The Rabbit Hole

Chapter 15 is set on New Year's Eve 1995. Autumn has traveled by train from Boston’s South Station to Penn Station in NYC, beneath Madison Square Garden, where Phish will be playing their New Year’s Eve show that night. Having no friends interested in taking the other half of her pair of tickets, she is there alone. For the first time in her life, she is venturing beyond the confines of her comfort zone in pursuit of a kind of joy she’s not sure is meant for her…but she hopes

This was my fifth Phish show. At the previous four, I had established that I was an inhibited head-bobber, a swayer at best. Before tonight, I watched the dancers and spinners with envy, wondering what it felt like to let go like that—to move without self-consciousness, to lose yourself in the music without worrying who was watching.

Have you ever noticed how the music you listen to on repeat starts to shape your mood? How a breakup playlist can keep you stuck in heartbreak longer than necessary, or an angry driving playlist can make you more aggressive on the road? "Dancing Nancies" asks: What if you consciously chose differently?

I should probably do that too, right? As an author trying to build a platform, maintain a blog, and write a second book, I should have a plan, or even a strategy to inform a plan. Maybe even just a content calendar with a few placeholder topic ideas on it. But I don't.

I can't recall how I ran across "Karma Police," but it's been in the rotation on my playlists for decades. When I was writing Chapter 13, my first choice had been Gary Jules' "Mad World," but I later reassigned that one to Chapter 7, leaving me with the question: how do you summarize middle school mean girl bullying in a song?

Though I launched this blog in late 2022 when I released The Strangest of Places, I didn't expect that I'd keep up with it as much as I did. I didn't expect nearly a thousand people to read my silly little book. I definitely didn't expect the reviews, messages, or questions about Book 2. But here we are.

This chapter was particularly difficult to come up with a song for because it needed to speak to Autumn's relationship with Brittany which is a night and day difference from her friendship with Lucy.

It's Thanksgiving week, and I've been thinking about what I'm grateful for this year. The obvious answer is family, friends, health, a roof over my head—all the essentials. But today, I want to talk about something that's caught me completely off guard: all of you.

I'm probably not the only one who first heard Elliott Smith's "Miss Misery" during the end credits for Good Will Hunting. I've already written about why that movie sits comfortably in my top five favorites of all time, so it's probably not surprising that a song from its soundtrack would make its way into Autumn's playlist.

You can peek through your fingers at the monster, you can squeeze your eyes shut during the gore, but you can't escape the soundtrack. It crawls under your skin. It tells your nervous system that something is wrong before your brain consciously registers the threat. Music doesn't just accompany horror. It creates it.

I recently discovered that my husband’s take on this song is quite different from mine. To him, it’s a song about moving on; closing one chapter and acknowledging that closure before moving on to the next. To me, it’s similar, but a much more permanent transition. I don’t see it as a sort of Freebird-like situation where the storyteller is embarking to arrive at the next stop on his journey. I see it as the final stop, and saying the last goodbye that will ever be said.

Mixtapes, recorded on cassette tapes. The real deal, carefully curated, painstakingly assembled, given as gifts that said more than words ever could. Whether you're a Gen Xer who remembers making them, or a Gen Alpha kid who's fascinated by retro tech and how it worked, this post is for you.

"Voices Carry" captures that particular cruelty of being kept like a shameful secret. It's not just the rejection alone—it's being valued only when no one's watching. It's the shame of realizing you've accepted less than you deserve because you believed it was all you were likely to get…at least from that person.

Every online music community has its trolls, but the jamband scene—supposedly full of peace-loving hippies—has a particular brand of gatekeeping that's exhausting, predictable, and completely misses the point.

Neil Young wrote "The Needle and the Damage Done" about watching friends destroy themselves with highly addictive drugs. The damage isn't just to the user—it's to everyone who loves them, especially those who watch helplessly as the person they knew disappears. This chapter is another one heavily based in memoir; the names are changed, but the damage is real.

As a child of the 80s, I'm sure I heard Tears for Fears' original rendition of this song when it came out, but if I did, it wasn't memorable enough for it to stick. I ran across Gary Jules' cover via the movie Donnie Darko and was immediately drawn in by its haunting melancholy. When I found out it was a cover and looked up the original, I was shocked to hear how drastically different the two versions were.

When you hear the word “summer,” what comes to mind? I imagine most people probably think of beaches, cookouts, camping, or maybe family vacations or weekend road trips to explore their local region. As for me, I think about concerts.

As an indie author myself, I know how much time, effort, blood, sweat and tears go into not only writing, but self-publishing a full novel. As a professional writer, who's built a career at some of the most well-known companies in the world, I also know how valuable it is to collect and incorporate feedback from objective perspectives. That input will almost always help you produce a better end result.

When I first heard this song on the radio, I was maybe 12 years old. It resonated with me because I sympathized with a boy whose father never had time for him. I also saw my overworked, depressed single mother in the father's frequent absence and declinations of offers to come play.

It’s easy to focus on all the things we want to do better. In our memories, those places where we felt lost, forgotten, worthless, and unimportant are highlighted in flashing neon. But while we’re working through those layers of pain, regret, and sadness, we have to acknowledge that despite all of that, there were some things that our parents did right.