I sat up suddenly in bed early Sunday morning; I thought I’d heard something downstairs. Something terrible.

“Did you hear that?” I asked my husband.

“What?”

“Legos. Legos falling …”

Legos make a very distinct noise when they fall on a wood floor — something between a thud and a clatter. It’s the sound of time dying. Of hours eating themselves.

I need to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

No. Seriously. I need to. I’m going crazy over here.

I’ve watched all seven seasons of Buffy in the last month, and my head is bursting with it. (That might be all that’s currently up there. ) But I’m seven years too late to find anyone who cares.

December 25th is a given. Happens every year.

Christmas isn’t.

Linda Burton didn’t take for granted that her three girls would have something to open this morning. It seemed more likely that they wouldn’t.

Because if Linda bought them presents, that money would have to come from somewhere else. From the rent. From some other bill that she already can’t afford to pay since she lost her job at the grocery store.

And who could she ask for help anyway?

“I don’t like to ask people for nothing, I’m not a big begger,” Linda says. “It’s hard to ask because you see everyone else struggling.”

So instead, she prayed.

She asked for a sign or a direction — and almost immediately she got one. She met someone from the Salvation Army who invited her to Toyland.

Two weeks ago, when I was interviewing Nebraska Twitter deity Tim Siedell, I totally abused my powers as a reporter and forced Tim — aka “badbanana” — to give me personal advice.
Twitter advice.
(This is comparable to getting an interview with Stephen King and asking him for help getting your lame book published.)
That same week, I cornered a Twitter-happy colleague (it’s easy to corner people who work in cubicles) and interrogated him about Twitter, too.
I’ve even logged on to Twitter to bother people with questions about Twitter.
I just don’t get Twitter.
I …

It’s hard enough being 14 years old. For everyone. But it’s especially hard when your family doesn’t have enough money. You go to school, and you don’t have any of the right clothes. You listen to your friends talk about video games you’ve never played, movies you’ve never seen, music you can’t afford.

And you’re old enough to really feel the stress that your parents are under. Most of the parents I interviewed Friday had lost their jobs. Many had lost their homes and were living with relatives. If you’re 14 — or even 9 or 10 — it’s excruciating to watch your parents fail. You want to help, but you can’t. You feel like a burden. You feel guilty for wanting nice things. You want to tell your parents that it’s okay, that everything is okay, but you’re old enough to know that it isn’t.

Tim Siedell had just been invited to write his first piece for “The Huffington Post,” and he was struggling with what to write — not in the essay, but under his name.
Tim was supposed to describe himself somehow, who he is, what he does, and he realized … he just wasn’t sure anymore.
Tim Siedell.
Copywriter?
Comedian?
Quasi-anonymous internet celebrity?
For 20 years, the answer would have been clear. Tim’s an ad man. At 41, he’s worked as a writer and creative director, and he helped found his own agency — Fuse Industries in Lincoln.
But …

I’ve been stalking my friend Angie this weekend. She’s been lending me Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD three seasons at a time, and I’m ready for the end of the series.

“Ready” is a bit of an understatement.

You’re going to need your copy of Air Supply’s greatest hits handy to read this column.

What do you mean you don’t have it?

Air Supply has sold 30 million records. The band has eight greatest hits albums. (That’s how great its greatest hits are.) And you’re trying to tell me you don’t have one?

Not even a single? A 45? You’ve never downloaded “The One That You Love” late at night, after three glasses of Paisano?

Well, I don’t believe you. I think you’re embarrassed. I think you’re stuck in that “Air Supply is sappy and lame and the-musical-equivalent-of-Jell-O-instant-pudding” headspace.

I know the difference between there, their and they’re.
And it’s and its. Too/two/to, too.
But I’m not ready to join the homophone supremacy movement.
How did this even become a movement? How did “I know the difference between you’re and your” become something people add to their Facebook profiles? Something to gloat about?
So far, this seems to be an internet-only phenomenon.
If you’ve visited the internet (ever), you’ve probably noticed that it’s full of bad spelling and terrible grammar. The internet is bad grammar’s natural habitat; it’s where spelling errors mate in the …

Last night on Glee, Brittany got all the good lines, Sue was a jerk just because, and Rachel sang a ballad to an empty auditorium. Feel like you’ve seen this one before? Pour yourself some egg nog — or as my son calls it, “Christmas juice” — because it’s time for “A Very Glee Christmas.”