PhoneBoy Says

What's your musical horoscope? (Put your player on shuffle and write down the first 10 songs that come up.)
Inspired by Stephanie.

I am still working on my "Unrated" project where I am going through and rating all the songs in my iTunes collection. With that in mind, the next 10 songs on the playlist are:

1. Cry Cry Cry by Steve Miller Band
2. You Just May Be The One by The Monkees
3. Smuggler's Blues by Glenn Frey
4. She's A Woman by The Beatles
5. A Great Day For Freedom by Pink Floyd
6. Because by The Beatles
7. Any Kind of Pain by Frank Zappa
8. Once Upon a Time In The West by Dire Straits
9. Don't Go To Pieces by The Cars
10. School by Supertramp

As I alluded to in my last post, I started digging around in my University accounts. I am thanking my lucky stars I was a bit more of an email packrat in those days, as I am finding snippets of some interesting conversations, not to mention some old poetry.

There is some emails I saved from people whose names who weren't on the tip of the tongue as well as some long-time friends. I found some emails from a women's studies class I took. I was the only man in the class, which I have to admit was a little awkward. I also found some emails from one of my English professors who let me into a business writing class that was hard as hell to get into, apparently. Of course, I was also helping him with Word Perfect.

I have to wonder what little bits of debris I am currently leaving in the great Google cache to be unearthed later.

I was going through some old files in my University Unix account trying to look for some of my favorite quotes to answer one of the recent quotes of the day. Instead, I found this "prose poem" I wrote to a girl on April 7th, 1993. There an email time stamp with it, thus why I know when.

Considering that I am now unable to get to most of the poetry I wrote in high school thanks to being saved on an obsolete disk drive format (Mac 800k), this was kind of a nice find. Not quite the vintage I was looking for, but close enough.

A pretty face scarred in her own tears as they burn across her face like a whip -- cracking, stinging, burning. As much as you want to hide those eyes that are red with pain and anguish, I want to stare deeply into them and soothe the streaks of fire that they are churning out. I want your eyes to uncloud for a moment and see that my love for you is stronger than your pain. If only you could see the message your relentless sorrow and fear are forbidding you from seeing that my face aptly communicates; if only you could stop screaming long enough to hear my words; if only you could fight the numbness long enough to feel the warmth in my touch; you might just sleep alone tonight.

What family member do you most aspire to be like? Why?
Submitted by MalieKai.

I don't aspire to be like anyone in my family. I am who I am despite my genes. But I suppose if I were to pick someone, I'd pick my Grandma Hattie. She had seemingly infinite patience and infinite love to give.

It still saddens me when I think about what had happened to who she was after that incident with Uncle Andy. My own personal version of "the long goodbye," if you will.

A shot at the underside.

I took Jaden and a couple of his friends over to the local Laser Tag place. It ended up being the four of us playing. I took a quick snapshot before I started shooting children with harmless beams of light.

A bit earlier in the ady, I also got sucked into a game of Dodgeball at the gym today with the kids. Oh man, I haven't played that game in ages. Such fun. But, of course, after both these activities, I am nice and sore.

Who was your first celebrity crush?
Submitted by Glory.

While I remember my grandmother telling me that I always smiled when I saw a pretty girl on the TV, probably the ones that stuck with me the most were the models on The Price is Right, otherwise known as Barker's Beauties. Whether or not that was the reason I still like game shows to this day, well that's a different question.

Meanwhile, the three I remember as being "the original ones I saw" were:

• Holly Hallstrom
• Janice Pennington
• Dian Parkinson

Not sure if they are "celebrities" in the sense everyone else is thinking about, but hey.

This old Simon and Garfunkel song popped into my mind. Maybe it hassomething to do with the fact I've spent the past few hours working on a sitethat represents something I used to spend a lot more time with. Evenwrote a couple of books about the product. And, ironically, as much asI try and move on from it, I'm still dealing with it on some level. Ohwell, at least the pay is good.

Old friends, old friends, Sat on their parkbench like bookends A newspaper blown through the grass Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends Old friends, winter companions, the old men Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset The sounds of the city sifting through trees Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends. Can you imagine us years from today, Sharing a parkbench quietly How terribly strange to be seventy Old friends, memory brushes the same years, Silently sharing the same fears Time it was and what a time it wasit wasA time of innocencea time of confidences.Long ago it must beI have a photographpreserve your memoriesthey're all that's left you.

Something happens. I get emotional in a negative way. My ability to try and think through it rationally leads down ratholes that simply reinforce my negative thinking more and more, making the negative feelings worse and worse. It's like swimming upstream against a raging river. I eventually find my way back, but it can sometimes take a while. Sometimes, afterwards, I can see clearly what happened and attempt to resolve the issue in my right mind. Other times, I have no idea. It's frustrating. But don't ask me to think about it while I'm that state.

Of course, if this emotional state occurs when I'm supposed to be being dad, well you can guess that my decision making abilities pretty much suck. Same goes for any other time where I can't simply disappear for a half hour to find my right mind.

Now I'm sure everyone goes through this kind of thing from time to time, but this is different. This happens several times a week, depending on what's going on. A number of things can set me off. Not sure why the hair trigger, but I do know that if I ever get emotional, do yourself a favor. Don't ask me to think.