frank
in 2023, the brooklyn public library had an exhibit on jay-z at their central location, detailing his career and legacy. i don’t typically engage with jay-z, and especially won’t be now1, but bed-stuy is in my blood and i am an ashamed2 but zealous member of the beyhive, so my partner and i made a date of it.
we saw some records and pointed out beyoncé when we spotted her, but i stopped in front of the mugshot of some random white guy. i looked at him, looked at my partner, and asked, “who’s this cracker?”
michelle thought i was joking. when i assured her that i wasn’t, their horrified response was, "babe, that’s frank sinatra.”
they found it unbelievable that I did not recognize him, i was baffled that she could. i thought i had some general idea of what frank sinatra looked like, but guess not. all the ronan farrow jokes suddenly made sense though. we moved on with our day, and frank sinatra was not a thought in my mind again…
…until nine months later, in june 2024, when i read an essay on lithub about the golden age of celebrity profiles. i was familiar with that one marlon brando profile and didn’t really care to read the others, but the description of a profile “about a subject that won’t grant you an audience” intrigued me.3
the story goes that ol’ blue eyes had a cold, was unhappy about a movie he was working on, and just generally had a depressed vibe about him as it neared his fiftieth birthday, so he declined to be interviewed. so fair, king, so fair. gay talese, writing for esquire, had to get creative: he talked to sinatra’s loved ones and employees, went to places he frequented, etc. the result was this ROBUST profile, literally the longest i have ever read.
y’all. it was actually so good. like, after reading, i felt like i knew him fr, but more importantly, the piece itself. i’ll confess, i don’t make a habit of reading celebrity profiles, but back when i was active on twitter, one would go viral every few months. much of the time, they were basically q&as answered by the celebrity’s PR team. they were not incisive or interesting or much of anything at all, except glorified ads for whatever the celebrity was selling.
“frank sinatra has a cold” was not as mean-spirited as i remember truman capote’s marlon brando profile being, but it showed us frank sinatra in all his melancholy, poor health, pettiness. it was detailed, it told a story, it stuck with me. i printed it out and pasted it in my journal. i read it over a couple of times. i wondered and wondered why it gripped me so, and only months later did i realize it.
even though he was the chairman and the master and every other nickname under the sun, talese shows us that, above all, frank sinatra was human.
divorce
indeed, celebrities are not gods, but people. the profile was an important reminder of that, especially because i read it around the time that i fell out of love with a prolific author. sorry in advance for vague-posting, but they will remain unnamed. i do not need this biting me in the ass when i try to publish my first novel in a few years.
anyway, back in 2019, i read a book that had been sitting on my shelf for about a year. it was a debut that i bought soon after it came out, but i held off on reading it because i was nervous. see, when i anticipate something too much–if the subject matter is meaningful to me, if it gets a lot of hype, or if i have a certain expectation of it–that scares me a little. when i did finally read the book, my only regret was not reading it sooner.
the author immediately became an instant-buy author for me, as the booktokers say (RIP tiktok.) i followed them on instagram;4 i went to their book launches and events; i came to see them as a role model, though their career looks different than the one i want. i was as much a stan for them as i could be for anyone.5
that all changed in 2024.
for one, i really do not like feeling strong emotions toward strangers. it is almost impossible to escape celebrity culture and standom in the year of our lord 2024 2025, but i’ve been trying. when i feel myself getting a little too invested in a public figure’s personal life, i force myself to take a deep breath. i remind myself that they are human (just like frank sinatra was.) i tell myself that i love the work, not the person, because i do not know the person. i will never know the person. i can respect what they have done and the path they have forged for themselves, but they are not my friend or my sibling or myself, i do not need to be invested in their life.
second, though, is that this particular author’s work has diminished in quality. like, everyone i have spoken to about this has said something similar. their two most recent releases were fine, but their debut was…amazing. i mean, it’s my favorite work of theirs, and probably always will be (i am thinking of re-reading it this year, but i’m afraid that it will not hold up.)
honestly, it’s one of those things where i suspect that they are now famous enough and have a big (and devoted) enough fanbase that they no longer need to put as much effort into their work.
romanticizing the struggling artist is not my jam, but sometimes people bust their ass to get their foot in the door, but once they’re in the room, and have been in it for years, they start phoning it in. nowadays, art is a commodity and everything has a fandom. when you have 10,000 people guaranteed to always buy your books, they don’t have to be as good as your debut because you’re gonna keep getting the huge book deals, and publishers aren’t going to bother seeking out new talent because you’re raking in the dough. you’ll stay their token until your 10,000 fans wise up and start asking more of their idols, but that’s probably never gonna happen.
i no longer want to be part of the problem though, so i took off my rose-colored glasses this year. i want more. i want quality. going forward, i plan to go to the library for their next release instead of buying it. i’m going to sit out the book launch next time around. i’m going to seek out other authors for the quality of reading i want to do.
social media
someone on substack talking about social media being bad? groundbreaking.
no but forreal. as a zillennial, i grew up on social media. first xanga then myspace then facebook then snapchat then tumblr. i was on tumblr for YEARS hunny. throughout all of high school i was on tumblr obsessively. like, scrolling until 2 or 3 in the morning, then checking it as soon as i woke up a few hours later. one of my closest friends TO THIS DAY started out as a mutual on tumblr in 2013/2014 (shoutout to vallaire, certified genius and a queen from queens.) i stopped using it regularly in, like, 2018ish, and switched to twitter. then i was on that for hours a day.
but over the course of the past year, i have stopped using twitter for two reasons. first, productivity. being on social media for hours a day meant that i wasn’t reading or writing or doing any of the things i want to spend my time doing. last year, i’ve decided to commit to being a writer. well. i’ve been a writer for a long time. but i want to try to make a writing career happen, which means i have to write more than just naruto fanfiction and rough drafts of novels that i never read over or revise. having a writing career means writing a lot and reading a lot, and i can’t do that if i’m doomscrolling twitter 5 hours a day.
and second, when i say doom, i mean DOOM. i’m not even talking about current events or anything, though there’s that too. ever since elon musk took the site over, it has been RANCID. the sheer amount of bigotry and hatred i’ve seen on there in the past year is mind-blowing. like, holy shit. the last, LAST straw was when i got into the wnba (more on that below) and saw any black player who dared even step too close to caitlin clark being called a monkey or thug all up and down my timeline. YIKES!
at first, i switched to using instagram more often after taking a step away from twitter. i also got back on tumblr, but my overall relationship with social media is a lot healthier. i auto-generated new passwords and didn’t keep a record of them, except in an email to michelle (that i deleted on my end.) i removed all the social media apps from my phone except instagram, which i kept because i can’t post on it from my ipad. i also downloaded an app called screenzen, which allows me to set severe restrictions on my instagram usage. this app is way better than apple's lil screentime restrictions, which are hilariously easy to bypass (i suspect this is on purpose because they want you to be on That Phone.)
i’ve honestly been living in bliss since curbing my social media usage. like, sorry y’all. it really is giving us brain damage! the only real downsides are:
1. people occasionally send me DMs of events they want to go to or (in michelle’s case) for stuff they want to buy, and i miss these messages.
2. i am completely unaware of what’s going on in the world. this can be good, because i have depression and knowing too much about all the world’s horrors makes me want to KMS. but also, sometimes i need to know what’s going on. like, i learned about the wildfires in LA because in the 10 mins of instagram scrolling i allow myself a day, i saw people sharing gofundmes. or like, i found out about the UHC shooting because i was in-person the day it happened and my coworker told me about it when she came in.
so, i need to find some way to learn about current events. recommendations would be welcomed (please don’t say the new york times.) in the meantime, i guess i will continue to learn the news via symbiosis.
kobo
i was never consciously a physical book supremacist. i mean, don't get me wrong. i love the heft and smell and feel of a book. but i also have an ipad and over 700 e-books on my computer. sadly though, i am a writer with an office job who is prone migraines, so spending my reading time looking at a screen is far from ideal. especially with a screen as big as the one on my 12.9 inch ipad pro. i love that beast, but it is NOT meant for e-reading.
which was fine, because up until two months ago, i exclusively read physical books. e-readers just never appealed to me. i used to check books out from the library, but then covid hit and we were placed on lockdown. i couldn't go to the library anymore!!! okay, let me not lie, i still could. but i couldn't browse. i had to place a hold on a book then wait weeks to go pick it up, and going outside was scary, and bookshop.org literally launched a few weeks before lockdown. what else was i supposed to do? my will is weak!!
so for the past few years, i've purchased most of my books, usually in new condition–though i love The Word is Change, my local used bookstore (did i just dox myself? oops.) the problem is, i tend to "unhaul" my books fairly often, as the booktokers say. idk, for some reason, i don’t like owning too much stuff. every few months, i get into this “i need to get rid of everything i own” mood, and donate 70% of my library, 60% of my wardrobe, and at least 30% of my stationery. then i buy more stuff, and the cycle repeats.
between that, and wanting to commit to my financial goals, i decided to put a stop to all the book buying in 2024. i had all those e-books, after all. but how could i read them? my ipad was too big and too bad for my eyes…if only there were some technology that didn’t have as much blue light, that was specifically made for reading books digitally….
a kindle is the obvious answer, but i didn't want to support amazon, so i went with the second most popular brand: rakuten kobo. i ordered a used kobo sage on eBay. it came with a cover and a stylus pen so that i could annotate. WHAT BLISS!
2024 was not a great reading year for me. i went through a reading slump after reading a bad book in september, and didn't finish another one until mid-november. but then i got my kobo!! and read 5 books in the last six weeks of the year!6
this kobo has been life-changing. it's my baby. i carry it anywhere. catch me in the club reading Dracula, baby. that's the shit i'm 'bout to be on in 2025. i don't actually do reading goals forreal cus i get too kooky about them, but i have an unofficial one this year. it’s quite ambitious, but with the power of my kobo, i think i can make it happen.
naruto
if you are close to me, you probably know that naruto is the Piece of Media Of My Life.7 my brother and i started watching it the day the english dub premiered, almost 20 years ago. at a certain point, we got into the manga, too. i started reading and writing naruto fanfiction, signing up for websites that i definitely was too young to be on (RIP animespiral.) i even had an email penpal for a while because of naruto.
it wasn’t the first anime i ever watched (pretty sure sailor moon made me trans, and inuyasha was that girl to me), but it is the one that stuck. kinda. i stopped reading/watching it by the time i got to high school, and in fact, grew weirdly8 ashamed of my attachment to it. my brother updated me on the major plot details, and i dipped my toe in and out of the fandom every once in a while, but i never revisited the source material.
then covid hit! michelle got me into the Piece of Media of Their Life, grey’s anatomy, and i returned the favor by introducing them to the number one knuckle-headed ninja. now, we all know naruto is loooong, so we started watching at the chunin exams. i know, blasphemy, but that’s when my faves are introduced (sorry to team 7.)
the thing is, it has taken us a REALLY LONG TIME to watch it. like yes, it’s long as hell, but we started watching it almost 5 years ago. we would be done by now, but we haven’t been watching it consistently. so, a couple months ago, i told michelle that we had to make naruto a priority. initially, i was like, “we need to finish it by the end of the year,” but michelle said to be realistic.
we got rid of the deadline, but we have been watching it a lot more lately. we are currently in the war arc, just 30 episodes away from neji’s death (papa i’m scared.) i definitely think we can finish it by the end of 2025, if not by the summer.
much has been made lately of healing one’s inner child, and it’s been quite a pleasure to do a little bit of that now. aside from watching it, i still have access to all my old fanfics, and it’s so interesting to see the evolution of my opinions now that i am an adult and also getting the full context. i still have the same favorite character–yes, the girl with the least screentime, duh–but my feelings about other characters have changed.
for one, i am, like, in love with naruto. as a child, i was relatively indifferent to him, but now? i am sure my neighbors can hear me screaming, “MY BABY BOY!!” every night. he just longs for companionship and love and attention. BIG BIG mood.
also, i’ll be so honest with y’all: when i was younger i didn’t like sasuke or sakura. i know. misogyny and anti-uchiha racism at work here. i am so sorry. sasuke has really grown on me though!! the members of team gai are still my favorites by FAR, but i definitely understand and sympathize with sasuke a lot more now that i am capable of critical thinking. when i was a kid, it was fairly common for people to classify sasuke as whiny and emo. idk, if my brother killed my clan and then trapped me in an illusion where i relived their brutal slaughtering for several days, i would probably be pretty whiny too!!
i can’t wait to finally finish the anime this year, and i also plan to read the manga in its entirety. watch this space…
the w
every four years, in the summertime, i get super into one sport in particular: gymnastics.
i confess that i missed the 2021 olympics–idk, the world was in shambles, i didn’t feel in a sporty mood–so i wasn’t aware of all that transpired, such as simone biles dropping out. seeing her do her thing and the whole redemption narrative, c’était magnifique!
but this year was a bit different because another sport caught my attention even more. yep. BASKETBALL. i watched men’s and women’s, but OMG y’all. a’ja wilson!? she dazzled me! she was so mystifying, a beast on the court, and fine as hell to boot. i was also impressed by the other team usa members, and soon learned their names. i followed all the games, even when they were scheduled at inopportune times, and was in great spirits when we won the gold medal. i thought that would be that, and i wouldn’t watch another sports game until my homie hosted a superbowl party in 2025.
but then, a few weeks after the olympics, my homie hosted a dinner with me, michelle, and two of our wonderful, magnificent angelic (iykyk) friends. basketball came up in the convo, and our angelic friends told us they were going to a women’s basketball game in a little over a week–and not just any game, a liberty vs aces game. i did not yet know the lore and rivalry there, but i knew a’ja wilson was on the aces so i bought tickets that very moment.
and on sunday, september 8th, 2024, i was changed. again, a’ja was what got me into the sport so i went into it rooting for the aces but, idk. maybe it was the energy at barclay’s. maybe it was because a’ja wasn’t playing that day. maybe it was ellie. maybe it was the spirit of new york flowing through me, but somehow i found myself….rooting for the liberty? idk, but when there was 2 minutes and 35 seconds left of quarter three and the aces were up by 20, i wanted to throw up. shouldn’t i have been happy!? I WAS CHANGED.
somehow, we (we!?) pulled through. the libs won by a mere 4 points. i had never felt so alive. i went home and bought a subscription to WNBA league pass. i watched games nightly. i bought tickets to a playoff game–aces vs liberty (again.) i spent hours on r/wnba. i learned more names. i bought nba 2k25. I WAS TAPPED IN.
and then, something special. the universe heard my devotion and rewarded me. in the first year that i had ever been invested in a sport, my home team won their first championship. THEIR FIRST CHAMPIONSHIP. idgaf what anyone says. I WILL NOT BE HEARING OF ANYTHING BEING RIGGED! respectfully, fuck y'all. lmao. ahem.
aside from that rigged? miraculous championship win, the w is just so fun. girlfriends on opposing teams. exes on the same team. the camaraderie–except for that player, i don’t feel like there’s beef fr between fanbases, and obviously the players are very tight. say what you will about the lynx vs liberty finals, phee and stewie were teammates at uconn and business partners on unrivaled (which premiered yesterday btw. it’s streaming on hbomax. go watch it. there are 2 games today.)
there’s so much love and respect and also hotness. so many of the players are so hot, and also gay, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that i could become a basketball spouse. isn’t that amazing?
i could say so much more about all of these things but this is already long enough, and i’ve gotta go walk my dog. one (sometimes fun, sometimes draining) aspect of my neurodivergence is that i hyperfixate on certain subjects, hobbies, pieces of media, etc, for an extended period of time–often to the detriment of other things i can be doing. it was interesting to evaluate these at a remove, and find threads and links between them. i’ve learned that fixations come and go, but naruto is forever.
jk! you know what is forever, though? community. care. love for one’s fellow human. in that spirit, i’d like to share links to two lists. the first, operation olive branch, compiles numerous gofundme and donation links. these are primarily for palestine, though it also contains information for Sudan and Congo. the second is a list of resources related to the wildfires in LA, with information on how you can help. if you have the funds to spare please donate!
happy new year (lol),
jaysen h.g.
p.s: here is the frank sinatra profile, and here is the marlon brando one. capote was such a sassy (and racist) old queen, omg! also, check out kaitlyn mcnab at teen vogue for some well-written profiles of today.
about a month ago, a civil lawsuit was filed against him, seeking damages for something truly heinous. i cannot say this surprises me given his proximity to Diddy.
see fixation 2 for why i am ashamed of this.
i was gonna link the profiles but then you’d click on them and start reading those and forget to come back to my post. NO SHOT! wait ‘til the end :)
this is a big deal for me. i am not a fan of following people that i have never met before on instagram.
besides beyoncé, which is ironic given the next paragraph.
seven, if you count naruto: konoha’s story–the steam ninja scrolls vol. 1 & 2, which i do because manga reading is real reading and naruto slays.
a lot of people assume that i like anime in general, but honestly, it’s mostly just naruto. sorry to everyone who has recommended one piece or jujutsu kaisen or attack on titan to me. <3
i say “weirdly” because i was an art major at an art school, there were plenty of people into anime. there was no reason for me to be ashamed, but that’s teenager brain for you!