Twilight Twilight I be a Cougar Tonight

I have a confession of sorts to make, and it's a confession that I'm both embarrassed by and fiercely defensive of at once. I'd rather admit that I dress my son's hamster up in bondage gear and take photos of him for internet bestiality sights than do this. Really I would. But confessions burn for an outpouring, for release, and I think it's high time I do mine homage.

I am a thirty something woman who enjoys Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series.

Yes. I'm one of those women. And I never in my wildest dreams thought that this would happen to me, of all people, cynic of cynics, shunner of all things pop culture.

First things first; I've never watched a single episode of Survivor, American Idol, or Wife Swap. And I won't, not ever, unless there is the threat of vivisection involved or, perhaps, a door prize consisting of a set of considerably larger boobs. (Though I would, in fact, watch a musical talent show set on a remote island filled with jilted, swapped wives who are in the process of starving to death. I'd even do the casting calls for this one.) Anyway, my point is, I'm not all that keen on the American media machine. I tried the Harry Potter books in all earnestness, and I though I enjoyed what I read of the first one, fifty pages in I lost steam and abandoned it for my husband's old copy of Dune that was lying around the house. I tend to be highly distrustful of anything that is touted as THE NEW BIG THING, and though it may seem like a case of pseudo intellectual snobbery, it's really not. I simply know my own limitations when it comes to things like this, and I fear homogenization at every turn. Rabid fandom scares me the way thoughts of getting kicked in the balls scare most men; my dad, who is an avid sci-fi enthusiast, saw to this. I love him dearly, but the man thinks the key to mankinds' salvation is laying stuffed like a Thanksgiving turkey in a hanger in the New Mexico desert, for pete's sake. It's been the big joke in my family for years. We give him X Files dvds for Christmas and little glowing green dolls that say "Take me to your leader" when you press on their stomach. I never wanted to be perceived in this way- an endearing oddball, obsessed with anything that other people might find strange or disconcerting.

When then this- this thing- first came along, this Twilight train mowing down tweens and teens and their moms of a certain age in turn, it barely registered on my periphery at all. I remember reading a newspaper article about the diverse crowds that were showing up at the stores for each book's release, all those grown ass women in Talbots sweater sets standing in line and salivating next to the teenagers, and thinking, Someone needs to crop dust these events with chocolate munchkins and Halydol, wuh wuh wuht is the deal? How could women in their thirties and forties buy into this crapfest that centered on a teenage boy who can't kiss his girlfriend without wanting to eat her face like it was his own personal pan pizza for one? I deemed them cuckoo for cocoa puff cougars. The type of women who would use a shoe horn to shove themselves into their daughters jeans and Aeropostal baby tees before strutting their stuff for the produce boy at Safeway. The Real Wives of Emotionally Immature County. Not me. Not ever. As if.

But then the HBO series Trueblood came along in September, and after an initial period of shock and awe that last through the first two or three episodes- Golly, these vampires sure do screw awhole lot!- I was hooked. A friend of mine who is also a fan of the tv series, a friend who I trust implicitly (aka: I do not think she's nuts) suggested that I read her copy of Twilight because, and these are her words, "it's the sweet part that Trueblood leaves out." Huh. I was polite and thanked her profusely, but when I returned home, the copy of Twilight went immediately into a basket of my sons board books, vanquished among The Pokey Puppy and Elmo Learns his ABCs, where I was sure it belonged.

One night about a week later, I finished the book that I was reading at the time (Junot Diaz's first novel, dear lord please teach me Spanish for I do not understand this...) and I wasn't ready to go to sleep just yet. During the day, my house is like something out of The Lord of the Flies, all shrieking, hyperactive toddler and huge unneutered dog fighting over the sock monkey, waffle pieces flying through the air, the mailman getting humped within an inch of his life on the front steps-I'm talking true Calgon take me away and stuff me to the gills with tranquilizers material. I should go to sleep early, really I should, but then it'll feel like it's just starting all over again, and cripes, who wants that? So I picked up Twilight, figuring I would just scan it for shits and giggles until i was tired.

I was up until 2 a.m. And I would have stayed up longer to finish it, but I passed out in a small lagoon of my own drool at about page 384. (Apologies to Tammy. It's dry now.)

I have to tell you, the next morning I felt out of sorts, embarrassed, and bewildered by myself. Some years ago, I had a sex dream about Elijah Wood that horrified me- Flipper? Remember the film version of Flipper?- and this, well, this feeling post Twilight was a lot like that. I couldn't get my hands around it. I hid the book with it's deeply placed bookmark in the nightstand, worried that my husband would find it and tease me within an inch of my life. I thought you said that stuff was for developmentally arrested cougar pervs! I thought you said it was lame! I thought-Slap. I'd have to slap him. That was the plan for the time being, anyway.

This was a week ago, and I'm doing better with myself now. With acceptance comes a modicum of peace, and I am, for all intensive purposes, there. Edward is creepy. Dead boy, sparkling in the sun, bedazzling poor bland Bella with that crooked smile and popping up in her bedroom at odd hours to spoon. But I gotta tell you, something in this grown ass woman, this woman of a certain age, digs it. Digs it like the ten year old me dug Suzie Q's, like the 15 year old me dug Axel Rose's serpentine dance.

I've analyzed my response to the book within an inch of it's life, and I get it now, my page eating, chapter munching enthusiasm. Sort of anyway. Like grown men and their fascination with Star Wars and movies where big cars go bang, women are using Twilight to revisit their youth. It's fun, it's light and fluffy, but it's also serving a purpose, for me anyway. Simply put, I alway wanted the mystery guy in high school, the guy who stood apart from the masses while wearing a sexy, alienated sneer. The sensitive loner. The poetry reading toughie who wore leather chaps and adopted kittens from the pound just moments before they were gassed. I thought that he really existed back then, and I pulled his image from pop culture and classic lit as proof as I went merrily along. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. James Dean having his techni-color shit fit in Mr. Howell's living room. The cute motorcycle riding crying boy from Twin Peaks. And then there was Judd Nelson's character in The Breakfast Club, who knocked my pubescent ass into a full out swoon. Because of him and his maniacle"I want to be an airforce ranger" glee, I developed an infatuation my freshman year with a senior named- no laughing, please- Andy Pigeon. He was a blonde, blue eyed, stoop shouldered slice of wonder who could have easily been the homecoming king or the jock du jour with his looks. Instead, he donned a floor length olive drab trenchcoat and smoked endless butts alone on a wall over looking the student courtyard. This was back in the days long before trenchcoats were considered signs of possible mental illness and concealed arsenals, but still, my friends were entirely befuddled by my choice in libido fodder. Him? They consistently asked me. HIM?

I patiently explained to them over and over that there was just something about the guy. They couldn't see past the coat and intentional isolation to the turned up button nose, to the eyelashes as long as a baby's forearm. They couldn't see the sadness I saw dwelling there in those baby blues, the longing for connection and touch. It was there, dammit. I was certain of it. Every night for that entire school year, I lay in bed and imagined him noticing me, another loner like himself, this one done up in gravity defying Aqua Net bangs and cheap pink jelly shoes that made her bare feet look like Eggo waffles after three hours. You, he'd say. I've been watching you for along, long time. Things would progress swiftly after that. He'd let me wear his trench coat around the school, marking me as his, though we'd both admit that the effect, on my petite frame, was rather wizard like. We'd talk about Echo and the Bunnymen while swapping tasteful spit behind the sports equipment shed. We'd make Duncan Hines brownies with extra chocolate chips in my mother's kitchen while she was conveniently delayed at work. The cat would be in love with him, too, curling around his neck like one of those padded heat wraps from Walgreens. He'd be patient with me. I'd teach him about self control. We'd have long discussions about third base but go to Denino's up the street for Italian subs with extra hots instead. He would teach me how to feel like a woman, and I would teach him how to play hackey sack. It would be, as Stephenie Meyer's constantly says in her books, PERFECT.

In reality, the guy never looked at me once. However, I remained undeterred, and after he graduated that spring, I developed one similar crush after the other on guys who, in these trying times, might be voted most likely to blow up the cafeteria. Joey the BMX superstar who rode for team HARO and had a smirk like a living Chuckie doll. Shawn who sold two dollar joints in the parkinglot after school and stole his father's car at 14, making it all the way to Albany before the police caught up with him. Kevin, who once chased me out onto my neighbor's roof with a salamander in his hand when were nine, but now thought I was about as noteworthy as a coffee table coaster. On and on it went. The affliction with bad boys thing that so many girls have going on. And it wasn't from a lack of self esteem, or a lack of self preservation. It was from a terrible, terrible feeling of boredom, an ennui the likes of which you read about. I wanted something, anything, to happen to me in that podunk little town on the auto mile, and it wasn't going to be Sheldon Gray with his award winning science project about the effects of caffeine on crayfish who made it so. It was going to be a force of nature, a boy with the energy to break through my walls and the lack of fear to actually go for it.

So there you have it. I like Twilight as a grown ass woman because I wasn't brave enough, or stupid enough, to give myself, even in a glancing flirtation, to all those dangerous boys who captured my fancy as a girl. Reading it now is like living it over, with far different results. That's all, really. No harm, no foul. Now if you'll excuse me, I really must be going. Flipper is playing on Showtime at eight.