Peter's Place

Why My 2026 Is Written in Stone (And Why It’s Okay That It’s Broken) If you look closely at the image above—really closely—you’ll see it. It’s there in the text carved into the stone wall. A line repeats itself. "In silence. You cross boundaries, in silence. You cross boundaries..." Technically, it’s a mistake. It’s a glitch in the digital matrix, a hiccup in the software that created the image. In a previous life, the version of me that existed five or six years ago would have seen that error and frantically tried to fix it. I would have scrubbed it, photoshopped it, or discarded the image entirely because it wasn't "perfect." I would have worried that a flaw in the presentation meant a flaw in the man presenting it. But I’m leaving it there. I am letting it stand. Because if there is one thing I have learned in my fifty-two years on this planet—and specifically in the hellscape of the last six years—it is that life does not allo...

The Crisis Being Ignored By Everyone In Connecticut Below is the text of an article that I drafted on October 13, 2020, at 2:16 PM. I never got the chance to finish writing it as the battery in my laptop died. But I feel it's important to bring it to light now, as I have a friend who is in a similar situation, and not much has changed in the system since I wrote this, according to them. They don't want their name being used, and I can understand that. When I was homeless, it wasn't something I was particularly proud (or fond) of. It was circumstantial. And if you think it can't ever happen to you, think again. How the Unhoused are Impacted by COVID-19 Hartford, Connecticut, October 13, 2020. 2:16 PM. Believe it or not, COVID-19 isn't the only crisis being faced by residents in the State of Connecticut . In fact, there are other crises many residents in the state have been dealing with that have been largely ignored, and the COVID-...

Why Are We Rushing the Year Away? This is really me, everything else is AI-generated. The holiday pause we’ve misplaced Bloomfield, CT —  We are officially two weeks away from the New Year. The calendar still clearly reads “December,” yet if you look around at the collective mindset, it feels as though we have already fast-forwarded to January 1st. We haven't even unwrapped the Christmas gifts or lit the final Hanukkah candles, yet the noise of “New Year, New Me” resolutions and Q1 planning is already deafening. Why are we acting like the New Year is already here? This is not just nostalgia talking; it is a yearning for a different pace of life. There was a time when people genuinely took their time. The holiday season was a distinct container of time—a pause button on the chaotic soundtrack of life—where the primary objective was simply to experience joy, connection, and—for...

Gratitude for the Mind, the Spirit, and the Signal in the Noise By Peter C. Frank Bloomfield, Conn., November 27, 2025 - Thanksgiving is often painted in broad strokes—turkey, football, and parades. But for me, this year, the gratitude is granular. It is deep, specific, and hard-won. I am thankful, first and always, for my foundation: for my sister, whose strength is a constant; for my nieces, who bring light into the world; and for my father, a veteran whose resilience is part of my DNA. I am thankful for the healthcare teams who have navigated the complexities of my care, and for the friends—both offline and especially online—who refused to let me drift away when things were at their darkest. But this year, I am also thankful for an unexpected ally: Artificial Intelligence  (AI). For a long time, living with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), I feared that the best parts of my mind were lost in the fog. I worried that the sharp, analytical edge I prided my...

I'm sick. I've been sick since Wednesday evening. I think it's my annual bout of bronchitis. Or it could be COVID. But I doubt it. But with all the anxiety over COVID, IDK anymore. I think all the anxiety they have given us over COVID has left us unable to determine when we have a simple cold or the flu, or something like bronchitis, or something worse--like COVID--or some other sort of infection.  More likely than not this either is my annual bronchitis or a URI (upper respiratory infection). But I'm sick and miserable. Oh. I'm being redundant. But I'm sick so I'm allowed a bit of redundancy. I'm certain I'm not the only one who feels this way. That is, that one little sniffle--or in my case, a single cough--sends off alarm bells and trips to CVS buying out every single possible home COVID test there is on the shelves. Because I've already had COVID-19. And not the trimmed-down Delta or Omicron variants but the OG one that first came out, when ...

Today marks the completion of the 48th revolution of my corporeal existence on this ball of rock flooded with a substance we call water (chemical composition  H 2 O ) around a gaseous body whose core is a continuous fusion reaction primarily fueled by hydrogen and helium (i.e., our "sun," which we classify as a yellow star). In other words, it's my 48th birthday today. And. I'm. Terrified. . . No. Make that petrified, immobilized by a foreboding sense of impending...change? It's not that I haven't faced change before--I have, on numerous occasions and yet, I'm still here (despite more than a few attempts to the contrary but, I digress). NOTE: If you are having thoughts of not wanting to be here any longer, please--PLEASE--call someone and ask for help. Call your local mobile crisis hotline number, call 911, call your local Suicide Prevention Hotline . Yet this time, something is different. I don't know if it's the times we're living in or the f...

MEDIA ALERT ACTIVIST EVICTED FROM HOMELESS SHELTER WHILE UNDERGOING MEDICAL TESTS, CALLS FOR COMMUNITY TO RALLY AGAINST HOMELESSNESS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:    PETER C. FRANK                               (914) 417-9579                               PCFRANK73@GMAIL.COM South Park Inn 75 Main Street, Hartford, CT 06106 HARTFORD, CT—Earlier today, I was evicted from South Park Inn (SPI) , which is the homeless shelter I've been staying in, for doing nothing other than receiving healthcare that I was forced to postpone from last month due to not having the funds for medical transportation. I am now, literally, on the streets. Specifically, during my annual wellness examination the day before my birthday last month, my doctor ordered a series of diagnostic tests to be performed. Among them was a s...

There is nothing more important to #PRIDE than the Truth and that means even when it may not be very convenient. The #LGBTQ+ community is uniquely situated to handle this quandary because, after the self-realization of identifying as LGBTQIA2S++, one is then faced with perhaps the greatest inconvenient truth of all: the great, big LGBTQ closet. It's quite unfortunate that I've seen a rise in other such inconvenient truths (and no, not that  Inconvenient Truth ) since my return to the social web after a hiatus of a few years while I cared for, and then lost my mother as she battled breast cancer for the fourth time. We have come so far in the past 50 years yet have much further to go, especially as a community. I believe that is because we have been fighting for equality when in fact we should be demanding equity and justice . One needn't look far from the gayborhoods to see the self-harm that staying in the closet does to us. And that's why today, on this 32nd anniversa...

I feel as though I've just given birth but, as I'm 100% biological male, I know that's an impossibility in our reality. I've had this feeling on a near-daily basis for the past twelve months. I feel as though my normal life has become amplified, like how a headache amplifies into a migraine. That is to say, I've been taking care of my mother, who on top of her ongoing health issues was diagnosed with her fourth round of breast cancer at the beginning of last November, supporting my sister with her four daughters (the eldest of whom I've  previously written about is very special needs), helping my father (who's recently moved back to the area) launch a new business, and once in a while squeeze in an appointment or two for my own health needs that are ever-growing in this cosmic journey we're all in together as we swirl around through space on a water-covered rock orbiting around a giant blob of hydrogen and helium entwined in a fusion reaction we call ...