Lesbians love cats. Right?

Okay, almost more than I want to see Brandi Carlile in concert again (almost), I want to adopt a pair of kittens. A brother and sister pair. They would be all tiny and cute, and I have dorky names picked out for them already that I won't share until I actually possess said pair of kittens. And then this will most likely turn into a cat blog.

Whatever! I miss having a cuddly pet. That stupid betta fish did not cut it. I think next weekend, once my brother's all cleared out and back in Connecticut, I'm going to do a stealth kitten adoption. My mother is not thrilled about getting another cat, but she will be powerless if I just spring the two most adorable kittens in Nashua upon her one Saturday afternoon. Thomas may even be a willing accomplice...

So since Brandi Carlile is apparently the only thing I can talk about (other than...cats), let me bitch about something. Way back in the fall of 2005, when I was a senior at PC College, she fucking played a show there. Did I see it? Of course not, because that is how my luck rolls. She was opening for Howie Day, and I was camping with Mike, Eric, and Laura that weekend. I didn't think I'd be missing much, since Howie Day can eat my shorts, man, so I was, like, "Yes! Camping!" And the camping was grand. But do you know what would have been grander? Meeting Brandi Carlile. Do you know who got to meet her? Effin' Jess. Who met her again this past July while I was at Bath & Body Works. Why am I always doing something other than meeting Brandi Carlile??? Christ. Oh, speaking of Our Lord, I realized that he is the only non-Brandi Carlile topic of which there is a picture on my blog. And that's how it should be, isn't it?

Anyway! She was at my school! And I was not there! And I possibly hadn't even heard of her yet! But that is not the point. If I had been there, I would have gone to the concert, because my friends went, and I would have fallen in love and then gotten all shy and retarded when Jess dragged me up to meet her. Seriously. I want to meet her, but I'm also terrified of meeting her. I feel that exact same way about Kelly Clarkson. Like, what could I possibly have to say to these girls? Other than, "I totally love you! And...I'm a big dork." I can't even think of things to say to regular girls--how would I talk to the two most beautiful girls on earth? (Am I going a little hyperbolic? Perhaps. But they're both so pretty.) When I met Guster and Dane Cook, I was all retarded and tongue-tied, and they're boys. Why am I so lame?

The things I think about while reading catalog pages

Here's another dilemma I'm having: iMac or MacBook? Both have been recently redone and are shiny and new, but the iMac is shinier and newer, and I'd get a bigger screen and a bigger hard drive and all that good stuff. But I really like my laptop. The laptop aspect of it, anyway. When I'm at home, I like to do my computer business on my bed. (And not just the porn-watching. Is that gross? Should girls not joke about watching porn? Fuck you.) No, really, I like portability. But the MacBook costs exactly the same as the iMac I want, and I get a lot less, screen size, hard drive, processor wise. You know? Is the portability enough to outweigh that? Do I really need a 250GB hard drive? My current laptop's drive is 60GB--that is smaller than my iPod, people. So I'd get a 160GB drive, plus the 80GB external I have already, and that would be enough. Okay. But here's my real problem with the MacBook: its screen is so tiny. My Dell's screen is 17". The display I have at work is 20". Am I going to be able to take the downgrade? I think I'll have to go to an Apple store to find out.

I would buy a 15" PowerBook, but that's two grand. Eff that.

I never said I was cool. Did I?

Here is the dorkiest thing I've said at least all week (if not in my entire life):

Earlier today, one of the girls at work was talking about how it's been impossible to keep one person in this certain job for any significant length of time, and someone was like, "It's cursed," but I felt the need to actually utter this out loud, in front of grown women, "It's like the Defense Against the Dark Arts job." Seriously. I said this. I did say it in front of people who are all into Harry Potter, and one of them was even like, "Exactly," but still. I said that out loud.

I just wanna be closer to you

Kelly Clarkson is legit only playing shows in New York. Now she's up to five. Five! There are not that many people in New York to warrant five effing shows. Will she just book a venue in Massachusetts already? Christ.

I don't think Brandi has to worry about losing the number one imaginary girlfriend slot...

Lighter fare

I hate how Disney trivia games always include, like, eighty questions about The Great Mouse Detective. Has anyone seen this movie?

Is Kelly Clarkson only playing shows in New York? Christ, woman, there are forty-nine other states. And perhaps Canada would appreciate a visit. I know, if I were Canada, that would be the truth. Thank god I have tickets to two other sure-to-be-amazing shows, just in case Kelly lets me down again.

"Throw It All Away" is the song playing when George and Meredith have the disastrous sex. Ew! Christ. God, remember how that went nowhere? Just like George and Izzie's disastrous sex should have? Damn you, Grey's Anatomy.

Should I buy the new Rilo Kiley album? I read somewhere on the internet that it was like "70s porn r&b as imagined by indie rock hipsters" or something (apologies to the person I stole that from--for stealing it and probably mangling it), and there was definitely one iTunes clip I heard that fit that description. However! Is that bad? I can't decide. That's what it was. "Breakin' Up" is the 70s porn music, and I gave it up when Jenny Lewis sang, "Is there trouble between you and I?" Oh, me and pronouns...

Here's a thing: when white people sing in Spanish, they over-enunciate. Not that my pronunciation is ever perfect, but I also don't try to sing in Spanish. So there. That, for some reason, reminded me of crazy Diana Ross telling some American Idol kid (Gina?) to make sure she pronunciated the lyrics to her song. That was fun.

Just because I haven't talked about her yet, here's another picture of Brandi Carlile wearing a Red Sox hat. This one Jess took! At the concert I didn't get to go to, because I wasn't stalking properly, and I didn't know about it, and I had to work all night. It's the same hat from that other picture (which is from last September), so perhaps she actually does enjoy the Red Sox. Or she just really likes making her Boston fans happy. I'm okay with either of those possibilities. I think this girl is my only blog topic that gets pictures. Damn you for being so pretty, Carlile. Oh, and how short is my memory? The third thing I talked about was her song being on Grey's Anatomy. Whaaaatever.

Okay, seriously, this girl is coming to Boston on October 5, and I'm just, like, living for that day alone. Nothing in between now and then matters. I want October 5 to get here as fast as possible. Ever since her show with the Indigo Girls at Hampton Beach I have been uncontrollably obsessed.

I bought the Rilo Kiley song "Silver Lining," because it is awesome. The jury is still out on whether I should fork over the nine other dollars to get the rest of the album, though.

Um, I don't even know what to say about this one

I'm having another book crisis (surprise, surprise), but this one has been brewing for quite some time, and it's real. It's troubling me. I don't know what to do about it.

Since the sixth grade, The Chronicles of Narnia have been at the top of my favorite books list--especially The Voyage of the Dawn Treader--but now... Now. Oh, they're too damn Christian. This was not a problem for me when I was a teenager and still, nominally, Christian my own self, but then I had a spiritual crisis right before Easter junior year of college, and I have been unable to accept the beliefs of Christianity ever since. I was able to reconcile Madeleine L'Engle's Christianity with my own lack of it easily. She's Episcopalian, which was my denomination until I fell into heathenism, and she's... I don't know, but it's so much more than some stupid doctrine, her religion, so I can get behind that. I like Jesus just fine as a dude. I will never believe he is the son of god. Never. But the things he said--some of them, the important ones, anyway--I like a lot. But everything that grew up after he died--that's what I have a problem with, and C.S. Lewis is often too rigid about that shit. I have been uncomfortable for quite some time with the entire existence of Calormen, because it sounds just like the Middle Eastern Muslim countries, and Lewis has nothing but contempt for these dark-skinned Southerners. They're all evil, except for two of them. I don't know. I don't know! I had this problem when the movie came out, with the Jesus thing, but I made it go away, because I liked the movie.

But you know what I really hate? That scene at the end of The Last Battle when all the creatures of Narnia come before Aslan, and those who look at him and love him are permitted into heaven, and those who look at him and...don't love him are banished into the darkness. That's horrible. Like Lewis wants people to be excluded from his world. Like Susan. I have such a problem with how Susan turned out. Such a problem. But whatever. I can't articulate it well enough for it to be worth it. I can't articulate any of this well enough, except... Why does Christianity always end up excluding people? That's not the point.

Anyway, here's the crisis, in a nutshell. I hate the theological tenets of Christianity--I hate the belief in the existence of heaven and hell, especially. So how can I still love The Chronicles of Narnia? Can I even? Is the phrase "theological tenets" redundant?

English literature

Here's the thing about these Jasper Fforde books. They're interesting and a lot of fun, and you know I love a universe where everyone is obsessed with books, but something is missing. And I think I decided what my main problem is. I don't give a flying fat crap about Thursday Next. She's the effing narrator and main character, and all this crap happens to her, but I don't care. I care even less about her than I do about Harry Potter, because he's an orphan, and I always have a soft spot for kids, anyway. But Thursday... Even though the books are written in the first person, I feel like we don't know her. I never connected with her--and it should be easy to connect with a first person narrator. I care more about her time-traveling dad and her inventor uncle and her gay cleric older brother--and even her one-legged husband--than I care about her. Also, more than the characters, I just love to read about the books.

I think, maybe, part of my problem is that I can't handle a female first-person narrator if the author is male. I just can't. There's some kind of disconnect there--like how could a guy really understand what it's like to be a woman? I don't know if I have this problem with female authors writing from a male first-person point of view, because I can't think of any. Oh wait. Beverly Cleary's Dear Mr. Henshaw. And Nate the Great. I don't know; I don't think I had any problems with those, but that could be because they were about kids. I don't have a problem if a guy writes in the third person about a female main character, just first person. Maybe that's been hindering me from getting into Thursday. I mean, even if I didn't really like Harry, I still, you know, felt like he was a real, fleshed-out character. I don't have any sense of Thursday as a character. I can't picture her as a three-dimensional human being, but I can see her dad and Mycroft and Joffy. I don't know. I think I'll read something else for a while. Like Stardust! I need to get my hands on that.

My other problem? Too much Charles Dickens.

Look!

This is totally the best thing I've seen all day:


I don't care if this is genuine or if she's just pandering to Boston's Sox insanity, because, well... She looks really cute in that hat.

Where would it hurt?

Have you ever experienced something entirely intangible that is nevertheless so good that it hurts? Like it legit hurts your heart, the beauty of this thing. It happened to me when Imogen Heap's "Can't Take It In" started up with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe credits, and it happened to me at the end of The Order of the Phoenix, and it most certainly happened to me as I was falling asleep in my mom's car on the way home from the Brandi Carlile/Indigo Girls show. Do you know this feeling? That you've just experienced something so beautiful and enjoyable and so perfect for you that something in your chest expands and hurts, just a little. Well, either way, I feel that for perfect things. I felt that at the end of The Amber Spyglass, actually, too. And every time this happens, I think of Angela saying, "You're so beautiful it hurts to look at you," and Rayanne just laughs and laughs. "Where would it hurt?" But I know exactly what she means.

In mostly unrelated news, after a week of careful deliberation, I have replaced Kelly Clarkson with Brandi Carlile as my number one imaginary girlfriend. Just in time for Kelly to announce she's actually touring in the fall! And so is Brandi! They'll have to duke it out in their live performances, and then we'll see if Kelly will reclaim her spot or if Brandi will stand firm. At this point in my life, it's really not looking so good for Kelly...

Does whatever a spider pig does

Okay, so clearly, one of my favorite things about The Simpsons Movie was going to be the Spider Pig song. I mean, I'd seen, like, eight billion of those previews, and I laughed out loud every time. Laughed out loud in the theater, as well. But! The best part of the Spider Pig song is that they had, like, a real choir record it, all dramatically and stuff, and they played it over the closing credits, and it was brilliant. Brilliant! And I just remembered that they probably had it on iTunes, so I downloaded it today, and it has provided me many minutes of entertainment.

Still not old.

Ow.

That title has nothing to do with this post, it's just what came out, because I slammed my leg into the side of my desk while trying to adjust my seat. So, there.

I have this problem, where I always have this urge to write, but then I never have anything to say. This is especially problematic when trying to craft a work of fiction. So I've put that aside for a while until, um, my life becomes less boring.

For example (of boringness): My dilemma of the moment is whether or not I should buy the My So-Called Life DVDs coming out in October. This should be a no-brainer, but I already have a set of My So-Called Life DVDs--that apparently was in print for, like, two weeks. I think I got it used at Newbury Comics. But, anyway, this new set is so much prettier! And it has extras and crap! And...Mike still has my Popular DVDs, and I must remember to get those back. Anyway, I believe I already waste my money, so what's one more purchase of something I don't actually need, but would prefer owning to what I actually own? At least it's not a car.

Here is a thing that is a crime: Brandi Carlile is somehow not breathtakingly beautiful in the music video for "The Story." I don't get it, because she most definitely is breathtakingly beautiful in person and in the tour photos I've seen. But not so much when she's professionally dolled up. I'm baffled.

Also, I've been watching this YouTube video of her and the twins doing a cover of the Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face," and for some reason, in that video, she reminds me of Paul, when he was young and the cute one. Something about the cheeks...

Someone at Providence College can't spell

Seriously, y'all. I received an email from my alma mater this morning, the subject of which was "Relieve the magic of the 1987 Final Four season." For real! What the hell? Well, I suppose it was some underpaid office person who was in charge of emailing alumni, but still. I'm kind of embarrassed that I graduated from an institution that will send out emails with blatant spelling errors.

In other news: how much of a snob am I?

In other, other news, I've realized that I have developed a habit of not punctuating rhetorical questions with question marks. I think I kind of like it that way, at least for informal writing. Playing with punctuation, if you know what you're doing, makes expressing yourself in text more fun.

In conclusion, if my snobbery were to take physical form, it would at least be the size a sport utility vehicle.

Dyked out

Last night, I took my mom to see the Indigo Girls and Brandi Carlile, and it was amazing. Brandi, specifically was amazing, and I mean no disrespect to Amy Ray and Emily Saliers, but I'm not in love with them, so let me talk about Brandi. First, she said the best thing--she was talking about how we were a great crowd, and then she said, "And you're an Indigo Girls crowd, my favorite crowd" or something, which obviously meant, "lesbians." She loves lesbians. And she said something else about how she's been an Indigo Girls fan for ten years and gone to their shows, so she knows "a few things" about the Indigo Girls crowds. Lesbians. Come on! So after last night, I am more convinced that she's a big ol' dyke, but until she actually says, "I'm gay," I'm going to have this doubt because of my historically terrible gaydar.

So Brandi did her set, and she was amazing, and then she came back on for a few songs with the Indigo Girls, and you could tell how hard she loved that, singing with this band she'd loved since she was a kid. She was doing harmonies, but there were times when she'd totally lip sync along when it wasn't her turn to sing, and I effing loved that. It was like they pulled one of the people up in the crowd to sing with them, except better, because it was Brandi Carlile. She got to sing a verse of "Closer to Fine," the one I love about seeking clarity in a bar, and I lost my mind. I love girls who sing folkish rock 'n roll. They slay me.

My mom loved her and even whispered that perhaps she was better than the Indigo Girls. Such blasphemy. But I think it's true. I think it mostly has to do with her voice, which is so entirely unique and beautiful, and I just shivered, just now, thinking about it. Then my mom said she looks like Lindsay Lohan, and everything was ruined.

Anyway, I am so glad I already have tickets to see her again in Boston. And Jess loves her almost as much as I do, so it is sure to be a good time. And finally I will be taking a girl to a lesbo show and not Mike or my mom. Even if it is just Jess.

Oh, oh! And as she was ending her set, she talked about how they'd be in Boston in October, and we should all go, because "we could use some girls there." And by "girls," she really meant "lesbians." Obviously. Because of course there will be girls there. And of course there will be lesbians there, but we're the ones she wants!

Okay, I'm done.

Jesus christ

Okay, I don't pretend to be at all religiously inclined, but this is too blasphemous even for a heathen like me. Almost. I still secretly find it hilarious, but I am also a little uncomfortable about that. Apparently, ten years of hanging out with Catholics infected me with their guilt. God dammit.

T-shirt available on noisebot.com if you're into that sort of thing. (Actually, they have some really awesome shirts that I will buy as soon as I can justify doing so to myself.)

It always comes back to cute girls, doesn't it?

Last night, Jess and I saw Order of the Phoenix at the IMAX theater at the Jordan's Furniture in Reading. And before I talk about that, let me just say that Jordan's Furniture is insane. We have one in Nashua, and it's...just furniture. This one has restaurants and waterfall fireworks and a trapeze area and a JellyBelly store (!) and, of course, the IMAX theater. It's like a tiny Disneyland. I couldn't even handle it. Anyway, oh god. The IMAX version was so worth the extra three dollars. The picture is better, and the sound is way better, and the whole part where they bust into the Ministry at the end is in 3D. 3D! It was awesome. In that it actually inspired awe in me. I want to see it again immediately.

Also, here's something I forgot to say in my first rave review of the film: Tonks? Hot.

In which I just get even geekier

So apparently, the '00s are the time for making movies based on fantasy novels--often, young adult fantasy novels. We started the millennium with The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and then we got, much to my surprise and delight, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--and the promise of the other six books being made into films. The Golden Compass comes out in December; Stardust comes out on Friday; and Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising is coming out...some time soon. I want to see Stardust, but I need to read the book first. And before I read that I need to finish The Amber Spyglass, which I cannot recommend highly enough. People. Please, please read the His Dark Materials trilogy. It has shot up into my favorites, nestled with The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and A Wrinkle in Time and its companions. (It is so much better than Harry Potter. And I love Harry Potter.) It's as rich and complex as The Lord of the Rings and as brilliant about incorporating science and spirituality as A Wrinkle in Time. And it deals with the other universes thing way better than The Chronicles of Narnia--and in a manner that kind of reminded me of A Wrinkle in Time. Also, I'm not done yet, and I totally love it. If they don't make the other two books into movies, I will cry bitter, bitter tears.

Some people call me Maurice

My iTunes' favorite song is "The Joker/Everything I Own" by Jason Mraz and Chrissie Hynde, and I kind of can't blame it, but really. I've never told it to play this song, and it's played it seven times. It's closer to the bottom of the most-played list, because I spent all of July unable to stop listening to Kelly Clarkson, so her songs are in the 60s and 70s on number of spins, but when I give iTunes its head and let it go crazy, it always seems to play that song.

Also, how should I punctuate the possessive form of iTunes? The word iTunes itself must be plural, but it's only referring to one thing. So should it be iTunes's? I'm having a crisis. Oh, whatever, it has more than one syllable, so I could drop the possessive s anyway. iTunes' is easier to say. Sigh.

Okay, so I have an uncontrollable crush on Brandi Carlile, like really. A lot of pictures of this girl don't do her justice, because she is breathtaking in person. That is the picture that inspired this babbling session, though--she's beautiful, no? If you disagree, we're not friends.

This crush is almost as bad as the one I have on Kelly Clarkson. Actually, I think it might be worse, because it's newer. And because, while Kelly Clarkson has canceled her tour this summer, I am going to see Ms. Carlile not once, but twice in the next three months. So, sorry, Kelly. I love you to pieces, but Brandi is actually gay (I'm pretty sure), and she's touring like a mofo. I saw her in May already, and I'm gonna see her a week from Tuesday, and then Jess and I are going to see her in October. I can't stop freaking out about it!

I may also be trying to distract myself from the fact that I was supposed to see Kelly Clarkson at the Garden tomorrow night. Oh, I am sad. But I have Brandi. And the Indigo Girls.

Sometimes, I think I want to have a kid just so I can share with him or her all my favorite children's books (and films and television programs--but mostly books). And so I could decorate his/her room with posters depicting my favorite children's books. Is that a weird reason to want to have a kid? I mean, I would take care of it and love it and everything, even when it wasn't listening to my favorite children's books. But, whatever. I don't really want to have a kid, not for, like, ten years anyway.

And now! My list of the best children's books ever (read-aloud edition)
Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown
Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak
Frederick, Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse, and Swimmy by Leo Lioni
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Where the Sidewalk Ends, A Light in the Attic, and The Missing Piece by Shel Silverstein
The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack
Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound by John Irving
The Lorax, Green Eggs & Ham, Horton Hears a Who, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and many others by Dr. Seuss
A My Name Is Alice by Jane E. Bayer
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

There are many other fantastic children's books, but those are my faves.

Did I ever tell you I used to be a music snob?

I did, in high school. Once I befriended Jess and saw that we had very similar taste in music, but hers was cooler, because, um, there was no 'N Sync. I still stuck by the Spice Girls, though, but that was a huge secret. There may have been some other embarrassing secrets, but I'm not sharing them right now. Anyway, so I was all cool, listening only to bands that high school kids enjoyed (ahem, Dispatch) and totally deriding, like, Britney Spears and whatever.

Then I graduated from high school, and I started passively watching American Idol, even though the music snob did! not! approve! And then I fell in love with Kelly Clarkson, and I was pretty much, like, music snob be damned! I love this woman! And the Kelly Clarkson love opened the floodgates, so now I have Christina Aguilera songs and Britney Spears songs and Mandy Moore's greatest hits and still the Spice Girls albums. And I do not mean to say that Kelly Clarkson is on level with these bitches, because she! is! not! but deciding to love her even though I might get made fun of for it let me love other things I would probably get made fun of for. Do you see?

Anyway, despite that I am no longer a music snob (I own all of Jewel's albums, except that one dance/pop one, people), sometimes I flash back to the year 2000 when I thought I was cool. Oh yes. These times are like now, when someone with terrible taste hi-jacks the stereo in our department, and I have to listen to country music. I can't stand country music! Unless it's good! And I'm very picky, because most country music is baaaaaaad. But I think I like the Dixie Chicks--at least I totally love "Goodbye, Earl." I loathe the blonde bimbos of country, like Faith Hill and Carrie Underwood. That one Shania Twain song is fun to sing at BBW, "That Don't Impress Me Much" or whatever, but that's it. Dolly Parton is certainly talented, but her voice skeeves me. Carlos loves Reba, but I don't see it. Jen was in love with Kenny Chesney and that Australian guy--Keith Urban--and I was having none of it. I like Johnny Cash, sometimes. I hate Rascal Flatts. And, really, country music has forever been soiled for me by Toby Keith, that big redneck good ol' boy bigot.

But that's not to say I hate the music part of country. I bought the Brokeback Mountain soundtrack, and that's all country songs, and I love them. But...on the whole, country music is terrible.

Would you people just finish Deathly Hallows already so I can write about it without issuing spoiler warnings?

Even though no one reads this thing, I was so thoroughly berated by one friend I'll call...Michelle Balls that I am taking precautions.

Deathly Hallows info follows.

Okay, so I totally forgot to talk about my favorite thing about Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: we finally get some information on Ravenclaw! I self-identify as a Ravenclaw, because as far as I can tell, it is the house of nerds. Why Hermione is not in it, no one will ever be able to explain to me satisfactorily. Anyway, I was going crazy, because I am total Ravenclaw material, and I knew nothing about the house except that its dorms were in a tower. And it had a lady founder. And Ravenclaws are all smart. I wanted more! And by golly, I got a bit more, even info on the real identity of the Grey Lady. Oh, that was the other thing I knew: their house ghost was the Grey Lady. And Flitwick was their Head.

My fave part was the security system in place at the tower--you have to answer a question or wait for someone who could answer the question to come along to gain admittance, and that way, as Luna says, you learn something. This means, I suppose, that a non-Ravenclaw who happened to be brilliant (such as Ms. Granger) could get into their tower, which is disconcerting, so I mostly just loved the complete nerdiness of it.

Now, here is how fast I read the end of Deathly Hallows: I forget what the diadem even is. Seriously. I am very disappointed in myself.

Why I haven't reread Deathly Hallows yet

And I do want to, people. That one summer when I read all five Harry Potter books for the first time, I read them over and over again. I think, though, that was because I couldn't get a job that summer, so I was broke, and I was only twenty, and I had no other form of entertainment. When Half-Blood Prince came out, I was smack dab in the middle of the GNS of '05, so I read it, loaned it to Jess, and forgot about it. I think I re-read it at one point, and I kind of meant to re-read it this summer before Deathly Hallows, but I only got as far as Hermione sending canaries to attack Ron before I was, like, "Whatever, this book was not the greatest, I remember the important stuff, let me finish The Golden Compass." Which was better. And I didn't finish it until after I'd read Deathly Hallows, despite its being half the size (or less) than that behemoth. But anyway!

SPOILERS FOLLOW, beasts. You have been warned.

I haven't reread Deathly Hallows because it totally destroyed me. I resisted this stupid Harry Potter thing for so long (okay, five years), and then after I saw Prisoner of Azkaban, the book nerd inside was, like, "Um, if you enjoy these movies, you must read the books." So I did. And I couldn't stop. I couldn't! And I got so attached--to everyone but Harry. Even though I was weeping when he was talking to his dead parents and parent-figures, I still didn't really care what happened to him, specifically, just what would happen to his friends. I love his friends, and when Fred died, that was the end of me. End! Of! Me! I'd already teared up a few times before the Battle of Hogwarts, but once we lost Fred, I really just couldn't stop crying. So I can't read it again. I can't, even though there are plenty of things I missed in my haste to find out what the hell was going to happen.

Here's something I haven't said yet: I'm kind of disturbed that Harry just left the rest of the hallows where they fell. Like, what if someone finds the Resurrection Stone in the forest? It's not like no one goes in there. He could at least hide it.

Oh, and something Melissa had to point out to me: Harry and Voldemort are related, since they are allegedly both descended from a Peverell brother. Although, all those pure-blood wizard families are related to each other, blargh. Inbreeding. This is why you need the Muggle-borns, to infuse some variety into the magic gene pool.

Here's something I've never understood: Muggle-borns must be sports, right--and squibs too--so you probably wouldn't have more than one witch or wizard born to a Muggle family for several generations, right? You'd think? I'd think. But Colin Creevey's little brother was also a wizard. And Teddy Lupin was a Metamorphmagus, so obviously Jo's not really thinking about genetics. But I am! These are the kinds of things I think about, because I am queen of the nerds. Sigh.

So I also haven't re-read Deathly Hallows because I have so many other books to read that I have no time for re-reading. Except I'm totally making my way through the Little House books again, reading a few chapters before I go to sleep. Whatever, they're really good "before bed" reading. I need to finish His Dark Materials, because I love it so much it's making me insane. And it started a fight with me and Mike, because he saw the trailer for The Golden Compass, and he wants to see it, and I was, like, "Did you read the book?" which was stupid, because the answer to that question from most people is always no. Who reads anymore? Sigh. So I was teasing him about how he's illiterate or whatever, and I asked him what the last book he read was, and he couldn't remember. And I felt sad, and he got all defensive, and I was like, "Forget it! Get out of my car! Loveyabye!" I wonder if I gave him The Golden Compass if he would read it. The movie doesn't come out till December--he'd have four months.