A Decade of Harry

As I trace the last line of "The Deathly Hallows" I feel both elated and dissapointed. The prospect of never having to wait on a line in the thick of July, engulfed by a sea of strangers seems foreign and unsavory. The delight in the torture seems a distant ache of a memory.

From the moment my gaze reaches the first overproduced ink, I am a goner. Pausing only after the dull pounding in my head, sleep overcomes my curiosity. Fingers entwined around the binding, bookmarking my place. Finally Saturday afternoon (six anguished hours in the morning dedicated to a newspaper interview as a reporter comes to my house) I settle the book neatly onto the shelf.

Small Spoiler Alert

Initial protests occurs early in the book, as early as page ten as questions lead me to ask if Rowling truly left her mark. Is Harry simply older, sophisticated and polished through a summer of anguish and unwarranted deaths? Or does Rowling relinquish the author's rights to corporate editors through and through. Is it an apeasement to public taste? Who knows? Because by page twenty, none of that matters.

Early reviews reveals book seven's violent nature and they're right... it's a blood-bath. Characters we hold dear to our hearts are forever lost. It's not fairy-tale trickery, there's no magic potion for their revival, no magic prince to kiss a poisoned princess... it's ugly, it's cruel and more than that, it's permanent. They die without reason or warning, and as Harry suffers through his twelfth (but not last... not last by far) death in book 7, it's numbing. He digs out Dobby's grave crudely by hand and I feel his heavy sorrow. He'll never be the same. But that's life, wizard or muggle... pain is inescapable and not even magic can erase the shadows of death.

I bow down to the author, whether it be Rowling, Scholastic-hired, WB-hired... it's inconsequential at best. May I dare say, brilliant? The character development is magnificent and the story-line boasts something even more beautiful. Love, deceptions, betrayal, friendship carries onto the bitter end. And just when you think that your heart might burst from the misery of it all, it picks you up with a tearful smile. The half-deserted hope is not unwarranted.

Snape... oh Snape.

Evoremore - It's Too Late (Dirty South Remix)

Models and Mortals

Modeling is a facade just like any other-- only a little more ugly and a little more beautiful.

The X

It's unfair isn't it? The best things in life are determined long before you ever realize its implications. The lottery, it'll get you.

I'm coasting. Looking back, it's a thrill.

This year? In a nutshell-- from homeless, jobless, dogless to everything-ness.

Funny, everytime I think I finally have a grasp on something... just a tiny sliver of certainty, the rug gets pulled out from under me. Reality check, I don't know squat. Every year I think "this it it! this is me!" to only unearth something surreal that I wonder if anything will ever be still.

Yeah, it does that to you. Life I mean. It'll knock you down to the very last peg when you feel oh-so high and make it up to you in more ways than you can imagine. It'll make you work for it, whatever that 'it' may be. I still don't know.

This year I'm all about the real smiles. It's strange, you walk around your whole life feeling uncontrollably sad and you carry it around with you since god-knows-when and then suddenly everything is better you almost don't know what to do with yourself. So you nod and mutter to no one in particular "ah, this is happy..." and it's not what you expect but it's borderline bizarre. And it's that lottery-winner feeling but it's always felt that way and every night you wonder "what's the catch?". What is the catch?

Is it skill or is it chance? Because from this side of the fence it seems to me all luck and some of us have all the charm. Blind-sided by the x, so I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that the x will never catch up to me.

In the end, it's a ride. A damn good one, with the best music you can get your ears around and the fastest shiny car you can ever want (still, a person always beckons for more... more)... I think the only thing it asks of you is to obey the speed limit... if anything, just to take in the cool air.

And I didn't think it was possible but every time I turn around, I like you even more.

Tiesto (Salt Tank) - Eugina