Harry Potter and The Annoying MovieGoers

I won't make this a long and blithering blog as I often do on Sundays and will try to keep it shorter and sweeter than usual.

As I said on Friday, I did finally get to see the last and final adventures of "Harry Potter" this weekend. It was a great way to end a great series of movies and I enjoyed every minute of the movie. It was sad, exciting, clever, funny and just overall fantastic. That's my review.

My only question about the whole experience was not about the film but, rather, to one of the fellow movie watchers who shared the theatre with us. Here's my question: What would possess you to bring a very young child to a 9:15 p.m. showing of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2"?

I mean, ok, so maybe they couldn't find a babysitter but that's not a very good excuse. THe movie was incredibly dark and I imagine quite scary to a young child. Also, it's 9:15 p.m. Shouldn't the child be IN BED?????

Ok. Rant over. Well, except to ask the young woman behind me who liked to put her feet up on the back of the seat next to me after taking off her shoes...is it really necessary to talk at almost full voice quite often? Most of the people are there to WATCH THE MOVIE. She was explaining what was happening to her significant other. I'd like to think that if he's watching the same movie as her, he might have been aware of what was happening but what do I know.

In spite of that and the person who had a rather large and uncomfortable sounding coughing fit in the back of the theatre, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

I'm just turning into a cranky old lady, I think. Either that or I wanted my experience of seeing the LAST HARRY POTTER MOVIE EVER FOR THE FIRST TIME to be, you know, something where I could focus on the movie instead of the habits of other patrons.

At least no one's cell phone rang. Though the girl a few seats down from me was rather distracting while she texted and the glow of her phone lit up. Ah well....at least it was a great movie.

Thanks, J.K. Rowling for making such a wonderful story for us to read and then watch.

Happy Monday!

The Woes of Growing Old...

I think I'm getting old. This is a redundant statement really because even as I started typing this, I'm already older than I was when I typed the first word.

I don't necessarily mean in age. I mean that I'm getting old as in just being. I know you're really only as old as you think you are but that's not really what I mean, either.

What I mean is hard to describe. It's not an age thing, measurable in years. It's more just a state of existence, more who you are, what you do and what you like.

For example, we all go through phases. In my childhood, I went through phases such as wanting a pony more than anything else in life, wanting to be in a pantomime because the one I saw on my seventh birthday was the most exciting thing I'd ever seen and wanting to be a gymnast even though physics, heridity and lack of balance were all against me.

In my teens, I went through a heavy metal stage, an Andrew Lloyd Webber stage, a Stephen King stage.

In my twenties, I went through a theatre stage, a passionate love of the movies that led to my attempts at being a screenwriter and an Anne Rice stage.

You get the idea. Each decade of my life meant I was older. My interests naturally evolved to help define who I was at that moment in time. They grew a little more mature as the days went by though most likely by someone else's standards, my interests were always (and probably still are) slightly immature in some ways. I mean, I did go through a passionate devotion to Green Day in my late 20's/early thirties. I still like Green Day.

Yet I no longer have that burning desire to have Green Day help define who I am. It's strange. One day it was there, one day it wasn't. I don't know why it went away or even what made it go away, it just did. It was suddenly replaced by a weird and inexplicable desire to listen to Top 40 music and discover that Lady GaGa is quite an artist, Katy Perry is horribly catchy and that I wouldn't mind if Jason Mraz followed me around and sang to me all day long.

The only constant in my life that has been there since my 20's is Harry Potter. Since I first read the books, I've been a captive fan. I love the movies. I collect Harry Potter stuff, specifically featuring the illustrations from the books rather than movie themed stuff but I'm not horribly picky.

I can't wait to see the movie that opens tonight at midnight. I've been counting down for months. I know it's going to be good. I know I'm going to be frustrated that I have to wait another six months to see Part 2 of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I don't care. I can't wait to see the movie.

I just don't want to see it at midnight. Hence the fact...I'm getting old.

A few years ago, I would have been there at midnight if I had friends who wanted to see it. I mean, I was at Borders for the midnight release of the last book in the series. Nowadays...I just don't want to and that, I fear, makes me old.

No longer do I have that happy-go-lucky, "I don't care if I have to work tomorrow!" attitude that I used to have. Instead, I know that even if I did drag my 35-year-old bones to the movies, it'd be a waste of my $12. You see, I could wait in line. I'd get in and sit down. Then I'd get tired. I might force myself to stay awake but I know that if I did, I'd be so focused on not falling asleep, I wouldn't take in the movie. I might manage to watch it but, at best, I reckon I'd probably catch maybe 85% of it and miss 15% by a) trying not to doze off, b) getting distracted by the fact that I had to be at work in a few short hours or c) being worried that I left the puppies home alone and hoping they'd be ok.

I know, I know....so what? There's only a midnight opening once, right? I can always go see it again if I did miss some or fall asleep.

The thing is, I don't want to do that. For one thing, even matinees these days are almost $9. For another thing, Harry Potter is very important to me. I love to see the movies and get lost in them. I love the thrill of knowing even as I sit in my seat at the theatre, I'm about to have over two hours of pure enjoyment that is all mine. As a child, I felt that way any time I was lucky enough to go to the cinema. It was this almost breathless thrill of excitement that arose in me as soon as the lights went down. I was going to escape from my seat and get lost in the screen in front of me.

Nowadays, I rarely have that feeling. I do, however, always have it with Harry Potter movies.

I don't want to not have that. You only have it once and that's the first time you get to see the movie in the theatre. You can try to recapture that the second time or even the third time but the magic is just not the same. It's like having a chocolate chip or shortbread cookie that's still warm from the oven. The gooey warmth is only there when they come out of the oven. Afterwards, they're still good but that comfy, homey warmth of that sweet disc of goodness is gone. Even if you put it in the microwave, it's not quite the same.

I know I'm being slightly dramatic about Harry Potter. It's just something special and important to me. When you're a thirty-something singleton who lives alone with two adorable puppies, you cling on to things like Harry Potter. It makes like that little more special.

So, I won't be seeing it at midnight tonight. That makes me feel old.

I know people who do still go to midnight showings- several friends who are scattered around the U.S. will be waiting in line at midnight in their various time zones, waiting for that Warner Brothers logo to appear on the screen and for the Harry Potter experience to begin.

I admire them because they can still do it. They can overcome that old person mentality and not care about being tired tomorrow.

Whereas me...I know I wouldn't make it through the movie without falling asleep.

So, instead, I'm going to wait until Saturday. I'll make it into a Harry Potter day and I'll enjoy the movie while the sun is still shining outside. I won't be in a theatre with devotees of the movie like I would be if I went at midnight.

But at least I'll be awake and I'll enjoy every minute.

Oh, I'm getting old.

Happy Friday! (and enjoy Harry Potter if you're seeing it tonight/this weekend!)

The Awesomeness of Autumn

Well, I had in mind a long winded post that waxed poetical about my new job, Autumn and the like.

Unfortunately, the site on which my blog is hosted is down and so my attempts to blog this evening have been thwarted. I’mblogging, instead, using the old fashioned method of typing it up in Microsoft Word in hopes that the site revives itself soon.

The nice thing is that I can type the words “Microsoft Word” and not feel this strong desire to duck. Having been surrounded by computer geeks/snobs for a while, I’ve been shamed into the zombie mentality of Microsoft=Great Evil. However, as I’ve always felt, whether or not Microsoft is truly evil, I’m a fan. Without Microsoft, most of us wouldn’t know our Start Menus from our Control Panels and so, for the mere fact that Microsoft treats everyone in an equally simplistic fashion, I’m a fan.

I use Microsoft every day in my job and…so does everyone else. Gone are the days when I have to sit through meeting after meeting in which I constantly hear about the inferior ‘double click’ of Microsoft Windows vs. the “superior” single click of the Apple.

In my new office, NO ONE has a Mac. It’s lovely. As the newbie, I’m the guinea pig for Windows 7 and Microsoft Office 2010. The other staff are a little nervous. While I think this go-around meant Microsoft was trying a wee bit hard to emulate the Mac computer, it’s still the same basic software and so I’m happy to double-click my heart out.

I digress. What I’m really saying is that it’s now been almost a weeks since I walked out the old office. I left with apprehension and a slight case of fear of the unknown. I left unhappy because my ex-boss had been nothing but rude and insensitive to me. I left sad because after two years, leaving a building without any real sense of loss was just…sad.

Now, a week later, I’m already feeling embedded in my new office. I go in a little early now. The day flies by. I always have something to work on. Each day, I’m learning more. Each day, I achieve a little more success. Each day, I feel…appreciated. My boss told me tonight that, “I know it’s only been four days and I’ve thrown you in the deep end but I want you to know you’re doing great.”

I don’t think he knows how much that means. It’s not just me. I know I escaped from a somewhat unhappy situation and, thus, praise is foreign. However, there are many people out there who are not completely miserable in their jobs and yet they never, ever hear a word of praise from their supervisor.

Let me say…it feels good. It’s nice to know that even though I feel like I’m flailing around, a little disorganized and completely overwhelmed by all the potential work I should be doing, that I’m still doing pretty decently.

If all goes well tomorrow, I should have placed my first candidate. I should be feeling like I’ve done something right.

It’s a nice way to end a week. It’s been a good week. It’s going to be a good weekend too. This weekend, I plan to celebrate the Awesomeness of Autumn. I had originally planned on heading up to my parents. As much as I’d love to see them and let the puppies go fishing in my parents’ ponds, after this week, my brain and body is a little too tired to think about the 2.5 hour trip each way. Thus, I think I’m going to use the weekend to both recharge and celebrate Autumn.

As I said last year, each Autumn, I celebrate Halloween in my own way by carving a pumpkin while watching a “Harry Potter” movie and drinking pumpkin beer. Well, this year, I already have the pumpkin, the movie and the beer. All I need is the carving.

I plan on eating baked sweet potatoes, roasting pumpkin seeds and enjoying the fact that we’re due for our very first frost this weekend. Autumn is finally, truly upon us and I , for one, welcome the season.

Most of all, I love the fact that, as a transitional season, Autumn has brought change into my life. I’m no longer trapped in the job that sucked away pieces of my soul. Instead, I’m in a job that, slowly but surely, is making me feel like a human again.

It’s a lovely feeling….and it’s only been a week. But what a week it’s been!

Happy Friday…and thanks for reading.

Have a great weekend!

Rapidly Passing Weekends....

Another weekend is almost gone and, as always, it went by so fast, I hardly knew it was here.

Well, ok, I knew it was here...but, as always, I wish it were longer. It was my first weekend at home in a couple of weeks. As much as I love going home to see my family, it's also nice to come home on a Friday evening, kick off my shoes and know I don't have to go out again.

This weekend turned out to be a blend of productivity and sheer laziness. My Saturday was rather busy. The puppies, early risers that they are, got me up around 7:30 a.m. I actually didn't mind, having dozed off while watching TV at 11 p.m the night before. My 'puppy schedule' now means "early to bed, early to rise."

Of course, being early to rise is not such a bad thing. I was out and about by about 8:30 a.m. I needed to go to Jungle Jim's and, on weekends, the best time to go is before the crowds hit after 10 a.m. The beauty of a 9 a.m. trip to Jungle Jim's means no 'tourists' getting in the way of actual shopping. Having been a 'tourist' once, I know the sheer fascination with the cheese counter alone. Ok, fine, even now I find myself fascinated with the cheese counter. Yet when you're a Monkeypants on a grocery-shopping mission, there's nothing more tedious than someone being amazed at the varieties of Brie. Don't get me wrong, I like Brie but, really, it's the first stop on the Cheese counter...move alone and marvel at the mass amounts of parmiagiano reggiano.

Yes, I'm a Jungle Jim's snob. I'm also a Jungle Jim's smartypants. Going that early on a Saturday is a sure way to snag some bargains. My favourite section is the 'reduced produce' area. Some people might sneer up their nose at this. However, as a 'foodie' and a lover of all things produce, it's my favourite section. I use so many vegetables when I cook that this section is a fabulous moneysaver. Yesterday, I managed to snag a tray of jalapenos- always useful- for $1. I also got mushrooms and peeled shallots for 79 cents each. I got a plantable pot of thyme for a mere 39 cents, some cilantro- which I shall use in my chicken tortilla soup- for only 39 cents.

My favourite bargain was fiddlehead ferns. When I found them, I actually had some ramps in my hands. However, I've now cooked with ramps. I liked them very much but I've also seen chefs on the Food Network cook with fiddleheads and, well, I was curious. So, having to choose between ramps and fiddleheads, I chose the unknown. For those of you who thick I'm insane, they're actually quite a spring speciality, much like the ramp. They're the unfurled new portion of the ostrich fern and they look like little tiny coils. I also paused over the morels which were reduced down to $10 for a little pot. However, as much as I'd love to taste morels, my job, alas, does not pay me enough to splurge for such delicacies. One day...

I spent far too long in the Jungle Jim's produce section. I'd like to wager I know it better than most people by now. They're actually looking for a produce manager and if I knew anything about managing produce, I'd be tempted to apply. I think I know enough about the actual produce part to be somewhat of an amateur expert already. Most of the time when I talk to people, they look at me when I'm insane when I wax poetical about my roasted cardoons or my fiddlehead ferns.

Ah well, to each his own. For the record, I made homemade linguine today and I served it with a sautee of fiddleheads, mushrooms, thyme, onions and garlic. It was, not to brag, rather delicious.

I digress...as I often do when talking about food. I spent most of the rest of the weekend in the garden. The puppies helped me dig holes and I quickly planted some of my tomato and zucchini seedlings as well as some Swiss chard seeds. I also have some asparagus coming up, finally so, if all goes well, I might have a healthy vegetable crop by mid-summer.

I also made time for a little Robert Downey Jr. When I found out the release date for "Iron Man 2," I did warn the puppies that while I loved them, I have loved Mr. Downey Jr. for a little longer and thus, I would be abandoning them for two hours. While it didn't happen on opening weekend for the film, this weekend, it was a priority. I'm happy to say that while "Iron Man 2" did not hold quite the entertainment of the first movie, it was still very entertaining. I think, honestly, it would have been very difficult to match the entertainment level of "Iron Man" merely because it was far deeper and far more 'fun' than most comic-book movies and that took me by surprise. This time, I expected it to be fun and, so when it was, it didn't exactly surpass expectations- if that makes sense. It was definitely a great way to start of the summer blockbuster season though.

However, on a side note, having seen a preview for "Twilight: Eclipse," I simply have to say this- did they give the entire cast downers? What's with the zombie-land, monotonal acting? Ok, so that's normal for Kristen Stewart but, well, Dakota Fanning used to...act, right? Do they issue some sort of law that actors in the Twilight movies can't have facial expressions? That if they dare let any emotion or, you know, acting show on camera they get fired? Just curious.

So, all, in all, in addition to the shopping, the movie and planting plants, the pups and I had a great weekend. I meant to do a lot today but, well, it was a cool and dreary Sunday and after I made my new batch of butternut squash ravioli, I just didn't feel like doing much of anything. In the end, Rory, Sookie and I spent much of Sunday relaxing and being lazy which, honestly, was a rather nice treat.

Now Monday looms nearer. I had a chat with my boss on Friday as to how redundant I feel at times and how I hate feeling like Harry Potter. He actually felt bad, as I knew he would. I don't know how long it'll last but I did feel like he listened.

And, so, even though it's the start of the workweek in just a few hours, I have just a little more hope than I had last week. Granted, that might not last for long but, for now, I'm going to let myself dream.

There's nothing wrong with that...right?

Happy Monday!

Oddly Productive Evenings...

I've had a strangely productive evening so far and I'm not even sure how I managed it. I'm actually surprised I even had the energy given that, last night, we had thunderstorms that rumbled through the night. The puppies aren't afraid of storms, per se, but they were restless and had trouble settling down. This meant I woke up a lot as they moved, mostly trying to get closer to me. It's nice that I'm their security blanket although it would be nicer if I weren't trying to sleep.

Nevertheless, after a quite busy day at work- one of those where you plan a quiet day of working on a project and it decays into multiple 'rush' projects that all have to be juggled but not in any type of orderly fashion because, at any given moment, you're going to be interrupted- I thought I'd feel like coming home and doing nothing.

Instead, I managed to go to the library to pick up an audiobook to listen to as I drive to my parents' again this weekend. I'm going to listen to Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as a treat. I just finished listening to Henry James' Turn of the Screw. It's one of those books I've always meant to read but never go around to so when I saw the audiobook...I grabbed it.

Is it wrong to say I disliked Mr. James' classic novel rather a lot? I know it's lead to a lot of critical essays', theses, discussions and the like as to whether the governess is insane or really seeing ghosts but, well, frankly, I thought it was a bit overrated. One of my biggest pet peeves is that the novel begins somewhere with a man who's going to read the story. It's a long beginning, a dragged out lead-in to the actual story. When it begins, you get to hear a gothic, supernatural sort of tale that doesn't end with as much of a twist as I was hoping. Also, I was thinking if Mr. James began with a narrator of sorts, shouldn't he end it the same way? If so, why bother with the whole long, somewhat dull introduction at all?

Anyway, I didn't care for it. That's my two cents. I decided Harry Potter was a safer choice because who doesn't love it when Jim Dale reads to them, particularly when it's my favourite of the Harry Potter novels.

Anyway, after the library, I ran to the supermarket since I invited a coworker/friend to dinner on Thursday and needed some supplies- particularly a bottle of wine since she doesn't like red as I do- she's a white/blush drinker. After that, I came home and uncrated the puppies which always take a while as we have to greet each other quite excitedly- I'm just as pleased to see them as they are to see me- and we ran around outside for a bit. Then I managed to rid my garden, temporarily, I'm afraid, of the dreaded burdock weeds that are taking over. We've had so much rain, they're the size of my head- no kidding. They're evil weeds- growing so big they obscure the actual flowers and so deeply rooted that it's almost impossible to dig the roots up. Nevertheless, for now, they're gone. Also, they're non-toxic and the puppies love them so they managed to dispose of some of them for me. They tend to rip them to pieces with their teeth but not actually eat them. It's quite useful actually.

We followed that up by making dinner. I decided to make steak skewers with gvegetables on the grill. I had marinated the meat in a blend of soy sauce and yuzu sauce- which is an asian citrus marinade/dressing I saw on Iron Chef America and had to try for myself. The yuzu was a fantastic marinade and the steak had a tangy flavour that was actually quite delicious. The skewers themselves were nice too- I used mushrooms, zucchini, cippolini onions, red peppers and red potatoes. I even remembered to soak the skewers so they wouldn't burn. I have to say, it's probably my most successful grilling attempt yet.

I followed up dinner with some more cooking preparations. I'm making split pea with ham soup tomorrow in the crockpot so I needed to prepare my mirepoix (soup base). It's ready to go now.

After clearing up and running the vacuum around, I think I'm actually ready to stop being productive for a while. Fortunately, I have Lost and Glee to watch tonight on TV which is why Tuesdays are my favourite TV night. Although I have to admit, now that Glee is now trendy, I fear it's starting to believe its own hype and it's losing the charm that made me love it. I'm hoping it's temporary. It's still better than most things on TV now though so I'll be watching it anyway.

Ironically, I'm still not terribly tired yet. I'm trying to figure out where this energy is coming from. I had one cup of coffee all day and virtually no sugar unless you count the starlight peppermints I eat at my desk. I'm a little curious as to why I'm so energetic. It's actually a little alarming.

However, ot's nice that it's time to sit down and enjoy the rest of the evening. I just hope that I don't crash halfway through Lost.

I do have a feeling that I'll sleep tonight...I just hope the puppies do the same!

Happy Wednesday.

Just One of the "Chicks"....

This has felt like a rather long week, work-wise, at least. This is my second to last Friday in this office since, a week from Monday, we'll be moving to our new location. During the week that we are moving, we're all supposed to work from home until we're given the 'all clear' to go ahead and go into the new building. We have been told that is likely to be the Tuesday or Wednesday of the week before Thanksgiving. I'm not quite sure that works, whether it'll be a 'summons' to go to the office but I'm interested to see how it goes.

I've worked at home a couple of times although never for a full day. Usually it's because I've had a doctor's appointment in the middle of the day and since it's closer to home than work, I've been permitted the break from driving back to the office as long as I work at home.

Our office is strange about employees working from home. Often, our managers decide they're doing that for the day. At the risk of sounding slightly bitter, our office is actually rather sexist about it. For the most part, only men are allowed to work from home. I know because I have a female coworker who would like nothing more than to save a day of commuting every week and work from her home office. However, because she has a young child, she's been told that the child would be a 'distraction' and working from home is not an option for her. I'm not exaggerating this. What is even more ridiculous is that she would have someone at home to babysit for her son while she works. The matters stands firm, though. She's even asked to just try it and been denied.

Now, the more interesting part of this is that the men in the office also have young children. Sometimes, they'll send an email saying their kid's sick and they need to work from home. There's no angry summons for them to find care for their kid and come to work anyway and there's no cold shoulder treatment the next day. It's an interesting contrast, particularly since they're staying home primarily to take care of their child because their spouse has to work.

I think if this were a different company, the issue wouldn't exist; there would be someone willing to be more pushy about the discrepancy between the men and women here. I haven't really tested my bounderies; I have a strong feeling that, provided I didn't do it regularly, if I wanted to work from home as a single, childless employee, the response from my boss would be, 'uh, ok.'

My boss is very low-key about things. He's also very much a 'guy'. This is a generalization but having worked for him for a while now, I can safely say that he definitely relates far more to his male employees than us females. It's nothing for him to grab a couple of his male employees and grab lunch but if the girls are going to be included, it has to be a group thing where it's all the employees who work for him, not just the girls. The president of our company is the same. He mentions quite regularly that there's a big difference between the 'chicks' and the 'guys'. He jokes about it but, on occasion, as a chick, it's rather annoying to be ignored because it's a 'no chicks' lunch. We have our own 'girls only' lunches on occasion although usually there are men that join in and we don't not let them. I'm trying to get used to it because I know the only solution, if I don't like it, is to leave and work somewhere else. This isn't the kind of company where you can threaten discrimination. From what I've been told, former employees has become ruffled at the president for his reference to 'chicks'. Those employees are no longer here; the president is. That pretty much says it all. Also, since the president tends to say that valid complaints are 'whining', it doesn't really encourage confrontation. He respects us and values us, that I know. Yet I also know that his philosophy is that if someone isn't happy here, he'll be sad to see us go but reminds us that we're all 'replaceable'. Truth be told, he does have a point, especially in a bad economy.

Yet it's not all bad here, sexism aside. For example, back to my original topic: We all get to work from home for three days which is not such a bad thing. I'm not sure how it works- whether I have to be online and ready to work at the same 8 a.m. time as usual. All I know that is my alarm, technically, doesn't have to go off until 7:55 a.m. and I'll have the shortest commute ever from my bed to my office. I like that idea. Also, I can do the quintessential 'work in my pajamas' thing that seems such a treat when you work from. Unfortunately, I'm not good at staying in my pajamas past 9 a.m. For some reason, as soon as it gets to be a certain time in the morning, I instantly feel that it's time to put real clothes on. I'm not sure why. I love pajamas. I just don't like sitting around in them for long periods of time during the day.

But our move isn't for at least a week. I have one more week of commuting before I start being able to set my alarm later, drive for a lot less time and still be at work by 8 a.m. Of course, as is always the case, my reward is someone else's punishment. The complaints from the current 'locals' are becoming louder because now they're the commuters and those of us that live near our new building are the new 'locals'.

I can't blame them for their complaints. My favourite coworker is a single mother who has three kids. Not only does she now have to pay for extra gas on a weekly basis but she also doesn't have any way to get home quickly in case something happens and her kids need her. I can understand this. After all, it's the reason that Sausage and I have not yet been united in my house. I didn't want to go off and leave him all alone. Now I can think about it because I'll be ten minutes away. The other coworkers are annoyed because they specifically settled in this town to avoid commuting and, for the most part, I understand their complaint too. It is a lot easier for me, as a Singleton, to go with the flow. I didn't have to check with anyone, uproot any kids from their schools in order to move. I could just do it.

We still have a week. People have started to repack the boxes that we packed on our last 'clean-up day' and unpacked between now and then because they needed to use the stuff they'd packed. I actually didn't both to pack much because I knew I'd need it. Now it's getting to be time when I actually do need to pack. Fortunately, we've hired movers. I've been told that they'll move everything but our computers which we'll take ourselves. In my mind, I'm hoping it'll be like in Harry Potter where, when the kids get off the Hogwart's Express train in Hogsmeade, their trunks are magically escorted up to the castle and the next time the kid's see them, they're waiting at the foot of their bed. That'd be lovely if I get to my office and my boxes are there. I know it'll be a moving company that did it but I shall imagine magic because that's just...fun.

For today, however, it's a Friday. It's also a Friday the 13th, I've just realized. That doesn't tend to mean that much since bad luck is bad luck and it doesn't tend to just fall on one day. The same goes for good luck. I've always wondered if that we have Friday the 13th to represent 'bad luck days', what's the converse for 'good luck days'? Why don't we have a Friday the 1st or something as well?

Nevertheless, I know I, for one, don't care about the date. It's a Friday and that means that the weekend lies ahead, promising and open. I don't think there's anything unlucky about that.

Happy Friday!

Moving Preparations and Harry Potter (of course)

This week is going by rather quickly. I'd say that was a good thing but since this weekend leads to moving, a wedding and a lot of work to get ready for my trip next week, I think it's going to be a while before I get to relax.

I did get to work on the house yesterday though. I did such domestic things such clean out the fridge, scrub the path and plant some...plants.

There's nothing more disgusing that cleaning out someone else's fridge. I know it's my fridge now but until it's clean, I don't lay claim to it. It's clean now, thus it's my fridge. However, that was after an awful lot of scrubbing and cleaning. There were things spilled in there that I don't think I want to know from whence they came. They were sticky, smelly and just plain disgusting. I, fortunately, didn't find any furry vegetables though there was a bag of ancient potatoes buried in there as well as some milk that expired rather a long time ago. It was not a pleasant experience but it's about as clean as it will ever get now so I think it's time I started calling it my fridge.

I won't even talk about the bath. Let's just say that cleaning that took a while. It was literally grey in spots from dirt stains. I took down the ancient shower curtain, a tropical fish print and prepared to put my own more demure fabric butterfly one up when I move in.

I think the house is finally ready for me. I even started unpacking the kitchen boxes. I'm having a problem there. I mean how do you know which cupboard should hold what? Whenever I go in someone else's kitchen, everything has a place and it seems to fit. My cupboards are gaping and empty. I don't know which one should be my plate/dish cupboard. which one should hold my spices or wine glasses. There's so many choices to make!

I did start putting things in cupboards but I'm afraid that I did it wrong and I won't like it. I know I can change it later but it's my first official home and I want to get it right. It's one of those things that is so insignificant that later on, I'll wonder what I was worrying about but it still seems important right now.

I did reward myself yesterday with a screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Seriously, did you think I wouldn't? I won't spoil the film for anyone but I will say that now I've seen it, it's definitely not something I think a five-year-old should see and, if they do, I certainly hope they don't 'get' it; it's just too...dark.

However, for those of us who love the Potter books and the Potter universe, it's well worth a watch. I like it more than the last movie- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - which I felt was ridiculously rushed in an effort to make the shortest film of the series. It's one of the most intense and detailed of the books and to cram it into a short film was a bit ridiculous. This one is much better. There are moments of hilarity, moments of sadness and moments of just plain creepiness. That's just the way I like my Harry Potter.

I like to reward myself once in a while like that. It makes it worthwhile to be productive. It's like being on a diet: Sometimes you just have to cheat otherwise it just becomes miserable.

So, I rewarded myself last night. It will get me through the rest of the week which will consist largely of loading up my car, disassembling furniture and unpacking boxes. It's moving time, no doubt about it.

And, speaking of moving, I would like to take this opportunity to wish one of my good friends luck on her last day in the office before she leaves L.A. for the unchartered territory of Texas. I try not to mention specific names but she's one of my loyal readers and a great friend to boot. I met her in L.A. and since then we've both had the need to escape the city life for one of a less harried existence. As you drive out of the city, Ms. P- look back once, see the smog-encased landscape and think of the green lands that lie ahead.

Ironically, we're both having the movers come on the same day. It's strange how life works in tandem with those you care about, even when they're miles away. I've already done my cross-country move and I know how hard it is. I shouldn't be complaining about moving to a house, 20 miles from where I live now. Especially as it's my house.

I'm still getting used to saying that. Good luck, Ms. P-

And Happy Thursday.

A Harry Potter Day....

Today is a Harry Potter day. I say this because today's the day that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie comes out. I'm quite excited and yes, I am taking time from my moving schedule to see it.

I like Harry Potter Days. The best days are the ones when the books came out because as I say regularly, I'm a reader. There's nothing more relaxing and wonderful than having a big book to read that you can't wait to sink your teeth into and pass hours and hours of being lost in a world of fiction.

Today is still a good Harry Potter day though. I actually count the books and movies as seperate entities. Even though the movie was based on the book, they're different. I picture Harry, Hermione and Ron more as the illustrations from the books than the actors who play them. I collect some Harry Potter stuff and most of it features the illustrations. That's not to say I don't think that Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson don't do a fine job of playing Harry, Ron and Hermione but they're not the characters I read about in the book.

It doesn't mean that I'm not excited about the movie.

However, I do wish I could reread the entire series anew. If I did nowadays, I'd be reading each one for the multipleth time. They were wonderful reads, the kind of books that become old friends. The best thing of all is that they're a series and once you start, you have what seems to be an endless supply of future reading.

Of course, once you get to the last book in the series, it's a little like Christmas Eve; you WANT to read it just like you want Christmas to come but you know once it does, it's going to pass so quickly you're going to wish it was still Christmas Eve.

That's where I am with the Charlaine Harris novels. I started the last one in the series last night. I know that there'll be more later on but I had this fantastically entertaining pile of books to read and somehow, not slowly enough, I ended up on the last one somehow. I'm rather sad about it because I have no idea what to read next. I have books to read but I've been so immersed in the world of Sookie Stackhouse that coming out of it might be a problem. I'm going to wonder why everyone is coming out in the daytime and how, when it's a full moon, there aren't any were-creatures around.

Yes. I know. I should move onto other books. I'm sure I have some other, more literary, books to read. However, I like reading non-literary books. I applaud Charlaine Harris for creating a series that may not be the most literary thing ever but they are ridiculous entertaining and that's the mark of a good writer. I find escapism into her worlds similar to that of J.K. Rowling's. This is not to compare the two writers because they're wildly different in style, character building, narrative and everything. Yet in both Harris' and Rowling's worlds, the blending of our world with that of the the magical/supernatural is almost...believable. With the world of Harry Potter, it is easy enough to believe that underneath the bland, easy world of reality there's a whole, hidden world full of magic. It's concealed from the muggles in very creative ways, ways that are believable from the minute you step inside the pages of Harry Potter.

With the world of Sookie Stackhouse, once you open the first book, it is actually quite easy to see how vampires are able to be 'out' in the world, how the werewolves and were-creatures, witches, demons and other 'supes' are waiting in the shadows, watching to see how the world reacts to the Great Revelation of the vampires. Soon enough, these creatures will come out of the shadows and the humans in Sookie's world will see that vampires are the tip of the iceberg.

I love that in the Sookie books, there is no apology, no overexplaining of how these creatures can exist, why they exist. They're just there, given personalities and traits that make them oddly appealing and endlessly fascinating.

I'm going to be sad to finish inhabiting Sookie's world when I close that last book. I think I'm going to have to read another series. Suggestions would be much appreciated. I've heard Anita Blake is good but I'm not sure I want another vampire series yet, however.

Still, for now, at least I have Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to watch. It's not quite the same as getting lost in a book but it will do. For now.

Happy Wednesday.

The Other Side of Macabre...

I have a confession to make. As a child, I was a horrible scaredy cat. I couldn't even watch the preview to a movie that looked like it might be scary. I remember my dad renting Jaws and he had to pause it through the gorier bits because I would have nightmares if I saw them. I remember watching a trailer for a film in which a man sat on top of a giant meat grinder and I had nightmares for weeks. I never saw him jump into the meat grinder. I never saw him even get ground up. Yet, in my mind, he did; I knew what was going to happen and thus, I would lie awake for hours, hiding under the covers, afraid of the dark.

I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of the giant tree outside my window for a while because I saw Poltergeist and there's an evil tree in that movie that reaches through a window and grabs a little boy.

I even used to be afraid of John Wayne because right after he died, I had a dream where he was buried in our garden. I was afraid to walk by the patio area for weeks because the stones looked like gravestones to me and I was convinced John Wayne was buried there.

So, what it comes down to is that I was a child who did enough damage to her sleep patterns with my overactive imagination without needing help from horror movies.

Ironically, nowadays, I'm pretty much the complete opposite. I laugh at horror movies and like that darker side of life, the Dexters, the vampires, the shadows that surround us.

Yet, it doesn't change the fact that I was a bit of a wussy child. My parents were really good about limiting what we were allowed to watch and most of the stuff I saw that gave me nightmares was around a friend's house or with my older brother. Yet, I had enough to contend with by letting my imagination scare me to death. I'd imagine seeing corpses in piles of leaves or hear the cackle of a witch on a cold windy night. Yes, I admit, Captain Monkeypants was a bit macabre, even back then but it was the other side of macabre, the side that was terrified of it, not the side that liked to create it for the slight thrill of otherness it gives me today.

As a child, I knew my limits. I knew there were things I had to wait to see, things that were too old for me, books I would have to wait to read, movies my older brother saw and then told me about. I had to wait until I was older to see and read those things. I'm happy I had to do that; I think that went a long way into helping me embrace the scarier things in life, of learning that thunderstorms were not heart-stopping things of terror but, instead, were a fantastic display of nature at it's angriest. It made me see that Freddy Krueger wasn't some horror creation that should give me nightmares but, instead, was a bit of a laugh and was so ridiculous, it wasn't worth being scared about. It was a progression from the innocence of childhood, the great unknown of being older, of being allowed.

The point is, I needed this natural progression from childhood. It made me appreciate things in due course. I was allowed to be a child for a long time, long enough to help me become a proper adult (or, at least, as much of one as I am today).

Nowadays, I see that happening less and less. I found out that my brother was taking my niece to see the new Harry Potter film on Friday. She's five. As soon as I heard that, I admit I was shocked. I know she loves the franchise; she's been my Harry Potter buddy for a while now. For the longest time, her parents only let her watch the first couple of films, the ones where Harry, Hermione and Ron are still children, where Trolls and Basilisks are the scary parts.

I guess they eventually let her see all of them. I'm not judging my brother and sister-in-law as parents but it does make me sad that they're so willing to let her see these movies.

I know the movie, technically, is rated PG so it's not huge that she's seeing it in a rating sense. But...as a child? That just makes me sad. This movie contains the throes of adolescent hormones, violence, death of a major character, battles, betrayal....all things that a five-year-old, not matter how mature, won't truly be able to get.

I think as a Potter-fan that I'm sad for her on a whole other level. She's missing the chance to truly, slowly discover the series and the pleasure of discovering a new adventure of a character. Instead, she's viewing the movies as a five-year-old, with a five-year-old comprehension; she's never going to have the chance to 'discover' such a wonderful series because she's already 'been there, done that.'

As a reader, I always advocate the book over a movie. I'm hoping when she learns to read, she'll treat the series as a new one but I don't think that's possible. I think that once we see a movie and then read the book on which it was based, it's hard to picture characters in a book as anything other than the actors. I try deliberately not to do that, to treat the book and movie as two seperate entities. I usually succeed because I'm stubborn and I suffer from writer-bias. The characters were created by the writer so he/she should be able to have the final word on how they look. Thus, I'll always believe a writer over a film company who cast actors in the roles unless they match up. The cast of True Blood, for example, couldn't get closer to the pictures in my head for most of the characters if they tried.

Anyway, back to my point about my niece. I'm not her parent and wouldn't dream of telling her parents what to do. Besides, they'd never listen anyway. It just makes me very sad on several levels that they can't say, "Sorry but you're too young. We'll take you to see Ice Age 3 instead." Now there's a movie for kids with talking animals, crazy squirrels and a more child-friendly storyline. I'm not saying that Harry Potter shouldn't be enjoyed by a younger generation but as the storyline progresses, so does the maturity level and the darkness the characters face. I suppose part of me doesn't want her to know about that darkness yet, to enjoy the fact that she's a kid and the hardest part of that should be stopping her younger brother from wearing her play-jewelry.

Yet, I'm not a parent. Maybe this is a way for her not to have nightmares about John Wayne being buried in her garden or imagining trees reaching in and grabbing her when she sleeps. It doesn't change the fact that part of me wants to grab her, sit her down and read her some nice stories that she skipped in her efforts to embrace Hannah Montana and Harry Potter, stories that are sweet, pretty and wrapped in pretty bows. Yet she'd probably scoff at those, wanting to know when the fighting started, when the witch would eat the children.

I think what it comes down to is that children today are in a hurry to grow up and me, in my old fashioned way, thinks they should get to be a kid for just a little while longer before the awkwardness of adolescence attacks. Nowadays it's harder, that line between adolescence and childhood is blurrier by the day.

I want my niece to have a proper respect for scary things and not take them in stride the way she does now. Yes, I suppose it's a sign of maturity but there are some things that should be scary and it worries me that she no longer seems to notice this. Maybe she's just not a scaredy cat the way I used to be.

Or still am...actually. I saw Ronald McDonald on a TV show this morning. I never noticed before but he could inspire terror, even in an adult. I think it's the big clown mouth- I keep expecting him to show a set of teeth or wield a knife. Either way, with his Happy Meals and weird friends, he inspires suspicion. Apparently, you never completely grow out of some things...it seems that I'm still a little macabre.

Thanks for reading. Happy Tuesday.

Wishing Harry Potter Spells Really Worked....

It is unbelievably amazing how quickly weekends fly by. One minute, I'm getting off work on a Friday evening and the next thing, I'm groggily reaching for my alarm on Monday morning, putting it on snooze in hopes that that extra 9 minutes of sleep will refresh me enough so that getting out of bed isn't so hard.

Of course, the snooze button never helps. More than anything, it's a taunting reminder that you do have to get up for something and no matter how many times you hit it, you still eventually have to get up otherwise you wouldn't be hitting it in the first place.

I hit my snooze button just once today and I still feel like I'd rather be sleepily lying under my covers, not having to get up. That happened on Saturday morning. I forgot to turn off my alarm and it went off and for one brief, disoriented minute I began to mentally prepare for the workday before I realized with absolute delight and joy that it was, in fact, Saturday and I didn't have to get up for a while.

Now I'm up, I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the weekend. I did spend Friday night cleaning the house in preparation for my parents' visit. I had planned on mowing the grass but, alas, a big thunderstorm put the damper on that. I spent Saturday morning cleaning my apartment. By the time they arrived, both my 'residences' were as clean as they were going to get.

I'm happy to report my parents approved of the house. They poked around, checked everything out and seemed to find no massive issues which was a huge relief, I have to say. My dad even installed a new cable outlet in my office for me so that I could run the internet in there. He's good like that. It turned out to be a really fun day. Even now, in my mid-thirties, I still crave approval from my parents and having them give the nod to my first home felt really...nice.

Naturally, I spent yesterday at the house too. I ended up mowing the grass. After two mowings, I can safely say I am not a fan of mowing. For one thing, it takes too long. I put one of those grass-catchy bags on the back of my mower but had to empty it every five minutes. I finally gave up on it. Then, of course, I looked over at my neighbours' yard. Their grass is that perfect shade of green, a nice length and not a grass clipping in sight. I felt compelled to rake up my clippings but then..what do do with them? My neighbours don't have a grass pile anywhere in sight. I'm baffled. I now have a massive pile of grass clippings. My grass looks nice but I have a feeling eventually, I might have have a grass mountain in a couple of weeks.

I still want to know what my neighbours do with their clippings. That's weird, right? I mean, I saw them mowing and it looked like they were cutting the grass but where'd the grass go? Maybe it's like a Harry Potter spell...all the grass is magically 'poofed' away as its cut.

Or maybe I just have an overactive imagination. Even so, I want a Harry Potter spell to get rid of my clippings. I think "Evanesco", the vanishing spell would work nicely.

Aside from mowing the grass and raking it, I didn't get too much accomplished. I did go exploring a little to find a Kroger. On the way, I passed a little "British" pub. I say "British" in quotes because though it says its an English pub and it has an English pub-y name, I looked at the menu online and, well, it's not that British. They have lots of British/European beers but with the exception of fish and chips, there's not a nod to British cuisine at all. There are a lot of burgers and bar-food but no bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, Welsh Rarebit or British breakfast. Nevertheless, at least there is a pub of sorts fairly nearby which is pretty nice in these parts.

I eventually found the Kroger though for some reason, my GPS (aka "satan") decided to take me on the scenic route. Sometimes she does that, even though I tell her I want 'fastest time'. Sometimes, I think she leads me on wild goosechases just because she gets annoyed that I call her satan. When I drove to our conference in Indianapolis, she took us by the hotel that was our destination about three times, telling us it was on the right. Turns out it was on the left but we were so focused on listening to her, we didn't see it. I could almost hear her laughing at us. I can't help it that, on occasion, her upbeat, annoying calm voice changes to the gravely, deep overtones that I would assign to a demon or figure of the underworld. Maybe she/he's cross that I don't give him/her more respect. I suppose I should, I mean satan is still trying to give me directions but it's hard to follow them because, frankly, the shock of hearing the voice usually takes over and I stop listening to directions. Also, I think satan needs a translator because I can't often understand him. He slurs, you see.

Nevertheless, even though GPS lady did take me the long way to Kroger, at least she didn't transform into satan yesterday. In fact, for the most part, I had a very pleasant drive through the area. It's nice to go exploring and see the possibilities for things to do, places to eat, places to shop, etc. Yet, there'll be plenty of time to explore once I've moved permanently.

As long as the grass doesn't need to be mowed. Evanesco clippings!

Yeah. That never works in real life. Doesn't mean I won't keep trying though.

Happy Monday.

A Simple Lesson from a Squirrel...

It's a gloomy, dark, rainy Tuesday today. The rain started hammering my windows at around 2 a.m. and though it's slowed, I don't think it's really stopped. It's currently drizzling, the clouds deep and heavy. It's also much, much warmer than it has been. It's supposed to be over 60 degrees today. It's very springlike. It's a nice lull from the cold freezing temperatures and blanket of snow and ice.

I don't think this means it's spring though. Not yet. The grass has reappeared now the snow has mostly melted and it's still that dull, tired brown of winter. The newness of spring still waiting to reveal itself. There are also still patches of snow that loom in the shade. They're melting and, as they do so, the cold of the snow collides with the warm of the air and a hazy mist hangs between snow and sky. It looks like something from a fantasy novel, as though you'd step into the snow patch and be taken to an alien place, a world that exists seperate from ours.

Don't you wish, somedays, that you could do that? I have, even since I was a child. I read books about made-up-lands that appeared at the tops of trees, lands that existed on the other side of wardrobes, worlds where vampires existed, brutally and romantically. Even as I'm older, I still like to read books that take me away, books like Harry Potter where magic truly exists. I'm old enough to know it's all fiction but young enough that sometimes I wish it wasn't.

I think the days that it's easiest to wish that are the days where we feel like we're stuck in a rut. For me, it's when my job isn't exciting and I feel that a trained monkey could do it. Sometimes it's a day when I have the hope of romance only to have it dashed by the reality of emotional baggage. It's also days when my email account holds rejections from agents when I was so certain that one of them would at least want to see more of what I can do. It's days when I sit down to write and all that flows is a regurgitated version of someone else's work rather than an original, extraordinary idea of my own.

I'm having one of those days today. As I drove in, I got stuck at a stop light and I watched a squirrel smoothly hope from one side of a telephone wire to the other. It wasn't one of those scary electical wires that threaten to fry the squirrel but one of those bundled packages that hang high above, the casing around the bundle providing a safe passage from squirrels. I admired that squirrel. He had a place to get so he hopped along to it. He didn't falter, he didn't slip, he didn't even seem to be looking where he was going. He just knew. He trusted his feet to get him there and they did. He reached his goal with nary a thought.

Somedays, I wish life was that easy. The path that lays before us never seems quite that easy to find. There's too much in the way, whether it's real obstacles or ones that exist in our mind. So we don't hop forward, boldy, as the squirrel did. We stop and try to keep looking down and though we might see the path, our caution makes it slippery and uncertain. For me, the path is always shrouded in self-doubt: "what if I'm not supposed to do this?" "What if I'm not good enough?" "Why do I always get rejected?" "Why can't it be easy?"

The thing is, I don't think it's supposed to be easy. As I've said in this blog before, it feels more worthwhile when it isn't easy. If I do succeed with writing or life, romance or my job, it'll feel like I earned it. The hardest part is keeping my feet on the path that lays before me, even if I can't see it. I have to just trust that it's there and go with my instincts and, one day, like that squirrel, I'll have achieved my goal, even if it's just staying on a path and getting to the other side because that, in itself, is a prize and accomplishment.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy this rainy Tuesday. We're supposed to have thunderstorms tomorrow. If there's one thing I love almost as much as snow, it's a good, powerful Midwestern storm. There's nothing like it. Considering I used to be terrified of storms, the fact that I revel in them nowadays is an accomplishment. And, the ironic thing is, I never had to think about it. I just let it happen.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned there.

Happy Tuesday.

Tuesday Rant: Why I Hate Fanfiction

It's Tuesday. I'm giving up believing in weather forecasters. Part of me thinks we were more accurate before the days of Doppler 55,000 or whatever it is these days. Back in the days where shepherds used to tell the weather from the sunsets, when people relied on their bones to tell 'em it was going to rain....what's the difference really? Those shepherds probably got the weather right as often as the modern weatherforecasters. This morning, we were supposed to get an inch of snow. It's raining. Yes, I know that meteorologists can't tell the future but....you'd think they'd be a little more accurate once in a while.

Anyway, today feels like one of those days where I need a good rant to get me kickstarted since it's a soggy Tuesday morning, it's not light outside yet and my brain is still waking up. So, lucky readers, todays rant is all about Fan Fiction.

Are you familiar with fan fiction? I wasn't really until recently. It's one of those things I knew existed but I had no interest in it so I ignored it completely. Lately though, it's been crossing my path as I surf the web and I finally decided to figure out what it was all about.

Frankly, I'm slightly appalled at the amount of it out there. In short, fan fiction is written about already existing characters usually from TV shows, books, even theatre. It can be innocent fiction that basically fulfills someone's fantasies, allows unsuccessful writers to change their shows/books/movies/theatre storylines in the way THEY would do if THEY wrote for TV or it fulfills some rather twisted fantasies on the part of the writer.

I'm sure there's more to it than that. What I have figured out is that fanfiction writers have to honour the canon of the original material; they can't change what's happened already on the show, in the book, in the movie, or whatever. They can't change the personalities of the characters they write about just to suit their needs. They have to respect the parameters of the worlds that the real writers who created them have set up.

Some of it is fairly silly. Some fanfiction writers focus on what is called 'shipping. That is to say they take an existing romance on a tv show and write about those two characters. They also take two opposite sex characters who are not romantically involved and write romance between them. There's also alternate universe in which they find ways to change the history of the tv show/book or whatever and write a different version of events.

The one that disturbs me a little is slash fiction. I had no idea what this was until I looked it up on Wikipedia. This particular brand of fan fiction takes two same-sex characters and gets them romantically or sexually involved, regardless of whether they're gay or not. Usually, they're not. The more I read about it, the more disturbed I got. One of the most popular themes is Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. Seriously, what is wrong with these people? Harry Potter started as a children's book. Yes, it got darker as the series progressed but it was still aimed at children. Nowhere in the book is there any scene with Harry and Draco having a romantic or sexual moment.

Here's the part where I give the obligatory "I'm not homophobic" explanation. I'm not. We can't help who we love and are attracted to. We can fight it but, ultimately, it's in our genetic makeup to be sexually attracted to someone, whether the same sex or the opposite one. I know that being gay is a lifestyle and all but in my mind, it still boils down to who's in your bed at the end of the day. I'm British with stereotypical reserve: Whatever someone does is up to them but don't make a fuss about it. It doesn't bother me who the heck someone sleeps with. I've never understood the need for gay people to "confess" or "come out". It's not like I'm running around saying "I'M STRAIGHT! I ADMIT IT!" It should just be something we are. Yes, I'm an idealist. Knowing is half the battle as my character, John King, would quote.

Anyway, enough of that. What I'm trying to say is that if J.K. Rowling had made Draco and Harry a couple, it would be different. It would definitely be a different sort of book but given J.K's genius, it would still be very readible, I'm sure. But she didn't. She wrote a book about a boy wizard who grows up, vanquishes the evil villain and falls in love with Ginny Weasley. There's plenty of fan fiction about Ginny and Harry too, by the way.

It's the same with TV shows. I love Grey's Anatomy even if I think it's on crack at the moment. But Meredith and Christina are NOT a couple. They are friends. Derek and Mark Sloan are also JUST friends.

You can tell, slash fiction bothers me. I think of it as a form of porn. I actually have no problem with porn, as it happens. It fills a need, some people consider it art. It's there if you want it.

Which makes me question why I'm so bothered by slash fiction. It's probably because it's out there for anyone to see. They do have a rating system so readers can make sure it's suitable. Yet it's out there. The best reason I can come up with is that becasue I am a writer. I find it offensive. I have a series of books, as I've mentioned, that have three teenage boys who are good friends. I know if it were ever to get published and get popular, slash fiction would be born and I'd be horrified. Those are MY characters- get your nasty fanfiction hands off them.

Yes, I'm a selfish writer. I have a moral beef with stealing other people's ideas. It's the same reason I refuse to read "sequels" to books like Pride and Prejudice or Gone with the Wind. Unless a sequel is written by the originating author, it's not really a sequel. It's fan fiction, regardless of the cover price, publisher or level of prestige that goes with it. There is NO way to know what a deceased author would have written about their character in a sequel and so it's not fair for another writer to assume they do.

I apply this logic to everything, even books I despise. There are 'alternate versions' of Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn floating around, books that were written by angry fans who hated the way she wrote the ending of the Twilight series. As I've mentioned, I hated Breaking Dawn and thought it one of the worst books I've read in several years. Yet that doesn't mean that I have the right to change it. It's Stephanie Meyer's baby, her creation. Even if it is a self-indulgent, twisted piece of anti-feminist rubbish, that's the way she wrote it. End of story. Unless she decides that it is, indeed, absolute crap, recalls every copy she published and issues a better version, that's the way the series ends. No amount of fanfiction is going to change it.

I can hear the opposing arguments: At least fanfiction writers are writing, using their imaginations, finding ways to get through bad times in life. It's an outlet, a way to inspire creativity. Sure, that's fine, I suppose. Some of them are actually quite good writers and I can't help but wonder if, maybe, they applied the same energy to original stories with their own characters, we'd have less Breaking Dawns and more Harry Potter type novels.

I know that writing fanfiction is almost like a drug; a way to escape into a world that is more interesting than the real one around us. It's a way to 'talk' to characters that are loved, adored, hated, admired. It's a way to crawl inside those characters head's, to be a part of that world we've read about or watched. It's a way to be a part of it, to wrap ourselves up in the lives of the people we've only ever observed before, voyeuristically or otherwise.

So I get it. I do. I still hate it. I still hate the violation of an original idea. I still think the fanfiction writers should step outside of fantasy and project that creativity into the real world around them but, like any vice, I don't suppose they can help it, not really. I really have no right to condemn them and, really, I'm not. I'm just stating the fact that I, as a writer, and as Captain Monkeypants, do not really understand why there is so much fanfiction out there and why it's tolerated. I suppose imitation is the highest form of flattery which is why some of the "canon" writers don't mind but I can safely say, it would bother me if someone took my characters and used them for virtual sexual gratification. Whatever reason the fanfiction writers do it, I still don't like it. I suppose it's like shrimp; you either love it or you hate it. I, personally, hate shrimp. The taste is ok but the texture and feel in my mouth is vile. Fan fiction is like shrimp. I like the canon but I feel dirty when reading the fan fiction, like I'm commiting a violatation against the original writer.

I'm sure I'll offend with this post and I do, honestly, apologize. It's just my opinion. I have friends who like fanfiction, who even write it. Maybe there's more to it than I've ranted about here. Maybe there is something I don't get about it. If so, tell me because, as I said before, knowing is half the battle.

Happy Tuesday

Why I Once Would have Loved Twilight: The Obsessive Nature of Captain Monkeypants

I've always been a creature of phases. And I don't mean that like I'm a werewolf or anything but, rather, that I've always had a bit of an obsessive personality. Ever since I was a child, I've had a tendency to get stuck on something and it becomes my most favourite thing in life.

For example, one of my earliest obsessions was with a British children's author named Enid Blyton. As an avid reader anyway, I discovered that she had hundreds of books. They were books about boarding schools, fantasy lands that could be found at the top of trees, child detectives, mysteries and even had my most favourite character: Noddy. Noddy was a little elf-like thing whose best friend was the grumpy Big Ears. I used to call him "Biggy Ears" before I knew better. I absorbed Enid Blyton's books like a sponge: I used to go to the library and come home with a stack of five books, all by her. I wanted to go to boarding school, to have midnight feasts, to do all the things her characters did. Actually, I've always had a sneaking suspicion that J.K. Rowling, author of Harry Potter, also read her share of Enid Blyton when she was younger. There are definitely some good Blyton-esque scenes in her books, especially the earlier ones before the world of Hogwarts got too dark.

Anyway, my obsession got to the point where, I believe, a teacher even told my mother that I should probably read something else to give me some variety. You see, I didn't know it then but Enid wasn't, um....a good writer. She tended to use the same words over and over and being as young as I was, I didn't realize how dated her books were, even when I was a child.

Sadly, I got my hands on some Enid Blyton books fairly recently, books that I'd loved as a child about St. Clare's school. I was horrified. They were terrible. They were full of terms like "fiddlesticks" and "golly gosh" and they were absolutely horrendously written. Needless to say, I was mildly crushed that such a staple of my youth wasn't the paragon I believed her to be. Yet she'd given me an impetus to read voraciously as a young 'un and there was value in that.

My obsessions continued. They veered in music in which I am now sort of embarrassed to admit I was a huge Wham! fan and was in love with George Michael. Ok, I'm more than sort of embarrassed. Hey, I was ten. We didn't know he was gay then. My best friend and I would had recorded two Wham! videos- "Careless Whisper" and "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" (and yes, ok, I know technically "Careless Whisper" was a solo effort by George but that's irrelevant to my story). We would run home at lunch EVERY DAY and watch them. My poor mother- she had to suffer through that. Sorry, mum. Really.

From Wham! I moved on bouncing from films to television to books and back to music. I went through a heavy metal period in my teens, wearing the black band shirts and thinking I was cool because I liked hair bands. Again, hindsight is 20-20 but at the time, they were a metaphor for my painful awkward teen years. My friends and I would have lotteries to divide up who had 'custody' of a band for the week. Yes, again....I was an unhappy teen for a while but, then again, show me a happy one. As teens, we all think that we're misunderstood and unliked by our peers. It's only fifteen years later and you realize that all those people you thought hated you really were just as messed up and befuddled by life as you and suddenly they all want to be your Facebook friend.

Uh, sorry...I digress. After that phase, I changed friends. I think it's because I suddenly realized that life really didn't suck and I was just a dork in a black shirt listening to music from men more effeminate then me. I made new friends and started to listen to happier things like Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

It was a new phase. That one lasted me a while. During that phase, I also went through an Anne Rice phase in which I loved vampires again. I've always liked vampires but Anne Rice made them more romantic and less, you know, fangy and bloody. Phases can overlap, you know.

Since then, I've probably had a dozen more phases. I went through a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer phases but, then again, that one is still ongoing merely because Joss Whedon, the writer and creator of the show is a genius and I will follow his creativity wherever he goes because he always keeps me amused, spellbound and fascinated by his ability to write and create such original stuff.

You may wonder why I'm telling you all this. My snarky answer is that it's my blog, I can tell you what I like. Surprisingly, however, I do have a point. This whole reverie was sparked by a visit to a bookstore this weekend in which I saw two teenage girls grabbing several copies of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight books and literally being so excited you could see them jumping up and down.

Surprisingly enough, given my past rants and blogs about Ms. Meyer, this isn't actually a tirade against her and her mediocre books. It's mostly because when I saw those teens being that excited over a book, I could relate to it. Maybe the reason I hate those books so much is because I know, as a teen, I, too, would have wanted to be Bella Swan with her sparkled-skin, bronze-haired hero to save her from her mundane life. I would have felt catharsis in Bella's unhappiness too. So I can't even mock them as I normally would. Mostly, I'm excited that they are that excited over a book. Ok, so I wish it was someone more deserving like Neil Gaiman, Celia Rees, J.K. Rowling or even Stephen King but, well, at least they're excited over a book of some kind.

The only thing that I wonder, especially as I surf the pages of the internet, is how those Twi-hards are going to feel in a few years. At the moment, every entertainment site I read likes to talk about the sequel to the blah Twilight movie and who will play who and if the new director will be good. With each online news story, there is room for comments and that space is filled with devoted love from Twi-hards about how amazing the movie will be, how much Robert Pattinson resembles the Edward in their head and all of that. Yes, I read them. I used to be a quasi-journalist- I'm a firm believer in reading the good as well as the bad.

The comments are often written in that annoying shorthand used for text messaging, so fluidly done that it's obviously a teen. They love their Twilight. They love Stephanie Meyer. They love the books so much that they've read them multiple times.

There's nothing wrong with that. Whatever gets 'em through the day.

Yet, as I mentioned, in a few years, when those devoted fans are a little better adjusted to life, when the awkward teen years are behind them and they find themselves becoming adults, will they really be able to go back to Twilight and see the same beauty and brilliance they see now? Or will it become one of those slightly embarrassing obsessions that got them through middle school or high school but now needs to be forgotten?

I can't answer that because I don't know. What I do know is that when I was fourteen, I read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I fell in love with the book. I read it and reread it. I memorized the opening. I wondered what would happen if I met Ponyboy. I watched the movie. It wasn't great but I was willing to overlook that because there were Sodapop, Ponyboy and Johnny on the screen.

I reread that book a few years ago. I get why I loved it. It's the tale of a teen who doesn't fit in but eventually, after some crappy experiences, realizes that he has to stay true to himself. Something like that, anyway. I don't know why I could relate to it. I was from an unbroken, nicely stable, loving middle-class family- completely the opposite of any of The Outsider's characters. Yet I also cringed a little that I'd loved it as much as I had. I recognized that value it gave me in my teens but, as an adult, like any youthful obsession, I couldn't remember why I'd loved it to the point of obsession.

I suppose, maybe, The Outsiders was my Twilight. Minus the sappy romance and drippy descriptions, of course. I know now, having the hindsight and something resembling wisdom, that had I loved Twilight in my teens, it would now be one of those shelved memories along with Def Leppard, Bon Jovi and crushes on skateboarders who should have bathed more often. I'd be slightly embarrassed that I loved it but in a way, it made me who I am, for better or for worse. I like who I am now and that means everything. I hope those Twilight fans have a similar experience.

Sorry for the long blog but thanks, as always, for reading. Happy Wednesday.

The Monkeypants Guide to Surviving Meetings

I'm going to try to attempt to blog in the evenings this week due to the fact that I have a conference training thingy at work that is going to eat my life away for a week. On the plus side, I've been told that the food is good and I get fed, at least for lunch, every day. The downside is that I've also been told the training is boring and dry. So...while I will try to be a good little new employee, I have a feeling that my mind is going to start to wander as it always does when it's not terribly thrilled with paying attention, most commonly occuring during meetings.

Work meetings have always been hard for me. I usually like my actual job. I just despise meetings. Very rarely does anything actually get accomplished in a meeting. Instead, people talk about what should be accomplished but, inevitably, the people they will have to talk to to do any accomplishing aren't at the meeting. Which means another meeting will have to be set up to include that person. And then, sometimes, that person needs to talk to another person and so on and so forth. It ends up being a vicious cycle of meetings.

The worst are phone meetings. I hate phone meetings. I've sat through many a phone meeting in which we all have to dial a special number, go to a web page and then wait until everyone else arrives. Then the host of the meeting hits a magic button and all 'attendees' can see his or her computer screen. Sometimes, they were interesting. For about five minutes. The rest of the time, I would try very hard to pay attention but when the host of the meeting is spending fifteen minutes tweaking his screen so the program he's demonstrating runs right, it's quite understandable, I think, that I zone out. Sometimes I surf the internet. The bad part about this is that occasionally the host of the meeting will switch the setup so that my screen is the one everyone can see. I've had some near misses with those. Emailing with a friend in which you're mocking the host of the meeting is not a good idea if there's a chance everyone could read your screen. However, after a particularly near miss of getting caught being a naughty Monkeypants in a phone meeting, I took up other hobbies like paperclip sculpting, drawing with crayons and sudoku. Generally speaking, I was still quite able to get the gist of the meeting and find out what I was supposed to do in the last five minutes of the meeting so, you see, it all worked out.

Live meetings are a little more fun though. I make sure to take paperclips so that I can sculpt and occupy my hands when I am ready to doze off. I realized one day I wasn't the only one who was a bit bored in a meeting after I had sculpted a particularly fine little paperclip man. My coworker reached over, quietly took my man and hung him from a rubberband noose he'd just finished making complete with a paperclip scaffold. And yes, that is a true story.

My other meeting pasttimes include looking at the attendees and figuring out one of the following:

• Which Harry Potter character would they be?
• If they were an animal, which animal would they be?
• What would be their karaoke song if criminals came in and held us at gunpoint, threatening to kill us if we didn't sing karaoke. (This, of course, would lead to the inevitable musings of what would cause the criminals would come into the meeting in the first place and what would they look like?)
• What would they do if I decided to dance on the conference table like Michael Flatley and his Riverdance chronies. (I can't actually Riverdance. I just like the idea).
• Who would I like to see naked? (Very cliche but it's SO hard to not go there when you're trying to NOT go there). The answer was usually a resounding no-one. I haven't had much luck in my offices where there is anyone I'd like to see naked or even just partially clothed. A sad fact, I know.

There were plenty of other daydreaming techniques I have. As a novelist/writer, meetings are an excellent way to solve writing dilemmas. More than one ephiphany has come during a meeting. In fact, I wrote the opening of my last novel while sitting through a particuarly boring meeting about hardware firewalls. My boss asked me to go in his place since he couldn't make it. He'd only signed up in the first place because there was a free lunch. Perfect place to start writing a new novel. I got a free Subway sandwich and chips, a break from work and a quiet place to write. And best of all, it looked like I was taking notes. Actually, that was a good meeting now that I think about it.

There are some tricks to being an effective meeting goer. Naturally, it involves looking like you're paying attention. This usually means you nod a lot at the speaker and make good eye contact. You look like you're taking notes, even if you're really making a shopping list for groceries to buy on the way home from work. Don't let your brain detach completely if there is a chance you will need to speak. This is tricky because sometimes you don't know when it will occur. If caught off guard, quickly glance down at the agenda to remind yourself what the meeting is about. Then look as though you're pondering something and drag yourself back to reality and find a way to pass the responsibility onto someone else. This is usually effective when you say something like, "Well, I know Frank was working on that and though I keep trying, he's reluctant to give me a response. I'll check with him as soon as I get back to the office." This not only buys you time but also has the bonus effect of making Frank look bad. Unfortunately, this sometimes means another meeting in your future to which Frank will be invited but, the general Monkeypants Rule of Meeting Survival is to always blame Frank. Or whoever your Frank might be.

Of course, there is another type of meeting- the motivational group meeting. My current job, so far, hasn't had any of these. My old job had yearly ones in which we'd be forced to get our entire department together and work in groups to promote unity, positivity and whatever slogans the managers had recently seen when browsing Successories for motivation. Personally, I prefer the demotivators but they didn't seem to go over so well with the managers.

And the problem with these motivational meetings is that no one really wants to be motivated. They want to continue to be bitter and angry because the managers are clueless as to the real problems they face on a daily basis. They don't want to get together in pre-arranged, specifically-manufactured-to-make-coworkers-who-are-enemies-get-along-for-an-hour groups to make up songs that are supposed to be funny, clever and gently mock the daily activities of the department. They don't want to sing Kumbaya for an hour together because after that hour is up, Coworker X will still be a pompous twit, Coworker Y a lazy but slick politician who manages to do nothing and still reap promotions and rewards and Coworker Z will still be playing computer games all day long while the rest of the office has to pick up the slack because everyone knows it's useless to say anything.

All in all, you probably figured out that I'm not a huge fan of The Meeting. I don't mind small meetings that have a point. I don't mind if there's a real, honest purpose to having a meeting. I especially don't mind if, at the end of the meeting, there is a cold, hard solution to a problem on the table, or, at the very least, a result that doesn't call for another meeting but gives the attendees a reason for being in that room for an hour.

Fortunately, I haven't had too many meetings lately. Instead, I've had training. At least with that, I learn something...theoretically. I'm hoping this week is educational, even if it is dry. At the very least, I'm looking for a new writing project so maybe I can come up with one. As long as the food is good and there's coffee, I can survive.

As long as they don't ask us to sing.

Sometimes We All Do Silly Things...

I'm not one to recap my weekend in a blog because I honestly can't imagine anyone being interested in the minute details of my life. Besides, it's Monday morning and I barely remembered that I had to get up for work so remembering every detail of my weekend is not likely.

However, there were some parts of my weekend that I remember rather well and which I think I'll share with you today. Mostly because, as you HAVE to have figured out by now, I'm a ranter. And sometimes I just like to get things off my chest.

For example, this weekend I decided to go shopping. Not Christmas shopping but just...shopping. I went with my mother who is a very good shopping companion. Our first mission was to replace my parents coffee maker because it had recently exploded. And no, that is not an exaggeration. From my mother's accounts, it actually blew up. So, they needed a new one and we decided to make that our mission for the day.

And so we went to Linen's n' Things because it was going out of business and it was selling everything 20% off. Now, an experienced shopper knows that 20% off is the very beginning of a store going out of business and it lasts for a good long time because it's not that much of a discount. This way the store can still make a tidy profit but prey on those lunatic shoppers who feel that Everything Is A Bargain and thus must Shop Til They Drop. And, trust me, they do.

The thing with Linen's n' Things is, besides the fact that it's almost the EXACT same store as Bed, Bath and Beyond, is that they published a weekly flyer. On the back of the weekly flyer for the past years has been a coupon for 20% off anything in the store. Better yet, Linens' N' Things also accepted competitor coupons from Bed, Bath and Beyond which also had a weekly 20% coupon.

So, following that rationalization, I was expecting the store to be quite busy with people seeing what's what and deciding if it was worth buying a potato peeler for $10.40 instead of $12.99. (Note: Captain Monkeypants would like to say at that price, buy a knife. Seriously. There are much more uses to be gained from knives. Just ask Dexter Morgan). But I didn't think people would be too excited because it wasn't like they couldn't have bought that potato peeler for 20% off before with their coupon.

Unfortunately, I made a bad decision. For Linens N' Things was not merely busy. It was a zoo. It was like the day after Thanksgiving. People were insane. They were seeming to singlehandedly trying to say "Whatever" to the bad economy. You couldn't browse without someone barrelling down the aisle with a cart and trying to mow you down. I understand the need to shop wherever the bargains are but in my humble opinion, these weren't bargains yet. They might be in a month or so but for now, the prices were about the same as any other store having a REGULAR sale. I could almost hear the store walls laughing, rubbing their hands together and saying "SUCKERS!"

However, they did have the coffeemaker that my parents specifically wanted and that was a pretty good price. And so we waited in line. For 30 minutes. At least waiting in line was fairly safe. By this time, shoppers had reached that deflation that comes after grabbing as many items as one can cram in a cart and realizing that now it's time to pay. It's the time of Second Guessing the Impulse Buy. Some people take one look at the line at the checkout and decide if it's not worth the wait and they then ditch their items anywhere they can. This is why those random items that Don't Belong There litter every aisle. The item-ditchers are usually the people who found one or two items they thought was worth the price. For the three or more item buyers, the fact that they just survived the battle zone of a store clearance sale in order to get those three or more items leads to the decision that they may as well wait. Sometimes, like us, you have been specificially looking for an item (in this case, a coffeemaker) that you haven't been able to find anywhere and you're fed up of looking and so you end up waiting in line anyway.

On the plus side, it was good practice for Christmas shopping. Especially as Linens N' Things, despite the fact that they're going out of business, still decided to set up their Christmas Aisles. This meant there were ample objects for people to wind up and hear a never ending loop of "The First Noel" as they waited in line to pay. And when I say never-ending loop, I mean never-ending. I suppose it could have been "Frosty the Snowman" which is one of my least favourite Christmas songs ever.

Note to self: Avoid Going Out of Business Sales on weekends. So, that was The Silliness of Captain Monkeypants, incident #1.

Incident #2 came last night when driving home from my parents. It's a two hour drive and I have found that audio books are fantastic for passing the time. I love listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks because Jim Dale reads them. Jim Dale is awesome. He does different voices for every character and it feels like it's a whole new story, even if you've read the Harry Potter book many times already.

However, audiobooks can also be a bit troublesome. Especially when they make you miss your turnoff. Now, I've driven back and forth between my parents quite a few times by now and so I finally have the route memorized. However, I was so busy listening to Harry Potter last night that I forgot to turn. It was about three miles before I realized I had gone too far. Being the midwest, and being on an Interstate, there aren't many exits. Fortunately, I have this handy dandy GPS in my car that I borrowed from my dad. I plugged that in and thankfully, the nice lady who talks to me when I don't hit 'mute' guided me home. Granted, it was a strange way to go and being southern Ohio, it was very hilly. There were a couple of hills that made me feel like I was on a roller coaster. They were almost a straight incline and straight drop. Terrifying. I don't like roller coasters.

I do like the GPS though. Although the one my dad loaned me makes me laugh. She actually sounds exasperated when you don't do as she says and she has to recalculate. I think it'd be fun to design a whole line of GPS in which you can choose the type of voice you have. I would like a voice that was little nuts and would randomly shout factoids as you were driving long boring stretches. That would be funny. Anyway, there was no harm done. I just felt silly for missing my turn.

My biggest "duh!" moment came last night. Since I moved into my apartment, I have noticed how warm it is during the day. I always assumed it was because my windows were east-facing and thus the sun had a greenhouse effect on my flat. Last night, I came home from my parents. Over the weekend, the temperature outside had gone from warm and balmy to flat out cold. My apartment was still warm. And then I heard it. The heating came on. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my heat has been on for weeks and I didn't know. In my defense, it turns out my thermostat is labelled wrong. I had it set to "off" but this, apparently means "heat". Since my electricity bill is due any day now, you may hear a very loud, piercing scream of terror when I get it, no matter where in the world you are.

And so, those are the top three dumb things I did this weekend. I find the dumb things we do far more entertaining than the smart things we do. Perhaps next time I'll tell you how I was making mushroom soup last weekend with shitake mushrooms and didn't realize that the recipe was asking for dried mushrooms and I'd bought fresh. So, when I soaked the mushrooms in water as directed, I couldn't figure out why they weren't puffing up with the water until I read more closely. Well, I suppose I just told you that, didn't I?

Hey, I never said I was a genius. Happy Monday.