Jody Amable

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

There are a lot of things to hate about the Olympics.

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.

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

Jon Stewart, step aside. Your heir apparent has arrived.

No matter how drunk he is, he can’t NOT notice this. His hand is moving. What do I do? What do I do? Do I politely ask him to stop? Do I yell at him? Do I wheel around and whack him in the face? You don’t know what he’s doing, Jody. Calm down. Don’t make a scene.

FINALLY someone acknowledges professional boundaries at Hogwarts.

Harnessing the courage within myself—courage I didn’t even know I had—to coolly, calmly call this guy out has made me a better human being.

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.