Jody Amable

I was waiting to finally not like a Harry Potter book, and folks, I found it. Half-Blood Prince was boring.

If I let everyone off the hook for extenuating circumstances like, “He’s over 50, so he probably just doesn’t know any better,” no one’s ever going to stop calling me “sweetie.”

Creator of grungy, gritty rock and roll with a poet’s heart, her critically-lauded record, Beyond the Bloodhounds, tells tales of a tumultuous childhood and split geographical identity.

So far, Deathly Hallows is, to me, about the divide between the living, the dead, and the living who have seen death. Harry and I are part of an exclusive club: Those under 30 who have experienced death. And when I say “experienced,” I don’t mean “witnessed.” I mean really, really felt it, all the way through.

In the aftermath of my mom passing, I've learned to reconcile our rocky relationship with the knowledge that she loved me.

The neighbors turned their lights off. My dog fell sound asleep. I kept reading. And at 1:03 am, I finished. All was well.

Forget a cute story of wizard wonderment — the real moral of Harry Potter is that life is an endless parade of pain and turmoil where you have to watch everyone you’ve ever loved die.

I couldn’t help but assume the reason these people were telling me not to say even a word to this troll was because women aren’t supposed to fight back. We’re supposed to rise above — to “not stoop to their level,” as my mom used to say.

Like most nerd realms, music writing is a predominantly male world. Especially if, like me, your greatest love is classic rock.

The further I get into this series, the harder time I am having remembering what the eff has happened so far. You see, I am an Old Lady.