Grade papers or read articles about Dumbledore’s sexualty? Oh, yeah. Read the gay wizard stories.
That was my Saturday night. With a relatively easy week ahead, I chose to surf the web and put off the pain of grading for the next evening.
After three or four articles of the similar story, I ended up at some conservative blogs making some rather lame jokes about Hogwarts classes on Defense Against Clashing Robes. Even Andew Sullivan couldn’t help a post about Dumbledore’s wand.
A few clicks later, I was at JK Rowling‘s website, where I was distressed to learn that she was only a week older than I am. I always thought that I would have written a great book or two by this point in my life. My dusty dissertation looks rather pathetic in comparison to her best sellers. I’m never jealous of rich and beautiful people. But successful novelists make me green.
Rowling’s website is an odd duck. Lots of cool things to click and fiddle with. Great way to avoid grading papers and other onerous tasks. But it also has lots of Rowling refuting false tales about herself. She tells her readers that she doesn’t hate thin people, she doesn’t worship the devil, and she didn’t base the character of Gildroy Lockhart on her ex-husband. Don’t bother with that stuff, lady. Just go write me another book.
Since I’ve started this blog, I have ticked off quite a few items off the major to-do list of my life. We bought a house. We got the kids, including one with rather large challenges, onto paths of improvement. I’ve got a job that I enjoy.
I shouldn’t say that those items are completely ticked off. They still need maintenance. A new kitchen, IEPs, homework, publishing articles. But maybe when life is really calm, I will stop reading websites of other people’s successes and add a new item to the life to-do list.
Apt. 11d 