My daughter is editor of her high school yearbook. In our town, many of the graduates' families purchase "dedication pages", which are really vanity spaces for our darling children/siblings/paramours. So far, my daughter has talked her father, her sister, her best friend, and me into buying a page for her. This is weird but typical here. In a way, I can see that if a kid is paying sixty bucks for a yearbook, he/she wants some decent photographs and dedications, rather than a half-assed senior shot and a short list of the clubs that the kids rarely went to a meeting for. My own yearbook was an embarrassing tome which pointed out that, no, I was not one of the popular girls. It's more like a slideshow that could have accompanied Janis Ian's anthem of misfit-ism, "At Seventeen". To make it worse, the most heartfelt notes in my yearbook were written by my teachers. The friendless teacher's pet, my yearbook cries out.

My teenaged years were not quite as bad as the yearbook indicates. Still, I cringe whenever I look at it. The best thing about it is the firm evidence that I never donned the seventies mullet. My daughter pointed this out admiringly, when she saw that every single person on my page had a version of feathered and layered hair except me.

I have to pick a good quote, a personal note, and a group of photos for my daughter's page. She e-mailed me from school the other day, suggesting that I look at the famous words of Barry Manilow. I can't quite figure what she means - "I made it through the rain"? "Music and fashion were always the passion at the Copa"? "I never realized how happy you made me, Oh Mandy"??? I was thinking more along the lines of my own quotable favorites - Dr. Suess, Einstein, Douglas Adams, Alice Walker. I'll dig a little deeper in the morning. All the pumpkin pie and butter beans have left me lethargic.

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

NTD