Jody Amable

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

A few weeks back, I got looped into an Instagram chat with some coworkers from one of my gigs, who were snarking about the fact that the

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.

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

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.

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

In this time of toy-giving, I'm reflecting on the impact one doll made on me and, I'm willing to bet, a small subset of other girls, too.

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.