Never learn

Unlearned Lesson #1: TV Is Not The Radio
Walking into my apartment makes most anyone think, "Did he just move yesterday?" Yesterday, last week, last month...who's counting? There are still boxes everywhere, pictures stacked up waiting for their wall-deployment order, and very little resembling organization. So I set aside yesterday evening to get the place straightened up into a decent impression of a living space.

You can't just leave the background silent, though, and while I should have just fired up iTunes, the TV was already on, so I flipped around looking for some show to keep my company while I tidied up, deciding on a two-hour documentary on D-Day on the History Channel. "I've seen PLENTY on D-Day before", I figured. "It'll be interesting, but I'll be able to just keep it on in the background," I figured. But this has happened before, and inevitably, I wind up on the couch, fascinated with the subject and ignoring my work.

I've discussed this here before, but the horror of D-Day never wears off. It's both incredibly difficult and all too easy to imagine being in one of those landing boats, overwhelmingly exhausted, impossibly seasick, and feeling fear like never before. The documentary that I watched last night had some incredibly disturbing footage that I had never seen before of sinking landing craft with soliders being pulled down with it, of a German solider numb with shock trying to dig himself out of bomb rubble, and some incredible (and horrible) recollections from the soldiers who were there, including the memories of a man who was the only one of the 30 soldiers in his landing craft who made it to the beach alive. I thought his fear at the time was hard to imagine until I tried to imagine his survivor's guilt.

Unlearned Lesson #2: Our Harry Won't Let You Go
After that cheery media (and an hour of actual work on the place), I got in bed and picked up the Harry Potter book that I was about 150 pages from finishing. "Just a few chapters", I figured. "I'll finish it up this weekend", I figured.

Around about 1:30, when I finally got to bed feeling fully disturbed and upset by the ending of the book, the tiny smart part of my brain smacked me around a little. "Reid, how many other Harry Potter books have you read?! FIVE! And why they hell didn't you realize that once you start reading the last 10 chapters of ANY Harry Potter book that there's no possible way you can put it down?! That's it! I quit!"

I won't say too much specific about the end of the book for those of you who may not have read it yet, but I will say this: I have never in my book-reading or movie-watching life ever come across a plot twist that is very predictable and yet still shook me with surprise. Brilliant. Open discussion of the book is available via email.