Yesterday, I went to the bookstore with Lisa and Bronwyn. I hadn't been in a rather long time, and Lisa said she could go for a cup of joe and a cruise through the stacks. So, after we dropped Lauren off at afternoon session, Lisa packed Bronwyn's diaper bag and we headed downtown.

I'm such a dork. Truly. I am no longer a closet geek, able to hide behind a carefully-applied veneer of Jane Average Happy Homemaker. I'm a dork through and through. And it's beginning to show.

Sitting mid-row, surrounded by this year's winners and honourable mentions for the Nerd Awards, I grumbled, loudly, that all the HTML books they had were old-news. I further subjected nearby shopping strangers to my pitiful cries of "there just aren't any interesting JAVA books, and they don't have squat on Cascading Style Sheets."

Lisa just sort of, well, looked at me like I was crazy. "Style Sheets?" she asked. "This is a bookstore, not a bed and bath."

Oh, haha.

I settled for some newer David Siegel rag that looked a little too glossy, but begged me to buy it with its promises of "third generation secrets" (I'm so marketable). I also opted for both of the relatively lame CSS titles. Why both? Because each covered what the other didn't. Duh. I really wanted this unwieldy, oversized, day-glo yellow thing (something about graphics, by some cool chick whose name always escapes me), but it was $50. Shoot, that ain't nothing for a book, these days. The JAVA Certification coursebook was $65, and it wanted me to adopt it, as well.

[Insert long-suffering sigh here]

I knew Manly was going to birth a cow as it was, so I tucked my three choices under my arm, and we made our way to the children's section. Lisa, it seemed, was on a mission to find a good book for very young kiddos that painted an ugly picture of The Gimmies. More easily said than done. She did, however, take a shine to one of the Tell Me Why series, as well as a handful of Sandra Boynton, and some other goodies. I couldn't walk out without Anne of Green Gables, which I planned to read to Babe a few pages at a time.

Lisa wrinkled her nose. "You don't think it's too old for her?"

I stopped, regarded Anne for a moment. Opened the cover, skimmed a couple paragraphs. "You think?" I asked.

"Well, it's pretty grown up, isn't it?"

I shrugged. I hadn't even thought of it that way. I mean, when I was Babe's age, my mum read most of the Nancy Drew series to me. Four months later, I was reading those books to myself. Was Anne "too old?"

I always get all tangled up right there. It's that whole thing about not comparing your child to other children. But... I've got it just a shade worse than that: I compare my kid to myself. It isn't fair, you're right. I shouldn't do it, but I catch myself in the act. Babe is not gage. That's a tough one to remember. I mean, duh, she isn't me. I know that. I just can't help thinking, "Well, I was doing x at this time, so she should, too."

What if I'm going all wrong? What if she isn't like me at all?

I bought Anne of Green Gables, despite those same inner doubts. And, you know, I've begun reading it, and Babe sits, rapt, sponging up the fancy words and flowery descriptions. I guess if that's "wrong," I can live with it.

And then, I pulled my back out. I'm not sure what precisely caused it, if it was a single thing. As is often the case with my back, it's a "straw that broke the camel" sort of deal. I believe the straw was Babe. Er... Well, helping her into the car when I picked her up from school later in the afternoon. I must have twisted funny, or leaned out too far. I did something, I know, for by the time I sat down to dinner, spikes of pain were shooting down my right leg, and I had a bugger of a knot just below my waist, just above my right buttock.

Yes, I thought it was a kidney thing at first, too. It isn't, though. My back's all nice and totally locked up, thanks.

Can I say this now? I am so too young for this crap. I mean, grey hair? Bad back? Screwball heart? What am I? The world's oldest 25-year-old?

Which reminds me, the world's oldest (recorded) human died recently. She was 120-some. Yuck. I do not want to live to be that old.

Oh, like you're gonna make it there at this rate, you dork.

Yeah, yeah. Bite me.