I'm Too Young to Feel This Old. But It Comes At You in the Strangest Times. Like a Monday Night.

I live saying two things, "How fortunate to be alive during the release of the J.K. Rowling series, books and movies, and to experience the release of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy?"

For several years, I marked my calendar for the release of new movies and Potter books. Of course, Star Wars resurrected, too. It was fun to pace out semesters thinking ahead to what might come from debuts. They were ahead of the game, magical, and exciting (and even to this day my remote can't get past a marathon when one is up and running).

You can imagine my surprise, then, when Chitunga came into my room last night and asked, "What do you know about this Tolkien guy?" He listened to a podcast that referenced the work and he wanted to watch the movies. I said, "I have the movies downstairs." Well, I had the first one on DVD, but didn't beat him to the first floor because he already ordered them on-demand.

Um...the release of Fellowship of the Ring was in 2001. That was 19 years ago. How could that be 19 years ago? Better yet, how was that that book written in 1954, only to be adapted 47 years later? AND when the movie came out, why did it seem so advanced? Sophisticated? Ahead of its time?. Now, watching it with Chitunga and Edem all these years later, it seems old and outdated. Phew. I guess this comes with age. I kept laughing in my head thinking, "I hope these boys hang in there."

A coming of age story for Frodo Baggins who leaves the Shire. Seems graduation with a Masters degree is a great place to think about such journeys, adventures, and the power grabs, greed, and interconnected ways that tribes of people work with, and against, one another. Orcs are real. The monsters are within us, too.

Needless to say, I was up late last night reliving 2001 all over again, as I've done so many times during movie marathons (none beats the day that Mike and watched all of them back to back for 14 hours (two pizza orders, too).

So last night I was up until 12:30 when the 1st movie ended, anticipating we very-well might watch one a night until we get through them all.

"That's Foucault," Chitunga said when the eye of Sauron was first introduced.

"No, that's Tolkien," I replied. "Foucault followed."

I can't believe I'm jumping into this again...I'll be curious what Chitunga has to say when he's finished with it all.

Phew.

Now if only Peter Jackson would take on The Stand.