It's about this headache. I periodically get headaches. Until today I did not recognize the pattern my headaches take; they follow in the wake of holidays or vacations in which my children return home and refuse to adapt to my schedule. Who ever said going to bed by 11pm and waking at 7 was a good thing did not live at my address-- or during my century.

I say "who" because I will not make the mistake of crediting Benjamin Franklin and his Poor Richard's Almanac for the phrase, "Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise." Ben didn't originate the phrase, he simply made it accessible to the public. He had the humility to feel abashed about everyone attributing these fine proverbs to him. He wrote in his 1758 Almanac: "...my vanity was wonderfully delighted with it, though I was conscious that not a tenth part of the wisdom was my own... but rather the gleanings that I made of the sense of all ages and nations" The sense of all ages and nations... I like that. It implies that there is a sense to all ages and nations.

I live in the great state of Colorado. When I say the great state of Colorado, I expect a laugh. But I never get one. I expect a laugh because I am hearkening back to the Vice Presidencial age of Dan Quayle who said- in my lifetime, "It's wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago." Is my lack of response an ageism thing? I do not garner a chuckle. In fact, my young adult trio does the infamous eye roll. For those of you who do not live in these United States, Chicago is not one of the 50 states. A fact one would hope Vice Presidents understand.

The eye roll is a gesture of contempt. It means, "Mom has got to be the stupidest person on the planet." Except when it means, "There you go again," a phrase made ridiculous by Sarah over-rehearsed Palin. "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backward," she told Joe Biden. This phrase, accompanied by a conscious eye roll, could have worked had it not been so blatantly hypocritical. My kids are experts at conveying non-verbal "there you go again, Mom" messages that effectively convey "you are making a comedic reference to something insignificant in your past."

If my kids weren't such practiced eye rollers, they might have been chosen to be hypnotized during my eldest daughter's Freshman Orientation. The hypnotist wandered past fresh, eager eyeballs, selecting viable candidates, evidently using Herb Spiegel's eye roll test. This test theorizes that a person who shows the whites of her eyes while eye rolling is more susceptible to the power of hypnosis. A hypnotist prefers candidates who go down without a fight. Our fledgling hypnotist flew right past my three, who were exercising full cornea rotation. They do not practice full submersion of their corneas because they enjoy the peripheral pleasure of watching me squirm like an intact worm.

I say intact because my father did a number on my brother in high school which wound up tainting Craig's college career. Some fathers beat their projeny; mine buffooned. He had us all believing worms were miraculous creatures because cutting them in half created two worms instead of killed one. I believe this observation originated when I hacked a worm in two while shoveling dirt in our back garden. My father hated to see me cry. So he wound up creating a biological impossiblity. It was his compassionate response to my violent act. This empathic statement was eavesdropped by my trusting brother who got pay back for his breach in ettiquette when he told the entire freshman class of Biology majors that worms had equal parts on both sides of their bodies and could therefore survive dissection. His professor smirked and gave him an out, "Are you sure of that, Craig?" To which my brother responded, "Of course. My dad said it, so it must be true." Now there was a laugh response worth gauging. Craig left the biology department and discovered a satisfying career in political cartooning.

You see, my siblings and I grew up believing that what Dad said was true was, in fact, true. He was god-like in stature. Our mother held to the belief that Dad was perfect. "Your Dad is perfect," she would say, citing the March day we went skiing and Dad insisted on paying quadruple the child rate for Craig's lift ticket-- Craig had turned 16 the day before. "You are an adult now," he silenced my protesting brother. One narrow-eyed glance from Dad and the smartest of mouths would be sealed. One visible tightening of the jaw, and a misstep would hang like a dangling participle awaiting correction.

I grew up in a secure environment. Dinner on the table at 6:00 sharp. No calls after 10:00 p.m. Out of bed by 9:00 a.m. on Saturday mornings and only one hour of television per day. When we graduated and went in search of ourselves it was understood: be the change somewhere else. Here, dinner is still at 6:00 sharp. Home is where the fart is not allowed. Cornea roll... my kids wouldn't get that reference, either. There's a Peter, Paul and Mary song, "Home is where the heart is, No matter how the heart lives, Inside your heart where love is, That's where you've got to make yourself, At home."

My head is no longer pounding. I have developed a craving for rich black dirt, a shovel and perhaps, a worm.

Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken. Oscar Wilde