Making a list

It's been a not good, very bad, horrible week at the casa del F.R.O.G. Honestly, I didn't think I could ever feel worse than I did after the news we got last Thursday, but then I forget the dark, sick humor of the universe. All I can say is I must have been some bad motherfucker in a past life or something and this is somehow me paying dues. Because, otherwise? It makes no sense.

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So, I realized today that my last post was on the one year anniversary of this blog (and post # 250. How very neat and tidy). Woo-hoo, I guess? It's definitely the longest I've stuck to doing something online, if you don't count message boards, and even there my history's been spotty. Probably I stuck it through this time because this wasn't about me interacting with anyone nor was I out to capture an audience of any sorts for any reason (because I do love get on the soapbox in real life, if you give me half a chance.) There are loads of other blogs that are extremely better and more informative and funnier and wittier than I have been here--and I'm not talking about professional ones, either. I'm not trying to be one of them, I'm doing this entirely for my own amusement and, still, my own sanity, as I said in that very first post.

I suppose, though, a nod of some sorts to the past year is due, and there's definitely some things that I go back to from time to time and read and listen to, because I still find them interesting. To me. So, in the grand tradition of top X lists, here is the top 5 list of my current favorite cover song posts, and then my top 5 list of my current favorite general/other posts.

Oh, it's quite possible some of the linked videos may no longer be available due to the asinine practices of companies such as WMG and Sony Music. If so, I can assure you they were probably good vids.

Cover Posts

5- All 'Dolly'ed up and nowhere to go
4- Cover girl
3- Covet and cover
2- Tie: Girls on top and You can tell everybody, this is my song
1- The many faces of love

General Posts

5- Get me to the church on time
4- Tie: A little [light] night music and R+J 4EVAH
3- Catch them while you can
2- Call girls: Not just hearts of gold
1- Only the good die young

Radio silence

So it comes down to this: when I started going systematically through all my posts tonight, roughly 45% (based on the ones I went through, adn I went through quite a bit) of my embedded videos or links were no longer valid, thanks mostly to WMG's assiness (as well as increased disabled embedding by SMG and UMG). If there was ever a case for staunchly supporting the indie labels and your local artists, who love putting their work on places like youtube, this is it.

Unfortunately, though, some of the really good stuff from yesteryears (and recent times) are on the big labels and, given that almost every post on this blog is borne of nostalgia or reminiscence, well, you see my dilemma.

And, quite frankly, this all started out as an exercise to counterbalance my stress at the time, to be something fun and removed from the real world, something I could count on to go back read and smile about, when I needed it the most. If it's making my blood pressure rise now to do just that, well, it kind of defeats the purpose.

So, I think a small break is in order, while I take my time and see if I want to go back and fix it all and whether it's worth getting pissed off over, everytime I want to link to something and can't, going forward. Or, maybe, seeing that I actually have presence and peace of mind now to get worked up over something that is (and I do realize it) petty and trivial--I mean, seriously, it's a fucking blog, not War and Peace, you know?--is a sign that mentally things are okay enough now that I don't need this as a crutch.

Eh, that's enough whining for now. A little quiet never did anyone any harm.

Merger complete

Wow, that was surprisingly painless, and very fast. What did we do before XML?
Anyway, the red-headed stepchild has been invited to come sit at the big table, instead of of rinky-dinky one made from an upended barrel and a crate for the chair. Books and related stuff is now officially part of this. Prepare to read a lot about comics, for the time being.

Commentary

When I started this, I figured that if I kept it up for a year I would do it the right way after that: buy/register a domain*, host the site at home, and use a decent editor. (To be fair, though, blogger is perfect for the fickle person like me, who's been fairly terrible at keeping a decent pace of posts in previous attempts.)

I almost said screw it, though, and got a jump start on the wait it out a year and then really invest some time and effort into a decent site deal, after trying to enable comments on this thing tonight. I still don't know how I did it, but apparently I managed to completely revoke any kind of commenting capability on posts right before this one, so that even enabling comments as a whole for the blog still couldn't override it, not unless I go back and manually override it for each post. I was annoyed and I felt unnecessarily stupid and those are two things I never like feeling together.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure comments are enabled now for any new posts and that it won't require any logging in to anything. I am still annoyed enough that I am going to leave the comments moderated for now, because I don't think I am in the frame of mind to handle any spam right now.

Of course, given my grand total of 4 readers, the comments are bound to come pouring in and so it may take me a while to go through them all. I'll try to be fast and have under a week turnaround time. Hah.

*Oh, wait. I do have a domain name registered--well, okay, L. registered it for me, a couple of years ago, I think, through some deal or another, same time he did his, and we did nothing with it (well, I did nothing with it). Huh. I suppose I should see what all I can do with it. It's a very non-anonymous name, though, so I wouldn't use it for this. (I think at the time I had visions of throwing up some stuff about the kid--pics and movies and maybe a few lines about him--from time to time, for friends and family not nearby, apparently forgetting one key point: I don't (can't, more like it) do mommy-blogging. Heh.)

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Who else do you know who could turn a one liner of "I enabled comments on the blog going forward; previous posts will be turned on eventually" into five paragraphs? This is why I always got "unnecessary elaboration" comments on my oral presentations at school and barely made it under the allotted time. On the other hand, it's why I have no problem keeping people awake on middle of the night software upgrade calls, where there is a lot dead air waiting for things to happen after you hit enter...and I get paid for it, too.

Merger announcement

I'm going to bring over what posts I have in my book blog over here. Last year was a bit of the bust in the reading area (again, compared to what a typical year in new books looks like for me), but I'm over the slump now and I'd like to keep track of what I'm reading somewhere else other than scraps of paper. Besides, maybe a little literary interlude now and then will help break up the monotony of the same old same old type of posts around here.

More to come.

Because I am lazy

(Originally in book blog)
(And also because I am smart.)

Obviously, I have done a piss-poor job of updating my book blog. Which is quite understandable; I've had less time this year to read, than any other and quite frankly, when I do have the time, I am more likely to want to read than to write about what I am reading (or not).

I have, however, written elsewhere about books and/or reading very, very sporadically. There's also some things I wrote about books and reading in general, from years back, that I came across recently, and that still stand the test of time. To be honest, I could post them as if I wrote them right now, and no one would be the wiser and I'd look like I am updating, however infrequently. However, I am taking the honorable road and mentioning the duplicate nature of the posts ahead of time.

(Question: Why do I always write as if someone is actually reading this, other than me? I used to do this with the diaries I kept regularly for about 15 years, too. Bizarre. Also, somewhat egotistical, since it shows an inclination to believe that somehow my word will be discovered by someone and read avidly. I can understand thinking that way when I was 10. It smacks a little mid-life crisisy to think this way 25 years later.)

So, anyway, that's the what with the this. En avant, as they say, again.

Reading 101

(Originally posted as the first post for the book blog and explaining the rationale behind calling it Public, Like A Frog.)
I'm afraid I used up all my inspiration on the blog's title and description and have none left for the inauguration post 's title itself. Although, it's not as if I had to use up too much insipiration. I realize it may look like I have a special fondness for frogs, but I don't. It just so happens that I have loved that particular poem of Dickinson's for well over 20 years now and it holds a special place in my heart. Which is not unusual to hear, since it has been well-loved by many, many people for many, many years. How many, though, transcribed it in their journal when they were 15 and repeated it in their head as a mantra, not just to to battle teenage angst (which was part of it to be sure), but listening to air bombings overhead in the dead of night, huddled in a basement, praying for the all-clear siren to sound?

As I said, it holds a special place in my heart.

I did want something that lent itself more obviously to the purpose of this particular blog for the description, and figured since I was already knee deep in the frog theme, I should carry on. Except that, for all my professed love for the written word, I couldn't think of a single line that dealt cleverly with reading and amphibians all at once. So I went against my very nature and did what every well-read, educated person does (except me, apparently, because I have this stupid pride): I turned to Google. A simple combination of words that were so inspired, I had to go back to my google search history to remember them, turned up this appropriate gem on the second page (inspired and persevering):

Books to the ceiling,

Books to the sky,

My piles of books are a mile high.

How I love them!

How I need them!

I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel (1933-1987)

If the connection to frogs didn't jump out (hah!) at you right away, you, too, can do what every well-read, educated person does.

Look down

Here is the deal: this was supposed to be the summer of the here and now and outward living, as well as the summer of anticipatory forward thinking. It turned out, as life almost always does, to be quite different than what was expected, and I've probably spent more time this summer in retrospective thought and inside my head than any time in the last several years.

(Oh, I've spent a fair bit in the here and now, too, but I would have given anything for 'it' to have been anywhere else.)

As it turns out, it's not all bad. I am remembering things that weren't forgotten--god knows, I never forget anything--but that had lost their sharp story telling crispness, dulled by being relegated to just memories. I started to remember more clearly and as I did, there was that whoosh! of all the sights and sounds and smells that were the makeup of what I was thinking about.

Especially the sounds.

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I've always been able to associate songs and pieces of music with all notable events--and quite a good number of unremarkable ones--in my life. I suppose it's the same for a lot of people: if we all sat down and put our mind to it, we could some up with a pretty comprehensive soundtrack for our life. I'd never really given much thought, though, to how closely and how often I could relate something that had happened to one or more pieces of music. Like Mick in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter realizes, "[b]ut all the time—no matter what she was doing—there was music."

(Love the book. Love Mick. Possibly felt more affinity for her as a character than any I can ever remember, partly because the closeness in age to her when I read the book for the first time.)

***

It's been good fun (amazing I can still use that word) , despite 'it' all, looking back at everything. Even though I'm now where I'm finally more inclined to step out of my own head, I have--truth be told--gotten a kick out of the intense navel gazing, especially with all the music associations, and don't quite want to stop, yet. I'm curious to see how long I can keep going--or how much I'm willing to remember--before I lose either steam or interest in sustaining my audience of me. Even I have a limit, I would think, to how fascinating I find myself.

That's the deal.


P.S. The whole F.R.O.G. thing? Self, that was just me being extra witty and punny, what with carrying on the whole frog theme from my other two blogs, and the references and the acronym. In this case, I think I went overboard and defeated the original purpose.