High Fidelity

And then she starts on a whiny, how-come-you’ve-got-yourself-into-this-mess speech, which I know is a result of her powerlessness and panic, but it’s my day today, such as it is, and I’m not prepared to listen to that either. She’s OK about me shutting her up, though: because she still treats me like a child, birthdays are times when I am allowed to behave like one.

It must be hard for parents, I guess, when they see that things aren’t working out for their children, but that their children can no longer be reached by the old parental routes, because those roads are now much too long.

Birthdays should be suspended in years like this one: there should be a law, of man if not of nature, that you are only allowed to age when things are ticking along nicely.