When Boy in Black was younger, I drove him to music lessons every week. He’s the least chatty of my children, and my attempts to engage him in conversation usually resulted in one-word answers, or maybe two words if I was lucky. He was smart enough to know that I was trying to get him to talk, so the one-word answers came with a grin.
Me: How was school today?
Boy in Black: All right.
Me: How was your music lesson?
Boy in Black: Good.
This morning, he and I drove to campus together — he's in his senior year of college — and I figured that I’d take advantage of the car ride to promote some mother/son bonding, some deep and meaningful conversation.
Me: How are your classes going?
Boy in Black: Okay.
Me: So you’re meeting with a professor about the research you’re doing?
Boy in Black: Yeah.
Me: How’s that going?
Boy in Black: Good.
Me: So you’re writing a computer program?
Boy in Black: Yeah.
Me: What’s it do?
Boy in Black: It’s a program to calculate the fractal dimension of minimal spanning clusters on a square lattice in up to 6 dimensions.
Me: Um, yeah. How’s that going?
Boy in Black: Good.
