when i grow up i want to be a superhero

today as i walked through the wilderness of upper-middle suburbia with my dog, a thought struck me. dogs have it made. i watched as marge charged forwards, smelling all sorts of new smells, drinking in the sweet perfume of this mid august day. she jumped over logs, played with sticks, and peed wherever she felt it necessary, all the while looking to me for words of encouragement and approval. she had the doggy smile on throughout our whole hour long stroll through the forest. nothing could bring her down. she ran, she swam, she scared a bald eagle out of a tree. i want to do that, but alas society dictates that i must pee in the toilet, or at the very least be discreet about peeing in public, and i'm fairly certain that if i attempt to scare a bald eagle out of a tree i could be arrested for harassing and endangered species and/or clawed by said species (i considered that possibility in depth during my walk).  my wistful ponderings of life as a canine promptly helped me onto another train of thought: i want to be an animorph. 

animorphs were quite possibly the coolest superheroes ever. they were in their early teens, they fought an alien race called the yeerks,  and they got to go to the zoo all the time to acquire animals. oh yeah, and they could morph into a ferocious beast of a creature whenever they felt like it. i mean being a dog is one thing, but think about morphing into a rhino, an elephant, or a vicious bald eagle. freakin sweet right? im not going to lie, after i finished the first animorphs book that i read (third grade, the first volume of the megamorphs books) i may have tried to acquire my grandparents dog. for those of you who were not animorphs fans, acquiring is when the animorphs touch an animal so that they can later morph into it. i also tried to open diagon alley next to the dumpsters behind my middle school using a pencil as a wand, but thats another story.  i think that i read the first 33 or so animorphs books before i got burned out. they were released once a month and i would beg my mom to buy me one, read it all in one night, and then have to wait another 30 days before i got another. thirty days to a 9 year old is like a year to more grown up people. it was BRUTAL. dont worry though, i got the deets on how the series ended. i spent several hours on wikipedia this spring reading up on all the plot summaries that i missed. 

i dont think i have ever stopped wanting to be an animorph, or a wizard for that matter, which is why i am always wrapped up in a book. i see books not so much as an escape from reality as a way to provide you with a new perspective. i didnt necessarily want to leave my old life behind to become an animorph and run off to fight the yeerks. no. i just wanted to be able to morph into cool stuff and have some new adventures off of these two feet. i wanted to run around in the woods behind my house, sniffing new smells and finding whole new worlds behind every stump. it seems as though my dog is always filled with delight at finding a new beetle or anthill. maybe that is what i want. that sense of wonder at the smallest things. the life of a dog. and, of course, the privilege of peeing anywhere.