"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler."

This previous summer I found myself begrudgingly laid up in bed, with something slightly worse than the flu but not quite as bad as the plague, for almost a week. During that time, I realized the shallow merits of sitting alone, in my room, stuffing my face with an endless amount of chicken soup and watching what was likely to the cheesiest, culty-ist, most dangerously delightful television series about vampires that my best friend could dredge up in her impressive DVD collection.

Between sporadic and seemingly endless visits to urgent care, I allowed myself to reflect on the strange reaction my psyche had to such a television show. I was enraptured in season 2, disc 4, an overflowing trashcan of tissues on one side of the bed and a cooling pot of ginger tea on the other, when I began to wonder why I could never be lucky enough to bag a dangerous and sultry blood-sucker-turned-hero and find the true love to end all loves. I got to the point when I could no longer rid myself of the gaze of those sinister-yet-somehow-plagued-with-eternal-innocence eyes of my television hero, and I eased my aching spirit by stuffing my face with more freeze-dried soggy noodles.

With every bite came the sinking sensation that, once I'd shaken the virus, there was a good chance those size-10 skinny jeans I bought at Ross to wear to that Sci-Fi convention I recently returned from were, probably, never going to fit quite right again. Of course, with that came the reminder that even at the Sci-Fi convention, and even in size-10 skinny jeans, I wasn't able to land even the tiniest make-out session with one of the desperate engineers who, instead, spent the evening salivating over my best friend. My best friend, who (while having tremendously good taste in television entertainment) is somehow always prettier, smarter, skinnier, and all around more approachable that I can ever be, especially when I'm stuck in bed coughing out what's left of my internal organs in between sobs over the adventures of the equally skinnier and more good-looking starlet on the television show. The girl who managed to not only bag herself a good-looking vampire but who, most certainly, never even gets the flu.

Just before I resolved myself to a slobbering mess of mucus, it occurred to me exactly why I find such television adventures to be so rewarding. The shallow merits of television lie in precisely what life cannot offer very few; the endless adventure that constant danger offers, the sweet torment that forbidden love elicits. In reality, there is little appeal to me in the constant onslaught of adventure and certain death – I get all I need from that driving in car. Not to mention, who would really want to date a vampire? Cross out those afternoon picnics in the park, and never mind that morning when you find a strand a grey hair and realize time will never be quite as kind to you as it offers to be to an immortal. At the end of the day, when the shadows set in and the television goes off, it's nice to have shared an adventure with someone I will never have to be. Watching a teenager stave off the evils of the spirit-world makes that ever-growing pile of laundry in the corner of my bedroom seem entirely more manageable.

I love stories because they remind me of things I wish I was, and sometimes they remind me of things I'll be glad never to be. They fill me with hopes and fears and expectations and disappointments, and it's like the weight of the world is off my shoulders when I can press the pause button and remind myself that the seductive darkness of the world is not mine alone to bear.

Sometimes, life is about being swept up in the emotion and the call of adventure. Sometimes, life is about being taken in completely by the desperate hope of that final battle, of that doomed true love, or of the hero or heroine that lay within us all, waiting for that shadow at the window to take shape into something we can vanquish forever.

And sometimes, when we're really lucky, life is just about romancing a bowl of chicken soup.