Team Edward

I can't say I've ever spent as much time waiting for anything, as I did this past Thursday at the local movie theater. The cause was a worthy one however, and I'm able to put the shame of being a tweener for the night behind me, all because of a fictional creature named Edward and his creator, Stephanie Meyer. The phenomenon we know as "Twilight" was first introduced to me at the charter school I teach at, where a number of teachers and students carried the thick volumes (it's a 4 book series) under their arms, trying desperately to hold on to back-packs, frozen lunches and other random parcels. Seeing as I don't have cable and I do enjoy an occasional guilty pleasure read, I decided to indulge in my own curiosities and began to read a borrowed hardcover. To my surprise, the somewhat intimidating 400 plus pages of Meyer's novel, was quickly a part of my daily routine and the bookmark made it's way to the end with ease. I too had fallen.
My friends and I waited (for 5 hours, no joke), balled up in our hoodies between the Disneyland style line barriers of the Harkins Theater floor. The place was filled with screeching teen girls donning homemade baseball tees stating, "Team Edward" or some other quotable expression of love for the vampire heart throb.
As the 7 hour journey to midnight (accompanied by too many mickey D's fries for the heart, chemical calorie-free soda and pseudo-buttered popcorn...I'll blog about these horribles later...) came to a one hour countdown, we passed the time with a game of Apples to Apples and waited to see our dreams come alive on the silver screen. When the lights went down, one last cry of excitement from the crowd of hormonal girls waved through the aisles and to my relief, left the theater in silence.
As for the movie, I did find it to be a really fun experience and a great depiction of the story and characters I've come to love. Like most book to movie situations, reading the book has its own qualities that are difficult to replace when putting it on screen. If you haven't already, I highly recommend borrowing one of the many copies out there and seeing for yourself the amazing art of a great story and believable, LOVABLE characters. Read Twilight. It's okay, you don't have to tell anyone, but you'll probably want to!
********Disclaimer: If you are not fond of supernatural creatures falling in love with humans, and stories of undying mythical monsters resisting the instinct to be evil and put into a high school setting, I would not doubt this could not be the book for you. You should join the madness, crush on a vampire (there are chick vampires, too!) and get into the pop culture scene though............just see the movie!