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books of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, each book in less than 24 hours, but I got online and read the unfinished, unpublished manuscript for the fifth book.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.