The Girl is at the Wile E. Coyote stage of walking. She can stand up on her own, as long as she doesn’t look down. The moment she looks down, she plops on her backside (unlike Wile E., she laughs hysterically).
As a kid, I always loved Roadrunner cartoons. Something about Wile E. Coyote appealed to me. The distance between the inflated self-image (“I am Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius”) and the pathetic belly flops always got me laughing, yet he was, for a predator, sympathetic. There was something touching about his unfailing, if misplaced, belief in his own abilities.
There’s something very Wile E. Coyote about deaning. We chase the uncatchable, publicly project confidence as we go running off a cliff, and always dust ourselves off and try again after getting accordioned under a big rock. The trick is never to look down.
The Girl and I are on the same wavelength. I only wish my learning curve was as short as hers.
