New Moon – the second film in the series based upon the Twilight novels (which I will not explain to you here, because, seriously, have you been living under a rock?) – opened last night and I did not go see it. Oh, I’ll get around to seeing it, eventually, but I’m not in any great hurry because a) if I happen to find spare hours in any given day sufficient to the purpose of going to the movies, I will be using them to catch up on sleep, and b) I actually really kind of didn’t so much like New Moon the book (more on that below), and will only be seeing the movie to see the parts that actually involve a plot – which is to say, the end – and that can wait until I’ve caught up on my sleep. But the flurry of discussion about the Twilight novels and the movies deriving from those novels, much of which repeats last year’s canards about aren’t these books actually kind of bad? and a good feminist would never, ever let her daughter anywhere near these books, has got me thinking about the stuff I was thinking about last year when the first movie was released. So I thought I’d repost (what follows was originally posted at MamaPop), with some minor addenda and amendments, some of my thoughts on the subject.

So there’s this vampire movie? And, like, it’s based on this book that’s like part of a four-book series and it’s about this vampire? Who’s like a nice vampire? And he falls in love with this girl and she falls in love with him and it’s, like, SO AWESOME.

Seriously.

I’m not going to claim to anybody that the Twilight series is high literature. It’s not high literature, by any stretch, unless you happen to consider the works of Dan Brown high literature, in which case you’ve probably already read Twilight sixteen times and made notes in the margins with your National Treasure commemorative ballpoint pen, and, also, could I interest you in a library of leather-bound works by Ken Follet?

(continue reading…)

I have some pretty cool news to report. Problem is, I can’t yet report it.

Oh, wait: I CAN. Wanna guess? Guess away, and then scroll to the bottom of the post…

(No, not a book deal. Not yet.)

(No, not a new website. I’m full up on websites.)

(It’s a real-life kinda thing.)

(No, not pregnant.)

(God. Would it be weird if I said, I wish, when really I kinda mostly don’t?)

(Anyway.)

I can’t report it because things aren’t set up enough yet to report it, which, AGH. It’s kind of getting in the way of writing anything else, because my head is full of planning and plotting this super-awesome thing.

I did, however, find enough mental space to comment on the death of Michael Jackson, so, you know, if you’re interested in what a rhythm-challenged white girl has to say about the death of the King of Pop, you could go check that out.

Otherwise, check back here later BELOW! I might do have something cool to report. And, of course, there’s always the babies:

And their butts.

UPDATE: I HAS TEH NEWS:

Yeah, yeah, butts. Are awesome. You know what’s also awesome? ROAD TRIPS.

I’m going on a road trip. With the kids. And this chick, and her kid. Across Canada (mostly across Canada, but whatever.) Yes, we’re insane. Yes, we might not survive, because YES, this is basically I’m A Mom Blogger On A Road Trip, Get Me Out Of Here. Which means a couple of things: 1) if you’re Canadian, we might be coming to a Motel 6 near you. And! We’d love to meet you! SERIOUSLY (leave a comment at the road trip website to get our attention). And, 2) even if you’re not Canadian, you’re going to want to keep an eye on how this goes, because unlike Spencer and Heidi, we can’t just call our publicists to complain about the hardships of life on the road with two batshit crazy preschoolers and a turbo-baby. So when the going gets tough, the mom bloggers are going to have to just keep going. And it promises to be interesting.

So, I’ll be updating here, and there’ll be mile-by-mile accounts at the road trip site and at Canada Moms Blog (the launch of which is our ostensible reason for doing this.) We leave Monday to start the trip on Canada’s east coast. We’ll be counting on you to cheer us on.

Because, there is just SO MUCH cool stuff out there, and so much weird stuff, and just, you know, so much stuff, and yet – even though some might consider it horribly throwbacky for women to talk shopping shopping shopping – just not enough web content about STUFF – the marketing of stuff, the design of stuff, the history of stuff, the stuff itself – by women.

So, if you’re looking for cool mom stuff, you’ll still go here, and if you’re looking specifically for green mom stuff, you’ll go here, and if you’re, like, a supercool Canadian chick who has babies but also maybe doesn’t and is looking for cool stuff, you’ll soon go here (link pending!) But if you’re just a woman – just a very cool, smart woman (or a man who appreciates the finer points of cool, smart, feminocentric consumerism) – who likes STUFF – finding stuff, talking about stuff, thinking about stuff, COVETING stuff… then you really. must. go. HERE.

Because we said so. Because it is the awesome. And because if you can’t covet stuff and talk stuff and think stuff when 21st century technology virtually engulfs you with stuff, well, there’s really no point in being on the Internet, now is there? Go, look, ENJOY.

What, you didn’t know what a koan was? Fair enough, it was late last night when I posted and mine wasn’t exactly the model of intuitive irrationality. Doesn’t matter. Just summarize the truth about motherhood in as few words as possible (I set my benchmark at twelve) and share it. Bonus points, redeemable in good karma, for koaniness. If you’re into that.