I've been home since Monday, but I only just got the Internet working here at my mom's house. I was a little surprised at how little my Internet craving has been since I got here. I spent the past several days working on my costume for the Harry Potter release, hanging out with my friend Keiko (mostly in reference to said release), and knitting my first pair of socks. The idea of getting back online and having to struggle with the crappy dialup to catch up on all the things that need to be caught up on (friendslist, webcomics, and blogs) wasn't much of a motivator, nor was the fact that I had to call customer service to do it. (I hate making phonecalls.) But, now I am online, slow as it is, and I'll be working on catching up on everything.

Cicero's acting a little funny. I think he's just sulky because this is the first time he's been turned on in four or five days. (Probably a personal record.) Right now I'm trying to get my pictures from the Tattered Cover uploaded, which is complicated a lot by the way the phone cord falls out of the computer every time I look at it wrong.

But, oh my gosh, you guys, the Tattered Cover release was AWESOME. There were so many cool costumes, and . . . it was just great. I went as Luna Lovegood, like I said, and my costume was awesome. My mom sewed robes for me (at the last minute and at great personal stress--my mom is amazing), and I had a Ravenclaw tie (book colors, of course), a wand behind my ear, and a bottle cap necklace. I was a little troubled about the necklace--the description of Luna in Book 5 clearly says butterbeer caps, but in Book 6, it's called a necklace of butterbeer corks, twice. I went with the caps, mostly because I'd already bought them and I think they look cooler.

The trip was organized by my friend Keiko, who is as big a Harry Potter nerd as you could ever hope to meet. You start throwing trivia at her--obscure stuff, too--and she just shoots you down. There were five of us--Keiko went as Draco (and her costume was perfect). Her sister Emily went as Tonks, and one of her brothers did the wizard-as-a-Muggle thing, while the other didn't bother with a costume. Keiko worked really hard on her costume and on Emily's. (We were actually patching Emily's jeans in the car on the way there.) I mean, she learned how to sew just to make her robes! (Which will give you even more appreciation when you see them.)

I uploaded a TON of pictures, which you can find over here. You should at least go long enough to admire my costume, and Keiko's.

As for the book itself? I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm much too tired just now to put my thoughts into order. I'll probably post about it tomorrow or something. For now, I should probably start catching up on my friends list, but I think I'm going to go to bed instead.