Well, another month has all but slipped away. Make that: another year. My year, that is—the reckoning that began when I stuck my head out of my mother’s belly and thought: “Crap, it’s bright out here!” Moments later, a new thought: “Crap, it’s cold, too!”
Actually, the story goes that I had to be dragged out. “Forceps …” (Is that Dr. Kildare? or Dr. Chamberlen?) Grab that greasy little thing!
My siblings all have nice first-day photos from the nursery at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland: my older brother sleeping soundly, the younger ones just staring vacantly or dozing. My first portrait is a standing joke in the family: eyes glaring at the stupid camera guy, one eyelid puffy like a prizefighter’s, the head slightly lopsided … What a way to start a life!
(Nice pompadour, or whatever it is you call that flip up top.)
Now everything’s just fine—haven’t seen a forceps since.
Corrigendum 2009.10.07: I’ve been meaning to make this correction for some time now. It turns out my older brother and I were born at St. Ann Hospital, not Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, where the rest of the gang was born.
