I originally wanted to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince at midnight release, but I also wanted to see it with my friends Molly and Ashley, and Ashley wanted to wait for IMAX and Molly was out of town anyway. And I knew that my parents would want to take my brother and me, since that's what we've done for all of them. They're never read the books, but my parents do enjoy the movies.

So that's why I just saw it last night.

( My thoughts )

Me and my brother re-watched the fifth movie the other night, and I noticed that the students, especially Ron and Hermione, wear a lot of striped shirts. A lot of striped shirts. Three or four per character in a single film. Harry mainly wears solid colors, but it's stripes for everyone else.

I will be seeing the movie again at some point, and I'll have the book finished then. So I'll have more thoughts later. This is all mainly for my own records.

For me, summer has always meant the annual Cleaning of the Room. Except for showers and meal breaks and occasional errand-running with mom, we do nothing but clean our bedrooms until dad gets home from work in the afternoon. It hasn't been so bad this year. I'm older now, and I suppose that cleaning doesn't seem like such an insurmountable chore as it did when I was a child, and I can now truly appreciate a clean room. That, and I want to sort out what I'm taking with me to college.

I cleaned my entire floor yesterday, vacuumed and mopped. It's a nice feeling. Today I helped mom take care of Grandma and then took a nap because that required me to get up early, so I didn't get a lot done. But I did go reorganize my bookshelf.

( Who doesn't love checking out other people's bookshelves? )

I like how the later it got the lazier/weirder my entry got.

My friend Laila from the writer's workshop was in town this week to see her brother, who's interning at a local hospital. Yesterday I met her and her friend Carolee, who drove up here with her for company, at the St. Louis Art Museum. We saw almost the whole thing, from the religious art to the furniture to the mummies. (Yes, we have mummies in our art museum!)

( Pictures and details )

After the museum, we picked up Laila's brother and went to lunch at Blueberry Hill, which could be a whole other picture post. The decor is great and the food is good too. Then we took the brother back to work, swung by his apartment for something (which looks nothing like a guy's apartment, it was weird), and got lost looking for the Ted Drewes on South Grand. But an hour and one crappy GPS later, we did find it and it was delicious. Then we had to part ways, and I banged my head on Carolee's car hugging her goodbye, but we planned for me to come out to their city for a weekend some time this summer.

This week is heavy duty cleaning week, and I'm supposed to work on my room pretty much from when I get up in the morning (10-ish) to when my dad gets home from work (usually 3:30, but he sometimes works over for a couple hours). I'm not doing that much cleaning per day, but it is a good amount. My room really needs it.

My friend Laila from the writer's workshop is coming up here on Thursday night because one of her brothers goes to school in the city. We're going out for dinner. I'm thinking Blueberry Hill.

Half-Blood Prince comes out a week from tomorrow, haven't started re-reading it yet. Need to get on that.

I've been writing character profiles lately, have two in the process and one finished. Figuring out what readers need to know before hand and what they can find out as they go along. Categories include Full Name, Birthday/Age, Apperance, Wardrobe, History, Traits, and Relationships. Maybe a picture if I have one.

I'll give you a sample. Some of it won't make sense without the context of the series outline and details on other characters, but it's just to show what I've been working on lately.

( Christie )

... that the dreams in which I save classmates from fiery elevators are the best I've ever had.

( I haven't done a dream post in a while )

All of those were from this morning. They're a lot different from my usual dreams, which tend to be pop culture crack. These were all taken from real life, no pop references. Although Ephraim was the name of the main character on the old WB show Everwood, but I never watched it. I just read that the actor who played him is coming back to TV, which is an eerie coincidence.

I don't know why my Loud Twitter posts haven't been showing up lately. I should look into that.

( Well, to catch you folks up... )

I used my rename token today!

It's no longer LordoftheLost42, it's now wilky_wit. (Although the URL has a hyphen instead of an underscore.) I came up with that first name when I was 14 and a much different person from who I am now, and I just needed a change.

I explained the new name in an earlier post, but I think I should tell it again.

For the last semester of my senior year, I wrote for the high school newspaper. I also earned myself a reputation as a humorist, mainly do to this essay I wrote for my Government class. So I'm writing my last column, and I sent it my Journalism teacher, Holmes, for comments. And he sends it back saying that he thought it could be funnier and that I should put in more "Wilky wit". (My last name is Wilkinson.)

It was a weird little moment, but it also meant something. I want to create television shows, and I've been mulling over my production company name for a few years. After a while, I just thought, "Don't think about it now. The universe will present a name to you." (Yeah, that's how I think.) And that's what "Wilky wit" was. Right now, that is what I'm going to name my company: Wilky Wit Productions. So I figured it was a good name for my journal.

The article in question

Me and Holmes
I made newspaper hats for the staff at the end of the year, and Holmes, of course, got a ridiculously elaborate one.