Eclipse Escape

The girl inside the ticket booth could not have been older than 15. A swath of bottle dyed black hair was swept over eyes, she had braces and a few piercings circling her lips. How did those piercings avoid clashing into her braces? Brain dead from my day, I considered her mouth while the kids bashed my legs and pulled at my arms.

“Uh, you better get here like SO early.” She peered out at me from behind the swath.

“Yeah good call. I was planning on it. How early do you think?”

“Uh, like an hour?” She leaned forward.  “Like, at least? I mean, we did the midnight showing here last night? And like every theater? Was sold out. Seriously.” Her eyes were wide now. I was impressed.

“Wow. Ok, I’ll make sure to get here early. Thanks.”

She smiled widely and her braces twinkled. She and I had connected. She was more than half my age and yet she made eye contact and offered her beautiful smile because she was into what I was into at that very moment. Yeah you’ve probably guessed it (*insert reader eyeroll here*). I’m talking about Twilight.

I’ve written about this before. I’ve justified my fascination in about ten different ways. I felt that I needed to get on my soapbox and spout off why I’ve lost myself in this whole saga. And I got on that soapbox because, well, I am a little embarrassed about liking it. I still am.

And now the third movie has come out and I have collected a small crew of women to head out and see it on Saturday.

Acting, special effects and plot aside – I ask only one thing of it. One thing. And that is to escape for two hours. Make me pretend I am not where I am and somewhere very very different instead. Transport and transform me. For two hours. That’s all I ask.

Because have you seen the news recently? Here are some headlines from today alone.

BP spill sets a somber record as Gulf’s biggest.

Hurricane could suspend oil capping for weeks.

35 die in bomb blasts at Pakistan shrine.

Or the horrifying shooting deaths of two Tampa police officers, one a father of four, one husband to a 9 months pregnant wife.

And then there’s the usual stuff. You know, scraping it together to pay the mortgage on a house worth half of that. Parenting boys alone while your husband travels. Never getting anything done – or if done, done well. Ear infections preventing any pool time for two weeks. Forgetting to schedule that mammogram. Frustration over childcare. Screaming tantrums in the grocery line. Jello dropped on the carpet. Missing your mom. A lot.

Life is what it is. Sometimes it’s tough. Sometimes it’s not so bad. Everyone has their stuff. But I am simply looking to the end of this week as a way to check out for two hours into a kind of cheesy, fairly predictable but highly addictive little storyline which takes me out of blistering hot Florida and drops me in a small rainy logging town in the corner of our country.

Is that so bad?

With all the horribleness going on in the world alongside the general stressy crap that goes on in our day to day lives, being this invested in a campy, over commercialised tale about vampires and werewolves fighting over the same girl is hardly anything to get your panties in a bunch about.

Jacob and Edward aside, I’m Team “Mommy go out and get a life”.

I can’t wait.