Resolutions for the New Year
(being very basic but with a lot riding on them and a good deal flowing underneath)
1) Work hard.
(don't give up on projects or neglect to start them. don't let anxiety - that black, dead star lodged over your heart - stop you from doing what you need to do. remember that your survival depends on your work ethic. you create your own stresses and hold yourself back. don't look down on doing it for the money)
2) Be kind to yourself.
(make appointments. keep them. follow up and follow through. a confirmation of nothing wrong is better than not being sure. pain has a source. it's wise to have contingencies. the anxiety isn't clinical or pathological, but the depression might be)
This will be a good year. That is my resolution.
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Monday, 9 December 2013
Girl Anachronism: A Brief History of My 21st Birthday
This post is long overdue, but finally the right mood hit. I was meant to write about seeing Amanda Palmer in September, then about turning 21 barely two weeks afterwards. After the Palmer show I missed the perfect time frame to write everything, when it was still all fresh, and I couldn't bring myself to write it without that euphoric clarity. Then I decided to combine the concert post with my birthday post, but when I got back there was an essay to write, and then another, and so things were neglected. But now, here, at almost 3am and over two months later, I've found the perfect state to finally write this blog.
I will start, chronologically, with the concert.
It was Amanda Palmer's rescheduled tour with the Grand Theft Orchestra. My friend G and I booked out tickets in I think September last year, when Amanda was due to play at the beginning of this year. Then illness hit her life, and the tour was postponed. It slipped almost entirely from my mind. Somehow I lacked the enthusiasm I'd had when I first saw Amanda Palmer, in 2011, at the tail end of my very first week of college.
Before I had developed what I can only call a obsession with Amanda Palmer, I had intended to study psychology. I made the decision at the age of twelve or thirteen, with the knowledge in my mind that, while an area I remain deeply fascinated by, it was merely to be a source of income until my writing career took off. I maintained this conviction until a few months after I had finished high school. I was taking a gap year in isolation, living on the country property in New South Wales that my family had moved to after fifteen years in Brisbane. We were fifteen minutes from the nearest - tiny - town, up a dirt track, with no visible neighbours. I could not drive, and knew no one. I took one subject a semester at the local university to pass the time, and when I was not studying, I watched television. I read Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman's blogs religiously, and immersed myself in their work. I taught myself to write comic book scripts from the sample given in the back of a Sandman comic, and lost a concerning amount of weight in days spent hunched over a notebook, forgetting meals and surviving mostly on plunger coffee and tea. Through the influence of my Holy Duo I realised that I didn't want to spend years studying and then practicing in a field while waiting for success. When I got to university, I chose creative writing as my major. I found a renewed conviction - a seemingly rare thing for a student my age in the first year of their degree.
Mum purchased me two tickets to the Amanda Palmer concert taking place in my first week in a new city, very far from home. The second was to make friends with, she said. The girl I went with has been my housemate since February this year. Things worked out.
Facing the prospect of seeing Amanda again (I saw her in two small performances at my university, in first and second year, but a full-scale concert was quite another thing), I saw my lack of enthusiasm as a signifier of a new importance to my relationship with my idol. Her music was changing, the Theater is Evil record a poppy departure from the puck cabaret music I fell in love with. I was changing too, had changed, sometimes with Amanda's influence, but largely without it. I'd fully come to terms with my bisexuality, something I repressed for years. I got my first boyfriend (and have managed to keep him). I had new friends, and stronger friends, and had let go of a lot of old ones. I had new powers, new knowledge. My understanding of myself and my self-confidence had improved immeasurably. I'd been through the worst year of my life, followed by the worst month.
I decided that this concert would be my farewell to Amanda Palmer. I felt I was able to let go of what she had been to me, and move on. Not forget, or cut myself off from, but to acknowledge a milestone of personal growth.
And then I got to the concert, and all that heavy, mournful bullshit disappeared.
I went with my friend G, her boyfriend J and friend R, and my boyfriend K. I'd convinced K to come along because I wanted him to be a part of something that was important to me. Music is easier to share with him than comic books or art, and Amanda Palmer is more important than most things in my life. G is an incredibly close friend, and her love for the Holy Duo quickly overtook mine (I manage to not be too possessive). J had been at the concert in 2011, before we ever met. Now I think I can probably call him a good friend. Life has symmetry.
The support acts were everything I could want. Amanda Palmer made several costume changes, appearing on stage between acts. Then Meow Meow introduced the Grand Theft Orchestra and they launched from their instrumental opener into Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Nirvana was a big band for K as a teenager, and everything was perfect.
I cried several times, because I'm a leaky faucet these days. I tried very hard not to cry when I took a flower from the beautiful human statue who performed outside the venue. I cried during The Bed Song, and during the cover song they performed during which all the lights were turned off and the audience held hands, chanting "I love you so much". I cry now remembering that moment for its sheer beauty and the way we were all connected. I hope it is a moment that I shall never forget.
I yelled along to the lyrics of almost every song. I jumped and danced and tried not to hit anyone with my flailing elbows.They performed "Common People" by Pulp and I could barely contain myself. It was an incredible concert, made perfect by the fact that I was there with people I love, who are infinitely important to me. Amanda Palmer remains part of my life, and I shall not let her go.
I cannot recall if it was one or two weeks later, but not long after the concert was my 21st birthday party. It was at my parents' place in New South Wales, a trip which takes approximately ten hours from Melbourne through a combination of bus and train. I have been assured the flight to Taiwan is faster and, no doubt, more comfortable.
I have a tradition of panicking about birthdays. I have a tendency to fear change which can lead to me having an increased amount of responsibility. There are certain pressures I do not cope well with. Milestone birthdays especially do not tend to sit well with me. This time, however, I was even excited.
Family members I have not seen in a very long time traveled long distances. A good many of my Melbourne friends made the long, long trip with me, staying for a week in the guest house (a spruced-up shed) to attend my party. One friend, who I had grown up with in Brisbane and was at least a little like a younger sister to me, traveled the longest to be there. At the fullest point there were I believe twelve of us sleeping on scattered mattresses across the floor of the shed, with thirty-odd guests on the property in total.
I got too drunk at my party, compensating for the stress of spending a week of endless interaction with a large group of people, including relatives with whom I was unable to completely relax. There was a lamb on the spit and a sky full of stars. My brother's band played for several hours, tacking on near the end of their set a rushed cover of a Neutral Milk Hotel song, the words for which they couldn't remember and couldn't read in the darkness. My cousin performed a rendition of 'What Does the Fox Say?' titled 'What Does Bonny Ross Say?', the lyrics to which she and my other cousins hurriedly cobbled together in the living room. My father gave a speech and, much later in the evening, performed 'The Jabberwocky', something he used to do for us frequently as children. K tried to dance with me while we were both quite drunk and we end up falling flat on our arses on the gravel. I had an oyster cooked over open flames, and it was not as repulsive as the last one I'd had before that. I gave a drunken speech and somehow managed not to cry. I danced with my friends My parents danced together, spinning slowly in the dark.
Most importantly of all, I spent the week overwhelmed with love. I still find it difficult to comprehend that I have so many friends who care about me enough to travel that distance and stay that long, just for me. I'm not sure I deserve it. J's birthday is the day before mine, and he spent it there (I made sure he was compensated with pancakes). Most of my friends are at least a little shy, and they all managed a week-long procession of my various family members, as well as the tribulations that come with having a thirteen year old boy (a cousin) around a group of - well, technically speaking, adults. While I know exactly the ones that will roll their eyes at my use of the term, I do feel enormously blessed. I truly don't know how I've managed it, and I wish I were able to show them how much I love them all, and how much I appreciate them.
Many important things occurred this year. Each year, the important things get greater. Moments get bigger, emotions get deeper. That is what it means to get older - the moments that are important have greater resonance, like ever-expanding ripples. Every year, while there are new stresses, there are also new aspects of beauty, new people who become important, new things to do and explore. And I try to be grateful, and remind myself what it all means.
Me at seventeen:
I will start, chronologically, with the concert.
It was Amanda Palmer's rescheduled tour with the Grand Theft Orchestra. My friend G and I booked out tickets in I think September last year, when Amanda was due to play at the beginning of this year. Then illness hit her life, and the tour was postponed. It slipped almost entirely from my mind. Somehow I lacked the enthusiasm I'd had when I first saw Amanda Palmer, in 2011, at the tail end of my very first week of college.
Before I had developed what I can only call a obsession with Amanda Palmer, I had intended to study psychology. I made the decision at the age of twelve or thirteen, with the knowledge in my mind that, while an area I remain deeply fascinated by, it was merely to be a source of income until my writing career took off. I maintained this conviction until a few months after I had finished high school. I was taking a gap year in isolation, living on the country property in New South Wales that my family had moved to after fifteen years in Brisbane. We were fifteen minutes from the nearest - tiny - town, up a dirt track, with no visible neighbours. I could not drive, and knew no one. I took one subject a semester at the local university to pass the time, and when I was not studying, I watched television. I read Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman's blogs religiously, and immersed myself in their work. I taught myself to write comic book scripts from the sample given in the back of a Sandman comic, and lost a concerning amount of weight in days spent hunched over a notebook, forgetting meals and surviving mostly on plunger coffee and tea. Through the influence of my Holy Duo I realised that I didn't want to spend years studying and then practicing in a field while waiting for success. When I got to university, I chose creative writing as my major. I found a renewed conviction - a seemingly rare thing for a student my age in the first year of their degree.
Mum purchased me two tickets to the Amanda Palmer concert taking place in my first week in a new city, very far from home. The second was to make friends with, she said. The girl I went with has been my housemate since February this year. Things worked out.
Facing the prospect of seeing Amanda again (I saw her in two small performances at my university, in first and second year, but a full-scale concert was quite another thing), I saw my lack of enthusiasm as a signifier of a new importance to my relationship with my idol. Her music was changing, the Theater is Evil record a poppy departure from the puck cabaret music I fell in love with. I was changing too, had changed, sometimes with Amanda's influence, but largely without it. I'd fully come to terms with my bisexuality, something I repressed for years. I got my first boyfriend (and have managed to keep him). I had new friends, and stronger friends, and had let go of a lot of old ones. I had new powers, new knowledge. My understanding of myself and my self-confidence had improved immeasurably. I'd been through the worst year of my life, followed by the worst month.
I decided that this concert would be my farewell to Amanda Palmer. I felt I was able to let go of what she had been to me, and move on. Not forget, or cut myself off from, but to acknowledge a milestone of personal growth.
And then I got to the concert, and all that heavy, mournful bullshit disappeared.
I went with my friend G, her boyfriend J and friend R, and my boyfriend K. I'd convinced K to come along because I wanted him to be a part of something that was important to me. Music is easier to share with him than comic books or art, and Amanda Palmer is more important than most things in my life. G is an incredibly close friend, and her love for the Holy Duo quickly overtook mine (I manage to not be too possessive). J had been at the concert in 2011, before we ever met. Now I think I can probably call him a good friend. Life has symmetry.
The support acts were everything I could want. Amanda Palmer made several costume changes, appearing on stage between acts. Then Meow Meow introduced the Grand Theft Orchestra and they launched from their instrumental opener into Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit". Nirvana was a big band for K as a teenager, and everything was perfect.
I cried several times, because I'm a leaky faucet these days. I tried very hard not to cry when I took a flower from the beautiful human statue who performed outside the venue. I cried during The Bed Song, and during the cover song they performed during which all the lights were turned off and the audience held hands, chanting "I love you so much". I cry now remembering that moment for its sheer beauty and the way we were all connected. I hope it is a moment that I shall never forget.
I yelled along to the lyrics of almost every song. I jumped and danced and tried not to hit anyone with my flailing elbows.They performed "Common People" by Pulp and I could barely contain myself. It was an incredible concert, made perfect by the fact that I was there with people I love, who are infinitely important to me. Amanda Palmer remains part of my life, and I shall not let her go.
I cannot recall if it was one or two weeks later, but not long after the concert was my 21st birthday party. It was at my parents' place in New South Wales, a trip which takes approximately ten hours from Melbourne through a combination of bus and train. I have been assured the flight to Taiwan is faster and, no doubt, more comfortable.
I have a tradition of panicking about birthdays. I have a tendency to fear change which can lead to me having an increased amount of responsibility. There are certain pressures I do not cope well with. Milestone birthdays especially do not tend to sit well with me. This time, however, I was even excited.
Family members I have not seen in a very long time traveled long distances. A good many of my Melbourne friends made the long, long trip with me, staying for a week in the guest house (a spruced-up shed) to attend my party. One friend, who I had grown up with in Brisbane and was at least a little like a younger sister to me, traveled the longest to be there. At the fullest point there were I believe twelve of us sleeping on scattered mattresses across the floor of the shed, with thirty-odd guests on the property in total.
I got too drunk at my party, compensating for the stress of spending a week of endless interaction with a large group of people, including relatives with whom I was unable to completely relax. There was a lamb on the spit and a sky full of stars. My brother's band played for several hours, tacking on near the end of their set a rushed cover of a Neutral Milk Hotel song, the words for which they couldn't remember and couldn't read in the darkness. My cousin performed a rendition of 'What Does the Fox Say?' titled 'What Does Bonny Ross Say?', the lyrics to which she and my other cousins hurriedly cobbled together in the living room. My father gave a speech and, much later in the evening, performed 'The Jabberwocky', something he used to do for us frequently as children. K tried to dance with me while we were both quite drunk and we end up falling flat on our arses on the gravel. I had an oyster cooked over open flames, and it was not as repulsive as the last one I'd had before that. I gave a drunken speech and somehow managed not to cry. I danced with my friends My parents danced together, spinning slowly in the dark.
Most importantly of all, I spent the week overwhelmed with love. I still find it difficult to comprehend that I have so many friends who care about me enough to travel that distance and stay that long, just for me. I'm not sure I deserve it. J's birthday is the day before mine, and he spent it there (I made sure he was compensated with pancakes). Most of my friends are at least a little shy, and they all managed a week-long procession of my various family members, as well as the tribulations that come with having a thirteen year old boy (a cousin) around a group of - well, technically speaking, adults. While I know exactly the ones that will roll their eyes at my use of the term, I do feel enormously blessed. I truly don't know how I've managed it, and I wish I were able to show them how much I love them all, and how much I appreciate them.
Many important things occurred this year. Each year, the important things get greater. Moments get bigger, emotions get deeper. That is what it means to get older - the moments that are important have greater resonance, like ever-expanding ripples. Every year, while there are new stresses, there are also new aspects of beauty, new people who become important, new things to do and explore. And I try to be grateful, and remind myself what it all means.
Me at seventeen:
Saturday, 30 November 2013
Some of My Earliest Musical Memories
- The house I grew up in was an old Queenslander. The underside housed Dad's shed, full of his tools and the work benches he built himself. The laundry was concreted behind timber slats, and the dark green paint curled and chipped. Redback spiders built their webs in the gaps between the slats, and an unseen insect made cone-shaped holes in the sandy soil. Glass pyramids refracted light in Mum's studio; one red, one dark blue. There was a box of old records and, somewhere in the memory, a record player projecting 'Here Comes the Sun' by the Beatles.
- Dad brought home 'Mule Variations' by Tom Waits. We sat around together and listened gleefully to 'What's He Building In There?'. It was characteristic of much of my later fields of interest. When a performance of my poetry I gave a few years ago was compared to Tom Waits, I strove to find someone who would appreciate the significance of the comparison, but was found wanting. Controversially, I still prefer the album to 'Blue Valentine'.
- Dad would unwind in the evenings with 'No More Shall We Part' by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, 'Grace' by Jeff Buckley or 'Sweet Nothing' by Tex Perkins and the Dark Horses. These albums bring up complex emotions for me, both because they are of themselves emotionally complex and because of the strange feeling of nostalgia and longing they bring. I listen to these albums with by boyfriend, forming new associations while hoping not to lose the old. 'Sweet Nothing' is that rare thing: a perfect album.
- There were, of course, children's tapes, 'Teddy Bears' Picnic' on cassette and 'Surfing With the Seagulls' forever on the stereo. When Mum was out of the house we'd listen to 'Mr. Boombastic' by Shaggy, an album that is, in retrospect, perhaps not the most suitable for children, but my brother and didn't understand what any of it meant. The first album I ever owned was Aqua's 'Bubble Party Mix', given to me at my fifth birthday party. While very particular in my taste growing up I was certainly not very original, but I still have what my parents gave me, and I like to have a soundtrack for the important moments.
Monday, 9 September 2013
Practical Magic
I watched The Craft for the first time last night, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Now I want to blow all my money on crystals and candles and books on the magical properties of plants, which is probably unwise as I have at least two bills to pay in the next couple of weeks.
I went through a bit of a 'pagan phase' in school as part of my whole goth/ emo thing. I'm now very much an atheist, but I still really like paganism/ wicca. I like the aesthetic and I like the sense of being connected to everything. I never progressed beyond a superficial interest in the practice, but as I've gotten older I've developed a greater sense of connection with the universe. While I'm not religious, I do think of my self as a spiritual person.
There is no inherent meaning to the world; we just exist in it, as a part of it, and surrendering to that and accepting it as my truth has been incredibly freeing for me. It means I can focus on what is important to me, and not feel overwhelmed by the future and how significant I will be to the world, because the answer is that it doesn't matter.
Self-absorbed and selfish are not the same thing.
When I get down, as I have been lately, is when I think that feeling of connectedness becomes lost somehow and the balance goes out of things. It is comforting to think of the concepts of karma and of the universe keeping itself in check, and sometimes when bad things happen I tell myself it all balances out, but the last couple of weeks have made it difficult to maintain that optimism.
I've been wanting to blog more but it's been hard to think of anything to write about that isn't just how depressed I've been feeling. I think I'm on the up now, but I have to drag myself through a few more feet of hormones before I can be back to my usual, optimistic self.
I have several job applications to do this week. Hopefully something will come of them and I can support myself a little better. I also need to make more time for art, while also getting my assessment for uni done.
Mum told me I have too much time on my hands yesterday because I took the time to vote below the line. I'm pretty sure I don't have enough. Or I don't make enough? I would probably benefit from intensely scheduling my whole week, and not just having my uni timetable, but then social things and other stuff come up and I don't know when to start a schedule.
I turn 21 in a few weeks. I haven't decided what that means.
The world shall maintain balance. Something positive will come soon. Tony Abbott will badly stub his toe in public. It will all be ok.
Gif from: https://weheartit.com/entry/73550714
The Craft cap from: http://www.graffitiwithpunctuation.net/2013/06/03/five-star-films-52-the-craft-1996/
Artwork from my etsy: https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/157890486/square-mixed-media-collage-original?ref=shop_home_active
Last picture from my instagram: http://instagram.com/grandmastattoo/
Tuesday, 27 August 2013
Sunhead Bowed
In a melancholic pre-menstrual mood and craving closeness to stave off thoughts about someone who doesn't belong to me. In the position where I could fall in love if I let myself but that isn't allowed and I've got one one those already. It's so hard to be specific when they know you on all your corners of the internet but they'll only let you operate in the universe in one way so that's the end of that.
Falling is love is terrifying and I don't recommend it.
I would like to spend a great deal of time learning to make collages and analysing David Lynch films.
Everything is feeling too much for me. I hate the way the hormones make me feel, pulling a blanket of pressure down to press upon my chest and making slipping into death seem like an easy solution. I know it's only a cyclical reaction to the ministrations of my womb but I still fear the day when I am without tethers to the world and there is nothing holding me back. But will I still want to slip down with nothing to latch onto? I barely notice the melancholy when I am otherwise distracted and happy and there is no niggling trouble to be supernova-ed in the back of my mind.
I should be sleeping but I still haven't put together a handout for my presentation on Blue Velvet at 11am. Norman Rockwell meets Hieronymous Bosch, but I can't help but feel like Andy Warhol's electric chairs are a more fitting image of pre-fab completeness.
The beauty in the world is today covered by the rotting underneath. It's deep pink lines across the wrists of a girl who is beautiful from the inside out and it's finding stalkers in romance. It's all still beautiful but it eats away at me tonight like sunlight glinting off maggot-flesh.
I'll be back together again in the morning but tonight there is a layer of damp lace between my skin and the underneath and in the darkness it grows mould.
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Young Hearts Run Free: Melbourne Rookie Meet Up
A quick snap with Tavi
We few who missed out on tickets to Rookie Day
Getting everyone in on the spirit
My haul from Retrostar Vintage, Polyester Records and the Sticky Institute
Hoe can I express the event that was my Saturday?
Through word of mouth and links and my gift-bag-giving, Tavi found out about our Rookie meet-up. At a little after ten, as a group of Rookies stood together under the clocks at Flinders Street Station wondering aloud whether or not she would actually show, Tavi suddenly emerged from the crowd at the crosswalk and came smiling towards us. She was tiny and utterly human and coming right towards us. Composure was maintained as we made space for her in our circle as we had for each other, but I, for one, was inwardly jumping up and down and making inhuman noises.
As other Rookies joined us there were beautiful moments of the sudden realisation of Tavi's presence and the hurried reinstatement of a casual expression.
We all went shopping with Tavi Gevinson.
The most gratifying part of the day was being able to in some way facilitate a beautiful group of people meeting Tavi and being able to chill with her in a non-official-event capacity. It was a wonderful joy to see her conversing with my fellow Rookies and have them be able to achieve goals of having her compliment their craft or to take her portrait. And for those who couldn't join us for that portion of the day, it was still wonderful to be able to hand out gift bags and talk about Rookie and Tavi and meet wonderful new people. It was magically, serenely surreal to walk up Swanston Street with the group and see Tavi having a conversation with one of my new friends. I cannot express just how happy the whole thing made me feel.
At Polyester I tried something my boyfriend does and bought a bunch of cheap CDs I'd never heard of. They are 'Mycorrhizae Realm' by Fursaxa, 'Young' by Summer Camp and 'Where the Messengers Meet' by Mt St Helens Vietnam Band. I haven't had the chance to listen to them all yet, but 'Where the Messengers Meet' is beautiful and atmospheric and I recommend it (although the band's name borders on the ridiculous). We also visited Lady Petrova and Alice Euphemia.
I met so many wonderful people on Friday and Saturday, and I really hope we stay in touch. I've spent the whole weekend not buzzed or on a high but bathed in a soft, warm glow which comes from within and makes the world seem beautiful. I got to fangirl and shop and talk about things I don't usually get to talk about. I got to go on a picnic. I got to wear flower crowns and hang out with people who are ten times more amazing than I am and on average at least two years younger and I got to meet one of my heroes.
We had a mini show-and-tell at the picnic and I brought Just Kids by Patti Smith. I reminded everyone that we don't need to be Tavi at Tavi's age; some people are amazing, beautiful human beings but don't receive recognition until they are a good deal older than we are now. I feel it's important to remind myself of that sometimes.
To all the people who were kind enough to join me, thank you. You are all beautiful.
Friday, 23 August 2013
Tavi's World: People Care, Things Matter, There Are Good Days
I got back from seeing Tavi Gevinson at the Athenaeum Theater. Her talk was basically a complete affirmation of the philosophy I have developed and my attitude towards the world.
She spoke about the value and importance of being a fangirl. It was wonderful because I've gotten to the point where even though there's still a lot of frustrating, depressing, infuriating stuff in the world, I still love it and I love people and I get really bouncy and excited about small, seemingly trivial things. Like, I still freak out when a band I haven't listened to for years release new music (TWO NEW AFI SINGLES OHMIGOSH) and I get really excited about pugs and flowers and shiny things and I spend lots of money on glitter and food because they make me happy. And sometimes people tease me about that or give me a hard time, but it doesn't really matter because it won't make me love those things any less or make me less in love with the world.
Tavi signed my copy of The Virgin Suicides, which she'd been talking about in her speech so that was cool. It's a book I only read recently and one I sort-of wish I'd discovered earlier when I had more time for reading so I could devour it all in one sitting. I fell in love with the language and feel of the book in a way I haven't for a while, which was really wonderful. She told me it was brilliant when I handed it to her.
She's probably the best famous person I have met, from the combination of sincerity, enthusiasm, and also being someone I really idolise. It was also much easier talking to her than to some of the other people I've been lucky enough to meet. She's younger than me by a couple of years (she's the same age as my brother, which is terrifying, in a way) and still figuring herself out, but is still hugely successful, which is enormously validating to me.
Meeting Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer was incredible, and they were all really fantastic experiences, but also quite intimidating. They have experience gained from years of practice and a solid understanding of the world, which is great once you're there but can also be nerve-wracking for people still figuring things out and haven't aligned their experiences with their beliefs and may yet grow to disagree with the people they now idolise (and by 'they' I of course mean 'I'). With Tavi I can both be in awe of her and feel like we are actually peers and might actually have something to say to each other which will be interesting and not just annoying and/ or one-sided, which is sort-of my fear with some of the older people I idolise.
I am actually terrified of the concept of going to dinner or something with one of my heroes because I'm pretty sure I would either blather on like a idiot about incredibly banal things, or just make a series of mildly alarming choking noises while covering myself in soup. With Tavi, I feel like we could have a conversation. It may just be wishful thinking, but hey, so is most of my thinking, and that doesn't mean it's inherently impossible.
She told us about her new mantra, taken from a Rookie commenter, which is kind of a summary of how I view the world and the sort of thing I remind myself of when things get bad: people care, things matter, there are good days.
I think it's really important for everyone to remember that and to make it their mantra.
People care.
Things matter.
There are good days.
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