Who the heck do I think I am?

Okay, so here's something to think about.

The other night, Joel and I were talking about living alone and the high (IMO) density of people who talk to themselves when they live alone or spend a lot of time alone. In the Gweniverse, I'm never completely alone, though, because character-muses constantly provide the opposing voice in my internal dialogue. Like Tom Hanks' character in Cast Away anthropomorphizes "Wilson," I think we as humans need someone to bounce off of, even when that someone is a figment of imagination.

So we're talking about this, and I was saying that it's often characters from books, or TV or movies, and I mentioned how driving is a huge opportunity for this process, and how often these days Will Laurence or Temeraire are my co-pilots (Temeraire because he's a very fun conversationalist and Laurence because he occupies that lovely "straight man" capacity), and that when Granby's in the back seat it's even worse.

And Joel, who's just read His Majesty's Dragon, said he didn't know who Granby was - because, as he put it, he'd "never heard the word pronounced." I said that he'd read the book - he should recognize the name.

And then he said that he never internalizes the pronunciation of proper nouns and names while he's reading things.

I find that fascinating and impossible. I asked about maps: Does he "hear" the pronunciation of streets and such when reading the map? No. He "sees" them as glyphs and then looks for the glyph that matches the picture in his memory.

Bzuh?

So... what we want to know is how anomalous that is, or whether I'm the one who's odd in always figuring out how to say people and place-names when I'm reading. I've known for a long, long time that I prefer to "hear" the words spoken in my head as I read - it's one of the reasons I'm a slow reader - but is that "normal" or is it more normal to take in the word without an attempt to "speak" it and then simply recognize it on repetition? Is it a difference in thought? Teaching? Or actual brain process?

Discuss.

We're leaving for Infinitus TOMORROW!

Leg one of our journey starts once I pack my car and go to A's house, where we will pack the car MORE and then drive to our hotel which is just south of Philly.

Leg two will be getting up Sunday and booking down to the other side of D.C. where we will catch the AutoTrain. Adventur! Train overnight in our little "roomette".

We will arrive in Orlando Monday morning and proceed to the Royal Pacific once we get our car off the train. We will have WiFi definitely in the hotel tomorrow night, but I don't know that we will on the train.

Then INFINITUS begins OMG.

This whole last couple days have been weird. Because of the intense heat I've been basically living in my bedroom instead of the front of the house (because here's where the A/C unit is). It's been surreal, only going out into the rest of the house when necessary. I've also been doing all the little things one does when leaving the house for almost two weeks: cleaning out the food gone bad (so it's not all even more STINKY when I get back) and all the packing that couldn't be done until I was done with the items going in. And dealing with all the last-minute stuff that we're dealing with in preparation.

And in the midst of this, pegkerr turned me on to this HILARIOUS blog on Buzznet: Mark Reads Harry Potter. I've caught up with his reading of SS and CoS and the 15 chapters he's read so far of PoA. They are hysterical. He's reading each book and blogging the experience, one chapter at a time, trying to remain as spoiler-free as possible - not easy when people spoil him in the comments. I really feel for him, about that, because the absolute charm of this project is watching him discover everything as a first-time reader who, remarkably, knows next to nothing about HP. It's great fun and needless to say his reviews are GOLD. He's fair when he sees a critical problem, but overall he's experiencing the wonder and the WTF and the OMG that is the first time through a series with this many twists and turns.

He apparently came to this project after reviewing Twilight in the same manner - and I'm reading that now. OMG, so funny. He totally calls Twilight for the POS that it is (I mean, really, it IS) and is HATING every chapter with more and more hatred. These are endlessly entertaining, folks.

Mark Reads Harry Potter - go all the way back to the beginning, it's High-freaking-larious.

Also, ABC Family is doing HP weekend again with previews and inside looks at HP&theDH, but I'm excited because at 11:00 I am going to watch MOOSE ATTACK! on Discovery. It should be all kinds of AWESOME. I mean. It's about MOOSE. ATTACKING! It's got to be cracktastic.

Maybe worth a second glass of wine. I think so, don't you?

(Oh and in other news my house got chosen to be a ratings family. I think. It just said 337, no unit number. I may have to take the paperwork with me and go online to file to make sure they don't want my landlord's unit instead of mine. Because fuck yeah, I want to be a ratings family!)

Feel free to crosspost:


Writers of Young Adult fiction are cordially invited to submit short excerpts of their work to read at Portus as part of the Portus YA Author Reading Series. The readings will take place Friday morning, July 11th, and Saturday morning, July 12th, 2008 at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas.

Portus is a Harry Potter symposium sponsored by the HP Education Fanon, Inc. (HPEF) While Portus is primarily a gathering for Harry Potter scholars and fans, its activities span the range of academic and fan interests. Our attendees are avid readers of Young Adult fiction and enjoy hearing readings from new writers, as well as established writers in the field.

We invite all YA writers wanting share their work with us to submit an excerpt of their writing. The excerpt should be able to be read in 20 minutes. Upon acceptance to the Portus YA Author Reading Series, the author is eligible for a special rate of $180 for the convention. Efforts will be made to gather the author’s publication(s) for sale in the Vendor Room, and an autograph session would be held Friday and Saturday afternoon for attending authors to meet fans.

Works considered for the Portus YA Author Reading Series must be excerpts of the author’s original fiction. Preference will be given to published authors and writers of YA fiction or YA—friendly material.

We hope you will consider joining us at Portus. To be considered for the Portus YA Author Reading Series, send an an email indicating your interest to Dr. Catherine Schaff-Stump at yareadings@portus2008.org with your submitted work as an email attachment. Please include the following information in the body of the email.

Name of author(s):
Email address(es):
Phone number(s):
Summary of the work (500 words or less):
Author biography (150 words or less):

Thank you for your time and consideration. Please send submissions no later than May 15th. We look forward to reading your work and hope to have you join us for Portus.

Questions? Reply here or contact yareadings AT portus2008 DOT com.