Ben Folds Is Stalking Me

It's hard to know exactly when I realized I was being stalked by Ben Folds.

I wish I could remember how I found Katie Sokoler's blog Color Me Katie, but however I got there, I do a fair amount of crafts, and I love her colors and sense of humor. She made a video of a pretty song I had never heard before, and the video was adorable, but I enjoyed it then moved on to her other things, like pictures of thought bubbles.

For quite some time, my daughter Treya had been a fan of Charlie McDonnell. Charlie is very funny and sweet, and bonus, has an outro made by Stephen Fry, an actor I really like. All during his teenage years he did little videos of self-imposed pranks, such as coloring himself purple and dying his hair fire-engine red. You kind of get to see him grow up via video, and he's always quirky and engaging. I thought it was inspiring to my homeschooled kids, who were doing their own projects, that here was a kid that thrived doing his.

One of the unexpected perks of where I used to work is that I heard an incredible variety of music. My intern, Katie O, was listening to Regina Spektor, who had a couple of things that I love in an artist: smart lyrics, interesting composition, and a vocal range that's right in the middle of mine so I can sing along in the car. When she left at the end of the summer, Katie O gave me a cd of Spektor.

Are you keeping up? Years ago someone called me a "junkie of the printed word" because I am such a voracious reader. I like a lot of Nick Hornby's work. I actually discovered him via movies of his books: Fever Pitch, About A Boy, High Fidelity; and while those are fun movies, the books are much better. I went looking to see if he had written anything lately, and found that he had collaborated with some musician to write lyrics.

Then in quick succession, it turned out that the musician Nick Hornby was working with was some guy named Ben Folds. The guy who wrote the cute song in Color Me Katie's video. The other voice on one my favorite Regina songs. The guy Charlie dented his kitchen pots for, when he did an official (and officially loopy) music video for one of the Hornby/Folds songs, Saskia Hamilton.

Soon after, I stayed in Boston with my niece. Her husband and I talked about the singing group I was in, and he told me I'd love a show with all a-cappella singing, The Sing-Off. And we watched it together. And the camera turned to one of the judges, a kind of nerdy-looking guy with glasses, but one that was making surprisingly insightful comments for an Idol-style competition show. And there I first laid eyes on, guess who: Ben Folds.

So that's what it took—the zeitgeist having to dummy-slap me every couple of months into realizing that there was someone making a lot of music that was just my cup of tea. There's probably lots more like him out there in the world: painters whose work I'll find breathtakingly transcendent, writers that I'll lose myself in, dancers who will change how I see the universe.

I'd like to say that I've grown wiser, that I've learned to look for connections this world or be more attuned to serendipity, but alas, I fear that would be a lie. They'll have to do the work instead. They'll have to come and find me. Like Ben Folds did.