I've been keeping this quiet
I am ill. I am very, very sick. I have this horrible syndrome known as HPA. It flares up now and then, but it is particularly virulent at the moment.
I have...Harry Potter Anxiety.
The symptoms, currently, are anxiety over how best to plan my purchases so that I am reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince very early in the morning on July 16, 2005. My mind is spinning, you see, it is hard to concentrate. Do I order online and hope for the best? Neither Amazon nor Barnes & Noble is promising delivery on the release date, though both did this last time. I could get my name on a list at my local book store, but then I'd have to go get it at midnight on July 15.... I know myself, this means that I'll be reading it through the night. I could wait, I guess. It wasn't until late in the ordering that B&N and Amazon made the promise to deliver on Saturday. But what if they don't subsequently make the promise? Will I be able to wait, or did having it on Saturday for Book 5 totally spoil me? I worry that if I don't get it as soon as possible that I'll have to call in sick to work...with full-blown HPA...so that I can stay home and read it. Do I call my local bookstore and find out if they will be selling the books at midnight on July 15? I mean, if I'm going to get it at my local bookseller, I want some assurances that I can have the book at one minute after midnite and that they won't run out.
I told you it was a sickness.
It is much like my sister's angsting over pass rates on this actuarial exam or that one. "50% is the normal pass rate, but everyone I've talked to says it was easy. So maybe only 40% passed this time. I didn't answer three questions and I know of two that I got wrong. So the highest I could score is 70%. And those are just the problems I know of off the top of my head."
It sounds ridiculous until you live through it.
Other symptoms of HPA include watery, tired eyes. Eyes that won't close. Paper cuts from turning crisp pages too quickly. Overtiredness from staying up late to finish the book or "one more chapter" after "one more chapter". Occasionally shouting out "Muggle" in your sleep, trying to open doors with "Alohamora". Expecting lights to turn off by saying "Nox."
There is no cure. And quite clearly it is not something you outgrow.
Labels: Harry Potter
