Twitards

When did watching a pathetic high school tryst between two pasty kids and a freakishly buff 17 year-old become a pop culture phenomenon? Not only that, but when did it become okay for women old enough to be the 17 year-old's grandma to swoon over those chiseled, illegal abs and baby face? And when did Mormons start writing books about things like vampire-human sex?

I don't know, but I like it! Sorry to disappoint, but this isn't going to be an anti-Twilight rant. In fact,it's a celebration. Hi - my name is Hana, and I am a Twitard.

I prefer twitard over twihard because it more accurately describes the way eyes cross, mouths drool, and uncontrollable giddy screams emerge from the lips of 8, 18 and 68 year-old women when the pasty, depressed actors and the illegal bait are on screen. Twihard sounds like something x-rated happening to the male vampires.

Initially I resisted. "Vampire love? Really? I'm not really into fantasy or anything remotely resembling it," I said to my co-worker who was a recent convert.

"Neither am I, but you've got to at least read the first one. They are really good!"

I wasn't quite convinced.

Then my baby sister started reading them. "Haha! You're reading TWATLIGHT!" I maturely taunted as she was devouring the third book only two days after finishing the first and second.

"Hey don't hate! Don't knock it till you rock it!" she said. Oh 17.

Okay, the kid had a point. It's reasoning I have used myself in many an argument, usually defending something horrendously nerdy like summer camp or playing flute.

Being the competitive person that I am, I took her up on it. I immediately caved.

I read the first book in two days. The whole series in about two weeks.

If you must know, I am Team Edward. Hear me roar!


My favorite Twilight moment (and yes, my life now has Twilight moments) was when I converted my best friend.(I just read that back to myself and I'm starting to sound like one of Jim Jones' converts. Drink the kool-aid! Except in this case it's vampire blood. What the hell has Stephenie Meyer's done to us!? We're going to wake up from our twitardedness in a few years and wonder what the hell happened. Watch this go down in history...like pet rocks.)

My best friend was stuck on Harry Potter, and making outlandish claims and saying things like it way better than Twilight. She hadn't even read any of the books. Because she is just as competitive as I am, I said, "Hey don't hate! Don't knock it till you rock it!" They're magic words, like abra cadabra. Poof! A convert.

Except in this case, they weren't. She's slightly more stubborn than I, so I had to get more creative if I was going to bring someone down with me. So for Christmas, guess who got Twilight in their stocking?

She laughed her defeated laugh, let out a heavy sigh and said, "Really?!" She was done by 2pm the next day.

"MORE EDWARD! MORE BELLA!! AHH!!" She was talking like Cookie Monster and foaming at the mouth. She didn't start resembling a human again until I got her New Moon. It was like a junkie coming off heroin. It was bad.

Once she finished the series, she was a new woman, seeing the folly in her old ways. She constantly thanks me for showing her the light. Okay I'm exaggerating, but she really was foaming at the mouth.

We've come a long way since our initiations. Now, we are both proud twitards. In two days, we are going to go to go see Eclipse!! I can't wait! I'm going to wear my vampire fangs and Team Edward shirt and join the throngs of screaming teens addicted to bad acting, and the grandmas swooning over jail bait.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but sometimes drinking the kool-aid is the best thing that will ever happen to you. (And I'm totally kidding about fangs and the Team Edward shirt....yeah).

Bubbley and Vuvuzelas: A wedding weekend to remember...sort of

Hello my fellow Sticks and Stoners. I’m finally updating, so get off my back (I say this with love). I didn’t get abducted by aliens or have a quarter-life crisis, or even have a cool race to use as an excuse to why I haven’t been writing. I’ve just been plain lazy. But some pretty awesome stuff has been going on that cannot go un-blogged.

Two weeks ago, my boyfriend and I flew down to San Jose, CA to celebrate his brother’s wedding. Hands down, this was the best wedding I have ever been to. It was such a beautiful celebration of their relationship, and as much as my boyfriend is going to kill me for writing this, it made us BOTH excited to start thinking about that step for our own relationship. The ceremonies blended a lot of cultural and religious traditions of both families which made it such a unique lovely celebration of them. It wasn’t your canned ceremony or reception, but a true reflection of who they were as people and as a couple. It was reflected down to the last detail. And on top of that, it was a total blast!

Because so much fun stuff happened and I can’t possibly jam even just the highlights into one entry, I thought I’d just share some tidbits of what I’ve learned over the course of the five days we spent in the San Jose, Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, Los Gatos and Pleasanton - in order of importance:

1. Catholics know how to par-tay.

2. Red wine + chardonnay + rosé + repeat = don’t do it.

3. I love everyone in my boyfriend’s family.

4. My boyfriend has an impeccable 6th sense for finding an In and Out without a map or GPS.

5. Receptions in wineries are beautiful and fun (please refer back to #1).

6. Attempting to control my drunken behavior after going past the point of no return is a lost cause, even if I’m with my boyfriend’s entire family and his brother’s in-laws and all of their closest friends.

7. Attempting to cut a rug while drinking red wine is never a good idea, unless you want to simultaneously decorate the wedding party while doing the YMCA.

8. Bums on the beach in Santa Cruz look more miserable than bums in the rain in Seattle.

9. Don’t let your drinking cause you to miss out on the wedding dessert. Apparently I missed out on tasting the most delicious ice cream known to man. And I’m still mad about it two weeks later.

10. A bright and beautiful mountain view is the last thing you want to see the morning after this reception. Close the damn shades.

11. Vuvuzela + hangover = head splitting open.

12. There are such things as dwarf Labradors that stay looking like puppies forever.

13. There is a store named after our dog in Los Gatos called Bow Wowzer.

14. Being away from Bowser for more than 24 hours results in two extremely pathetic parents, sharing stories, pictures and videos. It also results in text message harassment, demanding updates/videos and a phone call every five minutes from the poor soul that has the privilege of dog-sitting.

15. Playing piano in front of people still terrifies me.

16. Australians are awesome. They’re uber awesome when they invite you to stay with them in Australia.

17. Boot means trunk in Australian.

18. Disfrutar means to enjoy in Spanish.

19. Trying to explain why you are not yet married to the groom’s older brother, even though you’ve been dating for over four years, is difficult to say in Spanish.

20. Saying “estamos borrachas” to Mexican relatives is a great way to become fast friends.

21. If you realize you didn’t get a wedding present and you wish on a star that a William’s Sonoma will appear out of mid-air, it will come true.

22. Ford Focuses are being rented out at $150/day at Avis. It’s worth waiting another hour in the Budget rental line to get a Nissan hybrid at $27/day.

23. I still want to move to the Bay Area.

24. I now know why my boyfriend's dad is referred to as Mr.Fixit. He can't stop fixing. It's a nervous tick :) But a handy one at that!

25. Vuvuzela application on iPhone = iPhone going out the car window.

26. It is possible to hold back tears at a wedding, only to start gushing at the reception.

27. I’d love to say that I’d be a calm bride as my future sister-in-law was, but I can’t say that with a straight face.

28. Vacationing in 5,000 sq. ft homes is a blast.

29. Talking about your deformed toe in front of your boyfriend’s extended family isn’t so bad once everyone’s been calmly introduced.

But if there was just ONE thing I learned on this vacation, it’s that I want to be carried in chairs at my reception like in Jewish weddings. Even though I’m not Jewish, it just looks like a blast.

All in all, our trip was a load of fun and it ended way too soon. I got to take part in an incredible day with my boyfriend’s brother, wife and family and feel closer to all of them after taking this trip.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but I’m never drinking wine again.

Doggy style? Not so much.

 The Victim

Bowser is quickly growing into an adolescent. I would imagine him as having puberty-stricken vocal chords and a mountain range of pimples donning an otherwise handsome complexion if he were human. Today, he figured out what most parents dread - when their children are interested in sexuality. Except Bowser, instinctively knows about the birds and the bees - we don't have to tell him. In demonstrating this knowledge to us, he decided to hump my boyfriend's arm. And boy, was he persistent.

My boyfriend was freaking out, fearing his own sexual identity was being compromised by having this male dog attempt unpleasantries on him. And there I was, laughing hysterically in the corner, debating whether or not to video tape. I wish I would have. 

Today is the first day he discovered the x-rated motion, but lately, he's been doing this weird thing where he throws his back end into you. We suspected these were the warning signs that something inappropriate might be in our future, but it was hard to say for sure. My boyfriend's arm unfortunately paid the price.

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but Bowser will forever entertain!

eraseyour$h!+.com

You swear you hit the unsubscribe button to that one email you kept getting from that one company, but you turn around only to see your SPAM box has exploded again. You rearrange your privacy settings a million times on social networking sites, only to figure out that you're still advertising the photo of your keg stand and the subsequent vomit on your shirt. But THEN, you see that your getting a friend request from the brace face that you talked to once in middle school. Now you SWEAR you checked unlisted...Sound familiar?

In this digital world of instant information, we are sharing much more about ourselves than we think we are. Entering your information just once in wrong place can spread across servers, across the world in seconds. Think you've got your shit on lock down? Think again. Sometimes it's as simple as googling yourself to find an unpleasant surprise, but I guarantee you, you will find information about yourself that you do not want listed by typing your name into spokeo.com.


It seems the more we try to limit our information, the more it gets out there. Spokeo capitalizes on this fear by advertising as "not your grandma's phonebook." Spokeo not only lists your name, address, and phone number, but how long you've lived in that home, your interests, your photos, age, hobbies, your job, how much you make each year, and even (gasp!) your zodiac sign! Granted, most of the people I looked up had a lot of wrong information listed under some of the more detailed areas, but if you pay a small fee (of $2.95) you can have access to all of it. Sounds more like stalker-o.com

Your personal and private information is being sold on the Internet to anybody that has two bucks in their pocket, or at the bottom of their fanny pack.

After discussing this outrageous website over a drink or five this Memorial Day weekend, my friends and I came up with the most brilliant entrepreneurial plan, sure to ease the fears of the American public: eraseyourshit.com. By providing us with your full name, address, phone number, social security number, credit card numbers, interests, hobbies, your mother's maiden name, your first pet's name, your high school mascot, your first born child's name or what you plan to name it, and any other information you think is out there about you, we'll delete you from other websites. Just give all of your info to us instead. It's not an oxymoron. It was a brilliant idea (after 4 beers and a few rum and cokes). Give us your shit to erase your shit! That was our slogan....yeah...never mind.


In the meantime, I encourage you all to remove yourself from this website: http://www.spokeo.com/privacy

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but eraseyourshit.com is an available domain for anyone who wants to invest!