The #1 best-seller in America

After months of hearing women and girls of all ages sing the praises of the best-selling Twilight series, my curiosity overcame me and I borrowed the first novel from a friend. I admit that just reading the back cover made me want to return it, but having gone so far as to obtain a copy I figured I might as well go through with it. I will openly admit I had very little hope of enjoying the read, but I had to find out why all of my friends and family, ages 10 to 50, who had read it had fallen in love with a fictional teenager.

I have nothing against the vampire genre. Bram Stoker's Dracula is a fabulous book. Yes, I know it's also a classic and hardly in the realm of pop-culture vampire lore, but the fact that there were vampires in the book did not turn me away. However, the teen romance aspect did. I found it extremely difficult to take the romance seriously. Besides the obvious problem of age difference, my main skepticism was that the two were on speaking terms for a mere couple of days before suddenly they were so in love she was willing to give up her life and family to be with him forever. Maybe this is just a personal preference, so I'll leave it at that.

After reading a few sentences I was already appalled at the writing. But fear not, my dear little children, should your sentences grow short and dull, should your word variation and vocabulary shrink, should you repeat the word "was" on a single page 45 times, surely you will not feel the wrath of an editor's red ink. Nay! Even if your grammar should imitate that of a casual email your writing shall not perish, but rather be blessed! It shall soar on the wings of an eagle to the very pinnacle of the best-sellers lists and shall be praised by a hundred thousand tongues! For the readers of this land are both merciful and forgiving to the unskilled writer and shall not look down on your six word sentences, nay, not even those with five! All such grievances will pass away before a sexy and romantic vampire who needs neither grammar nor plot to engrave his name upon the hearts of the women of this country. Ahem. I mean, Amen.

Ahhhhh.... the plot. This is my favorite part and I have to say I am thrilled to have the blog medium at my disposal just now. I can take a deep breath and state my points at leisure with no chance of an interruption. I had read about half of Twilight when I stopped to recount everything that had occurred thus far. The last 300 pages had gone by in a breeze since I had no long words to stumble over and no complex sentence structure to navigate. I sat back and realized (I must warn you now that I am about to reveal huge plot spoilers) that nothing had happened. Nothing! The main character, Bella, moved to town, spent a few weeks in school, met some people and had her life saved twice by Edward the vampire and got a crush. Surely that didn't take 300 pages, you say. You're right, it took more like 400. As filler, the author had Edward (or his fellow vampires) behave in an unexplained or unusual way. A short while later, the action is explained in a long conversation. Then, along comes Edward doing something strange again! Sure enough, the next chapter he has a heart-to-heart with Bella to explain it. Or maybe it was his sister that explained it. Or she did the strange thing and the mom explained it... I'm getting it a bit confused. In any case, I found this method for engaging readers rather tedious if you realize what the author is doing.

Fast forwarding past the first 3/4 of the book, Meyers finally decides to try her hand at action. She introduces her villain at this point, a "bad" vampire who decides Bella must die. Then, in a barely suspenseful turn of events reminiscent of TV crime shows, the "good" vampires fail to keep Bella safe and she ends up alone with the bad guy about to die. So what does our most evil of recently-introduced villains do? He launches into that age-old tradition, the I'm-about-to-kill-you speech! What a glorious moment. The bad vampire from Twilight united with villains from Spiderman to Disney movies to James Bond to Zoolander. In those crucial minutes while the good guys are fighting to get to the end scene before it's too late, our villain is spilling his secrets to our poor protagonist just in case she wanted to clear some things up before she has the life blood sucked out of her. How very sweet of him! It's too bad for Bad-Vampire, all that talking gave Edward enough time to sweep in a save Bella's life yet again leaving room for a nearly-touching hospital scene and, of course, a sequel or two or three.

So what about Edward? He says all the right words at the right times and has a "bad boy" streak, so what's not to love? He's a bit smothering and over-protective for my liking. I also find no appeal in hugging or kissing someone who is icy cold. I guess I just lucked out. I am already married to a man who has Edward beat hands-down. He is lacking the bad-boy streak but that's way more trouble than it's worth anyway.

My letter to the editor of Mothering magazine: Breastfeeding and sexuality

For this post I was VERY inspired after reading an article in the latest issue of Mothering. The article was on the portrayal of breastfeeding in the movies and it included a brief review of about 60 of them. I know what you're thinking: wow, that's quite a topic for quiet, innocent, blushing Janel. What can I say? I am a bit more bold in print than in person I guess. Any thoughts would be appreciated since I haven't sent it in yet. :)

My letter to the editor:

Dear Editor,

I have great admiration for Mothering’s advocacy of breastfeeding as natural, nourishing, and nonsexual. It is a much needed message in a society where people are embarrassed by the sight of a nursing mother and bottles are viewed as the norm. Therefore I was confused and highly disturbed when I read “Reel Milk” in the September/October 2008 edition, specifically the brief review of Crazy Love/Juana la Loca. After taking such a firm stance as a magazine that breastfeeding is not a sexual act, this section seems to applaud the main character experiencing an orgasm from nursing her baby.

I understand that the article reviewed mainly negative portrayals of breastfeeding in filmmaking because positive and neutral portrayals were difficult to come by. I would have assumed this was merely the review of a bizarre and irreverent depiction of breastfeeding in keeping with the rest of the article except for the last two words: Go oxytocin! To my knowledge, the only reason to phrase something that way is to cheer for the person or object in question. Therefore I can only assume that the author was approving of the character experiencing an orgasm, an indisputably sexual act, from breastfeeding her newborn. I believe this is extremely dangerous ground to tread on. It is impossible in my mind to draw a distinction between deriving sexual pleasure from breastfeeding and deriving it from a child in any other way. If it is abusive in any other circumstance than it is equally abusive during a breastfeeding session.

I know your magazine has worked tirelessly to give an accurate view of breastfeeding to a society that is overly obsessed with sex. You have always made it plain that the point of breastfeeding is to provide superior nutrition to our children, to promote bonding between the child and its mother, and to promote emotional and physical health to both. Every issue of Mothering addresses the problem of society sexualizing breastfeeding. In fact, the article “Reel Milk” itself discusses the problem, and this stark contradiction is what caused my confusion upon reading the sentence “Go oxytocin!” later in the article. After so much hard work toward changing our society’s view of breastfeeding, it would be prudent to show more discretion, especially regarding something as inappropriate as orgasms during breastfeeding.

Thank you for your attention!

From one pro-breastfeeding mother to another,

Janel Buckingham

Fall

This is our third fall since we moved to Southern California, not to mention the fact that I grew up here, and still somehow I had convinced myself that the cool weather was finally upon us... 6 weeks ago. I must be incredibly optimistic! Yes, it has begun to cool down. The evenings are nice and we're looking at 90* weather all week. The skies are bright but not blaring (a very important distinction for anyone whose eyes act older than the rest of their body... mine are going quite senile at this point).

Something inside of me is desperately craving a real fall this year. If I was in Seattle, I would be enjoying the drippy grey almost-rain zipped up in fleece and sipping a latte from either Starbucks, Tully's, Seattle's Best or a fiercely independent coffee shops that shuns the aforementioned three. If I was in Ohio, we'd be wearing 6 layers of coats, hats, scarves, and long underwear in the mornings, down to shorts and t-shirts by noon, and back in 3-4 more layers by night time. Cornfield mazes would actually be in cornfields, and pumpkin patches would actually contain live growing pumpkins. Alas, our city's "pumpkin patch" is a series of bounce houses in the Kohl's parking lot. There's nothing like a large inflatable Spiderman or The Incredible Hulk over ashphalt to welcome in fall.

The best I can do is start baking like it's really fall... which will help me get some nice pudge to see me through the harsh... bitter... cold... snowy....... winter. That's going to start in November.

On toddler imitation

It is really quite frightening to realize that I am the most prominent influence in someone's life. The words I say and the things I do are observed, absorbed, and eventually imitated by my impressionable toddler. So far she "plays Mommy" by riding around the house on her bike, stuffing purses full of play food, putting dollies and animals in her bike basket, and bringing me delicious meals of painted blocks. But those times when I lose my temper or send Hannah off for her 10th time-out in a row I can see it playing out: Hannah scolding her worn old elephant with a firm "no no!" and stuffing him in the corner as his threadbare head sags in shame. Just like Mommy does, the old tyrant. Hannah has, however, began to talk like me. This morning she heard Ginny cry so she ran to investigate and said "oh goodness!" to her just like I do when Ginny really starts to scream.

When I catch Hannah in some devious act, I apparently respond the same way every time. "Hannah, do not pull the blinds down... I'm serious!" "Hannah, do not climb on your bike to get cookies... I'm serious!" "Hannah, get out of the sink and put your clothes back on... I'm SERIOUS!!!" On Wednesday, Hannah was crying in her typical dramatic fashion. She just sat on the toilet and bawled her heart out. Normally when I ask her what's wrong she says "crying!" and when I ask her why she says "I'm sad!" Surprisingly, this isn't very helpful information. But this time when I asked her what's wrong she said "I'm sick! I'm sick! I'm SERIOUS! I'm sick!" Thankfully it was a short recovery and she was back on her feet within 5 minutes.

Hopefully good will triumph and Hannah will not come to reflect all of my shortcomings... and we'll both survive these "terrible twos" unscathed, even if the poor elephant does occasionally find himself banished in the corner.

Uninspired musings

"Why the title?" you ask.

Because it's true. I am completely uninspired. I have been told that I can write well and I have always had the desire to write something. I would drag out a notepad and pen (or later in life, open a Word document) and sit there and stare. Maybe I'm genuinely boring inside my brain (good thing I have you all fooled) but I cannot come up with a single interesting, amusing, or intellectual idea to write about. I was born with writer's block.

It has recently occurred to me that blogging might be the outlet I've been looking for. I can write about little stuff until that fabulous breakthrough comes to me. No doubt there will be plenty of material from my girls, but I plan to venture into some of my lesser loves as well: literature, movies, music, art, hobbies, coffee in the morning, rain, photographs...

I apologize in advance if I bore you to tears. I won't try to be profound or thrilling. I'm just creating a small place to exercise my brain in the middle of diapers, blocks, dishes and laundry.

Thanks for tagging along!