I promised myself I wasn’t gonna blog for awhile but with all the Pottermania, the lost picspam, and the release of the Viggo’s new movie’s trailer, I can not help but “squee” with all my might to the heavens. It’s ridiculous to consider a few days ago I felt like crawling under a rock (and maybe I AM bi-polar and someone just has to properly diagnose me).
Anywhore, I so needed some Sawyer up in this piece…just because seeing him curse SOBs twenty million times never gets old for me. And I miss his blue shirts…and his one-liners (that can easily make other anti-Sawyer’s groan) but when he’s a smart ass, he always…always follows it up with massive dimple action. **swoon**
Even when he’s all EMO he doesn’t make me want to throw a shoe at the tv the way Jack does…I think Jack cries as much as Sawyer curses. JEARS are lame. Sawyer pwns all!
1. The sentence “It will all be over in 2 weeks” literally makes you choke up.
2. Instead of reaching for it, you say “Accio remote control!” and hope for the best.
3. You refer to your boss/principal/cat as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
4. You have secretly sorted all of your friends in your mind. And pity the one who got Hufflepuff.
5. You know about Dobby/The Giant Squid.
And I shouldn’t be worried about being an “old” Potter fan. Being a muggle and all hasn’t deterred my Master Stephen King from being a Potterholic himself…and what he wrote in Entertainment Weekly about the inevitable end of the series nearly broke my heart apart. I believe no one on earth (at I least I know) could have expressed that better than him. Uncle Stevie, ILU!!!
By Stephen King
I’m having a day of mixed feelings: happy because I’m reading the manuscript of a novel that’s full of magic, mystery, and monsters; sad because it will be finished tomorrow and on my shelf, with all its secrets told and its surviving characters set free to live their own lives (if characters have lives beyond the end of a novel — I’ve always felt they do). It’s called The Monsters of Templeton, by Lauren Groff, and it will be published early next year.
Did you think I meant the final Harry Potter tale? Don’t be a sillykins — not even your Uncle Stevie gets that one in advance (although I’m sure you agree that he should, he should). But I expect to face the same feelings, only stronger, when the pages of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows dwindle down to the final few. Hell, I had trouble saying goodbye to Tony Soprano, and let’s face it — he was a turd. Harry’s one of the good guys. One of the great guys, in fact, and the same holds true for his friends.
The sense of sadness I feel at the approaching end of The Monsters of Templeton isn’t just because the story’s going to be over; when you read a good one — and this is a very good one — those feelings are deepened by the realization that you probably won’t tie into anything that much fun again for a long time. This particular melancholy deepens even more when the story is spread over multiple volumes. I felt it as I approached the end of Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy, more strongly as I neared the conclusion of Frodo’s quest in The Lord of the Rings, and with painful keenness when, as the writer, I got to the end of The Dark Tower, which stretched over seven volumes and a quarter century’s writing time.
When it comes to Harry, part of me — a fairly large part, actually — can hardly bear to say goodbye. I’d guess that J.K. Rowling feels the same, although I’d also guess those feelings are mingled with the relief of knowing that the work is finally done, for better or worse.
And I’m a grown-up, for God’s sake — a damn Muggle! Think how it must be for all the kids who were 8 when Harry debuted in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with its cartoon jacket and modest (500 copies) first edition. Those kids are now 18, and when they close the final book, they will be in some measure closing the book on their own childhoods — magic summers spent in the porch swing, or reading under the covers at camp with flashlights in hand, or listening to Jim Dale’s recordings on long drives to see Grandma in Cincinnati or Uncle Bob in Wichita. My advice to families containing Harry Potter readers: Stock up on the Kleenex. You’re gonna need it. It’s all made worse by one unavoidable fact: It’s not just Harry. It’s time to say goodbye to the whole cast, from Moaning Myrtle to Scabbers the rat (a.k.a. Wormtail). Which leads to an interesting question — will the final volume satisfy Harry’s longtime (and very devoted) readers?
Although the only thing we can be sure of is that Deathly Hallows won’t end in a 10-second blackout (you’re going to hear that a lot in the next few weeks), my guess is that large numbers of readers will not be satisfied even if Harry survives (I’m betting he will) and Lord Voldemort is vanquished (I’m betting on this, too, although evil is never vanquished for long). I’m partly drawing on my own experience with The Dark Tower (reader satisfaction with the ending was low — tough titty, since it was the only one I had); partly on my belief that very few long works end as felicitously as Tolkien’s Rings series, with its beautiful pilgrimage into the Grey Havens; but mostly on the fact that there is that sadness, that inevitable parting from characters who have been loved deeply by many. The Internet blog sites will be full of this was bad and that was wrong, but it’s going to boil down to something that many will feel and few will come right out and state: No ending can be right, because it shouldn’t be over at all. The magic is not supposed to go away.
Rowling will almost certainly go on to other works, and they may be terrific, but it won’t be quite the same, and I’m sure she knows that. Readers will be able to go back and reread the existing books — as I’ve gone back to Tolkien, as my wife goes back to Patrick O’Brian’s wonderful sea stories featuring Captain Aubrey and Dr. Maturin, as others do with novels featuring Travis McGee or Lord Peter Wimsey — and rereading is a great pleasure, but it’s not the bated-breath, what’s-gonna-happen-next suspense that Potter readers have enjoyed since 1997. And, of course, Harry’s audience is different. It is, in large part, made up of children who will be experiencing these unique and rather terrible feelings for the first time.
But there’s comfort. There are always more good stories, and now and then there are great stories. They come along if you wait for them. And here’s something I believe in my heart: No story can be great without closure. There must be closure, because it’s the human condition. And since that’s how it is, I’ll be in line with my money in my hand on July 21.
Last night depression hit me…I’ve never felt more forlorn in my life…and it was to the point where I questioned my existence and wished I was never born. Yeah, it was one of those…
I just hope every single day I’ll learn to savor every breath I take and to desist paying attention to the negative elements that make me mull over the state of austerity my life is in.
Finding Your Joy
Our lives are rich with potential sources of happiness, but sometimes we become victims of negative thinking because we believe that focusing on all that has gone wrong will provide us with the motivation we need to face the challenges of survival. When we choose to focus on what makes us happy, however, a shift occurs in the fabric of our existence. Finding something to be happy about every single day can help this shift take place. The vantage points from which we view the world are brought into balance, and we can see that being alive truly is a gift to be savored. There is always something we can be happy about—it is simply up to us to identify it.
On one day, we may find happiness in a momentous, life-changing event such as a marriage or the birth of a child. On another day, the happiness we experience may be a product of our appreciation of a particularly well-brewed cup of a tea or the way the sun shines on a leaf. If we discover that we literally cannot call to mind a single joyful element of existence, we should examine the cause of the blockage standing between us and experiencing happiness. Keeping a happiness journal is a wonderful way to catalog the happiness unfolding all around us so that joy has myriad opportunities to manifest itself in our lives. Writing about the emotions we experience while contemplating joy may give us insight into the factors compelling us to resist it.
Happiness may not always come easily into your life. You have likely been conditioned to believe that the proper response to unmet expectations is one of sadness, anger, guilt, or fear. To make joy a fixture in your existence, you must first accept that it is within your power to choose happiness over unhappiness every single day. Then, each time you discover some new source of happiness, the notion that the world is a happy place will find its way more deeply into your heart. On this day, find one thing to be happy about and let it fill your heart.
In celebration of what we raving fans of JK Rowling call as, “Harry Potter” month (obviously because of the the release of “Deathly Hallows” plus the movie release of OOTP as well…DUH), I’ve taken the liberty of changing my blog header…again!
And because I am a sad…sad…pathetic excuse for a human being I’ve put together the OOTP Premiere pics c/o Getty Images. Go ahead, make fun of me. I’ve got skin thicker than an elephant’s hide.
I want to be just like JK Rowling when I grow up
Boy, you need to quit looking like a Gringott banker and dress your age!
Luna Lovegood looking goooooood.
Kathy Leung aka Cho Chang and Emma kicking it diva style!
How fast these three grew up…except maybe for Daniel.
Aaaaah, David Tennant in a velvet suit. I so want to touch him now!
Jeezuhs Bellatrix Helena; why must you come to one of these looking like a corpse?
Dan’s like “Em, can I wear your heels later?” and Emma’s all, “Give me back the feather boa I loaned you , you git!” and Rupert’s all, “Fuck me; where can I score some good weed??!!”
and last but the not least, my favorite; the Weasley twins. It’s double2x the eye candy!
Thought this post apropros for the turbulent times times we are in…
Burdensome Feelings
As we begin to truly understand that the world outside of us is a reflection of the world inside of us, we may feel confused about who is to blame for the problems in our lives. If we had a difficult childhood, we may wonder how we can take responsibility for that, and in our current relationships, the same question arises. We all know that blaming others is the opposite of taking responsibility, but we may not understand how to take responsibility for things that we don’t truly feel responsible for. We may blame our parents for our low self-esteem, and we may blame our current partner for exacerbating it with their unconscious behavior. Objectively, this seems to make sense. After all, it is not our fault if our parents were irresponsible or unkind, and we are not to blame for our partner’s bad behavior.
Perhaps the problem lies with the activity of blaming. Whether we blame others or blame ourselves, there is something aggressive and unkind about it. It sets up a situation in which it becomes difficult to move forward under the burdensome feelings of shame and guilt that arise. It also puts the resolution of our pain in the hands of someone other than us. Ultimately, we cannot insist that someone else take responsibility for their actions; only they can make that choice when they are ready. In the meantime, if we want to move forward with our lives instead of waiting around for something that may or may not happen, we begin to see the wisdom of taking the situation into our own hands.
We do this by forgiving our parents, even if they have not asked for our forgiveness, so that we can be free. We end the abusive relationship with our partner, who may never admit to any wrongdoing, because we are willing to take responsibility for how we are treated. In short, we love ourselves as we want to be loved and create the life we know we deserve. We leave the resolution of the wrongs committed against us in the hands of the universe, releasing ourselves to live a life free of blame.
Oh joy! 21 days till the release of “Deathly Hallows”. Anyone care to buy the book for me?
And of course 12 more days till OOTP…how swell this month is going to be!
And because my brain has been reduced to mush (since re-watchcing the extended version of LOTR’s FOTR….NGH! Viggoooooo…**swoons**), I’ve discovered some parallels between Luke Skywalker and Harry Potter. Yes, so riddled with angst…let the useless comparison commence! :
