Hi, i'm Stephanie. I'm a bleeding heart liberal with a soft spot for puppies, and i'm not ashamed of it. I love television but I hate the industry. Someday I'd like to work to change it.
Recently, our boys asked, “Is mom Supergirl or Wonder Woman?” Like there’s a big difference at that echelon. Still, right away I said Wonder Woman.
Of course, what adults know that kids don’t is that every superhero has a weakness: Superman dreads kryptonite, Achilles had bad heels. And Wonder Woman — Susan, my dearest friend, wife of eight years, who is smart, sensible, shapely, and vivacious, a patient mother and spouse, and whose industry and talent humble me daily — has weird toenails. I’m not allowed to provide details. Suffice it to say they cause much distress in the heart of my superspouse, and that the most expensive pedicure yet devised by Earth’s scientists cannot do more than temporarily disguise them.
And yet, when Wonder Woman rests from her labors and reclines on the sofa to watch Glee or Shark Tank and places her bare feet on my lap, toenails in full view, I feel blessed. Ten small gifts have been bestowed on me; only I have been chosen to see them, to hold them in my hands and cherish them. It’s said that every Persian rug is made with a faulty stitch, a flaw, so that its perfection will not offend heaven. That explains everything. May her toenails always grow oddly, her wonders never cease.
Alan Burdick, author of Out of Eden: An Odyssey of Ecological Invasion, talking about his wife.