Facebook is for grownups now

My kids talked me into joining Facebook last November. I had no idea that grownups were allowed on that site! It was created for college students to get to know each other, as far as I know, and at first you had to have a .edu email to get an account. (I have one of those, but resisted the urge to join back then.) They opened it up to everybody some time ago, but I wasn't aware of it.

Well, I looked up one of my best college friends and sent her a Friend request, and that opened the door. Suddenly, college friends I hadn't heard from in years were sending me Friend requests. It was like a mini reunion! I find it amusing that, just like my kids, I'm using Facebook to keep track of my college friends. Those intervening years just melt away like magic.

Yesterday I was reading the Weekly Dig, a freebie newspaper that comes out on Wednesdays. I look forward to it every week, even though I'm way out of their demographic. There's an interview with a band I've never heard of called the Shills. I was on the subway and needed something to entertain me, so I read it. There's a quote in it that I'm just dying to share:

Interviewer, Brian E. King: IS MYSPACE GOING DOWN THE TUBES FOR BANDS? A LOT OF BANDS ARE BITCHING.

Singer Bryan Murphy of the Shills: I don't think so, no. I think people are SUPER lonely these days and Facebook is great for the lonely. As you all know when you get that sad friend request from some dingbat you haven't seen since middle school.

Facebook is great for the lonely? I think he's absolutely right. I have a tendency to believe that anybody who used to know me must have no desire to see or hear from me again. I know I can be moody and needy, and although I've worked hard to change this, the neediness still comes through at times. I assume that people only remember my bad qualities and forget any good ones that I might have. Facebook has been an eye-opener for me. Unlike other sites where I've been, my "Friends" are all people I've actually met, and they still seem to like me. It's great!

AI8 Tryouts, Kansas City

Last night, American Idol visited Kansas City, MO, the home of last year's winner, David Cook. I'm a huge David Cook fan; last year I cast my first vote ever in the finals to make sure the correct David won. Now that I've voted once, watch out for me this year!

There weren't as many solid competitors last night, in my opinion. One of the best was 19-year-old Jessica Paige Furney, who came with her own entourage in matching T-shirts. She sang Janis Joplin's "Cry Baby" remarkably well. We should see her in the Top 36.

Lil Rounds should be there, too. She sang "All I Do" by Stevie Wonder, and she reminded me of Fantasia. She's a wife and mother of three little kids who just lost her home to a tornado.

One of the earliest performers, Ashley Anderson, chose to perform a Leona Lewis song coauthored by Simon. A good idea, right? Sure, unless you screw up the lyrics. "Footsteps in the sand", she sang - it's "Footprints". But she has a good voice, and they put her through to Hollywood.

Another solid contender was Danny Gokey, whose wife had died just four weeks earlier of what I think was a lifelong ailment. He sang "I Heard it through the Grapevine" very well. His best friend, Jamar Rogers, bellowed "California Dreaming" a little earlier in the evening. I didn't like him, but the judges put him through.

While I'm on the subject of performers I didn't like who got through, Dennis Brigham takes the cake. He begged and pleaded with the judges, who ultimately put him through to Hollywood, I have no idea why. Probably just to shut him up.

Then there was Casey Carlson, the girl who dashed through Vanessa Carleton's "1,000 Miles" at about 1,000 miles an hour and somehow managed to impress the judges I remain unimpressed.

Last year's fourth place winner, the dreadlocked Jason Castro, brought his little brother Michael to audition this year. Michael (a 20-year-old with pink hair which was fortunately not in dreadlocks) said he'd only been singing for 20 days - a concept I find hard to grasp, since all my kids were singing before they were out of diapers. I'm guessing he meant he'd only been singing seriously, with an eye to a solo career, for 20 days. He must have sung along with the radio before in his life! Anyway, he was passable, and he's going to Hollywood. I don't expect he'll do as well as his brother did, though.

Comic Relief Award to sisters India (the small one) and Asia (the large one), who led off with a rap duet about overeating, "Why'd you try to steal my cookie from me?" (At least I think that's what they were saying). After that, they sang separately. India was good enough to get through to the next round, but I think that's as far as she'll be going.

And what would an American Idol tryout show be without the horrendously bad performances?

• Opera Singer Dude, aka Brian Hettler. He bellowed "Think" by Aretha Franklin. His heavy voice is not at all suited to American Idol.
• Vaughn English, a dorky-looking guy dressed in orange pants and a yellow jacket, singing a vaguely obscene song about a banana.
• Then there's the laughably named Michael Nicewonder. I suppose this could have been an elaborate joke; he's a lumpish guy with obviously fake-butter-blond hair in a bowl cut. Even his own mother told him he couldn't sing, but he still wanted to try out. He sang a song he wrote himself, a mournful dirge he said he wrote for his mother. He could barely croak out a note.
• And how about Andrew Lang, the guy who was accompanied by two cheerleaders? He could actually sing a little, but I think his presentation pulled him down.
• The Queen of them all, though, was Mia Conley. She's the one with pink-striped dark hair and the horrendous attitude. She did Minnie Riperton's "Loving You" and insisted on shrieking out the highest note even though the judges tried to stop her. Afterward, she was shown several times saying that God was going to get the judges for not sending her through.

I can't wait for next week's performances!

It's time for American Idol!

I've been a fan of American Idol since the first season. Last year I decided to keep an excruciatingly detailed blog, which I posted on another site. I started when there were 24 performers - 12 boys and 12 girls. This year they're saying they'll go to 36. Last year I wrote down what songs they sang and how I felt about their performances, as well as comments by Randy, Paula and Simon if they were worth preserving. I'm looking forward to doing the same thing this year.

Tuesday night I watched the Phoenix, AZ tryouts while playing Lexulous (formerly Scrabulous, essentially online Scrabble) on Facebook with my two sons. (I beat them both soundly.) I didn't write anything down, so I went to Michael Slezak's account on Entertainment Weekly's website to get names. I read his account after every American Idol night last year, but always waited until after I'd posted my own so I wouldn't be influenced by his opinions. Mine were usually the same anyway. Great minds and all that...

I'm finally getting a chance to go over the TiVos of the last two nights, and I'm going to revise my accounts slightly.

People I expect to see in the Top 36:

• Arianna Afsar. She's a bubbly, cute 16-year-old with a beautiful voice and lots of personality. She sang "Put your records on" by Corinne Bailey Rae.
  
• Emily Wynne-Hughes. She has pink-streaked hair and a zillion tattoos - this year's version of Carly Smithson's arms. Oh, and she can sing. Her mom is a professional singer, and she was raised in the music world. She sang "Barracuda" by Heart.
  
• Scott MacIntyre. He's been blind since birth (has some very limited vision), but manages to do more with his life than I ever could. He plays piano beautifully and sings well, too, plus he has the whole inspirational thing going for him. He's also cute - I never saw a blind guy with such beautiful eyes before. He sang "And so it goes" by Billy Joel.
  
• Alex Wagner-Trugman. He performed "Baby Come to Me" by James Ingram, a song I recognize, although I'm not sure why. He used to practice singing in his closet, so the judges started out by picking on him about coming out of the closet. He sings very well for somebody with no self-confidence. Simon didn't like him much. Randy says "Joe Cocker" and Simon responds "I would say Cocker Spaniel."
  

Honorable mention to Stevie Wright (a girl, named for Stevie Nicks), who sang "At Last" by Etta James, and Michael Sarver, the oil-rig dude, who sang "Thank You" by Boyz 2 Men. They may not make the finals, but they were good. And a Spirit Award to Brianna Quijada, who kept everybody energized during the waiting period. Her performance of "Let's Hear it for the Boy" was a little off-key, but Paula and Simon put her through to Hollywood (proving that when the vote's a tie, Simon's side wins).

A Dubious Creativity Award to the young horror-filmmaker, Cody Sheldon. He's adorable. I wasn't familiar with the song he chose, "Wonderful World" by James Morrison. Obviously not Jim Morrison from the Doors...I'm showing my age, aren't I? He's not Top 36 material, though.

Michael Slezak was enamored of Deanna Brown, a tall blonde with a Southern accent, but her voice was too husky for me. She sang "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay", the old Otis Redding song.

Now for the Most Horrendous Performances of the evening!

• Michael Gurr. "Gurr" pretty much sums up the way his voice sounded - a barely intelligible growl.
• Bikini Girl. Michael Slezak didn't record her name, and I don't blame him. (It's Katrina Darrell, according to YouTube.) This misguided young woman came to her audition dressed only in a bikini and very high heels. They put her through to Hollywood even though she picked a fight with new judge Kara DioGuardi. I really like Kara, by the way. She's got a lot of musical talent, both as a singer and as a songwriter.

• Aundre Caraway, who calls himself X-Ray. He's an entertainer, that's for sure, dressed in a kind of Cheeto-orange shirt and dragging along his guitar. He performed a song he wrote, Cactus Baby, and it was terrible. I just watched it again on YouTube, and he does a kind of spastic dance while he's making the most awful faces. He was incredulous when the judges told him "no", and he had to be escorted off by Security.
  

I'll sum up Wednesday night's performances in a separate post.

This year, I really will keep a blog!

Let's see, November was NaNoWriMo (which I won for the third year in a row!), and December was the frickin' holiday season... so that's why I haven't written an entry since the end of October.

After Thanksgiving, my two older kids, my daughter's boyfriend, and one of their other friends talked me into opening a Facebook account. Last Sunday, we finally convinced my younger son to open one. My two sons and I sat in my living room, each of us on our own laptop, playing with Facebook. So on a whim I looked up one of my closest college friends and sent her a Friend request. She responded, and then passed my name on to others. It's been a mini college reunion since then. It's funny - Facebook was created for people to keep in touch with their college friends, and that's what I'm doing. Never mind how long ago I graduated!

In my mind, I'm always a writer. That's why I want to keep a blog. That's why I do NaNoWriMo. All I have to do is keep working at it. If I'd kept to my original life plan, I'd already be a published author, but you know what John Lennon said, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." Instead of being a successful writer, I'm a divorced mother of three grown children, with my own home and a full-time job. My car's paid for, and my house has a new roof. I suppose things could be a lot worse.

But this year's NaNoWriMo novel is a mystery, something which might actually find a reading audience. My first one was a whimsical fantasy, very fluffy, with fairies and a group of pagans working together to make the world (or at least a small part of it) a better place. My second one was a postapocalyptic one I've been working on in my head for over ten years. When I hit the required 50,000 words, I was about halfway finished. It's very dark; a lot of good people die, so I find writing it very hard going.

The third one, though, is the best yet. I'm not going to discuss it except to say that I've set it in Cambridge, MA and I drop in a lot of local color. My main character is a single woman of around 30. It's the first one I've written in which my MC doesn't have kids. I'm thinking about adding a woman of around my age in my MC's workplace, just so I can use my Mom-voice.

All I have to do now is set up a time to write and actually do it. Getting up a couple of hours early won't work; I already get up at 5:30 a.m. to get to work. So it'll have to be after work. When I get home in the evening, all I can think about is sitting in the recliner with a cat or two in my lap, reading or watching TV. I'm showing my age, aren't I?