The #1 reason I love the internet

Music.

I know, you’re like, “but Beth, you obviously love Social Media a ton”, and I’m all like, “I know” and you’re like “so why music?” Well, I’ll tell you why.

You know how sometimes you just CRAVE food and you can eat, and eat without being satisfied? That is sometimes how I feel about a song. Like, there is just this insatiable desire to listen to a song and I feel almost, hmmm, hollow, until I hear it. There is one song in particular that I feel this way about and what leads me to say music is the reason I love the internet.

Let me take you back to 1996 (Please reference the photos from around this time)when we had just installed our very first satellite dish. I was on TV overload since I had gone from 5 stations and an antenna to 500 crystal clear stations. Not surprisingly I spent a little bit too much time watching TV that summer. Like now, I was still very active back then and would dance around listening to MTV and a new station, MTV2. One day as I was bopping around the house listening to MTV2, a song came on. It was such an amazing song, it was loud and soulful and I just couldn’t get enough. I sat for days waiting for the song to play again. And then, two weeks later, it did. I wrote down the name of the song and band, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it but I knew I had it. It was mine, this song was mine.

Several years later, I graduated from high school and went to college at Harvard of the Midwest, Minnesota State, Mankato. I never heard the song again.

During my freshman year I heard buzz from people about this website called Napster. Apparently it was a site that allowed you to find songs and download them for free! (Disclaimer, I don’t think it was illegal yet…) Over the course of a couple of days this aching desire was gnawing at the back of my heart and mind, encouraging me to find something to fill me up. WHAT WAS IT?!!! It was a song, it was my song.



I cut my own bangs, can you believe it!?



I went on the web and did a search for the name of the band and the song title and there it was. A short 57 minutes later my 3 minute song had downloaded. I listened to it over a hundred times that day. It was such an overwhelming sense of relief and, and what’s the word I’m looking for. Comfort? To have found what it was I was searching for. Now, 15 years after I first heard that song it’s in my purchased list on my itunes and I listen to it every single time I run. On purpose, because it comforts me. I love hearing a song and almost immediately being able to purchase and listen to it.

The internet provides me comfort. I can’t remember a movie? I look it up on IMDB, want to go for a run? Logon to MAPMYRUN, hold my mail while on a trip? USPS.Com. I love the internet for so many reasons but mostly for being my immediate safety net and helping me find my song.

My Valentine's outfit I didn't get to blog
about because I've obsessively been playing Words With Friends.
Don't judge me!



1993'ish Beth







 If you’re curious and because I’m in a sharing mood, my song is Place Your Hands by Reef