A whole year!

It's been an entire year since I last blogged.

Hmm, let me spit that word out one more time. Blog... Blog... Blog...

I never did liked the word. I know it's short for "web log" and I guess it is clever in some pedestrian, opening-child-proof-bottle-on-first-try way. But I guess I never could understand how it became a phenomenon. I've been ranting on the internet for years, ever since I discovered it in college in 1989. But we always sent away out posts, in my case, to the ugly depth of alt.* hierarchy. It was in a way a tempest in a teacup. A raging argument for the eyes of a few who bothered to follow alt.binaries.pattern.argyle.pictures.discussion. And for all the passion and dedication, none of it mattered.

But blogs... Provided that you blog about a topic of interest to some people, they come to you, and your site is propagated through search engines and aggregators. It's a more efficient process, leading directly to popularity and way. too. many. mediocre. blogs. Such as this one.

Anyway, on to my kid.

Annabelle turned one this past May and she is growing like a weed. My wife can hardly hide her glee at the rate of her growth, as she is 5' 2" and she wished for a tall child. I remind her that it's way too early to tell and Annabelle could hit a brick wall (that is somehow suspended horizontally) any moment now.

But it's interesting how you wish for your kids some things that you did not have. For my wife, it's height. Not that 5' 2" is Oompa Loompa (those illegal immigrants who are slaving away for less than minimum wage for the fat cat industrialist Wonka) but it was apparently something she wanted.

For me, I'm not sure. We didn't grow up rich, but we weren't poor. We were loved, but also had stern discipline. I wasn't really popular but I had good diverse (if not always intersecting) group of friends. I'm not sure if I had an ideal childhood, but it certainly wasn't bad. I guess it was... mediocre?

So what do you wish for your kid that is different from what you had if what you had was... fine. Sure, I want my daughter to have a great childhood, want for nothing and enjoying every day, but if the drive for that "better" life is driven by the delta between what you had and what the "better" life is, then maybe it's a rather weak propulsion. But the alternative does not bear a thought.

Ah well. I wander.