Last summer, I got a fat dose of South Korean pop culture when Paige was home from college. I watched a Canadian couple make kimbap on YouTube. One day she showed me a rap star. His earnestness made me smile. The music was not of his continent, but he made it his own with a sense of humor, but straight — like the local band that was the rage when I was in college, Brave Combo.

When the rapper made a cameo on the season premiere of Saturday Night Live, I texted Paige to ask her if it was the same guy. Yes, she texted back, that’s Psy. When I told the newsroom about it Monday morning, I got called a hipster.

Hardly. I was born a dork and I cannot escape it. On trail runs, I’m the durable socks and comfortable shoes to RunnerSusan’s body glide and  marathon runner kitten sex.

Yes, I know the first rule of being a hipster is not talking about being a hipster.

I keep my cool and act like a boring, responsible adult, but it’s fun re-living college life vicariously through the kids, especially this latest round of new ideas and new experiences.

My dork-ness was at its zenith, of course, when the kids were in high school. While Sam’s pursuit of an associate’s degree in computer information and technology has inspired a whole new arena of dork-ery for me, the perception of my dork-ness has changed a little with the kids. Michael got me wearing Ray-bans and Sperrys and using an iPhone.

My job has cool factor that many other kids’ parents’ jobs don’t. Someday I’ll break it to them. It’s cool to be a reporter, but it works best when you’re like Forrest Gump and keep falling into history, wearing durable socks and comfortable shoes and carrying a pocketful of pens.