Reading: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Moving: nope

Learning: overwatering drought-stricken plants contributes to and does not necessarily relieve their stress. Great!

Also, the red-breasted finches are not the purple finches I know from Connecticut but are house finches.

8 July 2000: Being part of the problem

HAO and I planned to go to the Tattered Cover last night for the midnight release, but she was felled by a migraine so I went alone. I guess I might have joined in the festivities if she'd been with me, or if the emcee hadn't copped the most annoying faux Brit accent like Queen Elizabeth II on coke, or indeed if I had been in costume instead of Muggling in a comfy dress that at least one person has mistaken for a nightgown in the past, if I had at least drawn a lightning bolt-shaped scar on my forehead. Instead I hung back in an uncrowded corner with other grown-ups and read an interview with Richard Powers in a writing journal. Then I picked up a Harper's and read a sobering article about the state of the planet's fresh water. That's what I had in my hand when we were asked to form lines, and by virtue of my not shoving and kicking, I ended up shoplifting the magazine out of the store to the end of a line. It was fun counting down to midnight, which of course felt rather like New Year's Eve. The store had advertised it would stay open until 1:00. By 12:15 my line had moved forward by perhaps two people, probably from late entrants jumping the line farther up, and I doubted I would get to the top of the line by 1:00. By 12:20 when a woman started complaining loudly three people behind me that all the stores in Virginia and DC had been selling books all week long, I decided I didn't want to queue within earshot of her. So I shoved my way through the crowd to replace the magazine, heard clerks asking the murmuring crowd please to buy only as many copies as would be needed that night, and left.

By the time I got back out to Colorado Boulevard, I had remembered Bookies, a small indie store selling only children's books. Instead of northward home, I drove south toward it, passing the Barnes & Noble before I even remembered it's there. Bookies might be too small to do this, I told myself, but it is a children's book store and it was still open. There was no line, just a bunch of kids and grown-ups almost all in costume or at least with a scar, and I bought my book, declined refreshments or other fun since I felt guilty for going to the TC to begin with, and scampered toward the car. There were two cops in the parking lot, and I asked if weren't they allowed to read on the job--since they didn't have handfuls of Harry, unlike everyone else. (I was raised to be friendly to the police, and I wave at firefighters too.) One was friendly and one was silent and when I said, "Goodnight, officers," the one who had spoken with me said, "Have a good evening, ma'am." Then this afternoon as I walked to the park to read for a few hours, book and blanket and bottle in a bag, two scruffy men passed me, saying "Good afternoon, ma'am." I'm thoroughly a ma'am now.

Which is probably apt punishment for my being part of the problem--Harry is fun, but I'm just contributing to the hype.

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Last week as I waited for an elevator to bring me out into the sunshine of lunchhour, a group of Dot Orgeristas joined me, along with a former Dot Orgerista, the receptionist I liked, who had come to catch up over lunch. We greeted each other affectionately and she tapped my book so I'd show her what I was reading--The Cider House Rules. We talked about John Irving in the elevator, she and I and another, while the others smiled blankly on the fringes. Leaving the building and saying goodbye to Donna, I recommended Cold Comfort Farm. Before we parted Donna said, "Oh, and I'm reading the most charming book now! It's called I Conquer the Castle." "I Capture the Castle," I corrected automatically, a habit I should curb, and bounced up and down about what a wonderfully lovable character Cassandra is. Donna hadn't read Cold Comfort Farm; and I just think it's the most wonderful thing about books that I recommended Gibbons and she was already reading Smith. They're really a pair, those two.

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I got a card from an aunt today, which startled me. My extended family and I exchange Christmas cards, if that; I sent change of address postcards to everyone on my Christmas card list for form's sake, mostly. This aunt sent a new house card, which I thought was very sweet of her, and thoroughly unexpected. The two of my paternal aunts still close to my mother came to my birthday party: I am the namesake of one (who just lost her leg) and this other was my mother's high school friend. She was going out with my father's brother; this friend and uncle set my parents up. This the uncle who shouted at my grandmother that he was goddamn glad he wasn't her son-in-law. Ah, family.

Anyway, I should go write to Feenie, who also wrote because she received a change-of-address card, and whom I must dissuade from her notion of my sporing.