The Twilight of Cancer

Well helloooooo, blogosphere!

We had a bit of a scare over here last week at House of Stork, and so instead of blogging I have had my lips essentially glued to the side of Bub's face and reminding him that I like him a lot.

So Bub had his kidney stone incident which turned out to not be kidney stones.  He was home a couple of days after I took him to urgent care, and he kept saying "it's cancer".

I am,  in most situations, the calm and rational one.  And I reminded him repeatedly that if you look up anything on google, it will say you have cancer.  Type in 'stomach pain' = cancer.  Ouch ouch my toe hurts = cancer.  Stevie Wonder's Greatest Hits = cancer.

However, because I lost my Dad to cancer ( and one you rarely, rarely die from) I have some dormant cancer-ptsd in the back of my head, so when urgent care called Bub after they got his ultrasound results and told him he must return to urgent care to have the doctor explain the results to him, I panicked.

So for a good 3 hours in the middle of last week, Stork was teetering dangerously between agnostic theism (don't believe in organized religion but I'd like to think there's some universal force) and flat out atheism.

Mind you, I used to be much more optimistic.  Score one for infertility.  But at this point, I am optimistic about G-d answering my prayers much in the same way one is optimistic that someone will answer the phone after you've been on hold with the cable company for 2 hours.  Yes it requires a certain level of optimism, but mostly you're just pissed.

(And before you tell me  G-d wants to smite me - one thing I am 100% certain of is that if there is someone out there in the ether trying to take care of me, they can handle me being pissed.  When a 4 year old is pissed at me, I let the 4 year old be pissed - I don't have the desire to hit them over the head with a frying pan in response.  And I only have 26 years on a 4 year old... G-d has a gajillion on me).

I did, in the waiting room, repeatedly think - you know what, I don't need money, I don't even need kids - I need Bub.  Of course I desperately want children, you know I do.  But when it comes down to it, in the scary moments, I will pick my husband over theoretical kids every single time. So I was telling G-d/Zeus/Tom Cruise in my mind, I can handle not having kids far better than I can handle not having Bub.  I would be a shell of a woman without kids, but I would not survive without Bub.  If need be, we'll just be one of those interesting childless couples that travels a lot, wears turquoise jewelry and has a scarf for every possible occasion.

ANYHOO.

Turns out he was fine - he just had a gnarly infection. In the parking lot afterwards I kissed him out of relief and slapped him for scaring me because that's how I roll.

And now on to more important things - the Twilight series.

I have written about religion and politics in here and somehow got away with it.  I fear what I'm about to say may be the thing that causes several of you to break up with me.  Here goes.

Twilight is the worst thing ever.  Not book, not movie - the worst thing ever.

Seeing scores of teenage girls lining up in tents to see this movie makes me weep for todays youth.

I read the books a few years ago - when we were back east for Christmas, my sister-in-law Bubella had a copy and I read it to see what the fuss was about.

A few points.

If you take a vampire and make him able to walk in the sun (and the worst consequence is that he sparkles like a diamond), make him a vegetarian, and a virgin, you have just removed everything that made a vampire cool in the first place and replaced him with a closeted homosexual.  (My point - if you took my gay husband Mr. T and made him immortal and sparky, he would not be frightening he would be fabulous.  For badass vampire, see Bela Lugosi or True Blood).

Let's just ignore the fact that it's awful and lazy writing, and just focus on one particular aspect of this - the author forgot to give Edward a personality.  She made him rich, and handsome, and the sparkly gay-pride-parade version of a vampire...but no personality.

She did give Bella a smidge of a personality, however...  if by 'personality' you mean clumsy, and absolutely incapable of taking care of herself without the aide of a man.  In reading the books it became clear to me that the only way the story would have resolved itself appropriately is if in the end the vampires and werewolves got to rip this girl to shreds.

(And I won't even get into the movie... as I have explained before, I believe Kristen Stewart is good for nothing except upsetting my bowels.. Hair flipping and grunting does not an actress make).

Now not only am I supposed to believe that this town is riveted by this mind-numbingly boring and incapable girl, but I am to believe that the oldest, most powerful vampires in the world stop all that they are doing and give a shit about what's going on with her.

And my greatest point, a few of the positive messages for todays teenage girls include:

• All a guy needs to be is rich and handsome.
• You are unable to take care of yourself without said guy.
• If guy asks you to forsake your family and people who are trying to be your friends (despite the fact that you are unbelievably boring) in order to be with him, you should.
• If an in-theory 100 year old man has been roaming the earth waiting for a 17 year old girl to fall in love with, this is in no way creepy.
• Don't have sex before you get married - it's just plain stupid to test drive a car.
• Get married at 18 so you can have sex - it always works out.

And my darling infertiles - spoiler alert - the dead man knocks her up.  Now I understand I'm supposed to suspend disbelief here, it's vampires after all.  I am willing to do this for sex.  Fine, okay, the dead man gets a boner despite not having any blood circulation (I calm myself about that one reasoning that he must just constantly have a boner). But fully functioning 100 year old sperm?  NO.  I won't!  I can't! 

(Sidenote - I have not read the 50 shades books.  It wouldn't occur to me first of all only because erotica has been around forever and I don't understand what's wrong with just watching porn.. But more importantly - inspired by Stephanie Meyer's writing?  NO.)

(Another sidenote - this may just offend me here, but the whole thinly veiled Mormon agenda... You're incomplete without a man, getting married at 18 is smart, don't have sex before you're married because the guys power will be too much for you - barf - and if a pregnancy is killing you, doesn't matter, keep it anyway).

The only argument that gave me pause was when one of my friends pointed out that I hate this series so much and yet I love Romeo and Juliet.

Pause.

My response to that - 

No one reads Romeo and Juliet and thinks it's relevant, in the literal sense, in this day and age.  Story of love - universal, powerful forever... but logistically finding someone, marrying them at 13 and instead of running away offing yourselves together?  I think most girls put together that that's not plausible.  But there are girls - oh I assure you they are out there - that think these books are the perfect example of what love is.

These books are a great example of love much in the same way that Beverly Hills is a great example of love. Rich old man meets emotionally vapid woman a quarter of his age, marries her because it's the one way he can get nookie.

And even the idea of comparing this woman's writing to Shakespeare... Much like Kristen Stewart's acting, it makes my bowels hurt.


PS - I am inflicting myself on the internet further.  My apologies to your ears - I was a guest on this week's Bitter Infertile's podcast (and it was early, early in the morning so my apologies for any allergy-riddled sounds).  I'm in the last 45 minutes I think - but listen to the whole damn thing!  Was fun.  What a great bunch of broads.