Home Again, Home Again Jiggety Jig

A week ago I left home on a last-minute road trip. My maternal grandmother isn't doing very well and my mom was planning to visit her, so I dropped the cats off at my other grandmother's, asked my much put-upon neighbors to watch the cabin and try not to let the pipes freeze, and hit the road to join them. It was a good trip. I stopped on my way through Portland to see a friend, had an out of control four hour lunch with Zach, re-bonded with my parents' dogs, spent some quality time with my mom, aunt, uncle, cousin and grandmother, loaded up on lefsa at the Norwegian bakery and spent way more hours behind the wheel than can possibly be good for me.

I'm really glad I went (and not just because my aunt loaded me up with quilting supplies!). I count it as one of the great and unexpected benefits of coming back home that I've reconnected with my mom's side of the family. I'm closer to all of them now than I have been at any point since my very early childhood. I love hearing the stories about their childhoods, and the stories they heard and can tell about relatives I'll never know. I love the stories about my roguish great-grandfather and much put-upon and not terribly nice great-grandmother. I love having this multi-generational connection to the soggy and sea-faring Pacific Northwest, so different from the multi-generational connection my father's family has to the arid grazing land of Southern Idaho. It feels good to know more about these roots.

But it feels REALLY good to be back home, with my cats, drinking tea by the fire in my quiet little cabin as the snow melts and drips from the tin roof.

Confession is Good for the Soul, Right?

I've become completely addicted to young adult fiction about teenage vampires. Not only did I read all four books of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, each book in less than 24 hours, but I got online and read the unfinished, unpublished manuscript for the fifth book. And the fifth book isn't even a new story, it's just the first book from a different character's perspective. Oh, but that's not the worst part. When I'd finished that (which I read on a slow day at work), I poked around on the author's website and read the OUTTAKES from the books. These are scenes that didn't make the final editing cut, and yet still I read them. And then I started going into serious withdrawals. Like, I didn't want to get out of bed. I started reading the books AGAIN. And that's just sick and wrong, because they really aren't THAT good.

But instead of just going cold turkey, turning to a mystery or even something that might be considered literature, I followed the advice of an old college friend who recently re-entered my life through the true magic of Facebook (to which I'm also addicted, but I'll save that story for another time) and started reading a new young adult series about teenage vampires. Only this time I didn't even bother getting one book at a time. I ordered all four available books from Amazon at once. And then I waited, brooding in my house, quite literally swearing OUT LOUD each time I went to the post office and they weren't there waiting for me. And then finally when they showed up and I started reading the first book I was really disappointed. The narrator made too many pop culture references, she sounded like a teenager, she wasn't Bella! But I still read it in one sitting. And then I woke up the next morning and read all three of the remaining books in one sick and twisted orgy of teenage vampire goodness. And then it was over. I had no more books left. And . . . I won't lie. I got a little depressed. (I'm waiting for my next shipment of vampire books from Amazon right now.)

And I know why I've gotten on this obsessed train. I do. It's the romance that I'm addicted to, not the vampires. In college I came up with this theory that the human brain had a certain amount of bandwidth that was specifically and solely allotted for thinking about interpersonal relationships. Not necessarily romantic relationships, but . . . that's usually what it's used for. That's why we spend so much time thinking about crushes, or dreaming about our new loves, or pondering what he really meant when he said, and wistfully wondering about our exes. It's a biological imperative. And that's true for a spinster too. All my non-romantic relationships are great. No drama. Nothing I need to obsess over. My last bit of romance was with someone I've known for donkeys years and I'd already thought all the thoughts I could possibly think about him ages ago. I don't have a crush on anyone. And so this is what it's come down to, this bandwidth, which hadn't been used at all in months, has been completely taken over by fictional interpersonal relationships and now I'm stuck in that new love stage where all you can think about is the beloved and the beloved is a frakking set of teenage vampires. It's RIDICULOUS.