One time she fell in the pond, which was funny

E3 starts college today, which scores, on a scale from 1 to 10, a "super weird." Surely she's not old enough to be in college. I just adjusted to her being in high school.

In the combinatorics of the Four Es, E3 and I are perhaps the most volatile. We're like that science fair chestnut, the vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano. You have the baking soda, you add the vinegar, it explodes and boils over. Interesting the first time you see it, tolerable the second, and by the third time, you're pretty much embarrassed for the lame kid that thought it would be cool to do the same damn experiment that everybody else in history has already done.

My mom theorizes that we fight because we are so much alike, which sort of blows a hole in the baking soda theory. We are both artistic, strong-willed, easily wounded, and intelligent (you know, most of the time). But then, that could be a description of any of the four of us. In a lot of ways my sister and I are very different. She's outgoing, impulsive, pretty, and melodramatic. I am reserved, methodical, plain, and pragmatic. It is these traits—and their resulting worldviews—that lead to our fights. To keep up the chemistry analogy, the similarities are merely the catalysts. My theory/metaphor wins!

In any case, she's in college now, so hopefully we will have some interesting things to talk about the next time I see her. Arguing about whether Nero actually offed Agrippina or whether Chagall is beautiful (me) or perverted (her) is much more interesting and less like liquid hot magma than arguing about the best age to get married (her: 19, me, contrarily: 35), whose goals are less attainable (her: self-supporting artist, me: self-supporting bookstore owner/writer), and who is Mom's favorite (her: you, me: uh, not me).

So...happy colleging, E3. I hope you had as good or better a time as I did.