This post contains spoilers for the fourth book of Harry Potter.  If you haven’t read this book and intend to in the future, don’t read this post.

Before we ever started the fourth book of Harry Potter, I prepped the kids for the ending without giving it away.  I told them that starting with the third task, something scary was going to happen, then someone was going to die, and then something scary would happen after that.  They really had no clue who was going to die, though they knew it was someone integral to the story and not another character like Frank Bryce.

We got to the third task while we were sitting on the floor of a shoe store while Josh purchased new dress shoes.  We always carry a book with us so we can slip in a page here or there if Josh is running an errand.  The twins and I were sitting underneath a large display of argyle socks, one child on either side of me, and when it came time for the avada kedavra, I held their hands, bending my head over the book as if I was delivering a funeral sermon.

But they didn’t cry.  They didn’t even seem all that scared.

While we waited for Josh to pay, I kept trying to get them to process the loss of Cedric Diggory, but there was little to process.  “Oh,” the ChickieNob told me, “it’s sad to hear that anyone has died.  But he wasn’t a good friend to Harry, and we didn’t know him all that well.”  Fair enough.

Later in the week, we got to the scarier thing.  At least, in my mind it’s the scarier thing.  When I read the fourth book, I read it without the benefit of anyone prepping me that the end was about to get a little freaky.  I remember thinking that something was about to go down when I saw how many pages were still left after the third task and wasn’t exactly shocked when Cedric was killed.  But the part with Mad-Eye Moody?  That freaked the fuck out of me.  Especially when he took Harry away from the maze.  It felt like one of those bad dreams where you’re being kidnapped, but you can’t run for some reason because your muscles have stopped cooperating.

I used to convince myself that aliens had taken over my parents’ bodies while I wasn’t looking, while they were inside CVS and I was waiting in the car.  So the man getting back in the car, the man who looked, sounded, and smelled like my dad was really an alien impersonating my dad, and he was planning to drive me to an undisclosed location to perform experiments on me.

I had an overactive imagination.

The part with Mad-Eye Moody made me think about that alien fear and how it essentially came true for Harry.  An adult who looked, sounded, and smelled like Mad-Eye Moody but wasn’t Mad-Eye Moody.  And his goal was to take Harry to an undisclosed location and deliver him to the Dark Lord.

Gulp.

The twins felt the same way about the end of the book, though when I shared my childhood fear about the aliens with them, the Wolvog shook his head and explained that what was scary wasn’t the outlandish situations involving Polyjuice potion or aliens.  What was scary was how this could really happen: you could trust an adult who would violate your trust and hurt you.  You could trust a friend, share your secrets with them, and have them use those fears against you when you least expect it.  At the end of the day, what was so scary was this concept of trust, and how easily it could be abused.

And what can I say except they’re right?  People will let them down, in big ways and in small ways.

The ones that do it thoughtlessly will sting, but they’ll get over it.  The ones that do it maliciously will make an indelible mark on their soul.  And that was scary for all of us to think about: their understanding of the world being permanently changed by the actions of others.

Our imaginations can run away with the Voldemorts of this world, the enormity of pure evil.  But what truly chills are not the what ifs but the whens.  Because the twins have already figured out, there will be people in this world who seem trustworthy who prove otherwise, and we need to watch out for not only our physical well-being but our emotional well-being.

Big thoughts, Ms. Rowling, big thoughts.

I loved Tigger’s post about feeling like an imposter, feeling as if she belongs somewhere for a bit, and then feeling in turn as if she doesn’t belong somewhere as she notices the rest of the people in that situation.

Don’t we all keep saying this?  I read it in blog posts, and I hear it from the twins, and I hear it from their friends, and I hear it from my friends.

We sound like a world of people who don’t belong anywhere.  Or maybe we belong everywhere.  Or maybe we defy physics and we belong nowhere and everywhere at the exact same time.

This is where we all belong: in our you-shaped space.  I am Melissa, and I belong in my Melissa-shaped space.  And you are YOU and you belong in your You-shaped space.  And inside that space, we draw all the people we love, and all the people we like, and all the people we merely endure.  We bring in our jobs and our dream-jobs and our houses and our dream-houses and our laundry piles and ice cream cones and all the arguments and accolades.

And that is where we belong, in a space solely defined by ourselves rather than the other you-shaped spaces we see around us, much in the same way that each puzzle piece is its own entity, rubbing up against the other pieces, but not bending itself to be anything other than its puzzle-piece-shaped space fitting amongst the other puzzle-pieces.

Image: Trompevenlo via Flickr

I tried this recipe today.

The cookies came out looking like this:

I did not take a picture of what my kitchen looked like after making the batter because I didn’t want to scare you.  I also did not photograph the kitchen sink piled high with measuring cups.  Something I learned today: don’t double this recipe in the stand mixer.  The taste verdict: still out.  Butterscotch chips and coffee are overpowering, and the cookie needs to be baked on the lowest rack at 350 (not 375) for 14 minutes, and then turned and baked for an additional 4 minutes in order to get the colouring described in the recipe.  If you bake it at 375, the cookies spread too much.

I was vacuuming on Wednesday, and I managed to tip over a lamp, shattering it.  No one came up to see if I was okay, because… you know… it was only a loud crash and then the sound of spraying glass.  No biggie.

I came downstairs and told the twins and their friend what happened, and then set out to clean up the mess.  I picked up the big pieces and the rest of the lamp, and dragged it through the room they were all in so I could put it in the garbage outside.  In doing so, I cut my foot on some of the glass and commented that I was bleeding, and they dully called out, “sorry that you’re bleeding” as I limped through their scintillating game of ponies.

And then, a half hour later, during dinner — which was late due to the lamp incident — I commented that we’d have to go out to get a lamp that night and the Wolvog said, “whoa, why are we buying a lamp?”

Am I talking to the air molecules?

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Josh ended up picking up the lamp.  The man at the store told him it was six feet tall.  He assembled it.  It definitely wasn’t six feet.

In the middle of the night, I got up to pee, and when I came out of the bathroom, I gasped and jumped backwards.  At first I thought there was a very petite and skinny man in our room.  Then I thought there was an emaciated dragon.  Then I remembered that we had a new lamp.  Then I went back to sleep.

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There is still time to join along for the first book of the GRAB(ook) Club.  We’re discussing on June 13th.  And if you can’t join that one, hop on for one of the later ones in the summer:

• June’s Book: Measure of Love by Melissa Ford (discuss on June 13)
• July’s Book: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (discuss July 18)
• August’s Book: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (discuss August 15)
• September’s Book: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (discuss September 12)

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My brother had some fantastic writing advice on his blog this week, and it has nothing to do with what you put down on the page or the amount of times you tweet each week to build your platform.  It has everything to do with how you treat other people; not the ones that you think you can get something from, but the ones that you treat well along the way just because.  Those usually turn out to be the ones who make the biggest difference in whether you make it out of the slush pile or not.

Frankly, the idea to “remember Joe” is good advice for life in general.  Not to focus on some people while ignoring others; since it’s usually the ones that you ignore who turn out to be the most important.

By the way, he’s been on both sides of agenting and editorial, and he takes publishing and writing questions if you have them because he’s nice.  In fact, sometimes when you ask me something, I, in turn, check with him.

Plus he gives really really good editing notes.  Like he just did for Apart at the Seams.  I could not write without him, even though I do remember the Joes.

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Speaking of which, the winner of the Measure of Love e-book giveaway is…

drumroll please…

Dora from My Preconceived Notion.  Congratulations!  I will be emailing you today.

I will hopefully have another copy to give away soon.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Did I Do That?” (MoJo Working)
• “May the Miscarriage Be With You” (Stupid Stork)

Okay, now my choices this week.

River Runs Dry has a post about having it all… except not really.  It starts with her desire to be a CEO in the future, and ends with her thought of leaving behind that goal.  I love this thought: “it’s a matter of focus. Focusing on what’s needed in the here and now. If that means my career takes a backseat in the coming years so I can focus on other things, then so be it.”

Mine to Command has a post about challenging herself as well as accepting her limitations, which is applicable to so many facets in life.  The post happens to be about running, but she brings it around to babymaking by the end.  I hope she gets pregnant this cycle because the repetition of that number would make for a good story.

Old Lady and No Baby has a post about the talk she gives her softball team before prom.  In years past, she has focused on drugs or alcohol, but this year, the topic was sex and it ran the gamut from pointing out that the pressure has been there for every generation (“Those types of pressures haven’t changed, they have simply become more acceptable.  We HAVE been in their shoes and we DO understand how hard it is.”) to her own personal experience with infertility and loss.  I sort of wish she traveled the country and gave her talk to all teenagers.

Lastly, My Lady of the Lantern has a post about being kind to herself.  I love this part: “But I seem to have developed a habit of looping and repeating the negative experience in my mind till something else comes up. I began taking hurt too personally, and kept it close.”  Me too.  Oh my G-d, and this: “This family drama is jelly. You can press it and take it to any shape.”  Great post.

The roundup to the Roundup: I mostly talk to the air.  Not too late to join the online book club.  My brother’s great writing advice.  The winner of the Measure of Love giveaway.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 17th and May 24th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I really love these these discussions.

A few weeks ago, Ana asked, “what’s next?  Showering vs. bathing?”

Uh… yes.

I am a shower-er.  No baths for me, pretty much ever.  I like to get clean quickly.  Those showers that have stone seats built in the corner, encouraging the user to luxuriously relax in the warm spray of water… I use those ledges to hold shampoo bottles.

I’m a fan of hot springs like Ein Gedi, but other than something like that, I don’t enjoy… soaking.  I don’t enjoy sitting in a tub of water.

I do have a dream shower, even if I don’t have a dream house.  I want a shower with a window in it.  I wrote about it a while back in the post about the vomiting clown picture:

My friend, A, and I made a reservation to stay in a pensione in Rome for two weeks while we did research. After we dragged our suitcases up six flights of stairs, we learned that the woman who owned the pensione had decided to do some renovations that week. “You’ll stay in my apartment,” she told us, giving us the key to her personal home.

Instead of a small room in a boarding house, we now had an apartment in Trastevere, a much nicer section of Rome, complete with a washer and dryer, several bedrooms, and–my favourite part of all–a shower with a window in it. I’ve always said that it is my dream to live in a house that had a window in the shower. Those who have never been in a shower like this usually respond, “it sounds creepy.” But those who have showered in one know the saying, “once you’ve had the window cracked, you can never go back.”

I still dream about that shower and the little red, circular window.

So, do you prefer showering or bathing?