Last night, Millicent and I held in a "who is reading the crappiest novel" contest, and despite my triumphant entry, I lost.

She is reading Dan Brown's first novel, and I was only reading...

But wait, here's the backstory:

In celebration of my upcoming 1 year English Graduversary, I decided to reflect on all of the great literature I have absorbed during my oh-so-extensive reading life. Then I went to Powell's, was overwhelmed by my lifelong task of education, and got kind of bookdepressed. I ended up diving into too many at once, feverishly pulling books off the library hold shelf and sinking my teeth into their spines. Nafisi, Updike, Shapton, Lewis, Baker... Oh yeah, I'm reading!

And then I hit a mental wall.

Which lead me to do something stupid.

I decided to read something popular [see popculture lecture by whalen, david, phd]. A book saturated with words like "dazzle" [used as a verb], "smoulder" and "godlike" [adjectives], as well as excessive sentences containing both "cold" and "marble." That's right, I decided to read Twilight.

Despite the dirty looks from my mother and the rest of humanity, I'm okay admitting it because I can't say I'm enjoying it in the least. Next time I'm looking to put myself awkwardly in the middle of some TMI teenage lust, I think I'll just go hang out at my local high school. Or maybe the Honours Lounge at my alma mater.

I did actually get sort of into the 3rd 4th of the book last night [evil tracking vampires are more entertaining than good lovesick ones], but I know better. Maybe that's what education really is - the ability to distinguish between great literature and passing fad books, while still occasionally reading both. It's like the fact that I can whip up a delicious healthy dinner in no time, but every once in a while, it's still fun to get french fries.

Also, right now I can make a lot of cheesy vampire jokes.

sunset...

I stood at the edge of the world on windtorn legs and thoughtless toes and breathed in sharp air as the orange sun dragged all of the Pacific into itself.