high tech

"What?" says the girl, eyes full of at-me or with-me as she seeks the source of my chuckle. She looks at the monitors, she looks at the screen, she looks, again, at me. As if there's nothing just a little bit funny about the two of us propped in my bed side-by-side, each with a lap-full of keyboard, sharing the wireless and vaguely inappropriate TV. I "nothing" her question away, and we click and we giggle--one of us wondering if she should be cringing--until she nudges me to check another tab. She's e-mailing me, from six inches away. What an excellent use of technology.

I do not take this opportunity for any questions, for any capital-C-Conversations or capital-P parenting, though I do sneak a sideways glance at her inbox. Instead I just match her animated emoticons pixel for pixel in a nonsense string of replies and make a note to remember.