Had Enough Vampires Yet? (Thank you Stephenie Meyer)

I want to thank you, Stephenie Meyer.

I want to thank you for making vampires such a visible and inescapable part of my life.

I want to thank you for dreaming a pretty dream one pivotal night, and then introducing me to the sweetest "vegetarian" vampires the world ever knew.

I also want to thank you for inundating book racks I frequent with stunning art-on-black covers, and for having your own section of the book aisle in Wal-Mart.

Thank you for sparking the opportunistic bent in authors and screenwriters everywhere, so that my life could not only be filled with your pale-skinned vamps, but also the vamps revealed from the dark by those hopping on your gravy train.

Thank you for the Tiger Beats and the Twists covered with the name Taylor, which remind me of when I was a teenager and my then-future-husband Taylor Hanson was mmm-bopping his way through the same economically-resilient mags.

When I'm waiting in line to buy groceries and I can preview the fashions of Kristin Stewart and find out her favorite restaurants, favorite bands, favorite cologne on Rob, favorite hygiene products, what she had for lunch yesterday...I have you to thank for that, Mrs. Meyer, and I hereby do.

I also have you to thank for the intimate details of Rob's love for Kristin, and for the regular status updates on their relationship splattered across OK! Magazine to include, but not limited to, "obsessed", "inseparable" and "steamy".

Hats off to you for the knowledge I now share with millions regarding the square footage of Rob and Kristin's apartment in Vancouver, the thread count of their sheets and how the neighbors say "they never leave."

This is very important stuff. And to think I learned all this without even cracking open the magazines in question!

Can you imagine, Mrs. Meyer, if you'd never put Edward, Bella and Jacob on paper, what my life would be like now? How the lives of teenage girls and college girls and soccer moms around the globe would entail such a void? And how much money Muse would not be making right at this moment?

You have changed the world, Mrs. Meyer. Your Cullens have put Dracula to bed and closed the coffin on him. Sorry Bram!

There's only one problem, my friend. Reading Twilight kind of hurt a little bit. And subsequently, saying I'd read Twilight also hurt. It felt a bit like going on a pity date with the pimply, sweaty kid from math class - don't get too close, and hope none of your friends see you.

Because see, I had no intention of reading Twilight. For a year I held up my nose, refused to take a whiff. My bookshelves had never been touched by the likes of teenage vampire rags. And then, peer pressure mounting, I caved. I caved because I wanted to know what exactly you did to make normal people lose their minds.

And so I read. I read the astonishingly thick Twilight that was somehow short on actual words, and I hated it. I loathed your proliferous and unashamed use of adverbs and the sickeningly overdramatization of Bella. To put it bluntly, Twilight stunk.

But then I read New Moon. Not sure why exactly, as I hated its predecessor, but I did. And I could barely put the bloody thing down. It was like brownies dipped in chocolate. You showed up, Meyer, 400 pages late. You brought the plot. You took some of the sap out and replaced it with good ole-fashioned tension. Tension that continued into Eclipse. And you did it without graphic sex, without drugs and without booze. Hats off to you, again. Who knew you could make readers fall in mad love with a character by actually making him a gentleman?

And so I find myself eagerly awaiting the release of New Moon into theatres this month. Like a googly-eyed 12-year-old, I too have fallen for the spell of Twilight, for the saga of Edward, Bella, Jacob and little Renesmee. And, Mrs. Meyer, while I was being slightly sarcastic when I thanked you for the intrusion of Rob Pattinson and his copycat vampires into seemingly every part of my life these days, I do honestly wish to thank you for writing a good story that, overall, was fun and exciting without being offensive at every turn. You proved that such a feat is still possible in the era of Family Guy and American Dad.

So, thanks. Keep up the good work. Oh, and one more thing, did Rob and Kristin really break up?