The Toy Story movies are really charming and everything, but they always make me feel so bad about all the My Little Ponies I have in my parents' attic.

I watched War of the Worlds on Sunday, and something that bothers me about these movies, these aliens take over the world movies, is that I think the people in them never demonstrate enough surprise. They’re surprised, sure, but it’s like their terror always overcomes their surprise. If an alien spaceship climbed out of the ground in front of me, I would be SO surprised. So surprised. Like, I would think I had gone crazy. I would just stand there, staring at it, even after it started moving around and shooting people, because I would think, This cannot possibly be a real thing. What an interesting hallucination for me to have.

I introduced a two-year-old to my cat today, and as soon as she saw the cat, who was sleeping, curled in a ball, the two-year-old took my hand, said, “Sarah, outside,” and walked towards the door. I tried to be all, “The cat is friendly! Watch Sarah touch the cat.” But some part of her brain just knew: Claws! Teeth! Bad! And that was obviously a stronger instinct. Because she just looked at me like, “So that animal clearly has really sharp claws and teeth and I don’t know what your problem is but I am saving myself now.” And continued to walk towards the door.

We’re doing a farm unit with my class this week, and it’s almost as hard for me (as a vegan) as the week we did Thanksgiving. I have to read all these stories about the happy cows and pigs and chickens that live on the farm, and I want to look my toddlers in the eye and say, “You’re not getting the whole story, you know.” It helps to remember, though, that it’s that way with everything we tell children – we never tell them the whole story. I tell them, I want you to stop stamping your feet because you might stamp on your friend’s foot, but I never add, Also the sound of you stamping your feet is like the sound of nails being driven into a coffin that’s burying me alive.

I was watching an episode of Supernatural on a plane last month, and one of the characters was drinking another character’s blood (he was getting super powers from her demon blood, like, you know, one does), and I felt extremely awkward about it. Like I should explain to the person sitting next to me the RATIONALITY behind the blood-drinking. So she would know it wasn’t weird or anything. Years ago, when I lived with my parents, my dad walked into the family room while I was watching an episode of Buffy that involved two of the characters chaining another character up and kissing in front of her and I was like, “It’s a trick to get more information about the apocalypse! That’s what’s really happening. Don’t read anything else into it.”

Sometimes I see people from my morning weekday bus on another bus, and I just think, What are you DOING? It’s like when I was a kid and I’d see a teacher at the supermarket, like WHY ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR BOX?

My brother has this theory that everyone has super powers, something trivial a person is UNCOMMONLY good at (my brother can tell when the air in any given room isn’t circulating), and he’s so far rejected all of my ideas for my potential super powers, either because the ability isn't sufficiently trivial (I read really fast) or uncommon (I am amazing at Snood). But I finally came up with one I think is definitely uncommon and certainly trivial: when I yawn, it’s not contagious.

I wish I could stop cutting myself with my food processor's blade. I just don't understand how I'm supposed to clean it.

We have these puzzles at work, these toddler puzzles, with five or six pieces, and even though they’re incredibly easy, I still have to THINK to figure them out, which always seems deeply embarrassing to me. I’ll be helping my kids clean up, and catch myself actually WORKING on a puzzle of five pieces, all of which are different sizes and are also outlined with different colors that match them to their places.

I flew from Amsterdam to Seattle yesterday, and on the last leg of the trip, from Chicago to Seattle, I fell asleep as soon as I sat down. The woman sitting next to me woke me up at some point to say, “We can put our seats back now.” When I looked at her, in TOTAL BLANK ASTONISHMENT, she said, “I thought that might make you more comfortable.” I responded by immediately falling back asleep, which I think was appropriate.

I am extremely paranoid about walking through wooded areas alone – and I consider “wooded areas” to be clusters of more than, say, seven trees. I recently discovered a new and pleasant way to walk to work, but it requires being in a wooded area for about forty seconds. I was really nervous about this, until this morning, when I saw a solitary elderly woman casually strolling out of the same wooded area. It’s possible she’s the most reckless and foolish elderly woman in the entire world, or maybe the most physically powerful, but it doesn’t seem likely.

This couple rides the bus with me every morning – I’m pretty familiar with all the people on my weekday morning bus, largely because everyone likes to sit in the same seats. This couple always sits in front of me (on the good side of the bus, but too close to the door for my taste). Until a few months ago, the man and the woman sometimes got on the bus at separate stops. (Then the man would sit somewhere ELSE; I think because he feared that the prime seat next to him would be filled before the woman got on the bus. So he chose the horrible middle seats with no windows.) Then they started always getting on at the same stop. Then this morning the woman was wearing a diamond ring on her left hand! I really, really, really had to fight the urge to congratulate them.

I bought this lunchbox last week, and it’s pink and roomy and includes four matching pink Tupperware containers of various sizes, and although it hasn’t solved ALL of my problems, it seems to have solved MOST of them.

My DVD player has started doing this thing; it says it can’t read the DVD the first four or five tries, but then it changes its mind, and the DVD plays fine on the sixth or seventh try. I could buy a new DVD player. But this way, I can tell how committed I actually am to watching something.

I like when the plot on a television show revolves around the characters meeting “famous people," because the characters and the “famous people” are the same level of attractiveness, and no one is ever like, “Isn’t it weird that I’m a high school teacher and you’re a movie star, and we’re equally hot?”

I’m starting to think the problem with me mistaking toy moose for toy horses or toy deer is a problem with the toys, not me. Because I am reasonably certain that I can tell the difference between lemons and grapefruits and apples, but we have this toy food at school, and I have no idea which toy is supposed to represent which fruit. They could all possibly be oranges. We also have this puzzle where something looks like a strawberry, but it’s purple, which is close enough to strawberry-color to be really confusing.

I was drinking a glass of water this morning and felt something tiny and sharp enter my mouth. It was a toenail clipping. This is the story I’m going to tell people when they argue that women are naturally more interested than men in keeping a clean house.

Another thing about being stubborn: I have this water filter pitcher that I keep in my fridge, because I like drinking really cold water. Sometimes the pitcher has what I perceive as a glass of water left, but sometimes I’ve underestimated a little. In those cases, I pour the water into the glass, and continue to pour, EVEN AS THE GLASS OVERFLOWS. Instead of leaving that little bit in the pitcher. Because if I do that, then the pitcher wins.

Sometimes it makes me nervous how much my thumbs look like my big toes. I like to be a little farther away from evolution than that. It makes me feel like I could just turn back into a chimpanzee at any moment.

I think it’s kind of snotty the way different companies or schools force you to have awesomely strong passwords. I’m sure it’s for their own protection, but if I want my password to be Sarah123, that’s my business, isn’t it? A password I chose was recently rejected, despite the presence of numbers and symbols and the randomness of the word, because it included “guessable dictionary words.” Now I’m supposed to MAKE UP WORDS?