A Musical Autobiography Project

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Music has always fascinated me in the sense that it helps shape a collective story. Think about the different generational stories that are created by the sounds of performers from Benny Goodman to Buddy Holly; from The Doors to Nirvana; from The Beatles to the Backstreet Boys.

I recognize there are some tremendous leaps there. Those acts generated buzz and helped to shape their respective generations.

But music shapes our personal stories, too. I’ve always been the kind of person who can hear a song from my lifetime and figure out when it came out based on the events in my life to which I’ve attached it. For example, certain songs remind me of listening to the radio late at night in 4th grade when I suffered horrible bouts of insomnia. I would just lie awake and hear the same songs on the radio over and over again, night after night. The Bangles’ song “Walking Down Your Street” will always remind me of when I took that cassette tape to first grade and the sub turned it on and my whole class danced.

Or, for my inner circle, “If You Leave Me Now” by Chicago.

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Fat

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Earlier, an interesting tweet came through my Twitter stream: “If Chris Christie were a woman, would we be talking about weight?” This touched a nerve with me, so I clicked the link to the article, all the while thinking to myself that of course we would be talking about weight.

As it turned out, the article bested my thought. In short, the argument was that, no, we wouldn’t be talking about weight. Why? Because a fat woman would never have been elected governor, much less encouraged to run for President. I think that if Christie runs, his weight will inevitably be a passing topic of discussion. There will be physical comparisons made to William Howard Taft. Then everyone will go on his merry way.

Fat is not cause for rejection or alienation when it comes to men. Gender politics are interesting that way.

What makes me sad is that a woman can be one hundred percent evil or stupid, but if she’s attractive, personality is merely a side issue that can be ignored. Similar behavior in a heavier woman would cause her to be shunned. It’s a double standard that society will unfortunately likely maintain forever. Unless Renaissance figures come back into vogue.

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A 100% Super Serious Open Letter to Facebook

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Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I have been an avid user of your site since 2005 when my college friends and I joked about how Facebook should really be called StalkerNet. I’ve mumbled and groaned with the best of them about changes you have made to the site in the past, but with this new set of changes, it is clear that I find in you a like mind.

While I can’t say that I’m surprised at all that you read all of our minds in taking the StalkerNet concept to the next level, I am a bit surprised that my thoughts aren’t automatically showing up in my Facebook feed already. This is America in 2011, is it not? After all, if my thoughts and all details of my life including likes, preferences, and what I’m doing at every second of the day can automatically show up in several locations on Facebook (including places where people I may not want to see that information can access it), I can finally stop interacting with people in person. In fact, I won’t even need to talk to them at all — not in person, on the phone, through email, IM, or any other medium! Actual social interaction is so painful for awkward people like me. But why am I telling you that? I know you understand!

I write this letter to propose a change to Facebook that will help make all of that a possibility. This will have to be rolled out over time, so your developers won’t need to rush in any way. Take your time and really perfect this.

Assuming we all survive the apocalypses of October 21, 2011 (you know, the make-up date for the May 21, 2011 Apocalypse That Wasn’t) and December 21, 2012, you will need to begin rolling out this first piece of technology immediately. December 22, 2012 kind of immediately. What it is, is a neurobiological-ish chip that is implanted behind the ear of every newborn baby. This Facebook Chip comes automatically linked to a profile page for that child that is activated upon implantation.

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Come Back, Simplicity

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Despite the fact that I began a part-time job that pays actual money last week, I’ve had an excess of negative energy recently. I attribute most of it to side effects from the new job — I was trying to learn everything quickly and, since I work from home, I was staying up to work until 3 a.m. I slept an average of 4.5 hours every night last week (and dreamed about the WordPress interface numerous times, thanks to all of my work), so by Saturday I was feeling particularly grouchy.

So I want to write about two completely simple things I did this weekend that made me feel significantly better (three things, really, if you count the fact that I slept for 10 hours last night). It makes me wonder why, the older we get, the more we feel the need to over-complicate things.

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Reading My Social Media Profiles Doesn’t Make Us Friends

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You know that girl from high school who has added every single person in your graduating class on Facebook? Much like she was in high school, she won’t actually talk to you, but boy is she nosy. By definition (according to social media, anyway), though, you are friends.

We come to expect this kind of behavior from people that we don’t know so well. We put them on limited profile and go about our business, hoping they just mind theirs.

But what happens when social media starts becoming something of a substitute for actual friendships? This is something that has bothered me for a long time.

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Why Be So Proud?

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A picture I took of the interior of Highland Hall in 2008

Abandoned places have, for whatever reason, always fascinated me. There’s something about what used to be and what is; something about the breakdown. What makes people stop caring for a place? This probably began with a building in my hometown that’s been largely abandoned for many years, Highland Hall (seen in the picture to the left). I could look at photos of abandoned places for hours and never get tired of it. In recent years, I’ve developed a strong curiosity about the abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Since it’s so close to where I grew up, I’ve got a trip in the works there for this fall.

So when I was in church this past Saturday evening and the sermon began with a story about an abandoned church, I was hooked. In the story, a boy and his grandmother are walking past the church, which is now in ruins, and he asked her what happened to it.

“What you see here is the end of an argument,” the grandmother replied.

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The Camp NaNo Loser

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I’d looked forward to Camp NaNoWriMo. Since 2009, I have loved writing my way through November, learning about myself as a writer and creating this text that, for better or worse, comes from me and is born of my own imagination. When I heard they’d be holding summer sessions in July and August this year, I signed up for the August camp and got ready to write.

It’s worth noting that I’ve reached the 50,000 mark (the word count required to “win” NaNoWriMo) in November 2009 and November 2010. In both cases, my novel was far from finished, but I had a tremendous start. Really, you’d be hard-pressed to find a novel of substance that’s only 50,000 words. I finished the first draft of my 2009 work in June 2010, and I continue to work on my 2010 work-in-progress now. So August seemed like a great time to get back into it and cross the final finish line.

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Positivity (Vol. 1)

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My Snoop Bloggy Blogg has been wavering quite a bit lately. There’s been too much… blahhh. I don’t want a blahhhg. I want a BLOG!

I think it’s good to sometimes think about things that make us really happy. For people like me who are prone to the sads, the anxiety, and the OCD, making physical lists of positive things sometimes becomes a necessity. I have a whole notebook in which, when it becomes necessary, I make a column where I allow myself to spew out all the bad stuff that happened that day. But in the column right next to it, I make myself write about the good stuff too, no matter how small (that’s how I got to really appreciate the small things people do). It’s a little habit I picked up to help me get out of 2009. Now I go back to it when I get overwhelmed.

So without further ado, and in no particular order, here are five things that make me really happy. I also challenge you to think of your own list. We could all stand to have a little more positive energy today, right?

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So…About That Novel.

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You know that feeling when it’s like a parasite gets in your head and you feel like you need to do everything humanly possible to keep yourself busy? If you stop for even the shortest time, that parasite starts nibbling away at your brain, causing everything to unravel. I’m convinced it attacks reason first.

I’ve been doing a lot to keep that parasite at bay, and it’s got a lot of reasons to keep creeping up on me. Sometimes I deal with multiple parasites. In an effort to keep myself busy lately, I’ve continued to read everything from blogs to books, thrown myself headlong into learning something about the business world, committed myself to networking for professional purposes (after, of course, figuring out what I want to be), and started really learning about social media.

I’ve also taken up knitting and maintaining a Facebook page for my dogs. When things get really bad, I’ll have conversations with my fish, Richard Marx. I zone out with Netflix. I’m way too into The Real Housewives of NJ.

And sometimes, even after all of that, the parasite just keeps on keepin’ on.

The parasite is, I think, the reason I’ve become so incredibly passionate about writing lately. It’s not that I didn’t love writing before. I always have, and that’s how I’ve identified. There’s just something very different about my relationship with writing right now. It’s more extensive, going beyond just the creative.

And everything beyond the creative has kept me away from the novel for a while. Six months, to be exact.

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Frank Recommends: Blogs

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I’ve revisited my novel in the past week, and had every intention on writing something about that fun-filled experience (note the sarcasm: when you let those things sit for six months, it’s really, really difficult to go back). However, I got really busy writing various blog posts elsewhere on the Interwebs and ran short on time. My brain is telling me that one isn’t in me right now, but that I should write something anyway.

Really — I tried to read, but this voice in my head kept saying, “Keep writing. You aren’t quite done yet for the day.”

So I’ve got a new edition of Frank Recommends for you. This week we’re talking about blogs, specifically ones that I think are well written and that you should probably check out. Sharing is fun, right? These blogs are written by people that I’m lucky enough to know. They cover a variety of topics and are well worth your time.

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