Please Bite Right *Here*

"Isn't it enough to live a long, beautiful life with me?"
- Edward Cullen

In the spirit of the holiday season, I'm granting myself this time to be a 13 year-old again. I watched Twilight with my boyfriend's little step-sister, who is officially a teenager now, and her friend in Florida a few weeks ago. I made sure to read the book first, in a confused attempt to ruin forever either the book, or the movie. Neither happened, and the whole experience was oddly invigorating in the way wearing galoshes in the rain is invigorating, or in the way buying new notebooks for the school year was invigorating. Part of me thought, "I am too OLD for this shit." The other part of me squealed in delight every time Stephanie Meyers went into her rant of how beautiful Edward Cullen looks, and how mesmerizing his everythingness is to the guileless Bella.

The book was okay. I believe that I've read worse schlock, but the only example I can think of is the copy in US Weekly. The plot is, in hindsight, not the worse plot I've ever encountered, but during the reading, I wanted to know what happens badly enough to keep on turning the pages. And it was a hefty number of pages: somewhere in the 400s. The dialogue was stilted, but sort of fitting for awkward teenagers to utter. The descriptions were weak, and repetitive, but I'm assuming young female readers have ample imaginations to fashion an impossibly handsome vampire in their heads upon the first millionth time his looks are mentioned, so as to make the blundering adjectives moot. And wow, upon rereading this last paragraph, I don't sound like I enjoyed the book at all, but that's not true. I liked the book, only...I'm not sure why. Perhaps I still haven't matured beyond the tween-Sarah of yore, and still yearn deeply for some invincible mutant-hero to come rescue me from this mundane, human life. Or perhaps I am still enthralled by vampires, by their fabled strength and abilities, and by their unavoidable curse. Perhaps, I was just bored and wanted to leech some exuberance from the young, supple fans of this phenomenon known as Twilight.

The movie was okay, too. Even as I sat in the theater, I was thinking that the scriptwriter needs to be murdered, so as to prevent her from ever writing again. But then I realized that she didn't have much good stock with which to work; the writing in the book was quite atrocious, so what was I expecting? The actors did what they could with their halting, unnatural lines. Visually, the female protagonist, Bella, was pretty on point. Her acting was a bit wooden, but I guess that can be misconstrued as ennui, and ennui can be considered sexy. There was one point where I wanted to rip my ears off -- when she was in the hospital freaking out about Edward possibly leaving her to protect her from himselfyaddayadda -- because of the absolute BADNESS of her acting, but aside from that one part, her screaming was convincing, and I kind of like actresses who don't give a shit. The male protagonist, Edward Cullen, was terribly written. Robert Pattinson delivered a performance that was intriguing, but his lines made him seem like some A.D.D.-ridden manic depressive. I've dated people like his character; it wasn't fun then, and it wasn't fun to watch it on the big screen now. There were moments when Pattinson shone, all the times when he smiled brilliantly and unguardedly, but most of the time, the character was just a scowling mess. There were no scenes that showcased his dangerousness successfully; there was no magic. I'm almost petulant about this, because the whole damn book is about how extraordinary he is, only the movie failed miserably at making it into a reality. Still, he's now a certified heartthrob, from all the reports of fans asking him to bite them. If broken skin, infection, and unfortunate scarring don't deter the fans, his stardom is set.

The one redeeming line in the entire movie, which was not in the book, is the one quoted at the beginning of this post. The issues of mortality, of living a meaningful and natural life, and of submitting to fate can play heavily into the plot, but it doesn't really. In a world of immediate gratification, Bella's wish to live forever with Edward seems fair, and almost expected. He doesn't comply, and that makes this love tender. Isn't it enough to live a long, and beautiful life? The one precious thing about life is that it ends. But that's getting too deep into that internal struggle of Edward's. He's hot, and he glitters. It's awesome.

Hannibal Hektor

As of December 16, 2008, a month and four days after we first took his measurements, these are his new numbers:
- Neck: 13.25 behind the ears (+2.25") , 13" on the lower neck, above the shoulders (+1.25")
- From nose to tail along his back, 23" (+1.5")
- From upper back down his front legs, 13" (+1")
- Chest circumference, 21.5 (+3.5")
- Weight, 19 pounds (+3.8 pounds)

I almost couldn't believe that his chest is three and half inches thicker in just one month. He's like the Incredible Hulk, only not green, and kind of farty. He's also not very angry, but mostly cuddly and snorty.

We went with him to see the manatees gather at Blue Springs in Deland, Florida during Thanksgiving. The gentle giants were peacefully bobbing, and the count for that day was already at 175 by the time we showed up at 11am. Hektor kind of reminds me of a manatee in that he's lumpy and round, and when he's sleepy, he just lolls around like a beached sea mammal. What a sweetie.

To date, his head is the last part of his body to go through a growth spurt. Ideally, it should square out, and be about twice the size. Some days, I fear that we'll have a normal looking bully with a pinhead, but that's kind of like a mother worrying that her child will never grow out of the awkward phase. Even in the most recent photos, I can see that his head has grown, but just not as noticeably as his other body parts.

He has brindled quite nicely. When we first got him, he was mostly dark dark brown, and had only a few strands of blond. Now, there are entire patches of blond hair, and in the sunlight, he is a wonderfully glowy pooch. Here's Hektor at five weeks:

What's a Better Word for "Dong"?

What attracts me to it, other than serendipity, is the purity of its awfulness… coupled with its naked, flailing whorish ambition to seduce. It is working so very hard, and so very transparently, to solicit readerly enthusiasm that one can only love it for how earnest it is in its hapless badness.

- Wyatt Mason, "Gilded Loins" post on Sentences, 19 November 2008

In a moment of cabin-fever delirium, my boyfriend and I decided to write a romance novel. The idea is so awful that it just might work. Apparently, about 50% of all paperbacks sold are romance novels, and many mediocre writers have dove into this genre in hopes of making a meager buck or two. There is an idea to pitch together a Victorian era woman with an exotically lineaged man, but seeing how most of the readers are women, and they are the ones fantasizing about the male protagonist, I need to make this male character more enticing than, say, a random Chinese man in turn-of-the-century Shanghai, whose life I am well adept at recreating. Apparently.

But I am a big fan of Wyatt Mason's, and if I end up writing this and getting it published, I hope to elicit equally acerbic criticism for a work that is at least much more honest than most of the other stuff out there.

If not, at least I would have had the chance to look up from my notes and asked Ian, "Hey, what's a better word for 'dong'?"