#333 and Happy 2017!

I came home the other day to Michael blasting music in his room. It made me happy. It's just a very teenager thing to do; it felt normal. As a parent, I appreciate normal sometimes. I realize it's a floating concept – what we think of as 'normal' – different for different people, cultures, ages, deluding us in some ways, guiding us in others. Michael hasn't gone off a cliff behaviorally, so his music – even if mildly profane, loud, annoying – is fine. Our shared future will involve cliches and surprises both. I know this. Lets hope the 'normal' and the pleasant outnumber the unpleasant.

My daughter has a flatulence problem, or, stated in a positive way, she is exceptional at 'accumulating and expelling intestinal gas.' (I like definitions and dictionaries.) This will sound sexist, but I always thought my son would be the household champion, not my daughter.

Megan asked me, "Can I see your bald spot?" I tilted my head so she could see it. She said, "It's not getting any smaller, Dad." I know, Honey, thank you. I'm not sure if she was being sympathetic or being a smartass. Sarcasm: not my favorite. I think it was sympathy. Or pity. Pretty sure Meg knows it'll take pills or surgery to reforest my head at this point. Spring has passed; there won't be another (on my scalp), but I still have loyal follicles, many, and I salute them!

Does Rogaine make you eyebrows go gangbusters? What about hair in your ears? I'm just wondering for a friend of mine that uses it...

"It was like the army: Be careful, find a cool dry place to stash your mind, and hang on until it was over. Except, of course... it never would be over. You never would get through to the end of being a father, no matter where you stored your mind or how many steps in the series you followed. Not even if you died. Alive or dead or a thousand miles distant, you were always going to be on the hook for work that was neither a procedure nor a series of steps but, rather, something that demanded your full, constant attention without necessarily calling on you to do, perform, or say anything at all.... Fathering imposed an obligation that was more than your money, your body, or your time, a presence neither physical nor measurable by clocks: open-ended, eternal, and invisible, like the commitment of gravity to the stars." 
     – Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue

"Everybody knows their mother loves them unconditionally, but fathers have to say it out loud I think."
      – Marnie, The Meddler

"She's a good girl. Good kids don't get that way by accident."
      – Einar, An Unfinished Life

"Having a baby, it's massive, and on a very unexpected level. Suddenly I understood my parents much more profoundly than I ever had before."
      – Benedict Cumberbatch

HAPPY NEW YEAR! All the best to you and yours in 2017!