I have a big head.

It’s something like 7 7/8, which is a ridiculous size for a female. When I was little my mom used to tell me it was because of my big brain. Yeah, she’s always been a glass-half-full kind of mom.

I don’t look odd, in fact it looks the size of a normal head in pictures.  At least I think it does, but upon measurement, the thing is huge. This means I can’t easily find hats or baseball caps. I have to shop online at the big head stores.

Size is weird. For guys it’s . . . well, let’s not even go there. For women big is rarely a good thing.

I’ve never liked having a big head because it’s an inconvenience and it makes me different. I want to be able to hide my bad hair under a cute baseball cap just like every other mom. I want the ease that normal brings and yet I am rarely normal.

I’ve been reading the Cormoran Strike books by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling). They are fantastic, by the way.

I’m on the latest one and Cormoran is a private investigator. He lost the bottom half of his leg in Afghanistan where he was with the military police. Galbraith does an incredible job of showing his struggle to deal with his leg, the prosthesis, and the challenges of running after crazy bad guys with an . . . impediment.

Strike isn’t real, although I love him as if he were. He’s a fictional character, made up by the author. She could have chosen any combination of traits, physical and otherwise. She gave him half a leg, created that physical challenge for her character and it is perfect in all its abnormality. It gives him something to overcome, a weakness or a strength, depending on how you look at it.

I have absolutely no idea how my big head and Cormoran’s missing half of his leg tie together. There’s certainly no comparing the inconvenience of a big head to the pain and loss of an amputated limb.

I guess I’m just thinking that for all the emphasis our society places on perfect, flawless, buff and beautiful, it’s our oddities that often make us most interesting. It’s the quirks that, when given an opportunity to create anyone, our great writers seem to choose.

We tend to hail normal and uniform, strive for it, pay for it, and yet the bruises and dents are usually what we find most fascinating. They are the tells of a life, a story.

My thoughts from the laundry room. King Size Pillows.

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