I like Twilight - and no my mother didn't drop me on my head as a child.

Since Twilight seems to be the new trendy thing to talk about, let’s discuss. And hell, I’ve seen the newest one 2 times in the past 48 hours (yes I know it’s not the weekend yet!) so it’s already on my mind.

When you tell someone that you are a Twilight fan, they look at you as though you have just mentioned that you live on an ancient Indian burial ground. Unfortunate home placement, like a fondness for Twilight, of course happens to people but not to people you know. It’s not like they had a choicein the matter. And of course if you’re willing to admit it, there’s an assumption that you’re in the process of fixing it. You’re moving into a transitional apartment and hiring an exorcist, right? You’re going to burn all your Twilight books and memorabilia in front of me now, aren’t you? Admitting to being a fan of Twilight is seen as the first step in a 12 step process that will end in you reading Ernest Hemingway, getting an actual job and eventually celebrating your 13th birthday. However, looking at the disturbing amount of grown women who worship this crap will tell you that’s clearly untrue. Even educated, levelheaded women like this stuff for goodness sake! Two straight guys shushed me in the theater yesterday for making a penis joke during a particularly intense scene! The obsession doesn't know gender, sexual preference, age or most notably body mass index.

I’ll just put this out there: I love corny stuff. My mood generally ranges from your regular store-brand anger to sarcastic vitriol on most days, and then just oscillates between the two until halfway through each month when the rest of the emotions bombard me for no reason for 5 days. So when it comes to movies, music and television I need the medium to do my emotional work for me. I like it to just hit me over the head. John Hughes movies are great for this. Journey’s Greatest Hits will usually do the trick. Just go ahead and blatantly manipulate my emotions because breaking me out of my general skepticism is going to take some work. OK, add some vampires, but they’d better be pretty.

Being a Twilight fan seems no more or less stupid to me than people who let their lives revolve around Shark Week. So I suppose I see where these people are coming from. When someone tells me that they’re saving their vacation time for Shark Week, part of me wants to ask them if they like other non-sensical, boring shit too.“But sharks are fascinating creatures and the shows they air are educational.” I see your educational value and raise you Robert Pattinson’s amazing bone structure… since we’re clearly not committed to making any sense whatsoever. Investigating the inner workings of my dishwasher would probably be educational too, but why would I actually choose to spend my time doing it? The inner judging you do when I tell you I spent my evening watching Twilight is the feeling I get when you admit to liking Shark Week, U2, Kevin Costner, The New York Yankees or hiking. I assume that you’re trying to either be cool, a non-conformist, a person who gets off on shock value or the child of parents who were not yet aware of the dangers of painting a crib in lead paint. And admitting to liking something shitty leads people to suspect other things."Oh, you're a Yankee's fan," I think to myself "You probably also like cheaply made lawn chairs, blue nail polish and drinking wine coolers too." But I'm willing to let go of this notion if you quit assuming that because I like Twilight I also like Justin Bieber, High School Musical and American Idol. Just because I have been heard saying "Twilight is totally Robert Pattinson's 21 Jump Street, he's destined for a great career just like Johnny Depp" doesn't mean I have NO taste whatsoever. ....Right?

That said, I recently came to own a life-sized Edward Cullen cardboard cut out. Now don’t go assuming that I was planning on placing it in my room and letting him watch me sleep… The goal was to scare the living shit out of as many of my coworkers as I possibly could before word spread of his presence. First he lurked in my office shower to scare my boss. Then he made a stop in the medical records office, the supply closet, the HR department and finally the CEO’s office. Not only did Edward himself make it into our CEO’s desk area but photocopies of his face made it into his closet, his mini-fridge and under his desk. When the crowd that had gathered to laugh at him dispersed, he asked me “So, there aren’t any more in here right?” …To which I shrugged and turned back down the hall giggling conspicuously. I then watched from his window as he turned over every chair, looked under every flat surface and scoured his closet for an Edward that he would never find. Somehow I still have a job.

A coworker of mine was frantically emptying her purse in my office this morning looking for her keys and she inadvertently left behind a tampon on the floor. My boss had figured I was making a vampire joke and had left the tampon at Edward’s feet as an offering and congratulated me on my joke. Sadly I couldn't take the credit. Edward has aparently learned to play jokes on his own. He sent my coworker an email from my computer thanking her for the teabag and that he’d never seen them in “plain” flavor before. ...OK I helped him.

Edward the Cutout has been an agent for pants-pissing shock, tampon jokes, giggly picture taking, frozen-faced brooding under any condition and general hilarity. But after watching Eclipse, I felt bad for not taking him seriously. Maybe we really should have been swooning at his feet and wishing that he would really come to life to grace us with his melancholy obsessive tendencies. You spend two hours watching a living version of your office prank defending the girl he loves, ripping other vampires to shreds and showing a pretty decent emotional range for once… and then you feel as though maybe he’s worth a bit more than your laughter.

In conclusion, I'm ready to admit that the true value of Twilight probably lies somewhere between "cardboard cutout tampon jokes" and "legitimate". It does disturb me that Stephanie Meyer can write an entire paragraph in which a vampire tells you what prostitute blood tastes like but keeps all romance completely G-rated. At least she has her priorities straight. Thanks, Mormons.