Can I read you something?

I am constantly asking Melissa that question. I love to read, and when I find something particularly insightful, challenging, sad, or (most often) funny, I just HAVE to read it out loud to whoever will listen. I think it's because I want others to enjoy what I am enjoying. Melissa often puts up with me interrupting her in whatever she is doing (eating, reading her own book, working, cleaning, sleeping...) and only rarely gets annoyed at me. But, I realized that I've got a new outlet for those parts of books that I just have to share.
Yep, you guessed it: It's this blog.

The other problem with my love of sharing the things that I read is that I often want to share several things, i.e. Melissa says to me, "okay, but this is the fourth passage you've read to me from Goodnight Moon in the last 5 minutes. This is the last one, okay?" However, I don't like to transcribe things very much, so sharing via blog will help me keep the volume down and the quality up. I hope.

Okay, enough introduction. My first share is part of the introduction from a book I got for Christmas I don't know how many years ago from Melissa's Dad. It's called The Superhero's Handbook and it's written by Michael Powell.

"Whether you are naturally amazing, have been sent here from a distant dying solar system, or just enjoy fooling around with radioactive slurry, the fact that you are browsing through this book suggests that you may already be experiencing subtle body changes that single you out from the rest of humanity. You'll have a whole heap of unanswered questions about your emerging superpowers:

Why do I have this overbearing desire to rid the world of evil?

What's this sticky stuff on my wrists?

Should I enter the priesthood?

Why am I so much stronger, faster, and more polite than the rest of my friends?

Why do I feel so washed out whenever someone hangs a large green crystal around my neck?"

And from the first chapter: "Signs You May Be Special: How to Recognize Your Powers" there are scenarios that help you recognize your powers, and how to be sure that there isn't just some mundane explanation for what happened.  Here are three of my favorites:

"Example 10: On a hot summer's day, whenever you leave your shades at home, everything in your field of vision appears to burst into flames.   

Superpower: You harness the power of the sun to project energy beams from your eyes.

Perfectly innocent explanation: You live in Florida.

Example 9: You are two years old.  A truck falls on your father, and you lift it off him with ease and save his life.   

Superpower: You have superhuman strength.   

Perfectly innocent explanation: It is a toy truck.

Example 8: You are walking in the mall with your pet tiger, when you are both transformed into super strong versions of yourselves.  

Superpower:  Looks like you finally found a use for that Sword of Power.   

Perfectly innocent explanation: There isn't one dude.  You are He-Man®."

So I could, of course, quote a bunch more sections that I find funny, but that would take a long time and probably be some sort of copyright violation.  If you are interested in the book I know that you can find it here, and probably in your local library system too. 

Enjoy.  That is, until I find something else to read to you.