In which I discuss pop culture phenomena

Hey there. Remember me? I'm that jerk Neenuh who hasn't posted in nearly all of November. I don't know what to say. Actually I do. I just ate a large bowl of edamame. I am stuffed. Also, I have been Twittering a lot, which is so much better when I just have a nubbin of a blog idea, not enough flesh on it to merit an entire blog post. So, really, you should thank me for my hiatus because I've spared you from having to read 600 words of me expounding on such topics as, "my shower didn't have hot water for two days," "I am in constant need of quarters for laundry" or "I do office work at my office, surprisingly."*

Anyway. Now I'm going to talk about Twilight.

The last time I encountered a pop culture phenomenon of this size it surrounded the Harry Potter books, and you bet your bippy I'm glad I jumped on that bandwagon. So when one of my coworkers started reading Twilight and gushing about how vampires+teen+romance=crazy delicious, my resolve to sit this trend out shriveled like George Costanza's undercarriage in that one episode of Seinfeld. I checked the library's website to put a hold on the book, but saw that 643 citizens of Portland had gotten there first. "Fine," I seethed to myself as I instead went to the bookstore to purchase the cheapest mass market paperback to be had with plans to sell it back at a loss once I was finished. "That's JUST fine."

After trying to wrap my head around a seriously deranged book featuring some breed of alien/ evolutionized monkey that eats humans, reading this fluff was a relief, if somewhat of a disappointment. It is not a good book. It's poorly written and more often than not had me smacking my head in disbelief at its god-awfulness. The thing that pissed me off most about it was the fact that Bella, the main character, has absolutely no discernible personality traits other than the fact that she's clumsy. Why the heck is she worthy of a hot piece of undead vampire booty? The boyfriend pointed out that she's probably written that way so every love-starved lass who reads it can imagine that it's her that all this is happening to, that somewhere there exists a universe where she is the point around which things turn. I agreed and then tried to convince him to reenact the pose on the book's cover with him as Edward and me as Bella.

I finished the book on Friday, just in time for the movie's premier. I spent the entire weekend struggling to decide whether I wanted to spend $7.50 on what every review I read told me was going to be utter crap. The biggest reason I wanted to see it was to see what Edward's hot vampire siblings looked like. Finally, my buddy called me this morning on pretenses of finding out the plans for the first annual Neenuh Saves Thanksgiving, but I was able to get out of him that his real motive was to ask me to go to Twilight with him. Not wanting to disappoint my buddy, I sighed and said I guessed I could probably go to the movie... if he REALLY wanted to.

I'm only sort of embarrassed to say that I 100 percent enjoyed myself and that I'm 3000 percent in love with Robert Pattinson. The movie was so much better than the book. New York Magazine agrees with me. But don't think you should just skip the book and see the flick; much of my enjoyment derived from seeing what I'd imagined played out on screen. I'm afraid it's both or nothing, folks.

And now, having fulfilled my blog duties, I am going to turn my full attention to the Travel Channel show about the tribe in the Pacific Ocean where they wear g-strings made out of twine. It's a pivotal moment: the boys have just been circumcised and one of the women is trying to decide whether to drink an abortive potion made out of tree bark that her husband concocted for her. Circle of life at its finest.



*All true stories. All things I've Twittered about.