Remembrance of Addictions Past

I watched Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night (well, this morning after midnight). I have not spent much time lately reading the Harry Potter books or blogs, but there was a two year period where that was pretty much how I spent my leisure. Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay the series is that I so wanted it to be real. And I never wanted it to end.

So while I enjoyed the movie thoroughly while watching it, I am now left feeling nostalgic, which I hate. I have never been able to articulate my ambivalence to nostalgia in general, but I cannot leave it alone. Then I feel blue afterwords.

Compounding the problem is that I have never quite forgiven the series for not being real. Also, the movies have always been ersatz Harry Potter for me—a little something to tide me over until the next book. But now there will be no more books (allegedly) so I will have to make due with the ersatz.

About the movie itself: once again it hewed close to the book and had little explanation of what occurred in past movie; the movie does not stand on its own. If someone goes to the movie only having watched each of previous films once, they'll probably be lost. (To borrow a phrase from another blog, "It helps to have written a thesis project on J.K. Rowling’s boy wizard." So obviously I had no problem.

Life Is Old There

Almost heaven, West Virginia,
Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.
Life is old there, older than the trees,
Younger than the mountains, growin' like a breeze.
Country Roads, take me home,
To the place I belong:
West Virginia, mountain momma,
Take me home, country roads.
—John Denver, Bill Danoff, and Taffy Nivert

I just got back from camping in West Virginia, which ticks another state off of the states I've visited. We camped near Seneca Rocks, which I am almost willing to call a mountain. I'd go back to West Virginia.

I have ten (or nine*) more states to visit:
Alaska
Hawaii
Nebraska
Iowa
Minnesota*
Tennessee
Florida
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine

*I've been to Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, but no where else in Minnesota.