I just got back from Writer’s Camp on Saturday, and what better to greet me than my favorite person in the world, Alex (which totally would have been enough of a homecoming on it’s own, I swear!), bearing the gift of words. 759 pages worth, actually. While I was holed up in a rustic lodge deep in the mountains (well, not too deep, I mean, we were able to walk to the Lariat in Grand Lake for a night of local culture), my husband braved mobs of eager suburbanites to surprise me with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, just in time for my return to civilization.

I won’t speculate on whether he intended to keep me locked up all day today reading, but that’s exactly what I did. I’ve been known to devour books in a single bound before, but not usually tomes of this length. I was simply convinced that I’d find out the ending online or on the radio before reading it for myself, so I just had to finish today. Sure, my eyes burn, I’m a little over-ripe (unless you count the full glass of ice water Alex so delicately knocked all over me as a shower… between us chickens, I think he did it on purpose after trying unsuccessfully to attract my attention with a series of faces, gestures, dances, and songs after I hadn’t spoken in four hours, lost in the bowels of Hogwarts’ secret passages), and I’ve yet to unpack from my trip, but it was worth it. I wonder how many other devoted (re: crazy, borderline manic) fans ignored their lives and loves this weekend to do the same?

Now it’s approaching midnight, the witching hour (no Potter pun intended) that turns from Sunday to Monday and slowly leads me down the path to my day job (in case you’re a new reader, I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob!). The trick is, how do I simultaneously finish those pesky revisions on my novel while feigning enthusiasm for the Web vendor interviews I’ve scheduled this week at the Robot Graveyard?

Hmmm. If only I had some Polyjuice Potion and a monkey.

“Hi, my name is Bongo. I like to climb on things. Can I have a banana? Eep eep.”