[My mind says Rock Hudson, but my body says Doris Day]
How could I have guessed that my inaugural Audioblog post would rally the Satanists? It's too funny to take down, even though I do sound, like Tamara said, bored and miserable. That's a fun little tool, there. Bravo to the tech wizards who came up with that and made it free. Just imagine all the neat Audioblogs I could post if I actually went anywhere and did anything!

Speaking of going and doing, Phil and I are planning on getting down to Beale Street Sunday night. Maybe I'll post from some random blues bar and let you guys hear the pulse of this city. I'm looking forward to going out (I flaked on poker the other night because of my early schedule the next day; I might actually go this coming week, though, since I work late the next day) but the one absolute imperative for this weekend is to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm scared to death that it's going to disappoint me (a rabid Dahl and Burton fan), but it's gotten reasonably good reviews, so we'll see ...

I don't know what's swimming around in my head, but I can feel it teeming between my nose and throat and in my ears. I can feel liquid pressure shift when I move my head around. It's making me abuse Nyquil.

I broke down and bought "Destroy All Humans" and so far it's a lot of fun. My favorite thing to do is anally probe people so forcefully that their brains pop out. Reading people's minds is a lot of fun, too. That's where the subject line came from, in case you were wondering why I was thinking so lewdly about Pillow Talk.

All right, Cheryl tagged me, so here goes. (I'm not going to tag anyone specifically, so if you want to do it on your own, feel free.)

What 5 Things Do You Miss About Your Childhood?

• Christmas eve at my grandmother's house. I mean, we still have it there, but I'm an adult now, and it's just different. It's a little sadder every year or so as grandparents die and the family shrinks. When you're a kid it's about getting stuff and eating junk food, but now it's about being together and, in my mind, there's such an intense pressure for my family's time together to lack tension that that often creates tension itself. At least it seems that way to me sometimes.

• Family vacations. We didn't take a lot, but I always had a lot of fun. I remember St. Louis (to Cardinals games and Six Flags) and Disney World the best. I cried on Space Mountain. You're only really on vacation when you don't have to pay for anything.

• Spending days at a time at my cousin's house in Jackson. I think I wrote about this last summer, but we would spend all day at Tornado Hill, a water park in Jackson, and then that night, order two extra cheese pizzas from Little Caesar's and rent horror movies from Blockbuster. During the day we would choreograph dances to Vanilla Ice songs and play outside, trying not to hit any balls into the neighbors' yards.

• Playing sports. I played T-ball as soon as I was eligible, and worked my way up to slow-pitch softball and then fast-pitch in high school. I hated running and I really hated a lot of the people on my high school team, but looking back, I was healthy and in shape and it seemed sort of effortless. It wasn't like I was logging hours at a gym; I was having fun (well, when we were winning, which wasn't that often, actually).

• This one's a cop-out because it's almost 3 a.m. and I'm going to bed: Summer vacation! Sure, I got bored by June 15 and missed work stuff to do (lifelong workaholic), but what a novel concept: two and a half months of nothing to do. How cruel to waste summer vacations on children, who don't do anything but dig in the dirt and chase after each other with sticks. We adults could use the free time to, I don't know, cure cancer or something. Oh wait, that sounds like a lot of work. Nevermind.