Sometimes I wonder if there's
something kind of twisted in me that 
seeks these situations out. When I was 
five or six, my favorite game was 
being Superman, with a towel for a 
cape. I also loved playing knight-
saving-damsel-in-distress. And there 
was some ballerina girl, whose parents 
knew my parents, with whom I'd play 
Swan Lake, and I always got to be the 
prince, helping the swan with her 
pirouettes. Every night when I was 
going to sleep I would imagine bad 
guys holding everyone in the school 
cafeteria hostage, and I would save 
them all.

Fifteen or so years ago I found a copy 
of a letter my father sent his mother 
from around that time, saying, 
"Laura's sentiments on the Crucifixion 
are as follows: 'I wish I were 
Supergirl, because you know what I'd 
do? If Jesus got on that cross I'd 
take out those nails and I'd bang 
them. And I'd take those bad people 
and bang them! And then I'd pick up 
Jesus and we'd fly away.'" What 
interested me most about this letter 
was not the fact that my parents 
seemed to have been indoctrinating me 
with Christianity (something they gave 
up a few years later), or even the 
evidence of my early passion to right 
perceived wrongs, but that my father 
changed Superman to Supergirl. For 
his mother, and maybe for himself.