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2001-08-21 | 9:25 a.m.

I have a headache right now. I wish I could find a creature heavy enough and well-balanced enough to stand on my shoulders and dig in with its claws. Like a baby Totoro. I do ask my kids to do it while I lie on the bed, but they tend to slide off and end up walking on my hair, which only contributes to my headache.

I've always enjoyed having small people walk on my back. I ask my kids to do it almost every morning. I used to have my college roommate do it for me, even at work. Now she is a reporter for the Washington Post.

The downside to having young children walk on my back is that sooner or later, they get carried away, and start running around, chasing each other and trampling on me as if I were merely grapes in a vat or a series of weedy hillocks in the backyard. And that actually feels pretty good, too, but if I don't stop them, they start doing cannonballs. That not only hurts, it knocks the breath out of me.

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