Birthday

It's my birthday tomorrow. So, this past weekend I went back home to spend some quality time with my parents and relax. I got to see one of my best friends, eat home-cooked meals, have a delicious birthday cake, and get presents!

It was a good haul this year. A penny-saving jar that counts each coin you put in. A book about Tibet written through interviews with the Dalai Lama. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which looks like just about the best book ever written (http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347). A "VOTE" t-shirt. And another highlight: a book called Harry Potter and Philosophy: If Aristotle Ran Hogwarts.

This is a good time to mention my intense love for all things Harry Potter. I started reading the books in 1999, in 3rd grade, not long after the first ones came out. My grandparents got me the first three books for Christmas a few months after that. In 4th grade, classmates and I worked on a script, intending to put on a play of the first book, though we never actually did (I was to play the narrator and a second minor role as the young Ginny Weasley). Also in 4th grade, my science lab partners and I named our hermit crabs Hagrid and Norbert.

Then the movies started coming out. I went to midnight releases for both the books and movies. In full costume. I followed HP-related news on Mugglenet. I started listening to MuggleCast. I bought extra HP reading material--guide books, theory books. I read fanfiction. I learned songs from the movies to play on piano. My friends and I held a "Happy Birthday Harry" party on July 31 one year. I became a fan of various wizard rock bands.

Now that I'm in college, I'm taking a one-credit Harry Potter roundtable discussion class. My English TAs reference the books in class. I make random new friends based solely on our shared love for the books.

I started reading the books when I was 9. I was 17 when the last book came out. I literally grew up right alongside Harry. I bawled whenever my favorite characters died, and cried like a baby when I got the 7th book in my hands at the bookstore.

I really feel lucky to have lived through this time. Though I'm sure our children will love the books when we introduce them, they will never get to experience the agony of waiting two years for the next book. The theorizing, the shipping, the scouring for clues. There will be no fervor, no constant news coverage (they'll scoff when we tell them the outing of a fictional character dominated the news for weeks). But it will live on, and for that I am glad.

Harry Potter fanatics unite!