Awkward Moments: Harry Potter

A friend was reminding (i.e. mocking) me about a shameful moment I'd once had and I figured I'd share it with everyone.
I like the Harry Potter books.  That's right, I said it.  But this isn't the shameful part believe it or not.

An old boss of mine got me into reading them back in 2001 I believe it was.  I was interested in reading them but not near interested enough in buying them to read them, so he let me borrow the first 4, or however many were out at that time.  I continued to borrow them up until book 6 when I was at the point where I enjoyed them enough (and was invested enough, time-wise) that I bought them myself.  The 6th I waited for paperback but 7...no, not number 7.
I've read so many long series over that years that never seem to have a conclusion (still waiting on the final book of a series I've been reading since the mid-90s), so I was pretty excited to bring at least ONE series to a close. And while I wasn't eager enough to stand in line in some sort of themed outfit with a fake scar on my forehead, I did order the book and have it delivered overnight so I'd have it Saturday morning.  And yes, I finished it in nearly one sitting, long before Monday rolled around.
The usual UPS guy who had been delivering stuff to me for 3 years at this point arrived early that morning and as I'm signing for the package he starts to make small talk as he always does.
"So, you like those Harry Potter books eh?"
Naturally, I tried to play off this outrageous accusation.
"Uhhh... they are alright I suppose," I said as straight-faced as I could.  "I hear the new book comes out pretty soon.  I'll probably borrow it from someone one of these days."
He stared at me for a moment and I felt he didn't believe me for some reason.
He rolled his eyes and said, "Yeaaaaaah," and then walked away without another word.
It was only then that I noticed the package that he handed me was a custom box COVERED in Harry Potter quotes and images, with a giant warning label that said "ATTENTION MUGGLES: Do not open until July 21st".
So naturally I had to move.

Acceptance Speech

I used to want to be a writer when I was younger. I don't know what age it was exactly, but I'm sure it was the same day that I fell in love with words, the sound of pages turning, and learned the pleasure of falling asleep in bed with my mind fully absorbed in those pages. I spent more time than I should have writing stories about just about anything in my notebook when I really should have been paying attention to my teacher.

My crowning achievement was in middle school with a terrifying tale called "The Tree!" (exclamation included) which, as I recall, was about a sinister tree that came to life and terrorized people. Okay, it was terrifying at the time. Each 'chapter' was one double-spaced notepad page long and all I really recall about it was that it was 5 chapters and at some point one of my characters ended up falling some great distance for several hours. Something insane like "ten". I knew then that I was destined to write great literature.

These days that idea has sort of died and gone the same route as my teenage rockstar dreams (I'd be an awesome rockstar, what with my huge requirement for personal privacy). Still, being a writer for a living would be a pretty sweet gig. Yet between my inability to break out of my comfortable vocabulary, my fondness of commas, putting whole new thoughts in parenthesis, and the mere fact that I don't write often, the chances of that happening seem pretty slim. Despite those facts I often find myself thinking, "I should really sit down and write...SOMETHING...anything".

It's for that reason that if I let you check my browsing history - and I wouldn't...privacy, you know - that you'd see google searches such as "daily writing exercises" and other things of that nature. I like to look for ideas to write about to at least keep the practice up, since I've never gotten the guts up to attempt the fiction writing where I can easily generate my own ideas. For some reason, I struggle to conjure up ideas for more likely scenarios and end up not writing because of it.

Today as I was browsing, I found a website with some good yet awkward-to-write-about ideas. There is a suggestion for this month that suggests: "imagine you have been awarded the 'Golden Pen Prize' and write your acceptance speech".

Boring as that may sound, I enjoyed this idea because I've always found acceptance speeches to be so completely ridiculous. There was much potential to be had in this exercise, yet after an hour of pondering the only thing that I could picture in my mind was being handed this award, looking at the crowd awkwardly and saying, "so...this must mean that none of you have actually read anything I've written".

I should probably be a little more confident in myself in these imaginary award-winning situations. I looked pretty good in that suit, at least.