i_looked_in_the_mirror_today DannyH And I think I caught a glimpse of the man I will become. I'm 32. Up until now I've really never been able to see myself in the mirror. It's always been like that thing where you draw two dots on a piece of paper and focus on one, move the paper away until the other one disappears (try it) But Today I think I saw him. Quite by accident I realised I needed a shave. I mean I needed a shave really badly and I realised that for me to need a shave that badly and for me not to have noticed at some earlier point I must have been very very caught up in what I was doing, too caught up to pay any real attention to my appearance. I was pleased with myself, to have escaped vanity in search of a higher purpose (in this case, renovating the house my girlfriend and I have bought, a nest for our unborn child, who may or may not be named Lauren or Jodie Harrison). I looked in the mirror, not so much to look at myself as to appraise the effect of looking at oneself in the mirror in general, this being a mirror I had affixed myself and had just recently finished tiling around. I was surprised, therefore to discover, smack in the centre of this new feature, the visage of an unshaven but nonetheless familiar man. I had just a fraction of a seconds chance to appraise this gentleman before the realisation it was me produced the screaming loop of visual feedback that on almost all previous occasions had obscured my view of myself. I was relieved to discover that the memory I was left with was of an unprepossessing and wryly inquisitive chap, on the cusp of full manhood. Benign, but with the promise of unpredictability, there was certainly the trace of wateriness about the eyes but just the hint that there might be steel in the core there somewhere. I liked the look of him, I thought I might like to be his friend. I thought he might cut it all right as a Dad. I only saw him for a fraction of a second so it's hard to tell if he was really the person I've been looking for in reflective surfaces for all these years but I thought to myself "you'll do, old son. You'll do at a pinch." 051021 ... not THAT rush "...my eyes just didn't seem so bright. I've lost a few more hairs. I think I'm going bald." -N.P. okay, so not _all_ of neil's lyrics are great, but it was early on, give the guy a break. 051021 ... andru235 i_looked_in_the_mirror_today...and there i was! DannyH that was very interesting. also i was pleasantly surprised to hear another guy who considers "manhood" to be a much later development than merely completing adolesence. sometimes it seems to me like here in the u.s. our perception of being a man is tied to having completed more than eighteen or so solar revolutions. and if not that, then it is tied to income and/or violence. seldom does it seem to be addressed in terms of responsibility management or self-actualization, etc. as i see it, there are a million ways to reach manhood, but i'm not inclined to count age, wealth, or physical aggressiveness among them. perhaps that reflects a poor image of who i am. 051021 ... oldephebe hear! hear! andru! Danny H - brilliant - ... 051021 what's it to you? who go blather from