I remember thirteen.

At thirteen I started to ride the subway alone. Thirteen was when I put away my Matchbox cars and picked up Rolling Stone. It was after-school peanut butter cups and cream soda from the deli on Bond Street. At thirteen I got to try a little of dad's beer, and at thirteen I swore I'd never drink that godawful stuff. Thirteen was tremulous fear and quaking desire. Thirteen was when childhood faded into the mist, and the future beckoned slyly from the car.

I remember thirteen well, but now I see it for what it really is:



Thirteen is the time of angels.

Happy birthday, my mad, bad, sad, brilliant beautiful man.

We went to an open house at the Voyagers Homeschooling Co-op in Acton. One of the activities was an invention workshop, where they were building bridges out of spaghetti noodles.

Final tally for Morgan's bridge:

* 7.4 reams of paper
* 387 #2 pencils
* 36 colored pencils,
* 30 large Crayola markers
* 100 small Crayola markers
* five glue sticks
* and six quarts of milk.

--
Sent from my bionic implant

 redheadedmuse wrote recently about the importance of recognizing and valuing the way people in relationships with you desire you. We often may misread desire as being needy, a drag on our time or energy, an irritation, an interruption of some very important thing we must do right away. But recasting it as desire -- thinking in terms of how these people desire you -- has potentially a lot of power to reframe those emotions in a positive way. We all want to be desired. It may help to remember how many ways it happens, all the time.

Today I'm struck by the way my kids desire to be with me and do things with me.

This ain't small potatoes. Morgan, at 12, is right on the edge of figuring out what dorks his parents are, and once he does, I figure that's going to be game over until he's 35 or so.

It hasn't happened yet, and that's continually fascinating and rewarding for me. He calls to find out when I'll be home from work, and whether it's okay with me for him to watch Doctor Who without me. We play Dungeons and Dragons together every week with friends, and he's decided he wants to start a second campaign with me because he's not getting enough of it. I read to both of them at bedtime every night, and Morgan always wants me to start earlier and read more.

I have to remind myself that any day now, he's going to go all angsty and emo and will be hopelessly nonplussed by my complete uncoolness. For now, I'm just going to live in the moment. My kid still thinks I'm awesome. How great is that?

"I was going to take you so many places. Barcelona. Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place. They've got dogs with no noses!"