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I've been due for a crush on someone other than Severus for a long time now. Robert Pattinson didn't really take. Thankfully, into the breach steps Jack White. Crushes on imaginary people, I have found, are the glue that holds my marriage together. I would say that I am as true to Sarge as anyone has ever been since the dawn of marriage, with nary a flagging faith, never an episode of indiscretion of any sort, and I would also say that he is my best and only love on this earth. However, I seem to be genetically programmed to have crushes. They're not on anyone real, but goodness are they potent.

In life, I have cast my lot in with a consummate man, a strong sort who is never ever dull, but who is always there right next to me.

In fantasy, I seem to prefer these louche sorts, pale and ironic, Byronic, perhaps in possession of a slightly weakened moral center.

Golly, will you just look at that pasty dodgy balladeer with the unfortunate white socks? I'll bet he's a biter.

I Am Such a Sucker for Vampires

Experiencing a complex mix of shame and delight, I watched "Twilight" this afternoon. I had been waiting for ages to see it, and the time never seemed just right. But today was rainy, and I planned my many chores so that I'd have a window of time to indulge before I had to pick Hedgie up at school.

There I was, a fully-growed up married lady, alone in my living room with this magical travesty of a chicken-hawking vehicle. With the assurance that the real live actor, Robert Pattinson aka smoldering vampire old man-boy, is 21 at least and open for business, I felt reasonably free to swoon, drool, worship, and squeal. Yes, in the privacy of my home I joined the hordes of pre-teen girls--and boys--before me and actually squealed out loud when he first makes his appearance in the high school lunchroom, and then again when he becomes overwrought from Bella's smell, again when he asks if she knows what he is and then commands her to "say it out loud."

I also wondered at the attraction. The movie, although moody and atmospheric, is oddly asexual, as many have commented, the relationship between the girl and the vampire is completely virginal. He's not even my "type," because over the years I've refined my type from skinny beautiful girlish boys to full grown men with character and something to hang onto. My real type is more bear than deer; Robert Pattinson is definitely more deer than bear.

I didn't get a chance to finish it, so had to put Hedgie to bed before I could watch the last illicit 15 minutes. I simply cannot overstate how quickly Sarge fled the scene when he caught sight of Edward putting his teeth to Bella's neck. He had a tight, disgusted expression like he'd just mistakenly opened a public bathroom door on someone. He almost literally ran downstairs as I called sweetly after his vanishing back, "But wouldn't you like to watch with me?"..."No, honey, you just enjoy!" I could hear him calling back, his voice already faint in the distance...

He's very understanding. But I digress...

No doubt about it, I'm a vampire connoisseur--from that dreadful anti-semitic Nosferatu (not without his fearful charm), to the absinthe-swilling Gary Oldman, from the kitschy night-walkers in "Omega Man" and Anne Rice's tacky rock n' roll goths to the stylish Eastern-European monsters of "Thirty Days of Night," to pasty Bill in "True Blood," and of course let us pay fond homage to the best of the lot, Bram Stoker's classic dark lover, well...I've yet to meet a vampire who didn't give me a happy little frisson.

I suppose that, in the end, it all comes back to the biting.

Is Theodor Herzl the New Severus Snape?*

Look at that spooky, surly, maladjusted man.  An enormously significant historical figure whose private life, as I am not at all surprised to learn, was completely ravaged: an apparent mother-fixation and a failed marriage which produced three children and one grandchild, all of whom went mad and/or killed themselves.  But those hooded eyes, that beard.  He's just dead sexy, is what he is.

J.K. Rowling said "girls, stop going for the bad guy.  Go for a nice man in the first place."   This in response to fans professing their love for Snape and Draco Malfoy...what's a "nice man," anyway? And if he did exist, who could stand him and his intolerably cheerful and optimistic ways? 

There are problems with the bad boy beyond the obvious, however.  I've been fond of a number of them (and I mean in real life, not just in my overactive Potions-addled imagination).  And I can tell you that, to my chagrin, once you get to know them, you find most often that they're quite childish, and in the end, what could be less appealing than a petulant bad boy? Now when you meet that rare delight, one who's also mature and serious, well, that could be a fatal attraction...

So now that I've made the acquaintance of Mr. Herzl, which will be the object of my false affections? Two bad boys: one, a dead fictional character, the other a dead historical figure.  Both intense, brooding, and apparently morally conflicted (my favorite attribute), serious, and single-minded (always a challenge). Hmmm...


*...or, When a Post a Day Becomes Untenable...