“I’m Super Big and Just Keep Growing and Growing”

She can reach the tall shelf herself

When she was still a baby, I remember Kina trying to pull herself up by the bottom of our living room bookshelf. I placed a fragile little vase that we had bought in Japan up on a shelf next to the television, where Kina couldn’t reach it, and I never thought about it again. Today, she casually grabbed a remote (which she, quite charmingly, calls a “remoter”) from that same shelf and turned on the television. Somehow, she’s enormous, like Alice after the cake. Will she never stop growing? We have drawers full of clothes that are now too big for her, but we haven’t brought ourselves to get rid of them, because somewhere inside this giant child is the smaller child who will still fit into that Guerilla Girls t-shirt I bought at the PS 1 Art Book Fair when she was two. Somewhere here there is a little bottle that says “Drink Me”, right? I should look inside that vase.

A personal note from the editor: I am very nearly through the busiest work month of my entire life, which is why these have recently been shorter. Maybe you like that! Still, I look forward to actually spending time on these again, and I’m glad you’re reading them. We’re just talkin’ about noses over here, so we appreciate every subscription we can get.

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