Anyway, it’s 10:30 here at Supergenius HQ and aside from the writing I did for work I got bupkis done today. I’m having a hard time with the adjustment. I come home from work and the most that I can do is kick ass at WordTwist and stare at the wall until I go to bed. I’ve been meaning to write a review of The fan-fucking-tastic Gargoyle for about a fortnight and have I? No. Same goes for a short story I owe Dale.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot people? This blows! I didn’t have this problem when I was at Hell, Inc. I keep trying to tell myself that my brain is just gonna need a little time to get used to the new situation. It’s kind of used to having a leisure time and now it doesn’t have that kind of time. The brain’s a muscle, right? Perhaps mine has gotten incredibly lethargic over my 10-months of total slack.

I keep dancing around the idea that maybe I need to become a morning person. Because if I get up early, I could write before work. But I’ve just never been much of a morning person. I seem to do better, at least creatively, between the hours of like 9:30 p.m. and 12:30 a.m. However, that schedule is not conducive to me being present and attentive at my daily 8:45 a.m. stand-up meeting.

A lot of times I just chalk that up my nocturnal nature to being undisciplined. A disciplined person could make themselves a morning person, right? Or is that total bullshit?

P.S. If I had more capacity right now, I’d have totally made that whole Eurydice-battery-replacement hooha some sort of metaphor for my problem. But I didn’t.

I did, however, mention how much I loved Jean Thompson, Stacey Richter, and Mary Gaitskill.

Okay, this is what I was talking about, Hold Steady and the Drive-by Truckers rocking the free world.

And in case you are interested, Let there be Rock

Also, they let my little brother write for the PiPress, he’s gonna be a good writer. Someday. Maybe.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone over the age of like four express pure joy in such a physical manner. At least not in a room filled with hundreds of people.

A few minutes later the tears spilled from my eyes when the two bands teamed up on a brick-loosening version of “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.” It was one of those rare concert moments where the audience actually unites as one. The idle chit chat stops, the getting/drinking of beer ceases, and all attention is focused on what they are experiencing. No, that’s the right. Because focus makes it seem like there was a choice, and there was no choice. It was something that just happened.

At that moment the music and the band and the people and the building were all one. It was fucking magic.

The spell was broken when Sister #2 tapped me on the shoulder and leaned into my ear. “There will be no ‘Chill Out Tent’ tonight.”
I turned and nodded at her. “Nothing can follow ‘Rockin’ in the Free World.”

While my head was turned, I looked up to the people leaning over the rail on the upper floor. Up above us and to the left was a contingent of mid-fiftysomething grey-haired men. Maybe like six or seven of them. They were fist pumping and head-nodding with the rest of the crowd. Except for two of them. One of the grey-hairs had his arm around the waist of another grey-haired man. Their fingers were intertwined and together they played air-guitar.

It was the cutest, sweetest thing I’d seen all night. So sweet that it almost erased the bad memory of Giant Mom Purse whose Prada bag would knock into me every time she turned around to makeout with her date, an Andy Samberg lookalike who must have been about ten years her junior. The gay air guitarists kept Prada Purse from a beat down.

The concert on a whole was a-fucking-mazing. It is easily in my top ten concerts of all time. This was my first time seeing The Hold Steady and it makes me damn mad that I’ve missed so many of their shows. They brought it last night and it was a wonder to behold. And then the Drive-by Truckers, who I thought would be a bit of a let down after the Hold Steady, came on stage to kick an righteous amount of ass. The night was just, well, it was the kind of concert that renewed my faith in rock and roll.

Yowza! I was surprised by the rage Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight brought out of me. This was one of the most sexist novels I can ever remember reading, and I grew up on a steady diet of Sweet Valley High and VC Andrews.

This poorly-written dreck made me so annoyed and angry that I have a hard time not being completely condescending. I don’t think I’ve eye-rolled so much during a book since I read Nicholas Sparks’ shitty, shitty The Wedding.

Twilight tells the story of Bella, a seventeen-year-old Arizonan who moves to Forks, Washington to live with her dad after he mom marries a minor-league baseball player and moves to Florida. Bella’s not thrilled about the move and until she meets Edward, a pale, beautiful boy who turns out to be a sparkly vampire.

Why this book is an international, best-selling phenomenon is beyond me. I can understand why the barely-pubescent crowd loves it. Because the relationship between Bella and Edward is the kind of cheesedog bullshit that teen girls think romance is — inevitable, all-consuming, and filled with unabashed proclamations of their love.

When I was thirteen I’d have probably thought of Edward as the height of romance, but through my 30something eyes I can see that he’s a sexist bordering on abusive. There are many times throughout the novel where Edward chastises Bella for being too alluring and irresistible. He tells her that if he can’t control himself (and it’s really, really hard to do so) that if something bad happens it will be her fault. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Plus, there’s the constant need to watch-over and protect her, and the fact that he continually tells her she can’t take care of herself. Of course, Bella doesn’t help herself at all and totally loses herself in Edward — doing everything he says and never standing up for herself. And, while we’re told Bella is a smart girl (she’s disappointed by the library’s book selection) we never see it.

Bah! It’s so bad.

Then there’s the writing which is awful and repetitive with the incredulous grins and the eyes. OH THE EYES. Christa already made a helpful list about the eyes. I would get into it, but, really the story is so awful and distasteful that the bad writing is just like frosting on the shitcake.

Before you get up in arms about why I even bothered with this book, it’s because my Rock and Roll Bookclub selected it. I am excited to discuss it. Hannah, the thirteen-year-old daughter of two our members, loves the Twilight series with a passion. I am curious to see what she has to say about it and get her insight.