Last night I hopped on the old memory train. I saw Griff's recent ADK post with a photo of him and Pete and remembered the mm saying something about how he must have had to walk really far in the snow to find Pete. I wanted to remind her and show her the original photo and the new one but I couldn't remember the exact thing she said and the context so i went searching but couldn't find the post. I did end up on 'Funny and embarrassing things they say' and it was funny and bittersweet. Without getting all maudlin it's been a delightful, funny, and inspiring 18 years (and counting!) for me and hopefully for you all as well.

We've watched our kids grow up, we've shared our tragedies and successes, and in a lot of cases helped contribute to the latter. You've all helped shape my emotional and personal growth and helped clarify my values. We've gotten older, we've lost some Dwellars gained new ones and have moved our imaginary home. So many changes and I've had the fortune to experience them with all of you. One of these days I will remember Virtual Forks and attend or maybe host or travel to a live one.

I just shared with my GF, (30+ years teaching college with emphasis on compostion in her classes) Monster's post about PoloGirl:

Monster wrote:

PoloGirl (College senior) is taking a dull, non-genius-level class to complete her ?science requirement for graduation. Something to do with the environment and people.... All other students are taking it for the same reason. She was telling me that the prof is clearly not used to having students who can write. He's set a homework that's a minimum 600 words, and told the class "don't worry if you're struggling, you can treat it as a series of long-answer questions and not string them together as an essay. Just start writing, you'll be amazed at how much you can actually write".

She said "my problem is getting it down to 600. I can't sneeze in less than 600 words".

As they get older the nature of their funny and embarrassing saying changes from unintentionally funny to intentionally funny and the embarrassment shifts away from us to themselves as they navigate the awkwardness of growing up: 'Biderman, biderman, does whatever a bider can; kiss a boy? sure why not? Also thinks girls are hot! Lookout, here comes the biderman!'

The inch is now footfootfoot+5, the mm is becoming the MM and they are in turns appalling and gratifying.

When they say something funny I'll try to remember long enough to post it.