Eleven years young

Orange Crate Art turns eleven later today. My daughter Rachel, eleven years ago:

“If you’re going to be this uptight and worried about it, you’re not going to be a very happy blogger. Just say ‘This is my new blog; I’m trying it out. Thanks to my son and daughter. I hope it works out.’”

Rachel was (and is) wise beyond her years.

What’s it like to be eleven? Well, there’s “growing maturity and confidence built on the experiences of earlier years,” along with “increasingly advanced cognitive skills and emotional maturity.” Yet one “may still be unsettled by major change.” (True, that.) Do “major bodily and hormonal changes” count as “major change”? I should think so.

As for being “acutely self-conscious in public,” Orange Crate Art has always been acutely self-conscious in public. No wonder: it’s never not been in public. And when it takes along an umbrella and there’s no rain, it feels like a jerk.

Thanks (again) to my fambly: to Rachel, for suggesting Orange Crate Art as a name; to Rachel and Ben, for showing me the basics of HTML; and to Elaine, whose sense of what’s appropriate is always appropriate. And thanks (again) to Van Dyke Parks, who was generous and enthusiastic about my use of his song’s title as this blog’s title.

And thank you, reader, old or new.

[Descriptions of a generic eleven-year-old from WebMD.]