003 - Harry Potter Gives Me Goosebumps

Every time the commercial for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince comes on, I freeze, eyes riveted to the television screen... I swear someone could break into my house and I wouldn't bat an eye (okay, that's an exaggeration... I'm a fan, but I'm not crazy). It's really bad if I'm in a theater and I see it on the big screen... I get chills.

I know I'm a dork, and I'm okay with that, because I also know that I'm not alone.

My favorite characters are probably not everyone else's favorites... I like Ron and Snape. I mean, I love them all, but Ron's fun, and Snape is... I don't know what it is that I like about him except that he's an underdog, and there's something about an underdog that I root for... I had faith in him all along even though it always looked like he was the bad guy. I liked him in the books, but it got worse when the movies came along... there's something sexy about Alan Rickman with longish dark hair... I know... I don't understand it either...

Harry Potter opened up a whole new world for me. I stubbornly refused to read any of the books for a couple of years when the craze first started, but I finally broke down and did it. To my surprise, I sat up all night reading the first two. The first book is still my favorite because of the world it created, it was brilliant and new and fascinating. Even the first movie is the one I watch most often... my favorite scene is that cigarette lighter that snuffs out the street lamps (I'm really going to get it for not knowing the name of that doohickey)... it's bloody brilliant, as Ron would say.

When all of the books have been made into movies and there's no more of them to look forward to, that's going to be a sad day for me.

I had mixed emotions about the last book. I waited for it all day, I was so pissed at UPS because I live 5 minutes from the distribution center, but they had to turn it over to the post office for some reason and my mailperson always comes late... I'd pre-ordered it months ahead of time, and I didn't get my copy until 6 pm. And yet... when it finally arrived I didn't want to crack it open, because opening it meant the end was that much closer. Then I stayed up all night reading it. There's was a passage where Harry looked at the clock and it was 4 am (or whatever time it was), and when I glanced at my clock... it was 4 am... now that's magic.