Send Washington my phone records. You won’t find anything of interest. Why? Because, as many of you know, I hate talking on the phone. I loathe it. I always have.

Now why is that? I’m a textbook extrovert; I draw much of my energy from others. I’m a performer who gets a thrill (and probably the feeling of acceptance on account of some miles-deep, insecure emotional need for approval) out of all things theater. You’d think I’d be a magpie on the phone…but I’m not.

I’d say fully 85 percent of my phone usage comes from texting. The next ten percent is web/email, which leaves a measly five percent for actual talking. I like it that way.

Now of course, there are exceptions. I don’t hate talking on the phone all the time. Just, you know…95 percent of the time. I can think of two reasons, off the top of my pointy head:

1. The “overlap” issue. Invariably, you get two people on the phone who are trying to be polite, but end up talking over each other, and who then stop talking at the very same moment so the other person can talk. AWKWARD. Then you say, “Oh, sorry, go ahead” — at the same time. I hate that. Face-to-face communication is so much easier, and failing that — text. No interruptions or awkward lags in the conversation.
2. Conversation control. Now this doesn’t happen with my close fiends and family, but rather with people I either don’t know or just know marginally. I like to be in control of my time, but I don’t want to be rude and say, “Welp, sorry, gotta go — bye!” or “You called at sort of a bad time.”

Now I know there are people (because I know them personally) who much prefer talking on the phone, and that’s fine. I’m not particularly thrilled with those who insist that talking on the phone is somehow superior in all ways to communicating in any other manner, but hey, whatever floats the boat. They can just knock themselves out.

But they’ll get my voicemail.

Cripes, how did I get so off-topic? My original point was that I have nothing to hide, so the NSA can do their worst. Heck, let ’em pay my Verizon bill while they’re snooping around at my texts about what time someone is leaving, or when do you want me to get the boys, or could you please pick up some milk on your way home, or how are you feeling today?

So many random thoughts for a rainy Thursday morning. And what have we here? It’s BoomR’s birthday today. Happy happy to you, amigo!