Far from Perfect

I don't think you realize how many drafts I've gone through since Wednesday, trying to get a post up. I mean, this time last month I had twenty-seven blooming posts and now I'm struggling to produce five. There's even a chance that this will end up deleted like the others, because I am simply being rubbish at writing. If you're reading this, erm, hi. Obviously I didn't fail this time.

I work a volunteer job sometimes, and I came back from it an hour ago. It was busy in sporadic bursts, so there was a bit of downtime where I was splitting my time between reading a book called Darkly Dreaming Dexter (it's not a bad book, really. A few years ago I tried writing a character named Vinnialia. Remember her? Maybe not?) and in some ways, Dexter is what I might have dreamed of Vinnialia to be if I had started her now. I think he's amazing. He's so angry, but a twisty-good person. and reading Hayley G. Hoover's blog.

This next bit connects to the rest, I promise, so bear with me.

I've been feeling pressured lately, like I'm not good enough at anything I try, and if I'm not the best, then what is the bloody point in trying? Like there is really no point to me as a person, because I am going nowhere anyway. And that people are going to leave, and I hope that some of them leave nothing but tissue-paper memories that I can promptly set on fire and then dance around, and I hope that some of them take me with them when they leave, and I wish some didn't ever have to leave at all. I miss so many people, and it's not my last chance for the ones I worry about, but it might be. It always might be. Because people will change, and then what do I do?

These kinds of thoughts set my head into a fizz, and I feel like a soda can is all shaken up in my head and ready to explode, spraying orange bubbles all over everything I think. Imperfection. I strive for perfection, but I never do anything perfectly. Humans can't do anything right. And slowly, lately, I've been finding it hard to appreciate anything. I listen for the high note that cracks instead of the rest of the song, I look for the one horrid feature someone's got no matter how pretty he/she is, and I am finding firsthand the simple truth that I learned years ago:

Heroes die hard, because heroes are human. Heroes do idiot things sometimes. They let you down, they act unlike the hero you've come to imagine in your head--because the hero in your head is not the same as the hero out here. People screw up, I've always known that. I've even perpetuated that notion. But it seems like the ugliness of the situation takes over everything, and I forget that there's anything pretty at all. I forget that I have turned a human into an idea, into something that I want instead of something that is. Maybe I just need an idea. A perfect idea, something gorgeous.

That looks like my customary brand of something. I'll publish this one, hmm?

Books, Barnes and Noble and Me

Hello. I know it's been a while.

In Which I Complain and Exhibit Several Reasons Why I Need Therapy

I am a very easily anxious person. I worry about everything, and recently my worrying has hit a fever pitch because I am starting at a brand new school, and I am disgustingly scared.

I am finding ridiculous things to worry about.

It's getting out of hand. Really out of hand.

Have you ever felt so worried you can't breathe? Is this not normal?

And here. The world has handed me something else to fret unreasonably about.

Barnes and Noble is going up for sale and possibly out of business. Read the article here. Or HERE. They're both the same, click on your favorite one.

I learned this during my latest trawling through Yahoo! and I was somewhat worried.

Like most bookworms who live in the U.S., I have frequented B&N many times, and while I have a nice indie bookstore quite close, Barnes and Noble is a lot better organized and I go there when I'm looking for something specific, like a book for school or something. (The independent bookstore is good for serendipity.)

The article said that physical copies of products, like books and CDs, are slowly dying out because people opt for the digital version instead.

I often buy digital CDs, because most of the music I like is from YouTube musicians, and I don't see the sense in paying extra for shipping when I can buy the digital copy.

But books!

I grew up with books as closer friends than almost anybody else I knew. I had a fair smattering of friends (Am I lying? You decide!) but they paled in comparison to Junie B. Jones; Anne Shirley; the Bailey School Kids (Howie, Eddie, Melody and Liza); and Charlie Bucket. (I was really trying not to put anything Harry Potter related in there, because it seems like everything I put on this here blog has at least one HP plug.)

The actual feeling of holding the book in your hand, really turning the pages, losing the book because you left it at the kitchen table- these are some things that even the iPad (in all its fairly deserved glory) cannot replicate.

It's sad that a whole generation of kids is not going to be able to experience that. Someday in the future, people will be keeping paper books in museums like we keep hieroglyphics, and parents will be pointing at them in their glass cases and saying to their children, "See, honey? People used to read off of those. They didn't download information directly into their brains like you do."

That day is looming larger.

I'm all for the Internet, and it's great that people can hold their entire library- their entire lives- in the palm of their hand, but books are just nice once in a while.

Show some love. Buy a book.

(dramatic ending)

And now I'm back to thinking about school and I'm panicking. AARGH. Why is summer so SHORT?

It All Ends Here

WARNING: IF YOU ARE EASILY UPSET BY EXTREME NERDINESS, HATE HARRY POTTER, BOOKS, AND MEMORIES AND/OR ARE A TWILIGHT FAN, DON'T READ THIS POST.

HOLD ON. IF YOU'RE ANY ONE OF THE ABOVE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? ACTUALLY, YOU'RE PROBABLY VERY UPSET ALREADY, SO JUST GO AWAY.

The post starts...now.

LOOK AT THIS. Just look at this.

Fine. Blogger is being stupid, and you can't look at this. But here, I am going to make this link all linky and then you can.

AARGH. Look at...ah...this.

THIS, my friends, is the NEW POSTER for the FIRST PART of the SEVENTH MOVIE that comes out in NOVEMBER but now doesn't seem so far away.

I am mistaken in my assumption that everyone I know has the same level of Harry Potter furfling fangirliness as I do. (I am just making up words like anything today.)

The last movie is coming out in July of next year, and I am for sure going to overestimate how far away that really is. Next year.

When I finally grew up and properly discovered the Internet and realized that (internal gasp) other people in the world like Harry Potter too (and, for some reason, all of them are on the Internet!), I was kind of surprised at how well all of this was going. I didn't even know about all of the Pottermania until well after 2007, and once I did, I half-wondered why everything didn't just dry up after Deathly Hallows.

It was the movies, mostly. The fact that there were actors to interview and movies to see and directors to criticize made it all almost..okay, I guess. At least, it did for me once I puzzled all of this out. (Which didn't take that long. Because I am a prodigal genius who enjoys telling lies about myself, like about the fact that I am a prodigal genius.)

And that was fine, because at that point the Half-Blood Prince movie hadn't even come out.

But now NOVEMBER 2010 is staring me in the face and I felt very, very sad.

Especially after seeing this.

The Magic Begins and It All Ends Here.

I grew up with these books, and while I believe that I would still really read, I do not think that I would appreciate books as much as I do had I not read them.

As utterly stupid as this sounds, I remember the first time that I held the hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and how much hope I had, and how bittersweet everything felt when I was done.

Will the movie feel the same as it did with the book? I don't think so, but I know that I am going to be very upset when this is all over.