I am walking down a Los Angeles sidewalk in November, wearing jeans, a polo shirt, and sunglasses, when I encounter hundreds of girls, mostly aged 12 to 22, camped out with tents and folding chairs. I walk by them for at least 10 blocks -- a lot of walking for a car-obsessed city like Los Angeles -- and as I pass, I notice them staring, whispering, and sometimes even shouting at me.

"Hey, want to join us?" a brown-eyed, dark-haired girl in jeans and boots yells suggestively at me.

"Are you in line too?" another one with a dark complexion asks me.

"You're hot," whispers a third, a carbon copy of the first two.

I'd be happy to brag and pretend that this experience is a typical snapshot of my everyday life in Los Angeles, but who would I be kidding? You'd never believe that anyway. I start to wonder what would make teenage girls fall instantly in love with me. It feels like they have mistaken me for a celebrity, but I've never been told that I look like any celebrity. (Okay, once, a girl told me that I look like Justin Timberlake, but I promise you that she was lying. I look nothing like him, and, needless to say, he would destroy me in a dance-off.) I begin to wonder if, by some miracle of fate, I have stumbled on a blessed clothing combination that makes me look drop-dead sexy. But then I catch a reflection of myself in a store window and realize that I just look like me.

Tween Twilight fans stand in front of the Forks welcome sign.

"What are you guys waiting in line for?" I ask one of the girls. She looks up at me, playing with her hair and batting her eyelashes.

"It's the premiere of The Twilight Saga: New Moon," she says coyly.

Suddenly, everything makes sense to me. I have unwittingly walked into a mass of the most lust-consumed women in Los Angeles.

For those of you who are not in Twilight's target audience (mostly teenage girls and middle-aged women), here's an explanation: Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series -- a collection of four books about introverted yet beautiful high school girl Bella Swan, who is trapped in a love triangle with mysterious and conflicted vampire Edward Cullen and shirtless underdog werewolf Jacob Black -- has sold 85 million copies worldwide. Twilight is about teenage lust -- and I don't simply mean that lust is one of the series' themes. I mean that Twilight is teenage lust. Read Twilight or watch the movie, and you'll see what I mean. The most accurate, and most complete, plot summary I can provide for the first book is simple: "O.M.G. That vampire is so hot."

I don't mean to totally deride Twilight. Though I have read only the first book and watched the first two movies (to write this essay), I can attest that, her simplistic writing aside, Meyer captures the essence of teenage desire and isolation perfectly, in a way that resonates intensely with her almost-exclusively female audience.

So, when about two months after being mentally undressed by hundreds of girls on an LA sidewalk, my travel buddies Rich and Wendy suggest that we meet in Seattle after a business trip, the first thing that pops into my head is Twilight. Well, not exactly -- I first imagine driving to Forks, Washington to go hiking in the beautiful Olympic Peninsula, near Seattle. But then, I think, Oh, that's the setting of Twilight -- and then I'm incredibly embarrassed that my brain has bothered even to store that information. Still, I'm curious. Maybe Twilight's enormous success could make more sense to me if I give Forks a chance.

The Dew Drop Inn welcomes Twilight fans.

"Why don't we go hiking on the Olympic Peninsula," I say to Rich and Wendy -- and then almost under my breath: "We can also go on a Twilight tour."

They look at me incredulously.

"You know, ironically," I quickly add.

They spend a few minutes mocking me, but they aren't too surprised -- I've dragged them on other off-beat adventures -- we've bungee jumped from a bridge in the wilderness and investigated Area 51 before. By now, they're used to -- and, I like to think, even appreciative -- of my harebrained trip ideas. That's the thing with adventure -- it's addictive, but it's also fulfilling, in a way that alcohol, drugs, and Facebook status updates are not.

Soon, the three of us are driving around the southern tip of Washington's Puget Sound, from Seattle to Forks, in an oversized, white van (the rental car company gave us a great deal on it). At first glance, outsiders might assume that we're a family on a road trip with a minivan filled with Twilight-obsessed tweens -- except there are no tweens -- just three adults who can barely remember which character is Edward (the vampire) and which one is Jacob (the werewolf).

The Cullen House (a.k.a. the Miller Tree Inn)

Always eager to get a glimpse into pop culture niches, I turn on Twilight Series Theories, a podcast hosted by Twilight super fans and sisters Kallie Matthews and Kassie Rodgers that I have loaded onto my iPod in preparation for our road trip. I select an episode -- in which Kallie, Kassie, and their listeners compare and contrast Twilight with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice -- because the description makes it sound like it might have intellectual overtones. In reality, Kallie and Kassie's critical analysis is at a level that could seem intellectual only to a sixth grader, including commentary like: "For me, the fact that Twilight and Pride and Prejudice are in two different time periods, I guess, is what makes the difference, because people expect the heroine to be this strong, outspoken person, where Bella, she, you know, the book is from her perspective and she does end up being considered the heroine in the books. I don't know. It's just weird." Rich, Wendy, and I can't wait for it to end.

Twilight memorabilia and graduation caps sit in the living room of the Miller Tree Inn.

Not easily deterred, I then try playing an episode of Imprint, another Twilight podcast hosted by four college students, Andrew Sims, Elysa Montfort, Matt Britton, and Laura Thompson. We expect that we're in for another hour of torture, but after only 15 minutes, we're totally hooked. The quartet discusses Twilight in a breezy yet intelligent way that manages to increase our interest in the books while also making us laugh, a lot. Their trick, of course, is that they don't take themselves too seriously.

"Someone should cancel The View and give these guys a talk show instead," I say.

"I wish they had taught my college English classes," Wendy says.

Near the end of the first Imprint episode, during a discussion about the difficulty of book-to-movie adaptations, Elysa mentions, but doesn't fully explain, a gruesome scene in Breaking Dawn.

"Wait, Edward bites a half-vampire baby out of Bella's stomach?!" Wendy exclaims, horrified. "What is she talking about?"

"Uh, we're not the people to ask," Rich says, looking at me.

"We need to find out what this is about," Wendy says urgently.

After four and a half hours of driving and Twilight podcasts, we arrive at The Miller Tree Inn (also known as The Cullen House after being so-designated by the Forks Chamber of Commerce), a bed and breakfast filled to the brim with Twilight-related props, complete with a whiteboard on the front porch showing updates on The Cullen's whereabouts. (When we arrive, it says, "The Cullens are taking a hike in the woods.") We walk past pictures of Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson (the actors in the Twilight movies), copies of the Twilight movie soundtrack, and even a display of 125 graduation caps: the eternally-teenage Cullens' high school souvenirs described in Twilight. When we arrive at our room, we're allowed to choose from a collection of Twilight-themed signs for our door (we choose "Edward's Room.") When Wendy sees a complete collection of the Twilight novels on the room's desk, she grabs Breaking Dawn immediately.

"I need to find out about this baby-biting thing," Wendy explains. She changes into her pajamas, plops down on the bed, and starts reading.

Rich and I look at each other. Maybe it's a girl thing, he says to me, telepathically. Thank God we're only here ironically, I respond, silently.