Against My Better Judgment…

I am in love with the Twilight books. Yep, I said it. My name is Maria and I’m addicted to a saga about teenage vampire love.

I’m halfway through the third book in the series of four and I realize that it does not make sense for me to be enjoying this story as much as I am. I generally have much better taste in literature than this, for heaven’s sake! I mean, can we talk about character names for a moment? Our lovely, perpetually blushing, innocent-yet-wise-beyond-her-years protagonist is named Bella Swan. Really? Her name is Bella and she’s beautiful, how shockingly original. And Swan – once an ugly duckling, now grown up into a beautiful swan. Sigh. Talk about an extreme lack of subtlety.

So the main story line is that Bella falls in love with a “17” year old vampire named Edward Cullen(who is actually 107). The author, Stephenie Meyer, spends an unbelievable amount of time talking about how Edward is basically sex on a stick. His face, his body, his voice, everything about him draws Bella in – and her readers too. As my friend Sara says, “You want to know the lust that is Edward Cullen.” So true, dear reader, so true. He tries to warn Bella that he might be the bad guy and that it’s dangerous for her to be around him, but of course she ignores his warnings. This proves two things: first, that even when men are 107 all they really want is a 17 year old girl, and second, girls will fall for the bad boy even when it means risking a broken heart – or death, in this case.

**WARNING: SPOILERS!!

So at the beginning of the second book Edward and his vampire family are throwing Bella a party for her 18th birthday party (which, of course, she is upset about since now that means she is “older” than Edward), when she accidentally gives herself a paper cut and one of Edward’s brothers almost kills her. A tense moment in the plot to be sure, and something I was not expecting, but an action that caused me to wonder, “Well, what the hell happens when she has her period??” I asked Sara about this, as she’s already read all four books, and has been dealing with a similar obsession a bit longer than I have. Her response: “It’s never addressed.”

Does this not seem like an obvious flaw to anyone except me? They constantly talk about the how the Cullens resemble animals – bears and mountain lions. They have heightened senses of smell. In my opinion, Bella’s in some trouble every time Aunt Flo comes to town. But apparently that’s just me.

What’s really the most upsetting to me about this story though, is the fact that Edward and Bella are in love, supposedly soul mates, dedicated to each other forever, insanely attracted to one another, but they don’t have sex. (At least not so far.) Edward is afraid that it will be too much for him and he will hurt her. And because he tells her this all the time, how he could hurt her, ne kill her, at any moment, the readers fear it too. But Bella seems to think that, “Edward and his rules,” are a bit silly and old-fashioned. This teaches the young people who read these books that sex is bad! It makes men do bad things and it could get women hurt!
In spite of all this, I just can’t help myself. And against my better judgment I freaking LOVE these books. They’re what you get when you cross Danielle Steel with Anne Rice (before she was born again and swore off the undead forever). So I will finish Eclipse and rush out to get Breaking Dawn. And when it’s all said and done I will probably read them all over again a few months down the line.

The Christmas Spirit

Breathe and Reboot.

So I just deleted the entire contents of my hotmail account. The oldest email dates back to the summer after I graduated from Michigan. I had more than 700 unread emails, a total of 3200+ in my inbox. Just too overwhelming. Delete, start fresh. Maybe I'll be able to maintain a better handle on the incessant stream of junkmail I get now.

It seemed like a good idea to keep up the trend and resurrect my lifeless blog. I know, I know, it's about time.

Tonight I made Shaun bring me to see "Twilight" -- I feel sure I will pay for this for a long, long time. Bless his heart, he was the only male in the theater. It's really Sara's fault, she recommended the first book to me. (Well actually, she mentioned how the descriptions of Edward make her drool.) A quick 500 pages and 7.5 hours later and I'd finished Twilight, then I had to get my hands on the second one. I drove to Borders in a snow storm to buy it (not kidding). Finished that one in two days. So Shaun gave me #3 as an early Christmas present. They're easy (brainless) reads, and it feels nice to not be reading for school. I plan to use my semester break to its fullest.

Which brings me to school. Ah, school. Still love it, but this past semester became - rather suddenly - exceedingly, ridiculously difficult. It quickly became what everyone told me grad school would be like from the beginning. So at least now I know what to expect from here on out! I certainly don't expect things to get any easier. But I'm officially half way through and I still have my 4.0 intact. Go me!

I promise it won't be almost three months before the next post. Honest.

Wassup With That?

Dear Progressive:

I honestly don't understand the point of this picture:

HBO is Back, or, I Like TV

Many of you may already know that I used to work for a cable company. A big one. I've also been a loyal fan of HBO since before the days of Sex & the City and The Sopranos and Curb Your Enthusiasm and Real Time with Bill Maher. For a while there HBO could do no wrong. On top of Sopranos and Sex they built a solid lineup of shows -- Alan Ball's Six Feet Under, the incredible (and underrated) Deadwood. They were pretty much the Cadillac of premium cable channels. And then it all seemed to start to fall apart.

I had to work the Monday after the series finale of The Sopranos aired. People were pissed. Inordinately pissed if you ask me. I was one of a very few who actually liked the finale, and it's big, Screw you! to everyone else's expectations. Plus I like Journey. But I digress. Everyone in Metro Detroit canceled HBO. We couldn't even talk them into keeping it for $5 a month. I knew HBO was worried. Sex, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under were all long finished. Losing The Sopranos was like losing your last remaining limb after many years and painful surgeries -- and the HBO sales reps knew it.

Calling Lisa Kudrow's weird and horribly un-funny The Comeback, "the replacement for Sex & the City!" in a sales presentation to our group, the HBO rep looked close to tears. Things got worse with John From Cincinatti. In Treatment features a great cast, but somehow I've never found it compelling. I did rather enjoy the first season of Tell Me You Love Me, but that may have been because my man was being held hostage by the U.S. Navy and there were some pretty, um, shall we say... steamy scenes in that show. Entourage still had to prove itself, and while Bill Maher and Larry David are both hilarious and brilliant, they may be a little bit neurotic for some. HBO needed it's one-two punch back.
They've got it.

I think, more than any other show, Entourage is the new Sex & the City. It's funny, candid, extravagent, and (more than anything else) about four friends who'll do anything for each other. It's proven itself to me and I'm just waiting for it to start winning some awards. But the real point of even wasting the 20 minutes it's taken to write this so far, is to tell you about True Blood.

Created by Alan Ball (whose credits include American Beauty and Six Feet Under) and based on the novels of Charlaine Harris, it's the story of a modern day romance between a 25 year old telepathic waitress (Anna Paquin) and a 173 year old vampire named Bill (Stephen Moyer), who is, to put it simply, really freaking hot -- in spite of being dead. (It's a technicality!) It takes places in rural northern Louisiana. There is sex, comedy, and blood. It is the greatest thing I have seen on TV in a long, long time. HBO is back.

Where A Kid Can Be A Kid

Tina for Prez

I Belong to the NRA - National Reading Association

And this is our new bumper sticker:

Obama '08

Mom and I went downtown this morning to try to hear Barack Obama speak at the Labor Day Parade. We were not the only ones! Check out the video I took. OBAMA '08!!!

I Can't Believe Joey Is Six Years Old.

And yes, that is a Dyson vacuum cleaner on his cake. Just in case you were wondering.

Re-re-re-reading

So I'm reading the Harry Potter books. Again. This will be the first re-read all the way through every book since the seventh came out. They still rock.

Politik

So I voted today. First time since moving to the new house. As expected my polling place is a local elementary school. All the volunteers at the polls were little old ladies. One had an actual oxygen tank.

Since it's just a primary you can't split your ticket, you have to vote all Democrat or all Republican. So, to make it 'easier' for voters, the ballot is basically divided into two columns. The Republican candidates are all on the left hand side; the Democratic candidates are on the right. At the top of each column there are corresponding labels. And pictures. Of these men:

The top two men in this picture appeared next to the word, "Republican." The bottom two men were next to the word, "Democrat."

For those of you that slept through American history in high school (because it is unforgivably boring and biased), these four men are (clockwise from top left) Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Arguably the most famous and beloved U.S. Presidents from each of their respective parties.

After exiting the voting booth I took my completed ballot to the little old lady with the oxygen tank and asked her who was responsible for designing the ballot, and specifically, for placing those pictures on it. She looked at my ballot and said, "Wow. I've never noticed those before. Is that... Abraham Lincoln?? Ha ha ha, I've really never noticed those before. I don't know who designs the ballots. Try calling City Hall, I guess." Then she stood up and went over to the other blue haired ladies and said, "Hey Eleanor, look at these pictures on the ballots!" I deposited my ballot in the electronic ballot thingamajig and left.

But something about those pictures is bothering me. Of course Republicans want to be represented by Lincoln and Reagan; Lincoln freed the slaves and Reagan is like the Paul McCartney of Republicans -- everyone loves him. And of course Democrats want to be represented by FDR and JFK, FDR got us out of the Great Depression and JFK was the politician's equivalent to Brad Pitt.

But are they relevant examples? Is it fair to say that the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln's time is in any real way similar to today's Republican party? Is FDR still an icon for Democrats? And what about young, first time voters? To voters ages 18-25 these examples are not likely to resonate the way a picture of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton would.

I still can't really put my finger on why this bugs me so much, but it just doesn't sit right with me somehow. It seems you shouldn't be able to put pictures like that on a ballot.

At any rate, I just hope the Zoo proposal passes.

Congratulations Steph and Brian!

It's Coming....

Umbrella

A few Wednesdays ago I got caught in the rain without an umbrella. I'd gone straight from work to class, and at some point during my three hour lecture the sun was overtaken by some violent storm clouds. Class ended and it was pouring. My car was parked five blocks away.

I went to the Circulation Desk at the library at WSU and asked if there were any umbrellas in the lost & found. Naturally there weren't. So I headed back outside, zipped up all my zippers, buttoned up all my buttons, and headed out. By the time I got to my car I was drenched. My umbrella was warm and dry though, as it had been resting comfortably on my passenger seat.

Before I made it to the highway I got stopped at a light on a corner that is always occupied by a homeless person. It's not always the same person, but there is always one there. Tonight it was a middle-aged man, huddling underneath his rag of a coat, trying to use his sign for shelter without obstructing its message asking for help. He looked miserable.

I rolled down my window and his head perked up. I yelled to him, "Hey, want an umbrella?" He cracked a big smile and said, "Yeah! It's been raining for three days!" I handed my umbrella to him through the open car window. He opened it up and starting jumping around, almost dancing, saying, "Yeah! YEAH!" Then my light turned green, I smiled and waved, and hit the highway. I was mostly dry by the time I got home.

A few days later I went to the thrift store to buy a replacement umbrella. It cost $2.11. The following Wednesday on my way home from class I saw the same guy sitting at that same intersection, only it wasn't raining. He recognized me while I was stopped at the red light, pointed down to the umbrella sticking out of his bag, and smiled at me. I waved back. I smiled almost the whole way home.

Who knew an old umbrella could mean so much? Little things mean a lot more when you can fit everything you own into an old gym bag. Maybe someday he'll be in a position to give that umbrella to someone else who needs it more than he does. That's what I hope at least.

This Is Me Feeling Sorry For Myself

Whenever I tell my mom, “I hate money,” she always responds with, “No, you don’t. You love money. You hate not having any.”

Touché, mom.

I’ve conducted an informal survey about money and romantic relationships and the verdict is in: Money is often the most difficult part of being in love. If I had a nickel for every time I heard, That’s why my parents got divorced, I’d have at least three dollars by now. (And the way things are going, I could really use three dollars.)

As the child of people who, God bless them forever, are not great with money, those responses scare me. As a woman who does not communicate about money very well with the man she is going to marry, those responses scare me. As someone whose car is bleeding oil and anti-freeze and doesn’t have the money for a down payment on a new car, nor the ‘A’ credit rating for financing at a decent interest rate, those responses scare me even more. Especially since I had more than $6,000 saved before Shaun came home in March, all of which has mysteriously vanished. (Well, ‘mysteriously’ is probably not an accurate word. It all went towards bills, a car for Shaun, furniture, utilities, gas, etc. – but the point is: It’s gone.)

It’s hard to have that conversation with the guy at the Chrysler dealership who tells me, “Yeah, unless you have a co-signer with perfect credit, you won’t be approved.” To which I reply, “Well thanks for your time,” knowing that there is not a single person in my life (whom I’d be comfortable asking to co-sign a car loan for me) that has the credit rating to help me. Goodbye dependable car! Goodbye decent gas mileage! Hello one hour drive to work in the morning with no cruise control and blown speakers.

I’m so glad I spent $60k to go to college.

I need a beer.

Your Long Journey

So my mom and I went to lunch today. Nothing fancy, just coney island. In her car we listened to the album Raising Sand, by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. A truly beautiful album. On the way back to my house she skipped to the last song and said, "This is the song I want you to play at my funeral." And "Your Long Journey" started.

As the song played I had to turn and look out the passenger window. I didn't want her to see the tears in my eyes. Silly really, since I know she'll read this and then she'll know, but at that moment I didn't want her to see. It was hard to swallow those tears.

The thing of it is, I am incredibly afraid to face the day when my mom will die. And she just said it so matter of factly. Although one is always distantly aware of the mortality of their loved ones, I think most people push it out of their minds until some tragedy or illness brings it into sharp focus. This afternoon, driving down Rochester Road in the afternoon rain, my mom was happy, healthy, and seemingly content that someday she will die. So content she gave me instructions to carry out. I wonder if she ever says things like to my brother? I imagine not. He'd never remember the name of the song. I've listened to it thirteen times today.

My mom lost her mother when she was only 20 years old. When I think about that I know I'm lucky to have had her in my life up til now. And not just had her as a mom, as a friend too. She is the sole person who will be on my side, without fail, no matter what. I feel like she's spoiled me, because I don't think there is another person on Earth who will ever love me as unselfishly as my mom does. Maybe Shaun, someday.

I worry that I will never be able to love my children as unselfishly as my mom has loved us. In fact, it's the primary reason why I'm terrified to have kids. That's why I'm glad that she's healthy and strong. And that she has faith and she prays. My kids will need their Grammy Ellen when their mom is learning how to be a parent the hard way.

And I know I'll need her too.

I Promise

This is the LAST YouTube video that I will post for a long, long time. But honestly, I've watched this one about 75 times and I almost pee my pants every single time. I want to adopt this kid.

Hey Jude = Hi-Larious!

Do you think I could adopt this young man? He makes the world a better place, much like The Beatles did with their (original) music.

Just watch it. I promise you won't be sorry.

Alternative Spring Break 2008

How cool is THIS? Alternative Spring Breakers descended on Detroit last week for a marathon of service projects in and around Detroit.


Learn more about Franklin-Wright Settlements.

Learn more about United Way for Southeastern Michigan.

Is It Just Me?

Or does this seem incredibly wrong:

This would be former Army Ranger Ivan Castro, who lost his sight while fighting in Iraq. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that it's great that there are programs that exist to help our wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans once they've returned home. But do we have to slap a giant, orange sign across their chest that says, "VISUALLY IMPAIRED" and push them down a giant snow covered hill? Couldn't we give them a sign that says, "WAR HERO," instead? Or at least, "I GAVE UP MY VISION FOR FREEDOM, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE LATELY?" OK, maybe that last one is pushing it, but you get my point. Let's not make them look pitiful, if we can at all possibly help it.

Read more about this here.

Oh, and Ralph Nader announced that he will be running for President. Come on Mr. Gore, the world is waiting for you!

Best Valentine's Day Card. Ever.

She's got love on her mind. He just wants to get some ass. Classic.

Which Book Are You?

I'm One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Find out which book you are.

The Merging of Lives

If I do say so myself, I have to give Shaun and I some major credit. It's hard to begin merging your lives when one of those lives is mostly in Texas. He comes home to Michigan on March 15th (probably) by the way. In time for St. Patrick's Day, which he is particularly excited about.

The day to day business of sharing your life with someone is a lot easier when you can just turn to them while you're both sitting on the couch watching tomorrow's weather and say, "Did you remember to pay your cell phone bill this month?" When you never share a couch you tend to forget to ask, over and over again. Then one day you write it down on a post-it while at work, by some miracle of nature you remember to bring the post-it home, and then you go to call them to ask, "Hey, did you remember to pay your cell phone bill?" -- only when you call you get a message that says their phone has been temporarily disconnected. Ostensibly due to non-payment of the aforementioned bill. Thereby rendering the reminder post-it useless. And wasting paper, apologies Mr. Gore.

This situation is hypothetical, of course, as I pay our cell phone bill every month -- mostly on time, when AT&T isn't pissing me off. (They recently overbilled me by $400, took SEVEN phone calls to get it fixed. Oh for the love. Never ever change your plan if you can at all help it.) It's meant to exemplify how difficult it is to communicate about every day matters when you don't see each other every day. But money in particular is an area where Shaun and my communication skills have always seemed to fly out the window at the last second, and leave us screaming at each other, and I find it to be an even more daunting task over such a distance. We resolved to not let this happen anymore (the screaming part), but we definitely still think very differently about that stuff that can't buy love, as Sir Paul once sang.

It boggles my mind a bit how much a calm, honest conversation can accomplish. Shaun and I have had many of those in the past week - we also had some blow up arguments, some of which were through text messaging, which I've determined is the *worst* possible form of communication in existence today. Smoke signals are probably more effective. But I feel like progress is being made. One of us gets upset and we are almost forced to talk about it because we can't do anything else except talk! In that way it's good that we have to speak on the phone so much, but I think we will both appreciate the face to face discussion a lot more than we used to once he is back in Michigan.

Faith

Faith is a best-selling album by George Michael.

It is also these things:

1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved. —Idiom
9. in faith, in truth; indeed: In faith, he is a fine lad.

[Origin: 1200–50; ME feith, see also: confide]

For me, faith is complicated. I've watched my mom struggle with her faith my whole life. We used to attend mass and she would remain seated when almost everyone else stood up to take communion. When I asked her why she stayed in her seat, she said, "Well, because I'm divorced, and they don't like that." My child's brain thought, But wasn't your ex-husband mean to you? Isn't that why you got divorced? I couldn't understand why God would be mad at her for leaving someone who treated her poorly. At that point it was God vs. Mom, and I was firmly on Mom's side. Any church that didn't like my mom was no church of mine. Then I found out that when I was born she'd met with a priest to see about having me baptized. The priest told her that she wasn't a good Catholic, and couldn't be a good Catholic example to her children, and should consider baptizing them elsewhere. When I found that out, it was pretty much a done deal. Not only had they rejected Mom, they'd rejected me before I could even speak!

In college years later, only a few months after my grandmother died, I found myself starting to wonder about that God who had rejected my mother and I all those years ago. Somehow my mom was still able to lean on her faith to help her through difficult times, and I felt like something was missing from my life, maybe it was faith? With the passing of time I'd learned that not all religions felt the same way about divorce, and I'd started to separate the idea of God from the idea of the different religions and all their rules. (I wonder still what God's opinion of religion is, since it is so often used to divide people.) But seeing as how the overwhelming majority of faithful people the world over feel that God is most easily accessed through religion, I decided to take a religion class. It was about the Old Testament of the Bible, but from an historical perspective. I felt I'd be more comfortable in a classroom environment than in a chruch, but the class was a three hour lecture in a room with no windows in the middle of the summer, about all I learned was that my professor was incredibly sexy. We're talking a modern day Indiana Jones here folks. I enjoyed the lectures, but it was still not the faith I was seeking.

And so that brings me to where I am today. Engaged to a man who is Catholic and who will undoubtedly want our children to be raised Catholic. While there are certainly elements of Catholicism that this pro-choice gal totally disagrees with, I can't deny that my mother's faith has been an immensely important part of her life, and it's helped her to cope with some of the most difficult things humans go through during our short time here. I envy that. If I am going to raise kids a certain way I know I need to learn more about it, so I'm planning to start attending mass as often as I can. I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Maybe all I really need to remember is that of all the people I've ever met in my life, I have the most faith in Shaun. I trust him completely.

Perhaps that's the faith I've been missing.

We're Engaged!

So over the holidays Shaun popped The Question and I said, "Yes!" He's back in Texas now finishing up school and will be home in the Spring. We are hoping that he will be home in mid-March, but it could be April before he's back in Michigan. I'm pulling for March, and I know he is too - he'd hate missing St. Patrick's Day!

Here are some fun pictures for your enjoyment. The wedding will probably be in May 2009, but we're not sure of the day yet.