Sincerely Thanking The Anonymity of The Internet...

Posted by: Jen

I have a confession. Kim will not be surprised, but I want -- no, need -- to come clean and will do it under the anonymous blanket of the internet. It's like confessing behind the partition at church except without the lying about what you really did part. Anyway:

IREALLYLIKETWILIGHTMORETHANISHOULDANDIFEELGUILTY
BECAUSEIAM26ANDNOT16!!!

Ahhh.

So, I went to go see the movie in theaters because if anything, you know I love watching pretty 22 year olds playing pretty teenagers (re: Gossip Girl, any teen horror movie, and more recently, the new 90210 -- might as well come completely clean since I am confessing), and who doesn't love vampires? Anyway, I liked the movie, and didn't feel that bad because I always like movies like that -- you know, the deliciously good to watch kind that are all fluff with little substance... The kind that people who brag about listening to only NPR roll their eyes at, because it draws throngs of screaming teenage to the premier.

I am no screamer, ever, just to put that out there. Kim squees sometime and I might squeak at a cute animal but I would never, ever scream over anything, really. Not in that way at least; maybe if someone was actually trying to murder me or something.

But I digress... Kim found the first Twilight book (I am aware that they all have different names but I will call them Twilight 1-4 out of laziness) at Marshalls for like $7 and had to buy it because even though she hasn't admitted it outright, I'm pretty sure she has a crush on Robert Pattinson and just wanted an excuse to think about/visualize him more, but actually ended up really liking it in the process. She then sent it to me for xmas, and now I have a problem.

Who wouldn't like this? It is like reading crack laced candy with sexy, sexy vampires. I love it and it's addicting and yet my inner intellectual -- the one that comes out occasionally in between episodes of GG or thinking about shoes to scoff at The Davinci Code, or to edit my boyfriend's grad school application essay or to question the meaning of life -- is SO ASHAMED! IT IS FOR TEENAGERS AND IT ISN'T EVEN WRITTEN WELL BUT YET I CANNOT PUT IT DOWN! GAHHHH!

Not to mention the real actual problems I should have with it, regardless of what audience it was written for. The author's religious message, the fact that she portrays Bella as an independent woman despite the fact that the story is decidedly non-feminist and the general lack of adjectives besides "granite".

I don't care though, I really don't. And I think to myself, "Self, if you had a sexy, sexy real life vampire whispering into your ear about maybe believing in God while he was grazing your neck with his perfect mouth, would you care about religious debate?" and the answer is always a resounding, giant, NOOOOO! And that answer is giving me some kind of identity crisis because I think I stand for some stuff (Stuff! See I'm forgetting it already!) but I could easily be deterred by perfect beauty. Sigh, nobody tell Gloria Steinem, ok?

Oh, so the point of my post: tonight after work I went to Barnes & Noble to buy the second book. After perusing the new paperback fiction as not to make anyone suspicious about my mission, I casually headed to the teen section and immediately started sweating with embarrassment. Everyone else in the store was clearly buying Proust while I was standing there looking decidedly young in my dirty Converse, puffy jacket with fur around the hood and purple stripe-y gloves. And they obviously all knew what I was looking for and were silently laughing at me.

After circling the teen section unable to find Twilight 2, thinking that since I had regressed to reading children's books I clearly couldn't find one by alphabetical order anymore, I decided to ask an employee. I was horrified and slid over to one, sweating, and had the following exchange:

Me: Um hi. Do you have that book... Twilight?
Her: (Remarkably not phased about the fact that a 26 year old was asking for it) Yeah, it's on the big table in the middle of the store by the escalator.

Great. Where everyone could see. I ran over to the table, grabbed the book and sprinted to the register to pay, hiding the cover against my jacket.

The cashier did not break out in laughter either, if you were wondering. So maybe I got all worked up over nothing, or maybe she silently judged and I should be ashamed , I don't know; it was the NY Times #1 Bestseller after all, so maybe I am not pathetic, but rather just following the crowd. Anyway, internal conflict aside, all that really matters is that I finally got Twilight 2, AND AM SO EXCITED!!! And I won't have to ever relive the B&N horror ever again because now I know exactly where the Twilight table is.