In case you missed it, I now share my home with a celebrity. Terrence the tortoise (a.k.a. @theofficialmrt) was featured in the summer 2018 issue of Wellesley Magazine, in a piece called “The Heart of a Pet” by Lisa Scanlon Mogolov. The fame is really going to his head, and he is becoming insufferable to deal with. But it’s okay, I still love him. I mean, just look at that cute illustration by Miranda Sofroniou! What a guy.

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As you may know, I’ve become a bit of a regular reader at the Mortified show at Oberon, thanks to the best-ever Mortified producer, Sara Faith Alterman. But now I’m super excited to share that you don’t have to be in the Cambridge area to hear me read my most embarrassing childhood journal entries!

Check out the most recent episode of the Mortified Podcast (89: An Ode to Childhood Pets), to hear about my past pet tortoise Aristotle and my current book project. I’m honored to be featured with such hilarious individuals––and it’s comforting to know I wasn’t the only kid who felt closer to animals than people, or who tried to incorporate pets into every possible school project. Thanks to Neil Katcher for interviewing me and including me in the podcast.

Listen here or download on iTunes.

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Looking around the New England Reptile Expo, I decided I wasn’t one of these people.

Older men examined crickets, kids clutched Tupperwares of geckos, but the crowd seemed mostly twenty-to-forty-year-olds trapped in a mall-Goth-teenager phase. Baggy black pants. Dark dyed hair. Clothing from Hot Topic. Tattoos of reptiles. Live snakes around arms. Piercings. Lizards on shoulders. Pasty skin. Glazed eyes.

“I bet most of these people listen to Marilyn Manson,” my boyfriend, Richie, whispered.

The post IT HAPPENED TO ME: I Didn’t Know Crazy Turtle Ladies Were A Thing Until I Became One appeared first on E.B. Bartels.

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I used to be a regular at the pet store on the second floor of my local mall, down by Sears. Whenever I had to go with my mom to run errands, at the end of our quest, I would drag her to the pet shop. I gaped at the squirmy puppies – all cartilage – and kittens no more than eyes and fluff, along with the usual sickly goldfish and colorful, preachy birds. What got me though was that they had tortoises. In a hexagon plexiglass-walled pen in the middle of the store, filled with sawdust chips and a miniature wooden house, a dozen desert tortoises casually plodded, frequently pushing into each other, like bumper cars toward the end of the ride when the mechanisms wind down. Their earthy brown-and-gold shells made them seem like boulders that had come to life, rolling about at their own will. I admired the methodical and slow yet determined pace that they kept, much like senior citizens who walked laps between Lord & Taylor and the food court.

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