NOT SINCE "Gone With the Wind" have I been this obsessed about anything.

And I didn't devote nearly as much attention to Scarlett and Rhett as I've given Frodo, Legolas and Gandalf the Grey.

I've been bitten by "The Lord of the Rings" bug. You'd think I had a ring around my neck, compelling me to stay up long into the night to absorb every word of the series. I even pored over the appendices that feature tidbits, like who begat whom and who ruled what kingdom when.

Told you I was obsessed.

Ask anyone who sits around me at work. They may have heard a discussion with Karen, who admitted she and her sister used to pretend they were hobbits.

Or, they've noticed a conversation with Joe, a photographer and retired Marine who knows the complex characters, coming and going. We talk about people and places as if we're discussing family members and current events--not make-believe characters from lands that don't exist.

Joe is so enthralled by the series, he used to spray-paint the words, "Frodo Lives," in public places when he was younger.

At least I'm not that bad.

But it's hard to tell what I might have done if I had taken this road through Middle Earth earlier. I didn't know anything about "The Lord of the Rings" series until director Peter Jackson made the books into movies.

Even then, I didn't get caught up in the initial craze. I didn't even see the first movie until it came out on cable television.

And I wasn't even that taken by it the first time. There were so many characters, with strange-sounding names, from even stranger-sounding places.

It was a bit much.

Then I watched the first movie a second time. I recognized who was who and what it all meant, and I liked it.

So did my son and his wife, and my brother and his family, and it was fun to be part of this club.

Then, the second movie came out, and I did something, in following my obsession, that I'd never done before.

I went to the movies, all by myself, to see "The Two Towers." And it was great.