Sigh. *crunch*

I like salt. I shut the bag to stop my nibbling. (Utz Ripples have a LOT of salt. Yum.)

I'm probably one of the only people who procrastinates reading Harry Potter. Book Six has been sitting in my room for nearly three months, and it's logically next on my reading mix, but I've been putting off starting it for at least two days. Mostly because... I'm not sure. Because.

My greatest "adventure" this week was walking 15 minutes in the cold early morning. With windchill, below zero, Fahrenheit. Little Miss Temperate Climate immersed in the extreme. Why am I living here? Or, why aren't I more warm-blooded?

Life isn't particularly exciting. Perhaps it's better this way. It's not steady - there are definitely ups and downs - the sine wave is not approaching zero - but it's not wild or erratic. The lows aren't the deepest depths, nor the highs beyond the stratosphere. Now I get to learn to manage, to find stability, within a life that is not consistent. To balance the more up with the more down, to somehow stay near enough the center that the pull of gravity doesn't accelerate me beyond what I can endure. Perhaps just seeing the center is the key - I don't have to be there to recognize it, or to turn towards it. Maybe it's more about orientation than exact location. Not that location doesn't matter, but when things are simultaneously this changeable and this always the same, the orientation, the turn, becomes more important. Like with glasses - if you're near-sighted or far-sighted, the location, the distance from your face, matters. But once the location is somewhat fixed, if you have astigmatism (like I do), the the orientation, the exact angle of the lens to your eye, becomes critical. Just a slight twist to the frames wrecks the angle, and blurs your vision. They may be in the right place, but they're wrong all the same. Now I get to learn how to be the flower on the windowsill, that turns to face the sun, until this becomes such a habit that if it's moved somewhere else, it still follows the light.

Maybe I avoid Harry Potter because I expect it to get between me and the light. Not that I'd go so far as to accuse the books of being evil - they have darkness in them, but also redemption. But they're fiction, they're fantasy, they AREN'T REAL, and right now the sky is so gloomy it's hard to find the sun to face it, and maybe Harry Potter will cast more shadows, or shine a false light, and just cause more uncertainty. The book won't give me answers, that's for sure. If anything, they'll inspire a longing for a different life, a different reality; a dissatisfaction with this life, with reality. That's my problem with fiction. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE reading, especially fiction. I studied literature for a reason. But. If I already feel itchy in this skin, reading about a fascinating other possible skin makes me try to escape this skin, makes me want to pretend I'm in the other skin, makes putting up with the itch even less possible. If a book will make me want a different life - ie, want the life in the book - I put my guard up. This is the life I have. I know I don't really want to go to Hogwarts. I don't really want to be a wizard. I don't really want to use a word or flip of the wand to cook, or wash dishes, or clean my room. I want more direct, tactile responsibility for what I do. I don't want to be able to use one word to kill someone, or torture them, or flip them upside down, or anything else. Words can already to so much harm; I prefer them left up to interpretation rather than become concrete forces.

I want to live here. Now. In the freezing cold, clutching a mug of tea, with my socked and slippered feet tucked under me, or even slipping on ice when I walk into town. In a house full of people, a cat, and an occasional visiting puppy. Feeling my hands drying and cracking because of the dust and dirt of books and money. Frying three eggs for breakfast every morning. Eating potato chips because I'm craving salt. And putting off reading Harry Potter #6 because I don't want to become dissatisfied with here. I'm just a person, a mere muggle, with still-lacking social abilities, annoying food intolerances, very bad eyesight, not enough patience, and too many interpersonal confusions. But I'd rather be me than anyone in fiction. And I'd rather be here than anywhere else, too. There. That's a declaration: I'd rather be me than anyone else, and I'd rather be here than anywhere else.

Maybe now that I've cleared that up, I can make dinner and curl up with the Half-Blood Prince. Who knows?