aaand a new obsession begins, or How I Lost My Entire Weekend

I caved.  I finally read Twilight.  All the way through.  (for those of you who have been here a while, I attempted to do so back in… February?  March?  but couldn’t finish because it was mind-numbingly awful of my many social obligations.)

However.  A new day breaks, and a new obsession begins.

(Except when I say “obsession,” I mean, you know, a mild sort of amused interest.  obviously.)

I bring you a new word, guys.  ”Lolfan,” defined as those who have read Twilight, understand the insane compulsion to somehow finish the books no matter how bad they get, and can still function in society without beginning a desperate search for “their Edward.”  (or comparing their significant others to the aforementioned fictional character.)

“I pretty much made up this word just now to describe the kind of people (i.e., me) who read these books for the sole purpose of snarking on them and yet cannot stop oh God please send help. Levels of affection for the subject matter may vary; macros and icons are often involved. Twatlighters (see below) are a good example of lolfans.”

Thanks, cleolinda.

These are my people! They counted out 165 references to Edward’s beauty. My long-lost tribe, my band of brothers!  (I fear, however, that no one will ever share my strange fascination with quoting obscure sections of Henry V.  Thanks, Dad.)

And my favorite part of cleo’s snark-filled recap?

…he still has her Snapple cap in his pocket, because Edward Cullen is a thirteen-year-old girl.

and

(His excuse for showing up uninvited: she left her jacket in Jessica’s car the night before, so he brought his for her to wear. “It was cold. She had no jacket. Surely this was an acceptable form of chivalry.” I’m just saying, “chivalry” doesn’t look like a word anymore. And I am so not making his obsession with it up. Entire drinking games could be organized around variants of this word as appearing in this book. Also: chivalry.)

But.  I still can’t stand Bella.  Sorry.  I tried.  (but blech.)

If you would like to add joy to your life, regardless of your status on the whole “fan” scale, read Growing Up Cullen, in which Edward is characterized as a 40 year old mother on a bad day due to all the other Cullens’ constant crazy-making and poor angsty Edward is all on his lonesome… scrapbooking and listening to Nickelback cds.  Nobody understands him, you guys.

(and oh, the late-to-the-party glee I have: there’s more).

…hours of clicking later…

Oh sweet lord of the rings.  What have I stumbled clumsily across?

He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room — maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.

Nightlight, a Twilight parody.

There goes my entire November.  See you guys on the other side.

oh.  and yes, I’m going to see Jacob’s abs that movie.  but only because my boyfriend’s sister is dragging both of us!

Signs

…one of the cutest videos ever.

Flying the coop

I’ve mentioned before that our apartment is amazing.  I love living here, and I love the girls I live with.

Out of the four of us, only one has been in a serious, healthy, long-lasting relationship this year.  (note the qualifiers.)  She and her boyfriend are great; they’re fun to be around, and they’re a ridiculously cute couple without making you feel like an awkward third wheel.

And… this weekend, they got engaged.  (!!!)

It wasn’t a surprise by a long shot, but it was certainly sweet and loving.  I’m quite possibly too happy for her, except I don’t know that that’s possible.  She deserves every good thing in life.  Twice.  (She’s one of my favorite people in the world.)

It is bittersweet, though.  They’re talking about a summer wedding and that’ll be it.  No more roommate.  I knew that I would probably be the last roommate she’d have, but it’s still sad.

So congratulations, roommate and fiance!  I’m blissfully happy for both of you!  (and a little sad for our apartment.  we’ll lose an amazing roommate.)

Blogging and such

I like the internet.  I’m spoiled, and I’m okay with that.  I also like blogging, and knowing that maybe (hopefully) only one person knows who I really am.  (Hi, otherJo!  love!)

But every once in a while, I’ll realize that I’m putting too many details out there, or I’ll stumble across someone else’s blog that’ll show mine in return, and start to worry.

Also, thanks to the passionate love affair that I’ve embarked upon with WordPress, I saw that someone used “bad ‘relationship habits’” to find my blog.  Uhm.  Thanks?  I suppose others should benefit from my life.

(Maybe I should be more political.  Unfortunately, my views don’t really align with, well, anyone’s, and I don’t enjoy conflict, so I tend to keep my opinions to myself.)

On an entirely unrelated note, I love Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly.  And Cyd Charisse, (although if you want to see her, I’d suggest Brigadoon, aka my childhood stay-at-home-sick-with-mom movie).

they make it look so easy.

I keep forgetting how great that movie is.  (Didja know it got an extremely rare 100% on Rotten Tomatoes?)

[to take the rabbit trail (and linking spree) even further: apparently a 100% isn't that rare...]

short and sweet

Dear American Idol,
Thank you for keeping Jamar Rogers and Danny Gokey together.  Nothing warms my little cynical heart more than seeing two guys in (what appears to be) a solid friendship.  I love them, and I hope they go far.

Dear Simon,
Seriously??  Bikini Girl comes onstage, and you turn into a gibbering idiot.  I normally dislike Kara, but in this case, I completely agree.  Bikini Girl has no talent and actually, she’s got very little sex appeal.  She looks like a female version of Gumbi.  Don’t make me lose all respect for you, please.

Dear Fringe,
I love you.  Please don’t ever change.  Or run out of ideas.
Also, don’t kill the chemistry between blondie-girl and son-of-frankenstein.  We need it.  (Best quote of the night?  Bishop: “I like to cut.”)

Dear DTV box converter thing,
You are the best thing that happened to our little cable-starved apartment so far.  I have no idea how you work, but I know that I love you, too.  No more rabbit-ears!

The Friend Collector

You know who they are.  You might even have one right now.

They’re people who know how to charm.  They have an innate sense of how to appeal to each individual, and use it to get on your good side right away.  A few encounters, perhaps hanging out a few times, and you can see that they’re good company, fun to be around.  They immediately strike up deep conversations, and you feel surprised that they would be willing to be so honest and open so soon.

Only later do you realize that you’ve begun to feel irritated when they show up.  You think about it, and discover that they have put virtually nothing into the friendship besides talking about how very close you are, how well you understand one another, and urging that you hang out, meet for coffee, go out for drinks, etc.  Strangely enough, the events never occur.  But they are somehow hitting you up for favors all the time, on account of your “great friendship.”  They expect you to bend over backwards for them, and act surprised when you refuse.

These are Friend Collectors.  They build a tenuous foundation with lots of people in strategic places, and go around using their connections for their own benefit.  (You know, the guy in your World Civ class that only showed up to take the test, but would make friends with a few people in order to have “study sessions” or just copy the notes.)

I ran into a few of these in college, and thought I’d be done with it once I graduated.  Funny how life tends to follow you around, right?

Don’t take advantage of me just because I like to be helpful.  If you’d just asked for what you wanted instead of manipulating me to get it, I’d have done it gladly.  Instead, you’ve pissed me off, and damaged our “great friendship” irrevocably.  Good one.  Is it so difficult to just ask?