readin'

I still feel a little guilty about reading (and friggin' loving) the first three books in the Twilight series. I've come to my senses and won't be reading the fourth (unless tragedy strikes my life, in which case Breaking Dawn is the third thing I'll turn to, after booze and pills), but I still feel like a hypocrite. Because if I had daughters, I'd hate for them to read those misogynistic, abstinence-promoting, no-good-female-role-models Twilight books.

So I was glad to find this list of 10 Best Books for Girls and Young Women. It really is a good list: I've read seven of the ten (many of them have been around since I was a lass), and they're among my childhood and grownup favorites: The Chronicles of Prydain, the Madeleine L'Engle books, His Dark Materials...

And speaking of lists, my friend J Quizzle has been inadvertently compiling a list of the Best Books for Nearing-Middle-Age Women. The last three things I've read have all been at his suggestion (I'm not counting Goldengrove, which I didn't make past page 100), and they've all been good. So I was about to call him from the bookstore today (sadly, a Borders, but I'm in Florida, after all) to ask WWJR? when I remembered that he had recommended Rock Springs awhile back.

I resisted when he suggested it, mostly because trying get through the first 100 pages of The Sportswriter made me sick on testosterone, but I'm less than one story into Rock Springs, and already it's proving my theory that the '80s were a good decade for books, if nothing else.

So what's next on the list, J Quizzle? Tell me soon, lest I end up taking quaaludes and trying to decide whether I'm on Team Edward or Team Jacob. Actually, that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend a Vermont winter afternoon...

twilight is coming between us

And also freelance work, laziness, and the fact that my camera is betraying me, much like a certain vampire betrayed his teen girlfriend in a certain novel whose name I dare not speak, and I hate to post recipes without photos. But I'm working on a post about Montreal and I should be done with the abstinent vampire books soon, at which point I'm hoping to become a normal human being again. Actually, I'm sort of hoping to become an undead teenager, but whatevs.

it's even better than bl*gging

Do you want to know what the yachtsman is doing right now? He is singing T. Pain lyrics into his new iPhone app while he makes a frozen mudslide from a TGIFridays mix (just add ice!). I wish I could tell you I disdain these kinds of plebeian activities, but I've been spending most of my time lately reading the Twilight books.

The yachtsman: "Honey, do you wanna hear me sing 'I'm in Love With a Stripper'?"

That's right, the Twilight books. Awhile back I made a Faustian bargain with my friend M. LaBee: He would watch the television masterpiece Gossip Girl; in exchange, I would read Twilight. Frankly, the trade seemed unfair. I knew M. would love Gossip Girl, and I knew I wouldn't like Twilight, but I agreed to the deal because I am a generous, self-sacrificing person.

So M. started watching Gossip Girl, and loved it as much as I knew he would, and I avoided reading Twilight, because I knew the writing would be terrible, and even though my favorite movie when I was fifteen was The Lost Boys and my favorite song was "Bela Lugosi's Dead," the idea of a teenage vampire romance sounded a little, well, nauseating.

And it is pretty bad. Every male has a husky voice and there are far, far too many smoldering eyes, the plots are pretty transparent, and it's hard to ignore the teen abstinence theme. But I don't care. I'm hooked. Like, on crack, hooked. I literally started to have a panic attack yesterday at the bookstore when I went to buy the third book and couldn't find it (when I did find it, I had the cashier double bag my purchase so if I ran into anyone I knew I wouldn't have to claim that I'd bought it for a friend and could quit any time I wanted).

Don't get me wrong: I'm not recommending that you read these books, just like I wouldn't tell you all to go out and eat a wonderful little dessert called Twinkies. But Twilight is pretty much the only reason I'm getting out of bed these days. It's better than working, it's better than crying, it's better than thinking, it's better, even, than sleeping. So if you ever want to get lost for a little while and have already watched both seasons of Gossip Girl, try a little abstinent teenage vampire escapism. Or, turn on your T. Pain app, make a mudslide, and start singing.