Wedding, Friends, Harry Potter & SO MUCH MORE

No, I'm not dying. No, I haven't broken both hands. No, I'm not a werewolf. It's just that if I take a break from blogging, even for only a couple of days, it becomes really hard to get back into the swing of things. But here I am, a-swingin' once more.

I'm currently on the floor of the entrance hallway at Sebastian's house, watching him take apart and fix his family's computer out of pure skill and technological brilliance. It's sort of like watching somebody sleepwalk-- he keeps mumbling half-sentences under his breath, narrating his actions, occasionally yelling. Now his mother is calmly raising her voice at Sebastian's younger brother, who is passionately fighting from upstairs about something he claims not to have done. Their dad sits next to me in an armchair, talking about a combination of American politics and family politics, both of which I feel rather uncomfortable hearing about.

They're all gone now. I shall continue to eat the chocolate bar Sebastian bought for me (I know, right? I think it's mostly because he made me mad by correcting my punctuation the other night, but either way, it's chocolate and he's more a grammarian than I am), studying the lineage of the remaining pureblood Harry Potter families, and rereading chapter 34 of Deathly Hallows. That's about all for today, besides the fact that I went to a local bookstore and got a free HUGE (albeit ugly) poster with pictures of the Potter books on it. I also had tomato soup for breakfast. It was delightful. Now I shall proceed to list the events that occurred since my last blog.

Later on Saturday, August 15:

Sarah and Graham had a pretty outdoor wedding on a grassy hilltop, overlooking a pond. The bride's side sat in the sunshine, as Sarah's family is mostly from Texas, and the midwestern groom's side sat under the shade of a green, branchy tree. It was a very religious ceremony, which I thought was sweet and fitting for my friends. The wedding party walked down the aisle to the couple's favorite hymns, and their vows were traditional and faith-based. They had me do a reading, which was really sweet of them. The bridesmaids wore their hair up and all different styles of blueish-teal dresses. Sarah's gown was long and white with shimmery detail along the waist, halter top, and intricate back. She wore a tiara and a flowy veil over her updo, as well as long, dangly earrings. Graham looked mature and happy, but, you know, not much of a sight compared to his gorgeous wife.

The reception took place inside the barn at the bottom of the hill, which was big and pretty inside, with wooden dance-floor and long, decorated tables. The meal was awesome and local-flavored: big ears of corn from a nearby farm, ribs or some other gross, unidentified meat for the carnivores, yummy salad, fresh fruit, rolls, and a detailed vegan cake. The DJ played an assortment of fandom-requested pop songs from the '70s and '80s, spurring on "Don't Stop Believing" dance pits and "Bohemian Rhaspody" singalongs. Most of the boys and some of the girls congregated outside to smoke cigars. That's when I learned how bad I am at smoking cigars. Lauren Fairweather also took a lot of ugly candid photographs of me during this time (unfortunately just of my sweaty hair; no pictures have yet surfaced of me with a cigar), Liane blew bubbles in everybody's faces, and Nina and I bonded even more.

Afterwards, Lauren, Nina and I made a video that I'll be posting on my channel tomorrow or Friday, depending on when natural traffic slows to my latest video. We were tired and it was dark in the room we were filming, so it isn't overflowing with caliber or anything (I understand that doesn't make sense), but I think you guys'll really like it, regardless. We rushed through it so that the Myrtles could go to bed, having driven eight hours that day to get to my house, and so I could go to Kathleen's house for the after-party bonfire. There, I learned a little bit more about how much I love the fandom, searched blindly in the dark with Adam (acheronwalthers) for s'more sticks I never used, and sat obnoxiously on my friends' laps, all while making jokes about Sarah and Graham's wedding night.

Sunday, August 16

Sunday was depressing, as everybody left one after the other to go home. As much stress as there had been figuring out directions, driving all around the county, making trip after trip to the airport, figuring out where people could sleep, it still hurt to say goodbye. Marlena (fluffvondanger) and Jackie (gymmidget415) left first, and at Jackie's hotel, I got to hug goodbye to Jenn (soozfive) and Lena (butterbeerwrocks), as well as awkwardly nod to Justin Timberlake. We got to the airport calling time really close, but the girls got safely on their plane.

When I returned home, Lauren and I filmed a video for Kristina to cheer her up in London, and while it was too hot to be outside filming, turning my camera off meant it was time for the Myrtles to head out. Hugging Lauren and Nina SUCKED that time, because now I don't know exactly when I'll see them again. Luckily for us, our friendships are the solid kind that can be started back exactly where they were left off.

Leah (professorspork), Amanda (gir1inthemirror) and I followed Lauren's car out the driveway and made our way to the movie theater for our last hurrah, to see Half-Blood Prince together. Nothing beats talking about Harry Potter with those who truly get it. We made a lot of whispered jokes about the phallic shape of the Dark Mark's snake, held up counting fingers every time Draco took the blanket off the Vanishing Cabinet (4), pointed out mistakes in the props (No hyphen in Half-Blood, "Thomas" Riddle on the memory), and aww'd over Harry's relationship with Luna. With every viewing, I become happier with certain scenes, like Sectumsempra, and more irritated with others, like the ending with Ron six yards away from Harry and Hermione. All in all, though, it was hard to mourn the death of that terrible excuse for an actor, Michael Gambon, when my friends were about to be gone for an undetermined length of time.

After a quickly averted scare that their flight had been delayed to the point that they'd miss their connector flight, I waited with Leah and Amanda at an airport Subway for about half an hour, in which we discussed Harry Potter characters some more and noticed how unfun it is to say goodbye to friends. When that time finally came, we hugged, and I listened to my car radio halfheartedly, alone, for the first time in a week.

Monday, August 17

If Monday existed this week, I didn't notice it. I think I did a lot of reading, and maybe saw Jess? It's possible that I saw her on Sunday night. Either way, there was Chipotle involved, even though we were full, and Sebastian was there. He and I were both tired and irritable, so we spend a lot of the time brandishing plastic knives at each other while Jess watched out of the corner of her eye, when she wasn't stealing our phones to send nonsensical tweets. I posted my High School Freshmen video, and I think I'm pretty sure I went to bed before the time contained double digits before the colon.

Tuesday, August 18

Oh! I remember what I did on Monday, but as I did absolutely nothing of note on Tuesday, I'll just write it in this space to sound like more of a balanced person. I had my laptop in the kitchen, uploading the freshmen video, my camera plugged into the desktop computer in the living room, importing the Kristina video and the Lauren and Nina video, and I was running between the two Macs, checking progress. Playing on the radio in the background was a hiphop remix of a country song, and just as I was thinking about how depressing it is that such a thing would exist, a barrage of cars filled my driveway and street. I squinted through the window to see what kind of uninvited guests would attack during a heavy rainstorm, to see a very large sampling of my male friends heading up to my front door. I feared all kinds of disasters: kidnapping, surprise parties, interventions.

It turns out they just wanted me to go over to Graham's house before he left again for New York. The parade of us headed down to his part of town, where we ate ice cream and watched Coraline. We even saw the first half of it in 3D, before we decided that the eye pain coming from the glasses wasn't worthwhile. I knew I was going to love Coraline, which is the reason I didn't see it in theaters-- I like to appreciate fantastic movies in a comfortable place, after the hype has died down, so I can feel like it's mine-- but I didn't know it was going to be the most frightening film I'd ever seen! I really don't understand how it's rated PG when The Ring is PG-13. Decrepit Asian girls crawling out of household appliances are terrifying, yeah, but so is having buttons sewn in place of your eyes! I don't understand why people think live action makes it seem more real, because Coraline is the REAL kind of scary!

Back to now, now.

Sebastian left twenty minutes ago to take pictures of a local political event, because I think he has this thing for feeling like he's preserving history, and he really likes taking pictures. I didn't want to go for a whole assortment of reasons, so I'm alone in his house, but for his brother who's upstairs either chatting on the phone or talking to himself, and his dog, who is licking herself and wagging whenever I acknowledge her. Oreo (the dog, not the brother) is now pawing at her own face in quite the adorable fashion, and I'm considering playing the piano to my right. Just so I can upset myself over how much I forget how to play the piano.

Okay, so this has been one of my longer blog posts, and if you care about your mental health or are opposed to boredom, I doubt you've made it this far. I just needed to get every droplet of blog material out onto the internet so I can feel free again.

Sexy: Chapter 34 of Deathly Hallows. My pastor once said in a church service, "How many people do you know who would die for his loved ones, as well as the souls of people he'd never met?" My sister and I squinted our eyes from laughter and had to fight, hard, not to shout, "HARRY POTTER DID!"

Unsexy: Not blogging for several days. I didn't even realize how off-kilter I felt until I put fingers to keys!

Chipotle burritos this year: 27

S'mores this summer: 6

Subscribers: 19,510

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow, for real. <3