with bated breath

Today’s quote: You wouldn’t happen to know where I could get my hands on a master cylinder for a 1986 Volkswagen Rabbit?

I’ve been immersed in the Twilight series for the past three weeks. It started one Saturday evening in early August when I sat down to a solitary dinner with this book. Within a half hour, I was hooked.

I’ve just finished the third book this past weekend, and am now waiting for the fourth book to arrive. It’s been a long time since any book has excited me to this extent, and I look within myself to see why. Is it because everyone loves to read about people who are beautiful and invincible? Or in my case, have I always been waiting for someone to come along and “save” me?

If that’s the case, I’m as far removed from Bella as I can get. She has a disturbing tendency to attract trouble and to land in difficult situations for which someone is always coming to her rescue. Me, I’m more likely to be the rescuer.

My dad has raised me with conflicting standards: on the one hand I was supposed to be as independent as I could be; on the other hand, I was somehow supposed to be feminine and unintimidating enough to attract a guy. I don’t think that the two qualities necessarily have to be at odds, but I also don’t think that I’m the type of girl that brings out the protective instinct in guys because I’m usually so capable.

If you consider the books from an objective perspective, Stephanie Meyers has done an excellent job of creating an unconventional vampire story. Her books have many fascinating ideas in them, such as the possibility of vampires surviving off animals instead of people, and even the fact that any vampire would exercise such self-restraint.

She’s also done away with the death-by-sunlight myth; instead, her vampires avoid the sun for another reason entirely: their skin sparkles like thousands of diamonds when exposed to the sun. Since this particular feature is so noticeable, this is why these vampires choose to live in a town in WA that apparently gets very few truly sunny days a year.

For me, I’m still not sure why I’m so obsessed with the series. It could be the fact that immortality is attractive (for the sake of being able to have enough time to learn and pursue anything, since time is not a finite factor, and not just to live forever), or the romantic idea of attracting the notice and regard of someone so superhumanly beautiful, intelligent, and talented.

For the first, I’ve always mourned the fact that I won’t have enough time to learn everything. If I could have it my way, I’d be a doctor, concert musician, dancer, singer, author, physicist, engineer, inventor, painter, carpenter, mechanic, computer nerd, sculptor, lawyer, and even a jeweler. My interests can span almost anything. But as we all know, you have to pick and choose, because most people can’t have it all.

As for the romantic part, I’m sure that at one time or another most of us have yearned to be a part of something bigger. Some of the most memorable and best qualities demonstrated by humans have been for love. Love conquers all, but it brings out both the best and worst traits in people such as blinding passion, utter selflessness and sacrifice, jealousy, despair, and euphoria.

There’s also the part where Bella and Edward are so tight that they can’t seem to live without each other. To me, the idea of being so soul-bound to someone else that you can’t live without them is hard to describe. I’ve once experienced my own type of fascination with someone, and honestly I don’t know if I would ever want someone else to exercise that kind of power over me again. All I can pray is that if it does happen again, that this time the wielder is more deserving.

All in all, the stories leave me with a feeling of wistfulness…sometimes I wish the fantasy world wasn’t quite so improbable.