It's fun to watch our friends' kids develop personalities. Ian seems to be keen on mechanical and technological things. Harrison is all about emotion and sensitivity. My nephew, Michael, is surprisingly athletic.

While other five-year-olds are swinging platic bats at wiffle balls and missing, Michael is smacking the ball over the backyard fence. He's throwing and catching like a natural.

And, apparently, he's skateboarding.

"Did I tell you what my son can do?" Tony said to me yesterday. He, Nick, and I were sitting around my office, eating Twinkies and beef jerky, discussing Tony's life.

"What can your son do?" I asked. "Beat up other kids?"

"No. He can ollie up on to the curb," said Tony, enthused. "And he's only five-years-old!"

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked. Tony shook his head, and then he patiently explained elementary skateboard terminology to his terminally unhip older brother.

Michael's ollie was especially impressive because Tony had been under the impression that he was going to give up skateboarding.

Their family recently made a trip to San Diego to see some friends. One day, Tony and Kamie took the kids from both families to a skate park. The place was packed with teenagers. "Let's go," said Tony. "The kids are only going to be in the way."

Kamie insisted they stay. "They'll be fine," she said. Reluctantly, Tony agreed to let the kids skate with the teenagers. It was clear immediately that Alex was endangering himself and others. Tony pulled him aside and tried to entertain him. Michael and the others continued to skate.

After a while, Michael marched over to Tony in a fury. He was raging. (He may only be five, but he has a temper. He's full of righteous anger.)

"What's wrong?" Tony asked Kamie.

"I made him leave," Kamie said. "He was skating around with the teenagers and one of them said, 'Watch out, we might break you.' I didn't want him to get hurt."

Michael fumed for the rest of the day. "I'm going to break you," he kept muttering to himself. Tony thought this would be enough to make him give up skateboarding, but apparently not.

Now the boy can do an ollie.

On this day at foldedspace.org

2005 — Animal Personalities   Our cats are filled with personality. I wonder if all animals exhibit individual personalities. Do chickens? Do hedgehogs? Do fish?

2003 — Baudolino   In which my sub-conscious sings. In which football season is off to a fine start. In which Baudolino offers insights on truth.

2002 — You Know   For better or worse, here's a fragment I wrote a couple of weeks ago while running errands.