Author Archives: Renee

Frank Listens: Desert Island Top 5 Albums

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It’s cold. I’m talking “wind chill is below zero and I keep thinking about how this time last year, I at least had Florida to look forward to” kind of cold that seems endless. Because I have no warmer climates to visit this year (although if someone else wanted to foot the bill, I probably wouldn’t decline), I’ve just been trying to imagine them in my head. Naturally, the whole desert island scenario came up for me, and I started thinking about my desert island top 5 albums.

Of course, this causes my pop culturally sensitive brain to go two places at once: first to the film High Fidelity, one of my favorite Cusack movies. How can you even consider any kind of top 5 list without thinking about that movie? Second, my brain goes to that episode of LOST when Hurley is listening to his Discman and the batteries die. That makes me wonder if the whole concept of “Desert Island Top Five Albums” is kind of dead. When I went to Ireland, I took four CDs with me and three of them were “mix tapes on disc”. But now I have an iPod and all of my music is at my disposal all the time. I wouldn’t really need to choose my top 5 albums. I’d just need to pray for an iPod battery that never dies.

Clearly I’m over-thinking this and should just get to the list. So, for technicality’s sake, here’s my list.

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Therapeutic Writing

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Last week I read this article about the correlation between writing and stress/anxiety levels. It summarized a study in which students were given the opportunity to write for ten minutes before major tests. The students who were given the time to write about their concerns and anxieties, etc., ultimately had better test scores than the students who went into the exam cold. It was then noted that writing could, indeed, be quite therapeutic.

I figured that out on my own years ago.

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A Strange Fascination With Tragedy…

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When I was in third grade, we learned about The Challenger explosion, which happened 25 years ago today and is the reason why I’m thinking about all of this. In some way, my nine year old mind managed to turn this lesson into a cause for concern, that perhaps something equally as tragic could happen to my beloved teacher or even to me someday when I became a teacher. I managed to convince myself that if I really paid attention and became totally fixated on in, I could somehow prevent further tragedy from happening.

When I got home from school, I told my parents all about what I’d learned. In turn, my dad told me about how he remembered watching it live in the kitchen at my grandmother’s house where we were living at the time (whether I was there with him or not is still unclear. I may have been at pre-school, but he thinks I was there). He was talking to my mom on the phone and told her that it had just blown up, and she didn’t believe him. I have a memory of being in my grandma’s kitchen, of my dad sitting there with the TV on. I can see the coiled phone cord stretched across the room. I just don’t know if that’s the same memory. It’s been driving me kind of crazy for 19 years.

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The State of the Novels Address

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That is the absolute worst title I have ever come up with. Moving along…

I haven’t written about the novels recently, and as I did say last week that I would write about those, that’s what I’m here to do. You’ll forgive me if this isn’t the smoothest flowing and most polished writing I’ve ever done. I’ve been writing for most of the day. I can actually hear my brain fizzling. Continue reading →

An Open Letter…

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Dear Friends in Relationships,

While you are my friends and I do like your significant others, sometimes I miss hanging out with you. This is a general rule, and the only exception is if, as a result of your relationship, you’ve either a.) forgotten that I exist or b.) started talking down on me because I’m suddenly beneath you and I can’t possibly understand what your life is like now. While this doesn’t apply to all of my coupled friends, it’s a general issue that’s been bothering me. Please let me explain.

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Resolve

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I’m not typically the kind who makes New Year’s Resolutions. It’s not really my style. That being said, the only resolution I can ever remember making was on the final day of 2005 when I let a friend make my resolution for me: I’d start carrying a purse and not just my keychain wallet. Sigh. Okay. I stuck to it too, and now it feels weird if I don’t have my purse (mostly because it’s full of the gum that I compulsively chew).

The theme of my 2010 seemed to be, coming off of a terrible 2009, that I was just trying to figure out what I want. I don’t know if I’ll ever totally figure that out, but as I’ve been sitting on these first couple of weeks of 2011, it’s occurred to me that there are a few things that I want to work on.

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Frank’s Reads: 2010

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Over the past year, it’s occurred to me that I’m frequently asked for book recommendations. It’s also occurred to me that sometimes I give them unsolicited. In any case, as my final post for 2010, I wanted to leave you with some book suggestions. Please note, though: these are not books that were published in 2010 — in fact, only one of them is. They’re simply the five best books I’ve read this year in the order I read them (I’m not ranking them). Continue reading →

Lost: Christmas Spirit. If Found, Please Return.

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What is it about growing up that makes the holidays seem so much less fun? Or is it just that everything is so commercialized? I really have no idea, but this year I can’t seem to find my holiday cheer anywhere. I’m hoping it didn’t get stuck in my pocket and go through the wash because that’s just bad business.

In any case, I really feel like I need to write some of this out, so if you’re already thinking this is something you’re going to hate because it’s personal & might involve emotions, there’s probably no need to read on after the jump, but thank you for stopping by anyway. I’ll be back with something literary next week. Continue reading →

NaNoWriMo 2010: Who’s a Champ? I am!

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I get it. It’s December 9th and NaNoWriMo ended over a week ago. I should have posted this then, but my immune system seems hell-bent on taking me down before Christmas. You will forgive my belated post on the matter, I hope!

When I wrote about NaNoWriMo before, I talked about how I hit the ground running. I followed that up by talking about how I survived a long weekend away and managed to write quite a bit. So here’s how it all turned out. Continue reading →

Do They Make Academic Rehab Clinics?

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‘Tis the season to be writing papers, cramming for finals, and generally stressing out — or so says about 80% of my Facebook newsfeed. I’m insanely jealous.

I think I have an addiction to academia. I surmise that it started when I was two or three and started harassing my parents relentlessly about how long it would be until I got to go to school. I didn’t even really know what it was; I just wanted to go there. I heard there were books. Faced with having to wait, which is something I don’t believe I have ever been good at in my entire life, I resorted to scribbling on a chalkboard in the basement of our old house while my stuffed animals listened quietly and attentively.

If only my students, during my actual teaching career, had been so quiet and attentive.

Scene in my classroom, May 2008

(As fate would have it, though, I wasn’t done teaching stuffed animals) Continue reading →