Things that scare me

- George Bush

- Jeb Bush

- The notion that we are raising a generation of girls who look up to Paris Hilton, who has done nothing to deserve her obscene amount of fame other than doing the nasty with some shmuck named Rick Solomon, who for his part is only famous for doing the same thing with Shannon Doherty, who at least at one time had a job.

- The president of Iran, and Mel Gibson.

- The possibility of losing another minute of my life to the JonBenet Ramsey case.

- Running out of coffee.

- That creepy beaver in that sleep-aid commercial. You know, the one playing checkers with Abe Lincoln? I don’t get it.

- When people ask me, so what are you going to do with your MFA?

- Myspace, facebook, and any web site that allows subscribers to accumulate huge numbers of “pretend” cyber friends, single-handedly reducing the title of Friend to a name on a list and the idea of friendship to a numbers game.

- Labor. And I mean that both in the child-birth sense of the word, and employment.

- McMansions.

- Did I mention George Bush?

- Bratz dolls, or as my husband likes to call them, Slutz.