090818 I suppose i just provided an example, or “set an example” (it “sets” an example for your younger sister; it’s your job to “set” a good example--why? is it like setting the table? setting the plates and silverware right, so your younger sister will know how to act in polite society? but examples aren’t only about manners, are they? sometimes they’re about big strong oaken things like INTEGRITY and whatnot. Is INTEGRITY no less or more an abstract informational digitizable mere concept than which fork goes where? Is whatnot a word? I think it is, but I think it means a tall narrow shelf in the corner that has knickknacks on it. Knock knock. Is knickknack a word?) for millie about how to communicate something you want or need. I gave her a spiel about my schedule and what mornings are like and why I’m freaking exhausted, and I actually used the words “I write in the mornings,” which is kind of gay and kind of cool, so I guess we have that in common (not that I’m convinced she’s actually “gay” in the stereotypical, traditional sense; she can be whatever she is, obviously, but I resist letting myself wholeheartedly agree (because I don’t see any clear evidence? or some other reason?) that she’s just plain old garden variety “gay” as she has sometime said (but then again, the times I saw her walking with Ivy, looking bigger than Ivy and more awkward; it was so sweet it broke my heart in kind of a good way but also in a way that’s like OK. She’s just got to make it through the awkwardness without erasing herself! If she can just make it through and remember how to be beautiful and tall; how to be herself in other words, she’ll be astounding! Because it totally reminded of me walking around with CV, back in the days when I started noticing that when I was with someone smaller and more lithe I would feel like a big clunky giant, and when I was with someone bigger and more blockheaded I would feel like a whipsmart elf), but that’s probably just my own dumbness and blindness and arrogance as a parent, forgetting once again that I don’t really know my kids. I mean, you know, in the sense of how no one does. It’s easy to make the mistake, to allow yourself the luxury of thinking of them as little versions of yourself; yeah ok maybe the gender is different, maybe the time period is different, maybe they’re half their mom too (not as easy to forget that some times as other times; the times, for instance, when Megan’s features freeze into a frieze of denial and hot vulpine defensiveness), but still, you generally think (without thinking) that oh, I recognize this, I did this, I was this, and here’s what I did or felt about it, and so you kind of impose that on them, and then you’re in for some discombobulating surprises when they act or act as if they feel differently than your obtuse little mental model would have predicted), which is kind of cool, but the example I “set” (out of necessity, not morality; I spoke up because I *had something I needed to say* (thanks Klepack), not because I was all like, ooh, I’m a teach a lesson right now, watch this) was about speaking up and letting someone know what you need and what you’re feeling and where it’s coming from, instead of just being rude and snippy with them without giving them the courtesy of being able to at least know what your problem is. *In other words, you can’t expect people to just know.* So I told her all about what my mornings have been like now that school has started and she’s been coming down at 5:30 every day, and how I can deal with that and still do my little morning thing, but that I’m also exhausted and it would be bitchin to just have one day where I could both sleep in a tiny bit and also still have a tiny bit of silence and space to myself down here before anyone else comes down. Can I maybe just have until 8:00 on Saturdays. And she was fine with it. So I get points for speaking up, and she gets points for being cool with it. I didn’t of course go into all the details about how odd I find her HIGHLY routinized breakfast regime, how she comes down every single time and makes the exact same breakfast for herself, snapping on lights and banging cabinet doors with ruthless inefficiency every single time—I obvioulsy didn’t mention how I was lying here a short while ago, just having been woken up by the unmistakeable scuffles of her stairway descent, thinking, holy shit, even on Saturday, are you freaking kidding me, musing in a three-quarters-awake light fog, hey, maybe she’s like borderline Asperger’s. But I mean whatever. Probably not. She’s probably just a little odd. Wonder where she gets it. Now that stupid fucking dog is barking its fool head off next door. Those giant ears would be cute if the fucking dog wasn’t such a fucking asshole. Wonder where she gets it.