every single day, I have more than enough happy memories of him to last another 83 years.



Okay, now that I'm sufficiently filled with teary wedding day and childhood nostalgia, I'll wrap this up and return to normal blogging tomorrow. Happy belated Father's Day to all you daddies (and future daddies) out there.