Wini tagged me. A little thing like that has gone and made me feel confused, guilty, absurdly happy and comically grateful.
Lately on this blog, I’ve been doing an excellent impression of having fallen off the face of the earth. I wonder where y’all think I am and what you think I’m doing, when you think of me and this blog at all. Do you see me wandering, Jack-Sparrow-like, on the white cracked surface of Davy Jones’s locker? Do you think I’m out there partying it up, living a life far too thrilling to stop by once in a while and tell you about it? Or do you chalk me up as one of the “married-and-disappeared”, that universally hated tribe of bimbotic idiots whose lives are completely contained within their significant other’s?
The correct answer is a combination of all three scenarios. Lately the fun quotient of my life has shot skyward, what with that five-week holiday and my new job and summer being here. (Yes, I got employment authorisation, finally, and a “real” job, didn’t I tell you?) Full of zeal is how I find myself, and in my blazing rush to fit job apps, (local) friends, paid writing gigs, other writing projects, a new exercise routine (pilates) and summer cooking into my day, all day, every day, it’s easy to let the blog slide.
But there’s also the element of bimbotic idiocy here: I must confess the more time I spend with my husband, the more I get used to it. Contrary to popular belief among you singles (and singletons and defiantly-singles and all shades thereof), we “married-and-disappeareds” haven’t disappeared because we’re moronically worshipful of couplehood to the point of exclusion of all else (um, not always, at least)… it’s more a matter of taking the path of least Resistance. A form of laziness, if you will. It’s so much easier to hang out with my husband than anyone else, because let’s face it, he’s right there and he likes doing all the things I like, and the force of the dreaded R-word – routine – cannot easily be denied. Which makes it sound all dreary and boring, but I swear it’s the opposite. That’s the deadly appeal.
And when I am on my own with time enough to update this blog and scrap all my old friends and send them cute e-cards that say, “Hi, hope you’re having a nice day,” I find I turn very Jack-like indeed. Because by now, I’m so out of touch, and it’s so long since I even said hello to some of the dear old crowd (you know who you are) that it would be plain embarrassing to show up and say hi now. Wouldn’t it? So I labour along at the bottom of this self-made Davy Jones’s locker and wish I could find some cute device like those stone crabs to drag my ship of hello out to meet the sea of old relationships and then everybody would go “awwwww”. “Awwww, there’s our dear old Wendelin, back from the dead.” Instead of, “bitch, who do you think you’re talking to?”
So from a very different route but some remarkably similar specifics, I’ve arrived at the same place that Sayesha is in now: looking for friends old and new to halt this precipitous decline towards totally encapsculated coupledom. Dammit, I don’t want to be lazy.
Back to Wini and her tag: thanks, girl. Anything that looks remotely like a way back into the old fold, I will take.
Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 5 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 5 random facts.
3. Players should tag 5 other people and notify them they have been tagged.
So here we go! –
I’m much more excited about the place I work than my work itself. Working in the heart of the city is going to be brilliant – great food, parks, libraries, cafes, museums and people on the streets, all just steps away!
I recently began to do paid writing gigs online under an assumed name.
To paraphrase Wini: I can’t drive. And know I HAVE to learn sometime soon, but I’m hoping a miracle will take me away to live in New York City or Boston, where I never have to look at a car unless it’s to curse at it. I like chauffeurs – cabbies or Saurabh or private stretch limousines, any way is ok with me.
I have a snacking problem – in a few years I think I will have degenerated into snacking in secret.
I’m always tempted to stop shaving my legs in winter because I’m under so many layers of clothing anyway… but it takes only a couple of weeks for me to gross myself out.
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I’m tagging: Sushil (WAKE UP!), Nimbupani (WAKE UP MORE!), Yodha (YOOHOO!), Juice (who makes my day every time she writes a post) and Sayesha (who does the same).
That Does It + Final Predictions
18 JulGoodbye, boys and girls. The internet has become far too dangerous (safe link, no spoilers) for angelically pure Orbit-ly white Potterites like yours truly. I’m off, to return only after I’ve safely finished the book.
I won’t be looking at your comments. I won’t be answering my phone or email. I won’t be watching TV or standing in line outside a bookstore at midnight (picked a store party that would let me stay IN). I CANNOT BE SPOILED, MUA HA HA HA.
Have a happy Harry Potter day. Try not to get TOO spoiled beforehand. Record your predictions on your respective blogs, and check them later. Cry, laugh, LIVE – knowing you live in historic times (sniff). No, really. Historic. You’ll look back on this.
Just as a thought – here’s a historic snapshot I took at a historic moment which I should have uploaded a long time ago –
Before I go, I would like to dash off a few predictions, and those of you who have seen those photogrpahs and have been spoiled silly – HA – will be able to tell right away what I’ve got right and wrong. Go ahead. As long as you’re not telling ME.
Voldie’s Fate
1. Voldemort will die and become a ghost – because he fears death, you dummies. Betcha never thought of that, huh? And I’m also predicting an OMG!heartrending scene where Voldemort confronts a Boggart and it turns into the GRIM, only the Grim is Padfoot and Harry’s going to go nuts! Gosh do I have a brain or what?
Harry’s Fate
2. He will live. And after years, months, weeks and days of vascillating on the subject I have decided that Harry probably IS a horcrux. That scar. A bit of Voldemort’s soul is somewhere in his head, because – get this quote from PS – the Sorting Hat says, “You’d do well in Slytherin, it’s all there in your head, you know…” The requirement of Voldemort never at any one time possessing 7 horcruxes is nicely met if RAB managed to destroy the locket horcrux before he died. Howzzat!
Candidates for Redemption
3. Snape is good. He was in love with Lily. He has stumbled a few times since he turned himself over to Dumbledore (notably while making that Vow – what were you thinking, Snivelly?!) but we shall not be denied the grand melodramatic and tearful redemption story. Basically, either Snape will die or his moral ambiguity will die, Jo isn’t good enough to sustain this character beyond her narrative in his current shape. Wormtail is NOT up for redemption. He’ll end up helping Harry in spite of his best efforts not to. Percy Weasley is a tossup – I’m hoping he stays bad, but he probably won’t.
Who Dies?4. Hagrid should go, but maybe he won’t. A Weasley will die, probably Molly. Somebody told me yesterday that it was George – I half-believe it. In this strange world of half-trust and half-resignation of J. K. Rowling that I inhabit, it’s hard to figure this stuff out. Will she go to the extremes of the tearjerker mode by killing off one of the twins, or will she show the bountiful and awesome elegant restraint reminiscent of books 1 through 5?
Who lives?
5. Lupin, Tonks, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Ginny will live. Everyone else is up for grabs.
Horcruxes
6. Like I said, Harry himself is one. Then there’s the diary, the ring, the Hufflepuff cup, the Slytherin locket, and the snake.
Final Battle
7. Happens INSIDE the veil. In limbo. Where the shades of Harry’s parents and Sirius will help Harry.