on your journey, i will bless you...

We went to bed on Thanksgiving Day with the air conditioner on, and woke up on Black Friday to freezing-cold, wet weather. The annoying thing isn't so much that it's up and down, but that it always seems to be down on Friday evening. The crazies were out in hoardes that night, and on Black Saturday.

Eva, Adam, Ben, and I went to the movies to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on Saturday night. (Yes, Ben came with us. I'm as shocked as you are.) I was also a little shocked with how much dark stuff they got away with putting in that movie. It was good, but between the God-awful Prince's Tale and Epilogue, I'm really not sure if I'm going to see Part 2 next summer. Anyway, it got me reminiscing about where I was when each previous Harry Potter movie was released.

• Sorcerer's Stone. Released 16 November 2001. This came out on the last Friday before Thanksgiving vacation of my junior year of high school. In French class that day, Mlle Gryppe let us play charades, and when Lauren started to touch her hair as a clue, I immediately guessed, "Harry Potter." Mom and Adam went to see it that day while I was in school. Dad took Adam and me to see it sometime during the next week, and we talked to him nonstop throughout it, explaining what was happening. He said he enjoyed it, but I imagine he must have been bored out of his skull. The first two movies weren't the best.
• Chamber of Secrets. Released 15 November 2002. This was came out during the Thanksgiving vacation of my senior year. Aunt Carolyn was in town for the holiday, and she took Adam, Juliana, Olivia, and me all to see it. We talked about the symbolism of different characters' names, and Aunt Carolyn said Lucius Malfoy was "a bad daddy."
• Prisoner of Azkaban. Released 4 June 2004. This came out the summer after my freshman year of college. I went to see it with Daniel, my friend from high school, and we ran into another friend, Amanda, who was working at the theater concession stand. In July, Mom, Adam, and I went to Houston to visit Dad, and the three of them saw it, but I saw Two Brothers.
• Goblet of Fire. Released 18 November 2005. This came out during my junior year of college. My French professor, JXB, mentioned in class one day that the students and teachers from the Beauxbatons were terrible French stereotypes. I saw it when I was home for Thanksgiving, but I honestly can't remember who went with me. I do remember that I wore the Harry Potter shirt I bought for the release of the book Half-Blood Prince, which came out the summer before, and that Eva told me she was "so embarrassed" for the Beauxbatons girls when they did that little dance entering the Great Hall, which I found hilarious.
• Order of the Phoenix. Released 11 July 2007. This movie and the seventh (and final) book came out within two weeks of each other during the summer after I graduated college and before I went to France. Sara, Adam, and I saw the movie on July 21, the day the book was released. I wore my Harry Potter shirt and baseball cap, which I'd won a few weeks before, during Harry Potter trivia day at the Baton Rouge library. After seeing the movie, Adam and I attended the midnight release at Books-A-Million, and I read travel books on France.
• Half-Blood Prince. Released 15 July 2009. I took Eva to see this a week or two after it was released, and we made a day of it. First we went to a local water park, then ate lunch at McDonald's, then went to see the movie. We still hadn't completely dried off from the water park by the time we saw it, so we were cold and shivering in a dark theater for about two hours, but other than that, the day couldn't have been better. My entry on it is here. (Edit: I just realized something neat: Eva and I saw HBP on July 21, two years to the day after Sara, Adam, and I saw OotP, in the same theater. Cool, huh?)
• Update! The Deathly Hallows: Part 2. Released 15 July 2011. Adam, Eva, and I went to the same water park, and saw the movie afterwards. My entry on it is here.

While walking Sable today, I discovered three mulberry trees in our neighborhood. Like, within a stone's throw of my back door. I don't know how I didn't notice them sooner. They weren't really on anybody's property, so I picked as many berries as could (which wasn't much, because the branches were so high) brought them home in my shirt, washed them off, and ate them with sugar. They taste and look almost exactly like blackberries -- yum!

I saw my old third-grade teacher yesterday at work. With a few notable exceptions (like babygoose85), I hate running into former teachers and classmates, especially at work. I don't know why. I mean, most of the kids from my high school class are perfectly nice, friendly people (by senior year, I had figured out that on rainy days, all I had to do was stand under the awning next to the parking lot, and one of my classmates would offer me a ride home). But I just don't know what to say to them. Running into this particular teacher was especially traumatic. I immediately flashed back to when our class took a field trip and I had to share my seat on the school bus with her and she very nearly sat on me. And the last time I ran into her, in a Wal-Mart shortly after I finished third grade, she tried to hug me and literally turned and ran in the other direction. (I wonder if she remembers that.) I will never forgive the teachers who made me hug them when I didn't want to. It is not touching. It's inappropriate and inexcusable.

The first CD I ever bought, around spring 2000, was the soundtrack to The Sound of Music, and I've always lamented that certain songs in the movie weren't included on it. Mainly the reprise of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" that Maria and Liesl sing, and the reprise of "Do Re Mi" that the family sings at the concert. Yesterday the idea finally came to me -- why not just burn my own newer, better, stronger, faster soundtrack to The Sound of Music? So I'm compiling it in iTunes right now, putting on every bit of music that didn't make it onto the official soundtrack, as well as audio clips of some of my favorite quotes from the movie.

Something interesting about working at the bookstore is that most of my co-workers are old ladies. I like to listen to their conversations, because they're so different from the conversations I hear most of the time (which have lately consisted of Sara, Adam, and me making fun of Star Trek). These women discuss things like raising children, losing parents, or getting divorced. I've heard several of them say, when discussing their divorces, that they stayed in married for too long simply because they didn't want to be alone. I've thought a lot about that, and I only hope that I'm never in that situation. If I never get married, then that's fine by me, and I'll just spend my old age watching Star Wars movies and rereading Harry Potter books with Sara and Adam (in other words, a lot more of what we do right now).

On the other hand, something I don't really like about working in the bookstore is that I see a lot of young people -- specifically, kids that I knew in high school. It's not that I dislike them (far from it), but many of them I haven't seen since graduation, and I just don't know what to say to them. What makes things more uncomfortable is that many of the girls I went to high school with have either gotten married, had a baby, or are about to do one of these things. Meanwhile the only notable thing that I've done since graduating high school is to graduate college. And while that certainly is notable (two majors in four years is hard work), it's not on the same level as getting married or having a baby; not having done either while so many other girls have makes me feel that I'm lazy or waiting too long, which is ridiculous. Waiting for what? I'm not sure if I ever want to get married or have children, and even if I did, I'm only 22. With no disrespect to these girls I knew in high school, I simply do not understand the appeal of wanting to do these things at such a young age. Who wants that kind of responsibility?

On the other hand, I have long suspected that my obsession with JM Barrie and his works has given me issues with growing up.

P.S. Other things that have surprised me since I started work at the bookstore... 1) The number of people who use mechanical pencils. I never liked those, but people buy them all the time. 2) The number of people who pay for small purchases with credit cards. I had one customer used a credit card to buy a plastic pencil sharpener that cost a quarter. Doesn't anybody carry cash around anymore? 3) The number of girls who shop with their moms.

Most of my dreams slip away when my alarm clock goes off, but last night's dream was so powerful and vivid that I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I dreamt that I was at a little park with all of my old classmates from high school. Anne Marie, Caleb, Amber, RJ, Iman, Micah, Caroline, Bruce, Mari, Aric, Melissa, Drew -- everyone was there, and we had each been assigned to write a poem. I was trying to write one about Sigmund Boraks, but before I could get started, we got the news that our class had won some sort of special prize and we were all taking a plane ride to go and collect it.

The next thing I knew, we were all packed and riding a bus to the airport when suddenly I yelled that I had forgotten something. It must have been something important because we took a detour to my house just so I could get it. And then -- and this is where the dream becomes as real as any memory -- as I was stepping off the bus, I looked up the driveway and into the backyard. The sunlight was so bright, and I thought at first I was seeing things, so I raised my hand to shield my eyes. The pool was blue and clean, and I started to walk toward it. Then I saw that someone was swimming in it, and as I got closer, I saw it was Dad.

Today I have reached my goal of making the book last three weeks. If I were a realistic person, I would congratulate myself and finish the book today. But because I'm unrealistic and stubborn and hard-to-please, I've decided to try and make the final eleven chapters last for another week. Adam doubt that I'll be able to do it; he says the final five chapters have to be read all at once. We'll see. As much as I want to know what happens in the remainder of the book, I keep asking myself, if I finish it tonight, what will I read tomorrow? With summer drawing to a close so quickly, I have to make this book last a little longer, if only so I'll have something to look forward to. Fall semester starts on August 22. Less than three weeks of freedom left. Just thinking about it makes me less depressed than panicky. My hands start shaking, my chest gets tight, my teeth clench. I don't understand why I feel this way. Aren't college kids supposed to hate coming home to their parents? Sara does. Why don't I? Why does the thought of returning to LSU make my soul hurt?

Reading Chapter 18, "Birthday Surprises," was a wonderful experience. I read it all in one heady, breathless rush, lying on my bed while Coldplay's "Speed of Sound" played over and over in my head. I'll probably always associate that high-pitched chorus "If you could see it, then you'd understand" with this book. When I was done, I did read the few first pages of Chapter 19, just to make sure Ron was all right, but I saved the majority of it for the next day.

P.S. Adam still insists that Kreacher's name is pronounced kretcher, not creature.