“What up, T-Nag? Rap it, homeslice.” Or, so what were those JEM lyrics again, anyway? Read Jessica. Love Jessica. I dare you not to laugh out loud.

In other news. No, I’m not going to just cop out by linking to someone far more industrious and interesting than me. Surprised? I am. But I digress. Anyway. Today’s been kinda yucky. I got very weird news late last night. In a names-protected-nutshell, it appears that that one of the people I respect most is doing something very surprising. It’s not bad, or immoral, or illegal… but it’s not on a par with all the other impressive things this person has done.

This semester we had to read (Get me. “Had to read”. Like I’m whining through fifth-grade Language Arts. I’m going for my master’s degree; I chose to read the damn book. Well. I only read half of it. But I digress. Anyway) this collection of essays, American Heroes in a Media Age, on how the mass media have altered our concept of a “hero”. So I thought then about heroes, and I could really only think of two, and this aforementioned person was one. And now? I’m not sure.

It makes me sad. I feel let down. More than that, I feel silly. I had put someone way high on a pedestal – unreasonably high. There’s a difference between admiring someone and – I realize – mentally matching them up against a slew of fictitious heroes. So I feel let down because the person I’d been admiring is different than I thought, and I feel let down because I see I didn’t give myself the chance to know the real, three-dimensional person as well as perhaps I could have done.