Lots of crap in my year (88) so I had to stop reading the list in self defense.

Polgara, my deepest sympathies to you and your sister. I'm so sorry about your mom.

"She's So Modern" is my favorite Boomtown Rats song. Mostly because it's so catchy.

I'm split between "Wind Chill Factor" and "Lucky". Love them both.

I need to re-familiarize myself with their stuff - it's been ages since I played them (all on vinyl).

Malkovich plays her lover. Laurie is her husband who she totally blows off.

So Annie Lennox got to swan around with both Malkovich and Laurie? Excuse me, I have to go turn green with envy now.

Poor Polgara and sister.

I am so sorry for your loss.

Polgara - there are not words. good thoughts to you and your family.

My god, Polgara, I'm so sorry. I don't have any words, but know you'll be in my thoughts.

~~~~~~~

In shallow music news... Needless to say, I enjoy most of the most popular music from most of my life. I love Brandy AND My Perogative. Brandy is actually on the suprisingly long list of songs to which I have hand motions. But cheesy R&B from my high school days might still be my favorite genre.

Jesse. Now Jerome.

How I wish I got more of this and less Jessie's Girl.

Had an interview last night and I'm trying to compose a thank you letter that praises the organization, and conveys my enthusiastic interest in the firm and why they must hire me immediately. But all I keep coming up with smells of sycophancy and desperation. Does have a good template for thank you letters or know a good website that has them?

Sycophancy isn't so bad, in this kind of situation, I think. People want to hire people who really want the job, you know?

I feel like the biggest dork in the world, but "Back on the Chain Gang" makes me cry and cry and cry. I used to cry a bit back when I thought it was a song about mournful ex-lovers, and then Hec told me all about how it was the Pretenders' first single after a truly awful couple of years in which they and all their friends and associates had been beseiged by addictions, illnesses, and stupid pointless deaths, and that Chrissie Hynde had lost who even knew how many friends in a very short time, and the song was all about her standing in the living world singing across it to all those people who were stupidly, criminally, tragically beyond her reach.

And that's why it's a great song. Wonder how many funerals it's been played at.

So now that song makes me cry like a bastard. And if I let my mind wander and allow the words "chain gang" to lead me to thoughts of Sam Cooke, I cry even more.

The refrain has a shoutout to "Chain Gang" in it as well.

1989 was not a good musical year. I found maybe 11 songs that wouldn't make me change the channel, and the only ones I'm really fond of are "Love Shack" and "Stand."

STAND?

Oh deer Lawd.

I thought my program of Making You Like My Music was working. Looks like I'll have to play you more early REM in your sleep.

My year was noted elsewhere, and I think I ended up with 10/100. But 1990 was a nadir in music, and I have the excuse of being from Oklahoma. Then I went to college and discovered the Pixies....

Oh, and attention all parents and friends of Buffistas:

STOP BEING SICK AND STOP DYING IMMEDIATELY.

Thank you.

Jesse! Speaking of hand motions ... do you know the right ones for the chorus of I Would Die 4 U?