THINKING AND DRINKING AND TYPING

I suppose that when I retire I will miss all those little voices calling out my name.  For attention, for recognition, for comfort (and for what lately has seemed, more and more often, the whininess of long-distance whiner.)

But sometimes, I swear, I am becoming royally sick of hearing my name.  It conjures those years when my mother wasn't, um, the most stable octogenarian in the precinct, and she'd call, at least a dozen times a day, leaving messages on the answering machine, all of them beseeching and pleading, some tearful, most ridiculous, every one prefixed by my name.  Fuck, I got sick of hearing my name.

So I need to remind myself -- on my way to the finish line -- that children are children.  And they are the reason I wanted this job in the first place.  So,

Yes, Isabelle, I'll get to you in just a second.  Benjamin, go ahead.  Your hand was raised first.  Then you, Katy.  And Liam, you're after Katy.

Oh, hell.  I guess it's better that not being called at all.

Llewellen... need I ask?  More beer, old son.