Patchwork

The House Has Burnt Down, not literally of course.

It feels like winter. I’d much prefer that, but maybe it doesn’t matter what it feels like. Its still summer and I hate it. But when its hot I can never process anything, uncomfortably numb, already mixed up with the word “tablecloth” insanely half snatched from the last few words of a thought.

Drip, drip, drip goes the sad sodden landscape…

I’m not letting this one slip through my fingers.

I wrote a letter last night, to Amanda. And in that instant it was perfect, if I could have beamed it out of my phone as is, and straight into her Blackberry I know it would have worked. I know. The perfect comment to her last blog.

An open letter to Amanda Palmer.

“I would like to proudly declare my happiness at the moment, because if it were a case where I was unhappy, I would undoubtedly say something about this too, and being happy is a much better cause. But I am happy because I finally figured out what to say, and its good…”

I have an appreciation for the small unnoticed details and intricacies in the world and I like this. But I have spent far too much time upside down on this dirty mid-orange brown to cream carpet, staring at this what I know to be ever so slightly pink ceiling, but you can’t tell. With two dead Rutherglen Bugs, one spindly spider, a crack from when they transported the house here, and that plastered up hole from when the hot water service was in the ceiling and it leaked and we had to pierce the plaster to stop the water gathering and caving in the ceiling…

I’m in pain, and beached on my back. Letting myself think too much. Last night I let myself think too much, no matter how tired I am if I have something to think about I can keep myself awake indefinitely.

I’m a tragic, I’ll admit that. I’m just as bad as all the rest of them who have lyrics in their signatures and for their usernames. Just because I invented my own identity doesn’t mean I don’t spend a fair portion of my life referencing my shit to my favourite band in some desperate attempt to qualify it or achieve some unachievable lost connection. So sue me.

My phone is on the other side of the room, far away getting some reception to pick up the messages that will never come from concerned friends inviting me to all tomorrows parties. Begging to be moved to under my bed where it can get no reception and assuage the fears that no-one cares. Because they all take back their apologies eventually…

“Mostly I’m hungry, hungry for that connection, that thing you call rock love that I have been deprived of for so long, and here is this group of people who have it, who share it and revel in its unassuming goodness, and at its head, leading the charge into better art enlightenment, and people who ‘get it’ is you. And it really tugs at my soul and heart every time I think about this, and I’m only part way of the way to finding out why that is, but I would greatly love to sit down with you some day and discuss the finer points of figuring it out.”

If there is something that you have been looking forward to for ages, the bigger the more terrible. It never turns out as planned. There’s always something missing. For one, its bad if you don’t know and you let it sneak up on you. Because although its unavoidable that you get your hopes up at least you feel prepared and you become desensitised to this particular brand of hope. Two, its bad if you feel sick. Not only because you feel sick and that’s awful, but it gives the illusion and the hope that it all could have been perfect if you weren’t stupid enough to let that fat man sneeze on you in the food court… Three- its bad if you let hope fall into the hands of others and worse if you give someone the power to grant or deny your hope. I shall not explain why this is bad, its kinda self-evident.

“You may or may not recall a girl who gave you a many paged black ribbon bound letter on the first night of the Spiegeltent shows in Australia. Well, that was me, and I replied to you via email since I was ever so grateful you took the time to reply to me, but I understand. In the past, a good while now, I have wanted you to email me, to talk, and I have been disappointed. And I grappled with this one a lot, about how you say that you read all the emails and comments and yet I hear of no Dresden Dolls fan who got an email back from that accursed contact box, (sorry, I know I’m adding insult to injury here, but that’s how I felt at the time) contrasted to the whole blog of On Not Taking Home A Stranger where a fan’s letter has a profound tangible influence. But I get it now, because I know that you want to reply to it all, you really do. But as it is, a person has to be utterly special, write the most insightful weighty on-point comment, the best glowing meaningful poignant letter, to be noticed and bothered with among thousands. And if I were you I would be exactly the same, I would want to read it all so badly I would be in danger of letting comment reading dominate my life, but one can’t. You’re touring, you’re sick, you have 14 000 emails and nowhere to start or you just don’t fucking feel like it! The point it is can’t be done. And all I can say is that I will keep writing and not expecting anything back, just being grateful for the possibility of being heard, because I am happy enough that I was special just once.”

It is just another day, where you get out of bed one leg at a time with promise around the corner and leap onto the internet to waste all that money and get involved in politics you were blissfully unaware of, because it all reveals its seedy underbelly soon enough…

“And I know someone is listening because I love and appreciate the fans and the community just as much as you do, and I am so glad that I got to tell you this in my letter. But strangely enough I was saying those things before I even knew any of them personally and that’s even better. On the whole of the fan forum I have only come across one single disagreement that seemed to be diffused very quickly. They are all such a nice, civilised, lovely, generous, diplomatic, approachable bunch that I was taken by surprise. Here I was at the show, dressed in my finest eccentric garb, thinking that at any moment I would be mistaken for an Emo and screeched at across the sidewalk for cutting myself, when I turn to my left and there is a group of even more unconventional semi-gothic people staring straight back at me with pleasant impassive looks. And so I hurriedly adjusted my face from bitter and cautious to surprised and content.”

The possibility of being popular and known over the internet is a far more scary and exciting (but mostly scary) prospect than I could have ever thought. Someone in another time zone, in another country, another world that I’ve never even been to, a person I’ve never even met, did something specifically as a result of me and/or something I said. Doesn’t it just do your head in sometimes?

Mild popularity is going to freak me out.

You’re a make up artist? You work here? No way! You’ve come to do my make up? You’re kidding me? Isn’t this just the coolest job? Who is the best person you’ve made up? You know I would have loved to have been a make up artist…

YOU saw ME at my very first performance? You, you what? You LIKED it? You’re shitting me?!

I’d run out of inflections and surprised expressions.

“I feel guilty for those slightly disturbed drunk screaming ones too. That we or I couldn’t help or say something because although we and you (being the true performer you are and continuing to sing through that ass grabbing incident, which I don’t think I could have ever done) are all smiles, we know that it’s not cool. And I was especially glad to hear your slight uneasiness about the people who act this way because I was confronted with a group of them and they put a slight tarnish on my otherwise impeccable evening. I thought that since they had received more attention for their irresponsible behaviour perhaps you preferred them to the quiet patient types like myself. I’m happy that you said something. And who knows, maybe everyone might think twice before getting drunk and grabbing things at shows… heh heh.”

I haven’t written so much so well in so long. I won’t know what to do with myself, my head might actually be clear.

“Know that you are making a difference Amanda, a real difference.

Much love.

☆Anika☆”