F is for Father

I'm a lot like my dad.

When I was a little kid, anytime my mom would take me to the office and we'd run into someone who hadn't seen me in a long time, the first thing they'd say was always, "Wow, you're getting so big! I haven't seen you since you were this small." And the second thing they'd always say was, "You look just like your dad!"

I do look a lot like my dad. I've got his eyes, his hair, and his smile. (Thankfully, I inherited my mom's nose.) But beyond that, I'm very much like my father, as my mom used to remind me with a weary sort of despair every time I'd procrastinate on homework or a class project.

I grew up with my mom, mind you, and I spent most of my time with her, since my dad and my other family lived on the other side of this very large state. And yet, somehow, I picked up a lot of my dad's behavioral tendencies. My dad attributes this phenomenon to DNAAAAAaaaa... always spoken in a low, spooky voice.

One of my earliest memories (at least, I think it's a real memory -- it's hard to know for sure without some independent corroboration) is of lying in our back yard in Ingleside, when I was about three years old, chewing on grass and watching clouds float through the sky. Did that ever really actually happen? It's hard sometimes to believe I was ever three years old.