18

So Em's 18th Birthday didn't happen quite sequentially. I won't go into details, but there was drama involved, and at every juncture I might have asked for birthday gift ideas, it just wasn't the moment.

I'm sure, as father-child relationships go, it was less dramatic and traumatic than when I turned 18. I contributed to that problem prodigiously at the time, so I guess you can shrug almost anything off as karmic payback. Not to judge my own father, but I think in hindsight when it all blew up around the time I was in 8th Grade, and I did everything in my powers to drive Dad away, it worked a little too well and I was left feeling somewhat discarded. I wrote about that a bit here, a few years back, and it's a subject for another time and channel, I think.

So after her birthday party was over, there was finally a moment when I could ask Em what she wanted for her birthday and get an answer I could work with. I got her a couple of John Green novels, I think this makes a complete set for her (and I may benefit myself since she sometimes favors us by narrating them audio-book style in the car, and so far I've enjoyed all of his stuff), and a phone case.

Which she unwrapped while still in uniform from her new gig as a Perkins waitress. And lest you think it's always high noon around here, I even caught her making Sheba into the world's biggest lap dog over the weekend.