Posted a new link on my Articles page.  But you can read it here, also.

How vampires got all touchy feely.

How to boil an egg. How to bleach clothing. That you have to scrub the plates on light switches.

I can cook any recipe you put in front of me and most likely, it will turn out at okay, but if you just wanted a simple boiled egg, I wouldn’t know how to start. In fact, I recently asked my mother in law to do me one.

I think there are a lot of things that you are expected to just know when moving from adolescence into adulthood. Things that it just not occur to people to tell you.

The proper care of wooden furniture. That the kitchen trashcan has to be scrubbed.

Adulthood is strange. Surreal and often uneventful. You start to get used to it and coast through domesticity. And then you realize that your close pins can dry rot of the clothesline.

Organized fitness classes are the most absurd things I have ever attended.  It’s a bunch of women (and inevitably one dude) flailing about to remixes of remixes as a nazi high school gym teacher from hell shouts things at you like “step tap cha cha up over cowboy.”  This particular coach was a woman either a smoker in her late forties or a nonsmoker in her early fifties, either way she could kick my ass in a dark ally.  All she has done for the last twenty years is exercise and learn the lyrics to pop songs so that she can shout them into the microphone over the beat of the music.  Nice lady though.

This, of course, is not to say that these classes are not effective.  I mean, they have had steady attendance since Jane pulled out that step in the morning shows of the early eighties.  The Les Mills has more or less standardized the craze.  Surely they must be doing something right.  That, or we are all sheep.

In determination to lose my spare tire, I committed myself to going to whatever the 930 am class was this morning.  The schedule had the slot labeled innocently as “Fat Burning.”  That doesn’t sound too bad, who doesn’t want to burn fat?

…

Do you know what you have to do to burn fat!?  I don’t either because all the sweat that oozed from my pores has congealed in my brain rendering the class nothing but a blur.  I’ll tell you this though, I hurt.  Sadly this was not the first class that I have ever attended, so one would think that I knew what to expect.

However, I have learned three things that keep me safe in times such as these:

1. Don’t mess with the stay at home moms. They are the veterans of the class.  They have been attending religiously every week for the last several years.  It does not matter their shape or size, do not take their spot on the floor and don’t even think about eyeing their choice stepping block.  Would you walk into a lion’s den and take Simba’s dinner? Didn’t think so.
2. You are not as fit as you think you are. The weights feel light and the steps look low.  But they aren’t.  Ten minutes in you are going to regret your ego telling you that you could handle it.  However, the stay-at-home moms… They are that fit.  Watch them crush you.
3. Stay for the last track. If you want any chance of NOT feeling like a rabid bull picked up with it’s horns and hurdled you into a brick wall the next day, stay for the last song.  This is the stretching track.  The cool kids might feel like they can skip it and leave early.  Remember.  You are not one of the cool kids.  See rules one and two.

The funny thing is, I’m whining and feeling sorry for myself, but I can already feel my body becoming more energetic and revitalized.  Not to mention the gym clothes make me feel productive.  This is the same euphoric yet idiotic feeling that makes me think that I can get up tomorrow and do it all again.

Will I ever learn?

On my recent trip to Fiji, I finally sat down and read the first Twilight book.

I’ll give it credit, it actually wasn’t as bad as I was expecting.   I can definitely see why people enjoy it.  The average girl gets the adonis forever-young boyfriend.  We get to feel like it is happening to us, or something similar.

The first half of the book was  a decent read.  I have seen the movie (though it was certainly not my favorite of the year) and the first ten chapters or so are a blow by blow of movie, but with more character/relationship development.  The movie had a tendancy to have things occur with very little explanation, if you ask me. It was nice to see that the book could explain most of the decision it made, opposed to leaving the audience guessing. I almost even bought the sparkle part.  (You know the part– that major criticism of the series where the vampires aren’t killed in sunlight so much as they twinkle, like diamonds.)  I’ll give Meyer the benefit of the doubt.  She needed a reason to have the vamps walking around in the day without them going up into smoke.  Something to do with their skin is a logical angle to take, however I can’t help but think that maybe she missed the mark a bit.  Anyway, I digress.

After the heroine Bella and Edward decide that they like each other, they proceed to have the same three conversations for the rest of the book.  They love each other, but he might eat her, he should leave, no he should stay.  Not to mention, for a good five chapters we get nothing but conversations about Edwards backstory.  It was like Meyer thought “oh, we’re half way through the book, when things really should start to move forward– I know, I’ll give eighty pages of exposition!”  That did get almost unbearable.  

I soldiered on and finished though, and I’ll say it’s not the worst book I have ever read in my life, which is something every author wants to hear.  Honestly I think the problem  mostly was that I am not the target audience.  There were hints of cleverness and forethought peppered into the inevitable cliches that I did enjoy, but high school love is not something I’m into.  I don’t know about anyone else, but two teens walking around declaring that they will love each other for all eternity just makes my eyes roll back so hard I can see my brain.

I guess it didn’t hurt that the movie was already out and I knew that I was allowed to imagine RPattz as the leading man.  Despite that he’s a bit squinty for my tastes, he really seems to stir the ladies, which is the whole point of the Edward character’s existance.  I think.

Overall, I don’t understand the phenomenon of the book.  But, I guess that’s what makes it phenomenon, ay? However, the outcome could have been a lot worse.  I see myself completing the series, just to see how it turns out. Since the series is written for the average high school cheerleader, I think that it won’t take me long to get through them.  I’m lucky that the books already exist, because I don’t think I would have to patience and followthrough to wait for the next installment to be published.  Team RPattz for the win.

A side note.  I also just finished  The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs.  It was an entirely delightful read about a man who decides he is going to take everything in the bible literally for a year.  One can imagine the hijinks that ensue.  His poor wife… I know that you would never know by the proportion of my comments of this book to the former, but if you have to choose a book to pick up, pick up this one.