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Oh my God, isn't the internet swell? Do you remember how you filled the hours before it came around? Do you remember back in the dark days when you were convinced that you were the only, only freak in the world, that your love for bondage or narcophilia or, you know, a bunch of British children's books about wizards, was unique and troubled you greatly because there was no one in the world you could share that love with?
Thank you, Internet, for supplying a girl with porn beyond measure and a Harry Potter community that's kept one in useful fanfic and a state of high excitement for about four years now.
:::
I've been reading HP since the second book came out. I've had to wait for each book since then, and CoS came out in 1998, I believe, and I would just like to point out that that is a long time to anticipate. Granted, I was given my fixes more or less on schedule, but always in the back of my mind as I finished each book was the idea that IT WOULD BE YEARS BEFORE THE NEXT ONE HOW WAS I GOING TO MAKE IT THAT LONG.
This is why the Internet's been a blessing and also a curse. And I'm not even talking about all the bad-shit fandom trapdoors just waiting for you to fall through--let's ignore for the moment that fandom is chock-full of people spoiling for a fight. I'm talking about the fact that being constantly around a bunch of people waiting, patiently or impatiently, for a thing, it just ramps up your enthusiasm until the day arrives and it's all you can think about and you're up until midnight doing laundry the night before and biting your nails on the phone to your friends and planning the next week of your life, trying to decide how many readings you can get in before someone notices that you can't really concentrate on anything else.
Would I love the HP books if I weren't a part of fandom? For sure, I would. I love the things I love hard, man, and I really love them forever as well, and being the only person in my universe who loves a thing has never stopped me before. Would I love them quite this obsessively, with quite this much daily attention, if it weren't for fandom? I really don't think so. That fanaticism, it is hard to sustain, on a daily basis, without reminders, for six years solid.
That's really why I am so ambivalent about this book coming out. I mean, of course I am OMG SO FUCKING EXCITED I HAVE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE OF NOTE FOR DAYS. But also. After tonight, after this weekend, after the afterglow, there is just the one book left. The last book. And in a couple of years it will all be over. It's the beginning of the end, this weekend, and endings are just things that always make me anxious and regretful. I grieve a little over all my endings, you see, no matter how unimportant they are to the rest of the world. And this weekend, for all that I'm having palpitations and catch myself bouncing in my seat and have written TODAY IS THE DAY on shiny rainbow letters on my stylish whiteboard and that is my secret code for HOLY SHIT DUDE FOURTEEN MORE HOURS, I am also grieving, just a little, for my Harry (I am sorry, but he belongs to me) and for his world and for the fact that we are not going to be seeing so very much more of him.
I won't be getting out the Victorian mourning jewelry just yet, and not just because I don't actually have a lock of Harry Potter's hair. But that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling, today, just a little sad.
TODAY IS THE DAY. THIRTEEN HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES TILL MIDNIGHT.
Thank you, Internet, for supplying a girl with porn beyond measure and a Harry Potter community that's kept one in useful fanfic and a state of high excitement for about four years now.
:::
I've been reading HP since the second book came out. I've had to wait for each book since then, and CoS came out in 1998, I believe, and I would just like to point out that that is a long time to anticipate. Granted, I was given my fixes more or less on schedule, but always in the back of my mind as I finished each book was the idea that IT WOULD BE YEARS BEFORE THE NEXT ONE HOW WAS I GOING TO MAKE IT THAT LONG.
This is why the Internet's been a blessing and also a curse. And I'm not even talking about all the bad-shit fandom trapdoors just waiting for you to fall through--let's ignore for the moment that fandom is chock-full of people spoiling for a fight. I'm talking about the fact that being constantly around a bunch of people waiting, patiently or impatiently, for a thing, it just ramps up your enthusiasm until the day arrives and it's all you can think about and you're up until midnight doing laundry the night before and biting your nails on the phone to your friends and planning the next week of your life, trying to decide how many readings you can get in before someone notices that you can't really concentrate on anything else.
Would I love the HP books if I weren't a part of fandom? For sure, I would. I love the things I love hard, man, and I really love them forever as well, and being the only person in my universe who loves a thing has never stopped me before. Would I love them quite this obsessively, with quite this much daily attention, if it weren't for fandom? I really don't think so. That fanaticism, it is hard to sustain, on a daily basis, without reminders, for six years solid.
That's really why I am so ambivalent about this book coming out. I mean, of course I am OMG SO FUCKING EXCITED I HAVE THOUGHT OF NOTHING ELSE OF NOTE FOR DAYS. But also. After tonight, after this weekend, after the afterglow, there is just the one book left. The last book. And in a couple of years it will all be over. It's the beginning of the end, this weekend, and endings are just things that always make me anxious and regretful. I grieve a little over all my endings, you see, no matter how unimportant they are to the rest of the world. And this weekend, for all that I'm having palpitations and catch myself bouncing in my seat and have written TODAY IS THE DAY on shiny rainbow letters on my stylish whiteboard and that is my secret code for HOLY SHIT DUDE FOURTEEN MORE HOURS, I am also grieving, just a little, for my Harry (I am sorry, but he belongs to me) and for his world and for the fact that we are not going to be seeing so very much more of him.
I won't be getting out the Victorian mourning jewelry just yet, and not just because I don't actually have a lock of Harry Potter's hair. But that doesn't mean that I'm not feeling, today, just a little sad.
TODAY IS THE DAY. THIRTEEN HOURS AND FORTY MINUTES TILL MIDNIGHT.
Four days. One hour. One minute.
Jul. 11th, 2005 10:59 pmI've never quite gotten used to living on the east coast, in the eastern time zone. I lived in central time all my life before late 2003, and now that I live in another zone, it's just different enough to be disconcerting. The news is on at the wrong time. It gets dark differently, here.
But I've just this minute, poking around the leaky cauldron looking at pictures of the HP book going into the mail, come a long way to reconciling myself to living in the wrong time zone. Well, I will have my copy an hour before I would if I were a central-timer, after all!
Yes. To such depths have I sunk.
But I've just this minute, poking around the leaky cauldron looking at pictures of the HP book going into the mail, come a long way to reconciling myself to living in the wrong time zone. Well, I will have my copy an hour before I would if I were a central-timer, after all!
Yes. To such depths have I sunk.
I sing of Harry Potter, dig?
Jul. 8th, 2005 12:16 pmHey, guess what?
This past week, I have been seething with ambivalent impatience for Harry Potter--will explain the ambivalent part at some later date--and in a fit of impassioned silliness sent off an entry to a Guardian Online contest: write an account of the death of Albus Dumbledore in the style of another author.
And mine is up on their website! I mean, they probably publish everybody's. But I was most pleased, anyway, even if they did fuck up the formatting and verse structure.
( Here it is, properly: a parody of e.e. cummings. Warning for silliness. )
This past week, I have been seething with ambivalent impatience for Harry Potter--will explain the ambivalent part at some later date--and in a fit of impassioned silliness sent off an entry to a Guardian Online contest: write an account of the death of Albus Dumbledore in the style of another author.
And mine is up on their website! I mean, they probably publish everybody's. But I was most pleased, anyway, even if they did fuck up the formatting and verse structure.
( Here it is, properly: a parody of e.e. cummings. Warning for silliness. )
Preoccupations
Jun. 28th, 2005 07:27 pmThis is my favorite coverage of the Tom Cruise natural disaster so far. Not because it's convinced me of something that I've always suspected, which is that you can convince anyone of anything as long as you interrupt them constantly and TALK LOUDER THAN THEY DO--because wouldn't you say that Matt Lauer has been convinced of his wrongheadedness by the end? Wouldn't you say that he is counting the seconds until "The Today Show" is over so he can send his assistant out for a copy of Dianetics? I am practicing my rude and patronizing interruptions as we speak!
Anyway, it isn't just that. You will see what I mean when you click. I urge you to do so.
I am riveted by his meltdown, actually, and that is no joke. I'm enthralled in the same way I'm enthralled by Oliver Sacks, by A.R. Luria, by daguerrotypes of war injuries: it is an anthropological fascination, partly rooted in fear and obscure guilt and a particularly nasty form of voyeurism. I have been reading articles on Scientology, I have been wondering at the psychology of people so--I don't even quite know the word to put in here--that the teachings of Scientology seem like the obvious explanation. I feel sorry for them. I am a little horrified. Bewildered. But, yes, fascinated.
:::
And. Like![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
violetisblue, I'm missing writing fanfiction lately; I am thinking of it in most of those moments that aren't already taken up with the mysteries of the human brain. I am reading Harry Potter, and finding myself wanting specifically to weave stories into canon. To fill in some of the spaces of JKR's writing. This means no slash, for the most part, and I'm not sure how big an audience I'll have among the people on my friendslist if I do get something written. But I thought I'd let you know, just in case.
Anyway, it isn't just that. You will see what I mean when you click. I urge you to do so.
I am riveted by his meltdown, actually, and that is no joke. I'm enthralled in the same way I'm enthralled by Oliver Sacks, by A.R. Luria, by daguerrotypes of war injuries: it is an anthropological fascination, partly rooted in fear and obscure guilt and a particularly nasty form of voyeurism. I have been reading articles on Scientology, I have been wondering at the psychology of people so--I don't even quite know the word to put in here--that the teachings of Scientology seem like the obvious explanation. I feel sorry for them. I am a little horrified. Bewildered. But, yes, fascinated.
:::
And. Like
violetisblue, I'm missing writing fanfiction lately; I am thinking of it in most of those moments that aren't already taken up with the mysteries of the human brain. I am reading Harry Potter, and finding myself wanting specifically to weave stories into canon. To fill in some of the spaces of JKR's writing. This means no slash, for the most part, and I'm not sure how big an audience I'll have among the people on my friendslist if I do get something written. But I thought I'd let you know, just in case.
Alleged conversation
Jun. 24th, 2005 09:47 pmImagine there is someone at work you get along really well with. Someone you have a friend-crush on, a crush as in, Man I Would So Love To Hang Out With You But I Am Too Shy To Ask If You Want To Go To Dinner. You love talking about books and movies with him and you share a lot of the same tastes, but more importantly, you like these things you have in common for the same reasons. He thinks Ayn Rand is a lunatic! What more could one want in a potential friend?
Right, with me so far?
Now imagine that you have just tentatively confessed your love for Harry Potter and your eagerness to read the new book--this is a love you prefer to keep under wraps with the large portions of the population you're afraid might ask uncomfortable questions--and WOW HE IS A BIG HARRY POTTER FAN. He mentions that he's read the books and that he travels so much that he wants them on audio but audible doesn't carry them (incredulous, you have since checked the veracity of this statement, and not only does audible not have them, but they have a whole email address devoted to requests for HP on audio) and every time he goes to the library they're checked out.
Still following? Okay, so imagine the following exchange.
You: Oh! I have them on audio! I can make copies for you if you want.
He: Would you? That would be the best thing ever!
You: Sure! I'll get the first four to you tomorrow, because they're all huge mp3s, but the last one will take a few days because it's on 23 CDs and I'll have to convert them for you.
He: Well, the first four will keep me busy for a while. Now which is the last one? Is that the one with the maze?
You: No, it's the one where Sirius dies.
He: ...
You: ...
He: ...
You: OH MY GOD. You have not read that one.
He: O_o I GUESS NOT.
Right, with me so far?
Now imagine that you have just tentatively confessed your love for Harry Potter and your eagerness to read the new book--this is a love you prefer to keep under wraps with the large portions of the population you're afraid might ask uncomfortable questions--and WOW HE IS A BIG HARRY POTTER FAN. He mentions that he's read the books and that he travels so much that he wants them on audio but audible doesn't carry them (incredulous, you have since checked the veracity of this statement, and not only does audible not have them, but they have a whole email address devoted to requests for HP on audio) and every time he goes to the library they're checked out.
Still following? Okay, so imagine the following exchange.
You: Oh! I have them on audio! I can make copies for you if you want.
He: Would you? That would be the best thing ever!
You: Sure! I'll get the first four to you tomorrow, because they're all huge mp3s, but the last one will take a few days because it's on 23 CDs and I'll have to convert them for you.
He: Well, the first four will keep me busy for a while. Now which is the last one? Is that the one with the maze?
You: No, it's the one where Sirius dies.
He: ...
You: ...
He: ...
You: OH MY GOD. You have not read that one.
He: O_o I GUESS NOT.
