Don’t Stand So Close To Me
I’m going to drive myself insane.
I was hoping to have Harry Potter finished by today, but instead, I’m finding myself in a constant state of possible spoiler induced panic.
I’m screening my calls. I’m not checking my voice mail. I’m not going near my text messages. I’ve blocked close friends on my buddy list. I’m not logging into facebook. If everything had gone according to the plan, I would have had my book personally delivered to my underground Icelandic lair by a lonesome Arctic warrior, who would be flown in by a pack of puffins. The only way I could be contacted otherwise would be through Morse code.
Instead, I found myself almost consistently surrounded by people, and pushed away from my book for approximately 87% of the weekend.
Most of my time was used working in the theatre with the Gooseberry Park Players. (If you didn’t make it to “Hood: The Musical” this weekend, you missed one heck of a good show. The kids involved were extremely dedicated and talented, and they blew me away for all seven performances.) After Friday’s performance, I got my copy, and my group headed over to the Taco Bell where a gentleman in line ahead of me asked if I would like to “know a secret.”
Yes sir, I have been waiting for 2 years to get this book for you to tell me the end in line at the Taco Bell. Please. Tell me a secret. And then when you go home tonight with two black eyes and a broken arm, you can explain to your mother that it was the Concordia girl who can’t bench 50 pounds that did it to you. And you can explain why. And you can walk around with a heavy brick of guilt, shame and medical bills until you cleanse your conscience. Please. TELL ME A SECRET.
I spent the rest of my time there nervously twitching whenever someone got up to move.
On Saturday, the kids at the theatre took turns passing around the book and reading the epilogue. I had to politely excuse myself to say a quick prayer that they wouldn’t blurt out the ending during their microphone checks. I got home Sunday to find that one of my roommates had also skipped to the end. This morning, a friend from home, who doesn’t read the books, let me know that she knows who “bites it in the end.” (She would be the close friend that is now blocked online.) And I was just about ready to put into a motion a plot that would kick Sean out of school after logging in here.
I head to Chicago on Thursday for my birthday. I can’t read the book on the bus! Someone is bound to lean over my seat and whisper the last 10 pages to me! It’s like having a dark mark on my forehead!
It has to get done tonight or tomorrow. If only for the last shred of sanity I have left.
(No picture this week - I’ve misplaced my battery charger for a spell.)