LJ Idol Survivor: Final Immunity Challenge, Day 9

[flipflop_diva]

I’ve always loved books, ever since I was a little kid.

My mom used to tell me the story of how sometimes, when she was putting me to bed and she was tired or just wanted to get back to the things she needed to do, she would try to skip a page here and there in the book she was reading to me — usually “Goodnight, Moon” or “Where the Wild Things Are” or “Corduroy” or “The Velveteen Rabbit,” my childhood favorites. But every time she tried, I would politely stop her.

“You missed a page, Mama,” I would say, and she would have to go back to it and read it to me the correct way.

When I grew older and could read on my own, I found new friends — in particular, Romona Quimby and her sister, Beezus, and their friend Henry Higgins. I would curl up in my dad’s overstuffed recliner (when he was out mowing the lawn or still at work) and just read for hours and hours, even if it was the same collection of books multiple times.

After Ramona (though I always related to Beezus more, being the big sister and all), I met the girls in the Baby-Sitter’s Club and Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield, the Sweet Valley Twins.

I also really, really adored Nancy Drew. Every time, my mom would take my sister and me to the library, I’d search the shelves for the next book I needed — even back then, I did not like to read out of order! — and would leave utterly disappointed if I couldn’t find it.

The December after I really got into those books, I found a gigantic present from my aunt under the tree. Normally, my aunt — who lived in Ohio while we lived in California and who I had only met once in person — maybe bought my sister and me a sweatshirt or a nightgown, something that belonged in a nice normal-sized box, if she bought us anything at all, so this gigantic present was intriguing to me. I would stare at it for hours on the days leading up to the holiday.

When Christmas finally came and I was allowed to open it, I ripped off the wrapping paper in a hurry and tore open the box. Inside was the best present I had ever gotten — at least fifty of the hardback Nancy Drew books.

My scream was earth-shattering as I pulled all the books out of the box, reading the titles and the summaries on the back of each one and then placing them in order to see which ones I was still missing (not many, after that).

Unfortunately, by the time I went to middle school and then high school, most reading ended up being for class, and books for pleasure became a luxury I often didn’t have time for.

It took till after finishing grad school to really get back into reading just for the fun of it, but little did I know a book I was about to pick up would literally change my life.

I first read about the Harry Potter books in a Time magazine article I was reading for one of my journalism classes. They sounded like something I might like — magic and a little boy wizard.

A couple weeks later, during a run to Costco to get more mac ‘n’ cheese and taquitos, I saw the books for sale. The third one had just come out, and Costco had all of them.

I stared at the books staring back at me and contemplated if I should really spend money on them or save it for other things I might need — like food and paying the internet bill.

On instinct, I decided I might as well try them and bought all three.

I read the first one that night, and I was in love. I finished the next two over the following week, and then began the long, interminable wait for the fourth one.

But that’s not the life-changing part. That’s only the beginning of how it started.

Fast-forward about ten years to me sitting alone in my house on a summer night. I had moved to Austin a few years before, and for the most part, I was happy. It was where I wanted to be, and my sister was here, and I had made friends.

But I also worked at home, with people I only saw when we had to travel, and most of the friends I’d made had families and jobs they commuted to and maybe we could get together once a month or so.

I also had my sister, but she had a newborn at home by then, and I couldn’t be over to her house all the time. And sometimes I was lonely.

Actually, a lot of time I was lonely.

Around the same time, I had started to spend a lot more time on the internet and on this site called LiveJournal. And one night, in my scrolling, I found a community called Hogwarts Is Home.

I stared at it forever, clicking around. There was this huge application you had to fill out to get sorted into your Hogwarts house, but once you were in, there were so many things to do — different sub-communities based around different parts of the books, most of them geared at participating in activities or challenges to earn points for your house.

It sounded fun but like a lot of work.

For the next couple weeks, I kept finding myself staring at the site until one particularly lonely day when I started filling out the application.

It would turn out to be one of the best things I ever did. I didn’t know then that I would make some of my very best friends in the world through that community. I didn’t know then how many of them I would meet in person or how we would get through COVID lockdowns together by spending the days in a chatroom together.

I didn’t know then that I would learn coding from trying to do layout challenges or hone my design skills making graphics. And I had no idea how many things I would come to love because someone I became friends with introduced them to me.

I also didn’t know how much joining that community would ease the loneliness inside me, but it did. Through the love of a series of books, I found friends and a place to belong, and it made everything better.

Of course, since then, Harry Potter has played other roles in my life — David proposed at Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Florida. Ellie’s nursery was Harry Potter themed. And even now, we read to her from the books at night before we put her to bed.

Of course, I read other books too. My kindle is full of other worlds ready for me to jump into. But there will always be a special place in my heart for Corduroy and Romona and Nancy Drew and, of course, for Harry Potter.




Non-fiction. I actually found out about Idol through one of my Hogwarts Is Home friends. I might have discovered it another way someday, but I like to think of it as one more thing that came into my life thanks to that comm. I owe Mr. Potter a lot <3




Thank you for reading! This was written for therealljidol: Survivor Idol! We're at the final immunity challenge now, so there's no voting. We just write an entry every day until only one person is left standing.

That said, if you want to read the entries, you can find them all here.

Comments

[alycewilson]

I loved the Beverly Cleary books, too, and read nearly all of them to KFP. Now we're working our way through Harry Potter. We're just over halfway through Half-Blood Prince.

[brkfastatholly.livejournal.com]

Obviously you know I'm gonna love anything about reading <3 And we have so many of the same childhood favorite books!! I too can remember a very exciting Christmas of receiving a big set of books and how utterly happy I was :)
Forever glad that we all came together over our mutual love of Harry Potter and I can't imagine my life without you or our other loves. Especially having you to go through this pandemic together with...not sure I would have kept my sanity otherwise <3333

[gunwithoutmusic]

I don't do nearly enough reading for pleasure anymore. I try, every now and then, but other stuff always seems to take precedence. I did actually start on a collection of Nathaniel Hawthorne sketches, which has been a bit of a slog, but it's given me a better appreciation of Hawthorne. Back when my friend group was larger, we tried doing an informal book club, where each of us picked a book each month and we were supposed to get together and discuss, but no one ever seemed to want to read any of the books but the ones that they had personally picked, so it didn't really get off the ground!

[murielle]

I feel so guilty. Although, I have watched all the movies I haven't read all the books. But I will. Someday I will.

Lovely glimpse into your reading world.

[halfshellvenus]

I was a huge Nancy Drew fan, and at some point had all of the books up to about 50 of them. :O

Less of a Beezus and Ramona fan, but "Harriet the Spy" really hit the spot for me. Not just the story itself, but the dry humor as well. ;)

How wonderful that you wound up getting involved in a fandom that brought you long-term friends and a community (and it's so great to have that right now, isn't it?). I came in via writing fanfic for Prison Break and Supernatural, after having read fanfic for years (including in the dark days of usenet, where everything was in pure text and you had to pile through community threads to find things). The people I found at LiveJournal made such a huge difference in my life, and it's why I'm still there (and here at DW) even when people have run off to the next shiny fad. Blogging of all sorts is very much more my "thing" than short little blips of info or updates or pictures. :)