i survived potterdamerung

On Friday nights, I generally go pick Mary up from work at her funky downtown late-night job a few blocks down from a funky downtown independent bookstore, so I had it all planned that we should go to The Regulator that night and get our books and Experience the Experience and all that -- and then I drove past the Experience, and it was -- dude, it was like a fucking Stones concert out there! The line went two blocks in both directions, multiple people deep in many places, and just, no. I can be a little chary about crowds (my claustrophobia/suffocation issue kicks in, often without warning), and also, I wanted to *read* the damn book before work today, not spend five hours in line and then not have time. So we picked up two copies at the grocery store, done and done.

I was a little wistful, because it might've been cool to stay and do the whole deal, but then honestly, I'm not *fannish* about Harry Potter, so it almost felt insincere somehow. Right there on the Duke campus, an awful lot of the people I saw were college-aged, and I realized that these kids, these eighteen-, twenty-year-old kids are the ones who probably starting reading the series ten years ago when they *were* children. This *is* their childhood, this is their *thing.* This is their Star Wars.

I personally just wanted to get through the thing before I got spoiled left, right, and center. I'm not *freaky* about HP spoilers, but I thought it would be nice to go without them.

( spoilers for Harry Potter and the Startlingly Orange Dust Jacket )