Phoenix told me that her mother is now requiring that she keep a journal, like she had when she was younger. I'm not really sure about the requirement thing, but Phoenix accepts rules a lot better than I ever did. Anyways, she's already wrote three poems in it and they're actually pretty good. I'm thinking about asking her if she'd mind if I posted them here to primp like a proud papa (enough alliteration for you?). Strangely they're not falling victim to a lot of the problems with things that young writers have, I don't know how she managed that since I've not really schooled her I think in writing. She's even been writing a weird vampire story with her friend from school that is outstanding mostly from the viewpoint that she has natural dialogue even if she somehow manages to think that gaslight England should have telephone references in it. Oh well, she's eleven. Hopefully she'll eventually take enough of an interest in history to at least know when she doesn't know things like that. I was pampered, my dad had thousands of books on surrounding me at all times and read around me all the time. I think the only time she really sees anyone reading is at school or when she's over here and on my computer pushing me into single-tasking a novel or something.

It's Shannon's Birthday today! Hard as it is for me to believe, she's twenty five years old already. I can hardly imagine her other than the little Jr. High school kid that was always tagging along on her big sister's dates, and now she's getting old and decrepit and gonna have a baby. Wow. I don't know what else to say about that, it was creepy enough when I realized I could legally make out with people who weren't born when Star Wars came out. Growing old is rotten. Shannon, I recommend stopping.