The most curious and wonderful thing happened to me last week. But first, a lead up…

My group and I decided to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on opening night at the Mann Chinese 6 (we chose the small theater instead of the giant Grauman’s because we wanted stadium seating). That day happened to be a phenomenally busy one for me. Eight hours of my day job that were abnormally packed, my lunch hour consisted of running around the Valley catching up on errands. After work I hit up a local wine tasting I had been meaning to try for some time ($1 Wednesdays at Vendome. It’s beyond worth it. I’m now a regular Wednesday resident. I walk in and they throw me a Cheers greeting. “JAAAAAY”.). So I raced from work to get to the wine tasting so I’d have enough time to taste, then grab dinner, and then hit the theater. I get to the wine tasting just fine, dig in to some great Chardonnay’s and try to plan my next move.

You see, I also needed to meet up with my best friend A-Train, who was delivering me my everyday shoes that I left in his car after we went white-water rafting for my birthday, a few days before (P.S. It was awesome. We even capsized in a class-three rapid. I was so Kevin Bacon in The River Wild. A-Train was my moronic sidekick, John C. Reilly.). So the situation was this: its 7:30, the movie starts at 8:30, I need to drive from North Hollywood over the hill to the heart of Hollywood, meet A-Train and grab my shoes, find dinner, eat, and meet my group at the theater. Also, I’m slightly buzzed form the awesome Vendome vino. I thrive on time constraints, so I wasn’t too worried. That is, until I got into Hollywood. I had forgotten that the ESPY Awards were being filmed at the Hollywood & Highlands complex that night (where the theater is located), and in response to the event, all access routes to the complex had been shut down. There was gridlock everywhere. I suddenly saw my chances of eating and getting my shoes back (a necessity as I’m trying to rehab a bum ankle and need the shoes for that end) going up in flames.

I struggled to get through the cabal of frustrated cars. Slowly but surely, and with enough time to find food and meet A-Train, I swooped into the complex, parked my Man-UV (it’s a Baby Blue Honda CRV and thus needs the testosterone qualifier), and was on my feet and mobile by 8:05pm. A-Train, however, was coming in from Westwood and was waylaid by the everyday traffic in West Hollywood and the added impact from the ESPY’s. Since roads were blocked off we had to try Plans B-Q to get him to a place where I could meet him. We set the location (a sidestreet that required a seven minute walk from the complex) and I waited for him to tell me he was close enough for me to set out. In the meantime, I tried to find food. All of the food places, though, were closed, closing or only accepting cash (I never carry around cash, because if I have it, I spend it). So I’m racing through the crowded complex, navigating through C-list athletes, skanks all skanked up to try and hook a C-list athlete and an above-normal amount of tourists, riled up at the prospect of snapping a digi pic of the LT of the Indy Colts (a quality sighting if there ever was one).

It’s now 8:15 and counting, I have no food and A-Train is still minutes away. Choosing on the fly to just suck it up and have a theater dinner (hot dog and a water now, toilet time and sit-ups later), I decided to race out to the meeting point so I’d have enough time to race back to the theater and not miss previews. A quick five-minute jog through the ESPY holding area (is that Jim Belush? Might have been. Didn’t care), and through the streets of H-Wood and I was at the meeting spot. A-Train rolled through minutes later, I yoinked my kicks and set feet to pavement. 8:27 and I’m finally in the lobby of the theater. My cell is blowing up, my friends wanting to know my ETA, but I ignore it and focus on willing the slow concession stand workers to fill the damn sodas faster so I can grab my unidentifiable meat in a bun, get to my seat and breathe for the first time in 90 minutes.

The worker finally sloths her way through the order of guy in front of me and I’m throwing my list at her before the guy is out of my way. She molasses her way to the hot dog window and procures me the awful item, snails over to the water area and gets confused by the size of the water bottle I asked for (that being “the one that will get you back here faster”), and then finally baby steps’ the credit card transaction. I’m free. I grab all of my gear (the shoes, the dog, the water, my dignity), pitch my ticket at the taker, find my group in the dark, sit down, say my hellos and apologies and begin hyper-speed eating my hot dog because 1) it smells like ass and I don’t want it to linger through the movie and ruin my groups experience, and 2) I’m so hyped up I don’t even realize I’m going this fast. Fourteen Harry Potter-ripoff trailers later (seriously, it looked like every studio in town puked up Chronicles of Narnia and slapped a title on it), I had blasted through my dog, stolen my buddy’s milk duds, hydrated and thankfully, stopped moving.

And that’s when it hit me. I was so busy getting through my life that I didn’t even remember what I was doing there in the first place. I was about to watch the new Harry Potter movie.

A feeling of such wonder and excitement passed through me. I couldn’t even sit still! Some movies you are excited to see (Oceans 13), others you cannot wait to see (Transformers), but then there are some that are so important to you, whether due to tradition or impact on your life, that it literally floors you when the reality hits that you are in the theater and the movie is about to start. I had that feeling with each of the Star Wars Prequels. I had it with the latest Die Hard. And I had it and then some with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Butterflies in my stomach (which might have just been the hot dog performing a coup-de-tat on my intestines), a big ass smile on my face and two hours of wonder waiting in front of me. It doesn’t get much better than that.

And as a bonus, the movie just happened to be great. My least favorite of the books, but probably my second favorite movie (Azkaban is still the tits for me). Great interpersonal moments between Harry, Ron and Hermione ( I especially liked the understated way they handled Harry’s growing anger problems), amazing special effects in the climactic Ministry battle, and some quality hottie time with a near-of-age Emma Watson, the pre-approved Katie Leung (Cho Chang), and surprising gonna-be-off-the-hook hottie Bonnie Wright (Ginny Weasley). I had such low expectations because I disliked the book so much that I was floored how awesome the movie turned out to be. Other favorite things about the movie: the overhead shot of Harry and Dudley running through the wheat field, “I must not tell lies”, all the meaningful looks Ginny throws at Harry, Fred and George’s exit from Hogwarts, Voldemort on the train platform, the entirety of Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman, and of course, “LOOK AT ME!”

Walking out of the theater, I knew I was back in the Harry Potter fold, a place I hadn’t been since I finished the sixth-book (the best of the series) a year and a half ago. A place I remember so fondly. I needed to get my head back in the world fast, so I immediately went home and started reading Half Blood Prince, eager to refresh myself in time for Book 7. I scorched through the 643 pages in a matter of days, enjoying the book just as much now as I did the first time. I even got emotional in two places, 1) when Harry kisses Ginny after Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup without him (I was like “Yeah boy! Get yours, Harry!”), and 2) when Snape dropped the Avada Kedavra on Dumbledore. I knew it was coming and yet I still teared up. Such is the emotional effect these characters have on me.

Like many millions of other people, Harry Potter holds a special place in my heart. I found the books by accident. I was a sophomore in college, the third book had just barely come out, and the series had not yet broken through to the mainstream. I had read a review in EW and was intrigued, but not having read the books I didn’t think much of it. I picked up the first book on a whim, cracked it open one night and blazed through it in a matter of hours. I was hooked, lined and sinkered. I immediately set my quest to find books 2 and 3. The local bookstores didn’t have them so I went to the campus library. Now, I’ve been looked down on before, but never in my life have I ever been condescended to quite so douchebaggily as when the clerk/pretentious English Lit Major tried to “help” me find Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban. Everyone else in the place needed to find a textbook or a crucial biography or science study. I was looking for a children’s book. And the guy didn’t let me forget it (“Can you please spell… Azkaban for me.”). I raced up and down the eight floors of the library, FINALLY finding one copy of part two in a remote area of the second floor. I felt like Indiana Jones reaching the idol in the beginning of Raiders. Now I just needed to avoid the flying arrows, big ass rolling boulder, and all the snobby library attendants and I’d be on the outside, safe to go read my “children’s book”. I made it out, and the effort was worth it.

I was hanging out with a lot of English Majors at the time and they never missed an opportunity to give me shit about my reading selection. “You’re reading a book about a boy wizard who plays sports on a broom? What was your high school GPA, again?” And I was like: “Whatever, you pale-faced dick. Go wipe your glasses and get back to reading your D.H. Lawrence and never getting any, while I read my kick ass magic book and bang my hottie girlfriend. And it’s not a broom it’s a Firebolt, bitch!” I took my flaming with my head held high, proud that I was reading a book series that made me happy. And I was vindicated a year later when the world woke up and went crazy for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Nobody gave me shit anymore. Because they were all struggling to catch up. I was there opening day, sitting with a group of eight year-olds on the floor of a Santa Barbara Borders, all of us lapping up the events of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It felt great to be amongst kids who were reading instead of playing video games. It felt great to be on the forefront of a pop culture event that I had found on my own before it all began (I felt the same way when I saw The Killers perform two months before “Somebody Told Me” broke and just knew that explode like a supernova, get overplayed and turn into crazy poseurs a year later.). And it felt great just to be reading something I liked, after being forced to read countless books I hated just to satisfy my UCSB general-ed requirements (though to be fair, the film books were a disappointment as well).

The great HP memories didn’t end there. Summer of 2004 found me hungrily (though eventually frustratingly) devouring Order of the Phoenix. The stand-out memory of my time reading that book was when I was staying at a beachfront hotel with my then-girlfriend to celebrate July 4th. She was asleep in bed, a place I should have been, but instead I was in the bathroom, quietly turning the pages, unable to join the beautiful naked girl in bed ten feet away, because I needed to see if Harry would at long last kiss Cho Chang. He did and I went back to bed. She asked me where I’d been and I lied and told her I wasn’t feeling well. You can’t always defend (or explain) the things you love.

Harry Potter also helped heal a fractured history with my older brother. We had our differences and objections for a variety of reasons, but with childhood long gone and both of us now adults and facing the real world, we were looking for ways to smooth things over. My brother started listening to the HP audio tapes, and eventually became a bigger Potter geek and me. We’ve had some great conversations over the years trying to decipher how the story will end. There’s not a lot we used to be able to talk about, 80’s WWF, white wine and The West Wing were pretty much the list, but Harry Potter gave us one more thing. And it was a big step on the road to our recovery as loving brothers (and we have a lot to talk about now).

The Harry Potter hits keep coming: my little brother dressed up as Harry for Halloween one year and looked totally awesome, I chose HP4 as my recommended Turkey Day Movie Choice back in 1995, I looked like the cool Uncle to my adolescent cousins when I matched their Harry-speak word for word. I even wrote a well-received ten-minute play about the release of Book 7 just last week. The crowd of geeks ate up the Potter love; my lead actress even told me that playing a Harry Potter fanatic was the most fun she’s ever had on stage. My love of Harry Potter gave her that moment.

And now I find myself on the eve of Book 7 Day, the last time I will ever wait for a new Harry Potter adventure (I think); the end of my long, happy journey is in sight. The anticipation of having the book in my hands, the excitement of turning the first page and stepping back into that wonderfully rich world, and the paranoia of worrying if I’ll read spoilers and ruin the experience, all these emotions are swimming through me, and my heart and mine are doing what they can to keep up. As a completist I’m glad I have been able to follow the story from start to finish. As a fan I’m both happy and sad to the see how it ends. And as a movie lover I can’t wait to see what Deathly Hollows will look like on-screen (not to mention Half-Blood Prince). But most of all I am thankful to have had Harry Potter in my life. To have been a part of this once-in-a generation cultural event. To have something so pure and enjoyable in common with so many people. To have something to look forward to at the movies. To have something to defend to the elitist book snobs. But mostly, just to have something good to read.

For those reasons and million more, I am proud to say I am a Harry Potter fan. I am thankful for Chris Columbus for casting Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, and for setting up the world so perfectly. I am thankful for Daniel Kloves and his deft touch in adapting the first four books. I am thankful for all the people involved in the making of the movies and the publishing of the books. And I am eternally thankful to J.K. Rowling for creating something so simple, yet profound. For always striving to make the books more eloquent. For never dumbing down the content when the mainstream picked up on it. For sticking to her principals and willing this entity into existence. For giving us all something to love.

And most of all, for giving us the boy who lived.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I do believe I have a book to read…

Bangarang!