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How crazy is my life that I have not been able to bask in the afterglow of this for four days now? Bleh.

Anyway, I met iamstarmom and her daughter and a couple other fans for dinner first and we talked about the books and the questions we submitted. Then I ran off to meet my cousin, who was already waiting in line, and we got in and got seats pretty quickly. They had a PowerPoint presentation thing looping with the seven book covers and music from the movies and "Scholastic Presents the J. K. Rowling Open Book Tour" etc. Some news guy (Keith Olberman?) came out and delivered some not-particularly-memorable blurb.

And then, Jo walked on stage. They were still playing the movie music and she got a loooong standing ovation and at that point I admit I got a little choked up. We finally sat down and she said she was going to indulge herself by reading something from the middle of the book, since she was sure we'd all finished it, unlike the school kids that were at all the earlier readings. She read the passage where Ron and Harry return to the tent after Ron's destroyed the locket Horcrux; I'd seen a lot of her other readings on YouTube and other sites, and I have to say this one was particularly inspired, especially her shrill furious!Hermione.

After the reading came the Q&A. I scribbled notes as fast as I could, but I'm sure there are complete transcripts already out somewhere, so I'm not going to summarize here. If anyone really wants to know about a particular question, I'll dig out the old notebook and tell you what I jotted down at the time.

The Dumbledore thing took me completely by surprise, though I've since decided it doesn't change my opinion of Dumbledore much at all. There were a few moments of stunned silence, followed by some pretty loud applause, though I noticed a smattering of people in the audience who did not clap that time. I can't help wondering if some of the applause was just because people felt the need to react somehow and there really aren't many options for a crowd of 2,000. My cousin commented later in the car that she could have told us we were all morons and we still would've clapped, and he may have had half a point there. But I totally support Jo and Dumbledore, so I am glad this announcement got an enthusiastic response anyway.

Part way through the Q&A I noticed the brick wall of books, at least three deep and a dozen high, stacked up in front of the stage. The DH covers kind of blended in with the stage and I was sitting pretty far back, so I hadn't noticed before. Jo left to limber up her wrist, while some other guy came out and explained how the book signing would work: they'd call us by row, we'd file past Jo and get our book, no personalizations and no telling the author our life story.

I got kinda worried when I saw how fast they were actually pushing people through that line. They had a Scholastic rep who literally put her hand on everyone's shoulder and hustled them past if they tried to pause to talk to Jo. We could see the people getting books signed on the big screen, and Jo was hugging and high-fiving them whenever she could, and that was cool. They also played some of her older readings, starting with GoF, to keep us entertained while we waited.

I'd really wanted to ask Jo a question or two, so during the hour and a half I was waiting, I tried to hatch a scheme whereby I went last to get my book signed on purpose, in the hopes that they'd be willing to give me, like, 30 seconds with her if there weren't 1,000 other people still waiting to get their books signed. But, sadly, it was a no go. The girl who was calling the rows up gave me a "nice try, missy" smile and said I had to go when it was my turn. After a few wild thoughts of ducking out and hiding in the bathrooms for a while, I gave up and decided to make the best of it.

My really big question had to do with this kind of epiphany I had last year that the magic in the HP books was allegorically based on a certain class of rare neurophysiological phenomenon. I'd read every last interview on Accio Quote! and only found one direct reference to it (from eight years ago), and maybe one or two slightly more circuitous references. I figured if I asked and she had no idea what I was talking about, then I'd completely misinterpreted the significance of that quote. Otherwise, well ... it was just very important for me, personally, to know.

So I got to the front of the line, presented my ticket, walked over to Jo, and without preamble said, "In an October 1999 interview you said that magic was just a metaphor for this other word of possibilities, beyond convention, that the mind can reach. Could you please confirm that for me?"

She'd turned to hand a signed book to one of the Scholastic helper-people, and for a split second I thought she hadn't heard or hadn't understood me. Then she turned back, looked me in the eye, nodded emphatically, and said, "I would definitely confirm that."

And then I was pushed along by the handlers and given a signed and stickered copy of the book and sent on my way, with that one moment and those five words seared into my brain for the rest of my life, I'm sure.

And that's the story of the day I met J. K. Rowling. The End.

So we each get to submit a question on the Scholastic website that Jo might answer on the night of the reading. Obviously I need to make it a good one, something both I and a lot of other fans are interested in.

One thing I've really been wanting to ask her for ages is: "In an October 1999 interview with The Atlanta Journal and Constitution you said that, 'Witchcraft is just a metaphor for this other world of possibilities, beyond convention, that the mind can reach.' Could you please explain what you meant by that?"

But I'm not sure if this is a burning question for anyone but me, so maybe I should ask something that more people have been curious about. Like: "How did Lily's letter get in Sirius's bedroom at Grimmauld Place? He would've run away years before she sent it." Or: "Did Bellatrix mean to kill Sirius, since she didn't hit him with the killing curse?"

There are probably lots of other good questions I'm forgetting at the moment, since I haven't been involved much in the fandom for the last few weeks (except to squee about winning these tickets, of course). Feel free to suggest others, or let me know what you think of the ones I just mentioned. I'm definitely open to ideas and input here.

LJ and the HP fandom in general haven't seen much of me lately, because I've been moving and starting off the school year at my new teaching job these past few weeks. But guess what? I get to teach a class on Harry Potter! Yeah, the topic was my idea — teachers get to do one elective on anything they want. I figured this would be the easiest and funnest for me, and probably popular with the kids too. :D

It's 4th, 5th, and 6th graders and we meet once a week for 1.5 hours. So far I've said we'll discuss the books, themes and issues raised in them, relevant folklore and mythology, stuff like alchemy, etc. And we'll also have debates and trivia contests and lots of other fun HP-themed activities. There's a prerequisite that any kid who signs up must have read all seven books in the series.

If anyone has any cool ideas or suggestions for particular activities we could do, I'd love to hear them!

Been apartment hunting, which is a huge drag. I need a place before I start work at my new school in about two weeks, and the pickings in the area are pretty slim. I'm having a hard time getting actual humans on the phone at the management offices I've been calling, and I was hoping to have talked to some before heading up there tomorrow to look in person. It's three hours away from where I live now, so I really need to find something on this trip because I can't keep going back. Ugh. Anyway.

Went to DC yesterday and helped my cousin paint her apartment. Got stuck for about an hour and a half on the way back — absolute standstill traffic, people turning off their cars and walking around — because of what looked like a pretty nasty accident. But I just tried to look it up on the local news sites to find out what happened, and not a peep about the whole incident anywhere. What gives?

In other news, I'm working on my sorting_elite application, which is making my brain go a bit fuzzy. Or maybe that's just a wrackspurt.

Speaking of wrackspurts, has anyone read any good fanfics from Luna Lovegood's POV? I've been feeling especially fond of her lately, though I have no idea why, and it would be great to read some well-done renditions of what goes on in her head.

I discovered this dangerously addictive Harry Potter trivia game at Veritaserum. I am already up to 9th place out of 139 players; or at least I was right before I left. This is bad. This could eat up a lot of my time.

I am also thinking of applying to hogwarts_elite (via sorting_elite). I'm not sure exactly what they do, but I like the idea of going through a rigorous application process to be part of something "elite." I know, what a dork. :p

One of the annoying things about writing fanfiction is that you can never really own your characters. I mean, you can have them in your head for weeks or months, adding subtlety and depth to their personalities, deciding how they must have grown and evolved, and generally playing god with them. Then the real author can come in and mess it all up in a heartbeat. And you can't really get annoyed because you know they were always hers, but dammit they feel like yours and you want them to stay the way they've been carefully built up in your mind....

( When can we stop using DH spoiler tags? )

And, having got that off my chest, I actually think I've spotted a way to make it work ... hehehe....

Okay, maybe by "annoying thing about fanfiction" I really meant "fun, challenging thing about fanfiction." One way or another, I think I'm stuck with fanfic writing at the moment, because my imagination is just too wrapped up in J.K.'s world and it's just too convenient having readymade characters and situations on hand to play with. And magic, of course. :D