#i was going to go to no shame nashville but i talked myself out of it

[middlenameray]

Realized on Sunday that I have assembled more than enough cohesive song ideas to justify a new album. Have been slightly consumed with that realization ever since (in a good way, I think?)

The major catalyst for this is that I started learning how to play guitar in earnest in the fall of 2022. It’s been really transformative to my identity as an artist, to my songwriting, and to my relationship with music making in general. I have a LOT more to learn, but I think I can begin moving on the seeds of material I’ve been storing away as I’ve gone along.

Of course these longform projects have a way of evolving into completely different animals as they progress, but at this moment, I’m inspired to use this potential project to reach some semblance of closure on things I’ve been carrying around my whole life. (read: formative experiences with shame, disappointment, bullying, abandonment, grief and so forth.) Not exactly a happy record lol but will certainly be cathartic.

Why has it taken over three albums for me to “get personal” like this? Well, for one thing, my upbringing as a gospel singer trained me to put The Message before my own narrative. So much of my early music has stopped short of going too deep because I’ve always felt I needed to put a hopeful or positive spin on things.

Even with my Backslider album, which was very critical of this indoctrination, I felt like I had to balance the introspective with more global subject matter. Songs like “Abomination”, “Hostile Cordiality” and “Take Too Long” are the beginnings of me going “hi, this is about me and the real life experiences that have shaped me,” but they’re sandwiched among other songs that more broadly speak to systemic oppression and humanity.

And of course my last album was an intentional homage to my gospel roots, so again, the focus was mostly on universal messaging - “Stars” and “It’s Not Too Late” are probably the most introspective lyrics on the whole project.

The other reason is that, in regards to the specific stories that I want to tell now, a lot of them go back to early childhood: things I have hazy memories of and/or that in many ways have felt unnecessary or self-indulgent to revisit now that I’m an adult.

Add to this the fact that I’ve had quite a few transitions in my life that have ended my time in communities before I was ever able to get closure on them. In childhood, I moved around a bit which meant repeatedly starting over at different schools and neighborhoods - we also changed churches a few times, too.

At 18, I relocated states for college and came out: in many ways, I never looked back. I then relocated states again after graduating to get married and moved around even more for the next half-decade. We moved back to Nashville in 2019 and have been living in the same home for almost 5 years now - which is honestly the longest I’ve lived at any address since I was like six years old.

Anyway, each and every transition has lended itself to constant reinvention - using each ending and new beginning to redefine myself. Sometimes I had intentions of staying in touch with the loved ones left behind; other times, less so. In either case, it barely happened, and today I don’t really have close friendships (people I talk to on even a monthly basis) with very many people outside of my husband and immediate family.

Even my latest transition from Twitter to Bluesky has been an online mirror of this: the blessing of constantly getting to redefine and set new boundaries for what I want from community paired with the curse of said community never lasting.

I could go on and on about that but the point is: being able to dive completely into introspective storytelling feels very, very long overdue. And I’m excited about it. I also think, as I write this, that I’m emotionally capable of doing this work in ways that I probably would not have been in the past. So, I guess it’s all in due timing, actually. These songs feel really stimulating and compelling to work on, which, for as heavy as the subject matter is to revisit, is joyous and affirming for me that I’m supposed to be doing this.

[bisluthq]

Obviously Taylor has dated her fair share of people (which there should be no shame in), but based on her lyrics these are the relationships that seemed to be the most meaningful to her:

1. Drew Dunlap AKA 1st Boyfriend AKA Mr. Tim McGraw/Our Song/Fifteen (kinda)/Midnight Rain (probably) and a bunch of others

Was (in her mind) her first boyfriend!

Had her first kiss, first date, and first.. whatever else with

Mentions in multiple songs that she thought she was gonna/wanted to marry him

Based on Midnight Rain he seems to represent the idea of what could've been if she hadn't pursued a music career (or I guess succeeded in having a music career, since if she hadn't wanted to be a musician she wouldn't have moved to Nashville)

Has always described him as being super nice

Dated him for like a year

2. Joe Jonas AKA Disney's Resident Virginal Fuckboi AKA Mr. Perfectly Fine (and like SO many others)

In all her songs about him she says that she thought they were gonna be together forever because he... told her that they were gonna be together forever

Was clearly VERY hurt by the whole Joe thing. Back in the day she said it was her first true heartbreak (though it obviously paled in comparison to what was to come)

Did not get over it for a WHILE (6 months gone and I'm still reaching... Etc)

She also referred to him as her first love in the original Speak Now album booklet which I don't think was entirely accurate but girlie was trying to tell a story

"he will try to take away my pain, and he just might make me smile but the whole time I'm wishing he was you instead"

3. John Mayer AKA Sleazy Douchebag AKA Mr. Dear John (and co)

She has SO many lyrics about how she just loved. Him. So. Damn. Much (also this is outside of a musical context but she also said she loved him in interviews so..)

For better or for worse (definitely worse) it had a VERY big impact on her

Threw all logic out the window in the relationship and chose to actively ignore every red flag, or better yet turn them into little quirks (for example: the 2nd verse of Superman)

"don't forget where I'll be. Right here wishing the flowers were from you, wishing the card was from you, wishing the call was from you" (poor TL)

Wrote "I'd tell you I miss you but I don't know how/I'd lay my armour down if you'd say you'd rather love than fight" AFTER writing dear john

"I used to think one day we'd tell the story of us, how we met and the Sparks flew instantly"

4. Jake Gyllenhaal AKA Indie Douchebag AKA Mr. All Too Well (and basically all of Red, and honestly also probably elements of 1989)

Fell HARD and FAST

Was like *romantic?

Kept crawling his way back

Kept letting him crawl his way back

Wrote (in her own words) an entire album about it

"I never saw you coming and I'll never be the same"

"you're my Achilles heel"

Literally redefined her perception of love

Taylor at TIFF when talking about All Too Well "I don't see myself continuing to make stuff about extreme guttural heartbreak at your most formative age, that debilitates you emotionally for years, and you have to develop a scar tissue to move on with your life, and write a novel about, cause you're still..." (also it is things like this that make me mildly concerned about the fact that she's never gone to therapy)

We're meeting each other's families within less than 3 months (which I know is a Jake staple but still, Jesus)

"I used to think that we were forever and I used to say never say never"

5. Harry Styles AKA Teenage Boy who can't keep it in his pants (who would've thought???) AKA Mr. Out Of The Woods (and like others but DEFINITELY that one)

Knew it wasn't going to last but still seemed to enjoy it while it lasted

Put up with all that fangirl shit

Seemed to find it inspirational, if only aesthetically

Only person on this list that she seemingly didn't think she would end up with (though she apparently thought he may interrupt her wedding???)

We're apparently on-and-off for ages

Was a key player in sending her into one of many Identity Crisis'

6. Joe Alwyn AKA Golden Boy AKA Mr. 50-something songs (or something like that)

Was with him for 6 years

Very clearly thought he was the love of her life

Once again redefined her perception of love ("I once believed love would be burning red but it's golden" which I know is like a general concept but she applies red to Jake and gold to Joe for the most part)

I really don't think I should have to explain this one. She literally did it herself

Obviously we can't know for sure, but let me know if you agree or disagree. (Also sorry this is so long. I have a lot of thoughts and I don't know where else to put them xx)

I think you’re missing Calvin. I don’t like Calvin erasure lol. I know she didn’t write much about it and I think that’s where the idea that it wasn’t significant stems from but like I think that was a far more defining relationship than like Haylor tbh. He was the first boyfriend she lived with. I think there were very serious plans in place for them. It just started to suck at the end. But I think if he sucked just slightly less and if that time period sucked slightly less, she’d have married him tbh. She’s referring to him as the “good husband” in songs so like… she did think that was very serious. I also think that’s sorta why there weren’t that many songs. It was all just fine and then it sucked and none of it was crazy inspiring but it was also obviously super deep.

[hislittleraincloud]

Minor Reconning UVC

On an unserious note, the Under Virgin Circumstances universe has been thrown for a little bit of a loop.

I've been writing in real time for our favorite taboo couple. As everyone knows, the main story takes place at the end of the Fall 2023 semester/picks up right at the moment the movie ends. The short "The Bigger Picture" describes a scene that took place in June 2024, shortly before Cairo and Jon were supposed to take off on her gap year living abroad/writing/experiencing before starting at Vanderbilt in September 2025. Said gap year was described at the end via Cairo's narration as

Paris. London. Berlin. Budapest. Florence, for the roses. Pamplona. 

Each location was planned as a two month stay. They had arrived in Paris (to the apartment in Cergy) in early September and were due to leave for the "London" apartment near the end of October. The second short, "She'll Be Alright", takes place in October/last month, when they were beginning to get ready to go to England.

But I dunno. I don't know if I can justify keeping them in London, given the shit that's been happening. And yeah, Putin's threatened shit before, but that ICBM was pretty fucking concerning. Not to mention the whole...dragging North Korea into the Ukraine War, or the coming Green Light the fucker will be given by his Orange Fuckpuppet. I don't think UVC Cairo would be able to handle it, even if the threats are empty and nothing would ever happen to Britain. Yes, she's evil, she's a badass, but she's not in the least suicidal — clearly, very clearly, self-preservation is her biggest thing — and my Cairo has some nervous quirks that I've only scratched the surface with in "She'll Be Alright". Something like all that shit over there is unanticipated bullshit and she wouldn't want to be dealing with it/be so close to everything (it's not something they even considered when planning any of it).

And thus they were scheduled to be in their rentals:

London — Nov. 2024 to end of Dec. 2024

Berlin — Jan. 2025 to end of Feb. 2025

Budapest — March 2025 to end of April 2025

Florence — May 2025 to June 2025

Pamplona — July 2025 to August 2025

(Yeah, I purposely coordinated their Spain stay with the running of the bulls. 💀)

I'm not concerned with Italy or Spain.

And okay. Fiction is escapism. I always have to remind myself of that, especially when I have a bunch of nitpickers clanging about real world laws in regards to Satisfying Afterburn, even though that world is 1 million % more fictional than Cairo and Jon's. Such is why I'm moving a little bit away from reality with that one, and hoped to keep Cairo and Jon somewhat grounded in the reality of their world/which is our world.

And it just so happened that what happened in our world directly affected the UVCniverse with the flash flooding and storms of the hurricanes this season, hence "She'll Be Alright" (wouldn't have been the case if Miller's Girl took place in Texas or...fkn Idaho, though I could see it taking place in a small town in either state — now that might be fun AU). I have Benson placed in Eastern TN nearer to the borders, but for all we know, Bartlett placed them closer to Nashville. Anyway, the point is that the real world does affect them simply because Miller's Girl/UVC are dramas that take place in the real world (much like Finestkind...but we won't talk about that even worse movie 💀).

Escapism — I've considered pretending like nothing's going on, but that would mean going against my own established canon. So the canon that hasn't been affected (stuff I haven't gone all-in on the writing yet) can change, but that means minor retconning of Cairo's establishing moment in her monologue/narration. I'm not sure exactly what will happen, but my initial thoughts are that (their remaining time in) London, Berlin, and Budapest are probably out, which is a shame because I freaking adored Budapest when I visited ten years ago. But now the country's run by a goddamn authoritarian too who gradually chipped away at Hungary's democracy, and politically isn't the same country as it was when I was there.

Also, Cairo is hating the weather around London right now. Hating it.

I might move them back to France. I feel like Cairo really liked it there, and Jon (is) trying to convince her not to worry too much; France would be an okay compromise, despite Macron joining in with the UK's permissions re: their Ukraine assistance. The Deus Ex would of course be their luck at being able to rent the same quaint little place that they had lived in before. The issues with where in Hell they can/will go will be of their forthcoming discussion/arguments. Of course they're committed and their relationship is solid, but there will be a bit of emotional turbulence for little Cairo who hasn't been through these types of toughening experiences yet.

At the end of all of it in 2025, I'll probably end up putting it together for the next volume of UVC. That had been my intentions for them since the beginning (to continue their adventures). The shorts coming out of this in between now and then are just snapshots of their realtime lives.

It's minor. Whatever changes (if they are to be made) will hardly be noticeable. It's just that their dreams have taken a little detour/might be headed in a different trajectory than expected. They'll still come out fine.

This movie was trash but I'm its #1 trash panda 🦝💕 Just look at the casual way she takes his cigarette to light hers. It surprised him that she was smooth like that, hence the brow raise. They both played this scene so sweetly. How can you not love them 🥹💘

[mo0n-water]

hello :)

you make music?? what kind? you simply must put it on spotify, purely so i can listen to it. you’re getting cooler and cooler by the day. what instrument do you play? do you sing??

i’ve added all of those fics to my very long to read list, i’m in the middle of exams at the moment but when they are over i’ll definitely be reading them. i’ll update you when i do, if you want.

questions!!:

- what’s something everyone should know about you?

- what’s your biggest red flag?

- are you observant?

- cats or dogs

- take this 🎟️ and use it as an excuse to talk about something you’ve been wanting to talk about. literally anything, i love it when people (you) go off on a rant about something they care about

have a good day, curtsying respectfully on my way out <3

ps. very interesting theories

pps. 288 HOURS

OOOH we’re in our ominous countdown era now?? i love that for us. yay!! that’s 12 days… intriguing?!?! 👀 i am so curious…

yeah i make music! usually rock / folk type stuff, depending haha. i’m in a band that mostly does rock but by myself i’m a folk girlie. i play guitar & sometimes sing <3 thank you for thinking i’m cool, that’s actually so sweet omg. i think you’re very smart so i’m flattered :)

PLEASE please please please update me on what you think of the fics!! i’m excited to hear your thoughts… & good luck with exams omg. what else is on your tbr?

for your questions… something people should know about me? oh gosh, i don’t even know? i don’t know. i have such a hard time perceiving myself lolol so questions about Me make me have to think very hard. which is probably a good thing. i think one thing people should know about me is that i’m very extroverted and I LOVE life. i like seeking out new experiences & if you’re my friend you’re probably gonna get dragged along.

red flag, hm… beyond dangerous stuff, i’m skeeved out by anyone who has strongly positive feelings about the state of california. it’s that weird hill that i’m fighting & dying on.

am i observant? observant of judaism… (laugh track) but yeah, sorta? i’m observant of all the wrong things. sometimes i’ll notice the goings on of all the plants & bugs around me, but not the mood of the person i’m with.

cats. i really do not like dogs

taking your ticket… i am sleepy & not having thoughts so i will make breakfast, read a bit, & get back to you on that

okay it is now 15:43… i’m very depressed today for some reason & i kinda feel like i can’t care about anything enough right now to rant about it? i’m trying, because i want to be enthusiastic & i like to talk (obviously, jesus fuck) but it’s not happening. a shame. i’ll share some things i’m excited about in the near future instead because maybe that’ll make me feel better

- going to nashville later this month to see a show at the opry!!

- noah kahan’s “we’ll all be here forever” is coming out SO SOON

- similarly, it’s about a month til speak now taylor’s version

- it’s warm out & it’s only getting warmer. what a blessing :) I have a few minutes before my next class so i think i’ll spend them outside

though it seems my bad mood from yesterday has carried over into today, your ask cheered me up! i think tomorrow will be a better day, & if not, there’s always another tomorrow. i hope you’re having a lovely time yourself, & that there are even better things coming to you in the future <3

& some questions for you:

- what’s something good that happened to you recently, or something good you did for someone else?

- what’s something lovely about your life right now?

- what’s something you’re looking forward to in the near future?

kind regards xx

[islandcastaway]

the ten year celebration show gave me no shame tour fomo :(

[kelseaballerinii]

kelseaballerini: i started writing songs when i was twelve, and the truth is, it was a source of therapy from my parents divorcing. writing has always been how i celebrate the good and grieve the bad, and shifting to poetry allowed me to go deeper. writing this book was laughing about the time i was a pre-teen and waxed (burned the absolute shit out of) my upper lip before a first kiss that didn’t happen. it was a love letter to my body after neglect from years of body dysmorphia resulting in an eating disorder. it was celebrating the bits of success i’ve allowed myself to feel. it was admitting how having sex before marriage when you grow up in the south and in church can turn to years of shame. it was talking about my forever long love affair with music and my push and pull with the idea of being a role model. it was reliving watching a classmate die from a gunshot wound to the chest in the cafeteria my sophomore year of high school. it was moving to nashville with starry eyes . it was …becoming me. i feel lighter sharing this book with the world. it’s my autobiography that rhymes. people ask why now? because i’m growing up. and it’s confusing. and messy. and easy to feel alone in feelings that maybe we all just happen to feel in different ways. people also often ask my advice for young women? feel. your. way. through.my debut book of poetry is out now. 🤍

[iwanthermidnightz]

*As usual, below I’m sharing excerpts from this article that are noteworthy*

What may come as a surprise to the band’s fans is the news that T.J., 36, is gay. This isn’t a recent revelation for him; he’s known since he was young, and he’s been out to family and friends in his tight-knit Nashville community for years. In some respects, he says, coming out publicly is no big deal. “I’m very comfortable being gay,” he says later, in a quiet room at the office of his management company. “I find myself being guarded for not wanting to talk about something that I personally don’t have a problem with. That feels so strange.”

But his reservations are understandable, given that country music remains a bastion of mainstream conservatism in American arts and culture. If liberal Hollywood is notorious for pushing a progressive agenda, country has historically been its counterpoint—a safe haven for traditional “family values.” Never mind that many country artists, like Nashville as a city, lean blue: They know that their primary market, like the state of Tennessee itself, skews red. The country music business is lucrative, generating $5.5 billion to Nashville’s economy alone, according to RIAA; if artists speak out, they run the risk of alienating listeners, particularly in an era when even anodyne statements of support for a cause can be misconstrued. The tale of the Chicks, formerly the Dixie Chicks, who were exiled after criticizing the Iraq War, looms large over country music. Taylor Swift even cited the band’s ouster as a reason she remained publicly apolitical for so long: “You’re always one comment away from being done,” she told Variety in a 2020 interview.

With this news, T.J. becomes the only openly gay artist signed to a major country label—a historic moment for the genre. He’s had predecessors, of course: Other openly queer artists, from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile to masked cowboy Orville Peck to viral hitmaker Lil Nas X, have found success by integrating country influences into their genre-defying music, and country artists including Chely Wright and Billy Gilman have passionate fanbases. But T.J. may be the first to come out with his feet so firmly planted in both the sound and machinery of mainstream country, in the full bloom of his career.

He is worried that coming out will look opportunistic, or attention-seeking. “People will ask, ‘Why does this even need to be talked about?’ and personally, I agree with that,” he says. “But for me to show up at an awards show with a man would be jaw-dropping to people. It wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, cool!”

What happens next remains to be seen. “I don’t think I’m going to get run off the stage in Chicago,” he says. “But in a rural town playing a county fair? I’m curious how this will go.” The professional risks he’s taking in coming out feel worth it, both for his own happiness and because, well, it’s time. Country music is about storytelling, and that means T.J.’s identity is inextricable from his music. Maybe, T.J. says, country isn’t the most popular genre among gay people. “But is that just because they’ve never had the opportunity to relate to it?”

But being closeted was painful. “It was so lonely and isolating,” T.J. says. “It made me resent people.” A first heartbreak in his early twenties crushed him all the more because he felt like he couldn’t tell anyone. “I was mad that no one knew why I was hurting,” he says. He channeled that anguish into his music. One song he wrote about that relationship, called “21 Summer,” has become a fan favorite, and you can see why: It’s a big, nostalgic singalong with lyrics about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze. It’s still tender for him—not just heartbreak, but how alone he was going through it. “There are so many times I’ve sung that song and wanted to cry,” he says. “People love that song, but the emotion of it is deeper than they even realize.”

As Brothers Osborne’s career grew, they made gestures toward inclusion, starting with the video for single “Stay a Little Longer,” which featured gay and interracial couples. For the most part, the response was overwhelmingly positive. “And then,” T.J. says, “there were people who were like, ‘Faggot lovers!’” This kind of reaction was especially discouraging for T.J., even amid the affirmation he had received from his family and friends. But staying publicly closeted was suffocating too—not only for him, but for the guys he dated. “Saying, ‘Hey, don’t hold my hand. Someone I know is in here, so can you wait in the car?’” he says. “Rightfully, they would feel unwanted by me.”

The months spent in lockdown due to the pandemic forced some introspection, and he realized the perfect moment to come out would never arrive; he had to create it for himself. “I want to get to the height of my career being completely who I am,” he says, then stops. “I mean, I am who I am, but I’ve kept a part of me muted, and it’s been stifling.”

But there’s also a chance that T.J.’s openness will widen the field for new fans to feel welcome. “Others will now feel invited to the country music party for the first time,” says T.J.’s close friend Kacey Musgraves, the singer-songwriter whose progressive-minded storytelling has helped earn her a mainstream fanbase. “Country music deserves a future even more honest than its past.”

When Ellen DeGeneres came out on the cover of this magazine in 1997, it was shocking to many—both the act of coming out, and how visible she made herself with it. Now, the tides have turned toward quieter declarations of identity, particularly as young people embrace more fluid expressions of sexuality and gender. For high-profile people, a high-profile coming-out has mostly fallen out of favor; a public figure might be as likely now to mention their queerness offhandedly on social media as they are to make a formal announcement. It’s a way of both controlling the message, and also, maybe, of minimizing it.

Even amid calls for greater inclusion, the homogeneity of the top artists in the genre is still striking. “Any steps that have been taken have been purposefully kept small enough to not ruffle feathers at country radio,” says Musgraves.

So I ask T.J. a question, which is: What if there is nothing to move on from? What if being gay is a gift, and your gayness is not something to be tolerated but something to be celebrated, and even if untangling the shame and confusion of growing up gay in a straight world takes a long time, it’s worth doing so you can use your voice, not only to sing songs about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze but to say, clearly and unapologetically, that this is who you are? What if there are a lot of gay boys in small towns who haven’t figured it out yet and feel overwhelmed by snarky TV sidekicks and glittery pop stars bellowing self-empowerment anthems, and what if those gay boys in small towns got to have an avatar of their own—if they knew that someone like them was singing that song about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze on the radio? Isn’t that why we spend so much time talking about representation, because as much as it’s a burden, it’s also the only antidote to the loneliness of being different? And—not to tell him how to feel, which is, of course, exactly what I’m doing—but isn’t this occasion, of owning who he is in a place where some people might prefer he didn’t exist, something to embrace instead of something to endure?

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Sam Lansky at Time Magazine: 

People keep asking T.J. Osborne how he’s feeling, which makes sense, given the thing he’s about to do, but it’s making him uneasy, hearing that well-intentioned question over and over again from so many people—his friends, his family, his team, and even me, over the course of the days that have led up to this one. Now, at a masked-up photo shoot in east Nashville, he insists that he’s feeling good as he slips on a jacket. “I’m ready to put this behind me,” he says.

T.J. is tall and friendly, with a twangy, sonorous voice that often crests into deep, warm laughter. He’s the lead vocalist of Brothers Osborne, the duo he formed with his brother John, a guitarist, in 2012; together they make roots-inflected, soulful country-rock that sounds just as good on the radio as it would filling an arena. Since signing to EMI Records Nashville, they’ve released seven country Top 40 singles and three studio albums, including their swoony, rollicking platinum hit “Stay a Little Longer,” which crossed over to mainstream radio. (Have you ever fallen in love in late summer, gazing out at an orange-and-purple sunset from the bed of a pickup truck? Well, me neither, but this song will make you feel like you have!) The duo has won four CMA Awards, been nominated for seven Grammys, and collaborated with heavy-hitting country contemporaries such as Dierks Bentley and Maren Morris. There’s nothing surprising about the duo’s popularity: Both T.J. and John are engaging performers with a knack for anthemic hooks.

What may come as a surprise to the band’s fans is the news that T.J., 36, is gay. This isn’t a recent revelation for him; he’s known since he was young, and he’s been out to family and friends in his tight-knit Nashville community for years. In some respects, he says, coming out publicly is no big deal. “I’m very comfortable being gay,” he says later, in a quiet room at the office of his management company. “I find myself being guarded for not wanting to talk about something that I personally don’t have a problem with. That feels so strange.”

But his reservations are understandable, given that country music remains a bastion of mainstream conservatism in American arts and culture. If liberal Hollywood is notorious for pushing a progressive agenda, country has historically been its counterpoint—a safe haven for traditional “family values.” Never mind that many country artists, like Nashville as a city, lean blue: They know that their primary market, like the state of Tennessee itself, skews red. The country music business is lucrative, generating $5.5 billion to Nashville’s economy alone, according to RIAA; if artists speak out, they run the risk of alienating listeners, particularly in an era when even anodyne statements of support for a cause can be misconstrued. The tale of the Chicks, formerly the Dixie Chicks, who were exiled after criticizing the Iraq War, looms large over country music. Taylor Swift even cited the band’s ouster as a reason she remained publicly apolitical for so long: “You’re always one comment away from being done,” she told Variety in a 2020 interview.

With this news, T.J. becomes the only openly gay artist signed to a major country label—a historic moment for the genre. He’s had predecessors, of course: Other openly queer artists, from Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile to masked cowboy Orville Peck to viral hitmaker Lil Nas X, have found success by integrating country influences into their genre-defying music, and country artists including Chely Wright and Billy Gilman have passionate fanbases. But T.J. may be the first to come out with his feet so firmly planted in both the sound and machinery of mainstream country, in the full bloom of his career.

He is worried that coming out will look opportunistic, or attention-seeking. “People will ask, ‘Why does this even need to be talked about?’ and personally, I agree with that,” he says. “But for me to show up at an awards show with a man would be jaw-dropping to people. It wouldn’t be like, ‘Oh, cool!”

What happens next remains to be seen. “I don’t think I’m going to get run off the stage in Chicago,” he says. “But in a rural town playing a county fair? I’m curious how this will go.” The professional risks he’s taking in coming out feel worth it, both for his own happiness and because, well, it’s time. Country music is about storytelling, and that means T.J.’s identity is inextricable from his music. Maybe, T.J. says, country isn’t the most popular genre among gay people. “But is that just because they’ve never had the opportunity to relate to it?”

***

T.J. is short for Thomas John, the inverse of his older brother and bandmate, whose name is John Thomas, named after their father, whose name is also John Thomas, though people call him “Big John.” Growing up in Deale, Md., a blue-collar town on the Chesapeake Bay, T.J. and his siblings—including sister Natalie, who now works for a publisher in Nashville—were always musical, performing alongside Big John’s blues band in local shows. But being closeted was painful. “It was so lonely and isolating,” T.J. says. “It made me resent people.” A first heartbreak in his early twenties crushed him all the more because he felt like he couldn’t tell anyone. “I was mad that no one knew why I was hurting,” he says. He channeled that anguish into his music. One song he wrote about that relationship, called “21 Summer,” has become a fan favorite, and you can see why: It’s a big, nostalgic singalong with lyrics about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze. It’s still tender for him—not just heartbreak, but how alone he was going through it. “There are so many times I’ve sung that song and wanted to cry,” he says. “People love that song, but the emotion of it is deeper than they even realize.”

[...]

Will conservative radio programmers or rural concertgoers be as eager to play and tailgate a gay artist, even one they already know and love? Both brothers want to believe the answer is yes. “Maybe I’m not giving my fans enough credit,” T.J. says. “Maybe I’m not giving the genre enough credit.” His reasons for doing this now, he says, have nothing to do with wanting to be loved or hated. “I just want to move on,” he says again, and it’s here that I break.

So I ask T.J. a question, which is: What if there is nothing to move on from? What if being gay is a gift, and your gayness is not something to be tolerated but something to be celebrated, and even if untangling the shame and confusion of growing up gay in a straight world takes a long time, it’s worth doing so you can use your voice, not only to sing songs about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze but to say, clearly and unapologetically, that this is who you are? What if there are a lot of gay boys in small towns who haven’t figured it out yet and feel overwhelmed by snarky TV sidekicks and glittery pop stars bellowing self-empowerment anthems, and what if those gay boys in small towns got to have an avatar of their own—if they knew that someone like them was singing that song about cutoff jeans and hair blowing in the breeze on the radio? Isn’t that why we spend so much time talking about representation, because as much as it’s a burden, it’s also the only antidote to the loneliness of being different? And—not to tell him how to feel, which is, of course, exactly what I’m doing—but isn’t this occasion, of owning who he is in a place where some people might prefer he didn’t exist, something to embrace instead of something to endure?

“Don’t get me wrong,” T.J. says. “When I say I want to put it behind me, I want to put the coming out behind me. Because ultimately it’s a very small detail about me.”

But what if being gay is not a small detail? I ask. What if it’s the most important thing about you? Which is not to say that it should be, or that it is, but just that—what if?

T.J. Osborne of country group Brothers Osborne came out as gay. 

[leebrontide]

A true, 30 year, tropetastic, queer love story. (Part 1)

Pls open the link if you'd like to read a 30 year, trope-tastic true queer romance featuring pining, instalove, swords, childhood-friends-to-lovers and a happy ending.

We THINK the story begins in 1991. We know it starts at theatre day-camp for kids, a summer when we were both in elementary school.

The earliest memories are vague- I remembered a super cool kid from the older class with dark eyes who I was desperate to eat lunch with every day.

It's taken us years to reconstruct the timeline. We have figured out I did go to her house outside of camp that first year, because I remember her bird that tried to bite me. We can only guess at years based on camp themes.

Because we were little kids. I was 7. So we lost touch.

But here's the thing- we kept going to the same camp. She was always in a class ahead of me, because I'm a year and a half younger.

And every year- apparently without remembering we'd met before? We became summer best friends. Drawn together over and over.

But, being disorganized kids in a world of lesser tech, every year, when camp ended, we lost phone numbers- we lived a good 30 minutes away from each other, so I have to imagine our parent's weren't exactly heartbroken at the loss. It was a lot of driving.

In 4th grade, when I was 9, I made a new best friend, named Meredith. My parents heartily recommended the summer theatre camp to hers, and she was sent with me, the next year.

She, was older than me, so she was in Ty's class. & having excellent taste, also made friends with her.

The three of us played together all summer.

Then came the fall, and the inevitable lost contact. I remember being sad about that much more clearly, that year.

BUT, the big change happened when I was 10.

Again, sent to camp. Again, my friend Meredith was there to.

At lunch, I found them playing together. I went to introduce myself to the obviously cool older girl.

For some reason I tried to shake her hand? Little weirdo.

Ty reacts to me the same way- oh hey! Cool new person! I want to be friends!

Meredith looks at us both like we're out of our minds.

"You know each other. We played all last summer."

And suddenly, the spell of childhood amnesia was broken.

I DID know her. We were FRIENDS.

We HAD BEEN FRIENDS for years.

She LIKED ME.

SHE LIKED ME.

(love with memory disabilities is a trip, folks. And her lil ADHD kid brain was struggling right alongside mine)

We were elated.

But that wasn't the last shock to my little 10 year old heart that 5 week summer camp would bring.

Meredith was, and is, a poet. Somehow she had a habit, at 11 years old, of making up poems about people's eyes.

Weird stuff. I remember a pair of green eyes being compared to a deep sea, were the bones of drunken drowned sailors floated.

Very Anne of Green Gables.

And- I remember this part with perfect clarity. She turned to me and said, do you know who has pretty eyes? Ty.

We were crossing the stage, Ty was carrying a box of props like 15 feet ahead of us.

I said "does she?"

And then, ever the romantic I screamed "HEY TY TURN AROUND I WANNA SEE SOMETHING!"

She did.

And for the first time, I looked into the dark eyes I'd been drawn to for all those years, and saw them anew.

There's a reason cupid's supposed to have arrows.

I swear to you that this is true. It felt like an actual blow to my chest. Like a physical blow.

I was stunned. My little heart was hammering out of control.

I have no idea what I said, or did, or looked like after that.

But I figured out pretty quickly what that was. It was not subtle, even to a prepubescent nearly 6th grader.

But I was a pragmatic little almost-6th-grader.

This was a crush. Middle schoolers have crushes.

And they're supposed to fade over time.

I don't remember if I was worried that my crush was on a girl. I just remember the certainty that this was just a child's crush, and therefor nothing that would last or cause problems.

And when fall came, I lost her number again.

But this time I was devastated.

But, this time a hero saved the day! Meredith, sweet, wonderful, more-organized-than-either-of-us Meredith, still had the number.

And this time, I held on to it.

We became year round besties.

For the first year of adoring her year-round, I didn't worry about my little crush. It'd go away in time.

By 7th grade, it started to be a problem.

We were having sleep overs, and I started to feel guilty about how much I wanted to look at her and cuddle her all the time.

I don't think I told anyone right away. But Meredith was always the smartest of us three.

She's the one who proposed we play "wedding". She presided over the ceremony herself, and her little sister was our wedding photographer.

Oddly, even though I didn't know about this photo till years later, this is a game both of us remember playing.

It meant... something.

Image

I started to feel guilty. We were having sleep overs, talking every day on the phone. I wanted to look at her all the time- I wanted to be with her all the time. I wanted to kiss her, and started to realize she might be bothered by that.

I never wanted to hide anything from her.

So, I confessed my love. I didn't think of this as being especially radical or brave, but in retrospect, I'm impressed by 12 year old Lee's behavior.

She smiled brightly, and said she loved me to!

As her best friend.

I clarified my position.

She repeated that she loved me as her very best friend.

And these feelings were a bit scary and BIG, so that was all good. She still wanted to hang out all the time. Life was good.

By 8th grade, I was starting to worry. The crush hadn't worn off yet. Everyone told me these things wore off.

But I was more in love with her than ever.

And when Meredith moved to Nashville, we got even closer.

We joined the MN sword club. Made new friends. In the way of these things, a whole lot of them turned out to be some evolving variety of queer. Friends started coming out.

I barely needed to, my crush was horrifyingly obvious to all our friends.

Image

I promised you swords. The swords don't feature prominently, but the club was a major connection for us for years, and this detail has always struck me.

I'm not an especially good fencer. Especially then. I was constructed out of raw spaghetti noodles and moved like creaky budget claymation most of the time. I was calculating, but slow.

She was fast, and brash, and more skilled than me. She eventually beat some nationally recognized fencers. We called her "fiery Tybalt" because we're a bunch of big ol nerds who wanted to sound smart. She eventually took her name from that nickname.

Even at only 5ft tall, she should have beaten me handily and reliably. She could hold her own against much better fencers.

But we actually got BANNED from sparring together, because we were so evenly matched we could never get enough points for a win.

My one and only expertise in fencing was knowing her. But she knew me just as well, so there was a stalemate.

Our friends laughed at us.

I confessed my love again in 8th grade.

And 9th.

10th.

11th.

I never wanted to lie to her. It was important to me that she knew what I was thinking and feeling, but it was also important that I not burden her with it.

She always gave me the same answer. She loved me. She loved me SO MUCH.

What a shame she was straight.

Now, readers, let me remind you we're looking at two queer kids in the 90s at this point.

There were pressures at play.

When I was in 11th grade, she left for college. And she was far enough away that long distance calls were expensive. I couldn't call her every day.

What I remember most about senior year was being depressed and lonely.

But also, that after years of my family despairing of my ever learning to type, and eventually getting me the (then very expensive) dragon speech-to-type program so I could type my homework and not fail school- my contact with her was suddenly all in text. AOL messenger.

People have commented at all my workplaces about my typing speed. I type 120 words per minute now.

Specifically because it was the only way to talk to her most days.

I went to college the following year. We both got boyfriends. Both nice boys who liked and admired us.

BOTH broke up with us because we so obviously preferred each other over them. To an embarrassing degree.

The boy I was dating- bless him he only lasted 3 months- specifically told me "if I go out with you any more I'm going to fall in love with you. And you're in love with her."

Slick bastard.

He was right tho.

I couldn't be mad at him.

But this is when I started to really panic.

It'd been 6 years. My first crush was still absolutely roaring. Nobody else came close to tempting me.

And nobody else wanted to, when it became obvious they couldn't compete with her.

And she was still my best friend, so of course I told her. I told her I was miserable, because I was going to be single forever because nobody else would want me, because I was so in love with her.

She felt bad. She loved me so much. So much she'd been dumped to.

Such a shame she was straight.

I wouldn't find out till much later that that conversation had started something on her side, that, for once, she knew to keep from me.

She spent the next 6 months in intense contemplation.

She DID prefer me to all the other boys (and girls) who were chasing her in college.

And there were a lot of them.

She did think I was pretty, and she did love me. And she did want to be with me forever.

She'd been as dedicated to me as I was to her through this whole time. As caring, as invested, as, frankly, obsessed. Everyone could see it.

But she wasn't straight. She was bi.

And ace.

We wouldn't learn that word for many more years. All she knew was that the story of falling in love didn't match the love she was feeling.

But then she realized- she'd never felt the feelings she was "supposed" to feel for her boyfriend, either. She was not more attracted to him than to me. And he was a good looking guy. A catch by most any standard.

And she also hadn't loved him.

But she did love me.

So, my sophomore year of college (her junior year), we were preparing our trip to the Renaissance festival. A bunch of her friends were driving into town for it, and we'd see each other again at last. (we'd been back at school like 2 weeks, so naturally were desperate to meet up)

I am still flabbergasted as the next series of events.

She asked me out. On AOL instant messenger. After over 7 years of my pining, and adoration. After 7 years of choosing the pain of being near her and not being able to kiss her, over the desolation of not having her beside me

She very logically explained her reasoning.

I had a meltdown.

My poor room mate walked into our room to find me crying and throwing things at the computer screen.

I was convinced she was offering to date me because she felt bad for me. Because she loved me and wanted me to stop hurting and feeling alone.

So I turned her down.

That, friends, was HARD. REALLY HARD.

Thankfully, she was having none of it. She insisted it only made sense for us to date. I tried to stay firm. I refused repeatedly, all in that damned AOL messenger.

We reached a compromise- one date, at the Ren Fest, as a test.

And if it failed we'd never speak of it again.

Because the prospect of dating and breaking up was terrifying to us both.

If we were going to be together, we'd be defacto engaged. Neither of us could tolerate breaking up.

The weekend came- my college friends all knew, and accompanied me, made sure I was decked out in the best fair garb we could cobble together.

She drove up with her friends- including the ex- who had no idea what was happening. She had on her finest cape & boots & a swishy dress.

We could not manage to be alone together. Like it was a proper rom-com ridiculousness. All damn day.

But at least we were together.

She came back to my dorm that night, to spend the night, and drive back the next day.

Shout out to my room mate who stayed at her boyfriend's house that night. Love you, Lindsay.

We finally managed to kiss.

She abruptly decided kissing wasn't some weird thing people only pretended to like because it was normal, and was in fact an amazing wonderful thing we should do frequently.

I don't actually remember us deciding that the experiment was successful, and we'd be a romantic couple from then on.

Pretty sure the kissing melted my brain.

It was not like kissing my old boyfriend at all.

She went back to college the next day.

I do remember, that, MORE THAN ONCE, I nervously asked my roomy if this had all really happened. I was truly and genuinely concerned that I'd dreamed or fantasized the whole thing. I'd done both enough times before.

I couldn't just ask outright so I'd say something like. "Hey did anything- important happen yesterday?"

And she'd look at me like I was speaking some alien language, and tell me I was dating Ty now.

I wandered around in a dream-like stupor for a WEEK.

This is a good place to stop for now. More tonight. I need to go snuggle my baby and help my wife with lunch. 💖

Popping in briefly for the next installment.

All our friends knew immediately. Some of them- the newer ones, were confused because they had assumed we were always dating, on account of how blatantly in love we were all the damn time.

We decided tho, to hold off on telling our families. We decided to date a year first, to show that it was serious, and that we meant it.

It was a good year, full of the kind of pining that is regularly rewarded by happy weekends and spring breaks and summers.

The next august, before we went back to school, we each sat down our own parents. Hers were sort of "yeah ok whatever." I was not there for that conversation.

I went to my favorite restaurant with my own parents, and told them I was seeing someone. Dad was enthused. Wanted to meet him.

Well. I said. You have.

Because it's Ty.

[nikkithomas]

Here’s the deal. I started having a lot of pain in my lower back, legs and hips. At first, I went to the chiropractor and he did some adjustments. I seriously felt so much better.

My regular doctor had prescribed some medicine for me for an unrelated thing and it made me so sick. I’d be so nauseous that I’d have to go get fresh air...walk it off...or even splash water on my face. That had been going on even when I was in Knoxville.

Aircheck had asked me to talk about my ACM trip to Vegas when we won in 2019. I’m sure there were people who thought it was funny or maybe even crass...but they asked what I thought or what was going through my head at that ceremony...and I think my answer was something to the effect of “I was trying not to throw up” or something like that. My stomach was on fire and I felt so dizzy. My face was all flushed and hot. I thought about going to the ER there in Vegas...but I was afraid I’d miss the reason I was there...to pick up the ACM for our station. I think it was win number seven for the station...as a PD it was my third...and it was still a pretty big deal. Honest to God, I didn’t want to let anyone down. I also wasn’t sure if it was food poisoning or something. When I got back to Knoxville, went to my doctor...they ran tests...gave me some medicine...and I thought that was the end of it. They still couldn’t figure out what was going on with me, though.

I left Knoxville and moved to the Tri Cities. Best decision I’ve made in years, by the way. I truly love these people. They’ve done a phenomenal job of protecting their product and their people and I believe that’s why this station is still so healthy when many other legendary stations have suffered. The stress level dropped substantially. It’s amazing what can be accomplished when the station and the people are a priority. Which by the way...XBQ has been so much like KAT Country. It’s been everything I love about radio and thought I’d never experience again. These people couldn’t be farther apart...yet be so much alike. It’s a good thing.

The main thing bothering me then...was my back and legs. Kept having some really nasty pain. The pain was so intense sometimes that it made me nauseous. My face was flushed...I had a fever...then I didn’t have one. Maybe it was my weight? I was getting up to pee a lot at night. Only sleeping one or two hours in a stretch. It was all these things that I never put together.

I wanted to get healthy. Told my doctor I wasn’t going to take that medicine that made me feel so bad...just in case that was the problem. My endocrinologist was cool with that. I started the keto diet. Actually...I did keto up until right before Thanksgiving.

I was so happy. My thyroid is absolutely hateful...so losing weight is the hardest thing to do it seems. On keto...I dropped over 30 pounds. Wow! I thought that was great!! Everything felt better. My energy levels were up. I’d get up at 4am and wouldn’t stop until 11pm...and everything was good...until my hip, back and legs started hurting again. It was so bad one morning that the guys I work with called chiropractors for me. It was awful.

The pain had never really stopped...but at a certain point you just get used to the pain and move on as best you can. That’s what I did up until a few weeks ago. If you know me, you know that I love Toys For Tots, St Jude, Second Harvest, etc. We were out with the marines working on Toys For Tots and I ended up having to miss one day because I hurt so bad. Now for me...that’s bad.

It never let up. I’ve just pushed through and tried to “suck it up” since then. That was a couple of weeks before Christmas. Y’all I seriously thought it might be psychosomatic. Maybe it was all in my head. If it hurt...I’d try to stretch or move and work it out of my body...but that NEVER worked.

So...I go back to the chiropractor. Those guys were so good to me. They can electrocute me anytime they want. (All hail the TENS unit!!) That seemed to be working...and then we had a little bit of a COVID scare at work...(everyone is okay, thank goodness). Around that time...I was running a fever off and on. Low grade. There were some other things that weren’t feeling quite right...so...just to be safe...I got another COVID test and quarantined. Still...I felt like I was ALWAYS in pain. Sometimes it was so bad...I couldn’t move or do anything in any way to make it stop. It made me want to cry. It was embarrassing. It was frustrating because I couldn’t get it to let up. It got so bad that last Saturday I drove myself to the ER to get checked out.

Urgent Care said they couldn’t help because I needed “imaging”. Well...I got that imaging done folks. Turns out...I have a scary mass on my right ovary. It’s pretty huge.

I went in Saturday night...terrified of being around sick people...but it had to be done. The pain was so intense...that my blood pressure shot sky high...and my nose starting bleeding. The doctor ordered morphine, Norco and a CT scan.

The guy doing the scan was a travel nurse. He went from being pretty chatty to sort of quiet and reserved after the test. When they injected the dye into me...he was telling me it would hurt...and it was nothing compared to what I was feeling.

I woke up two hours after the scan to the doctor on call sitting next to my bed and looking sorta weird at me. She told me they’d received my test results and everything I’d said was right on the money.

The burning, pressure, aching, tension...all of it...was related to what she referred to as “not the biggest mass” she’d ever seen...but “one of the largest”. She was surprised I’d been walking around with this thing in me for God knows how long.

Now here’s where the story goes off the rails.

That doctor at Ballad mentioned the word “cancer” about nine times in that room. That was the “suspected” diagnosis. She said I needed to follow up and see another doctor because of what could be “cancer”...and told me they’d have to see if it had spread anywhere.

Now...that was a LOT to take in. So...I did what any other person with an iPhone, an unlimited data plan and tons of morphine in their system would do...I looked that crap up on “Dr Internet”.

The next time a nurse came in...I asked her...”Umm did you guys do a CA 125 test?”

That same poor sweet nurse, who would go on to blow a vein...and push the medicine through the IV into my skin, thereby causing a monster of a bruise and making my vein get rock hard...she said in this really hushed tone...”I don’t know...I’ll ask. I saw your report. I’m so sorry.”

At this point...I’m facing my mortality. I just wanted out of there. I wanted this damn thing out of me...I wanted answers...I wanted everything to be okay.

I still want everything to be okay.

By the way...she never came back in with the answer to that CA 125 test question. So I took that as a hard “no”...or “they did it and don’t want to tell me”.

Monday I was back in the ER. Doubled over, in tears.

The doctor ordered pain medicine...that never came in the four hours I was there. That was NOT a fun time. The nurses just let me sit there. To her credit...the doctor was pretty furious when she found out they’d ignored her orders. Once again...this other doctor looks at me and says...”You know they think this is cancer?”

No. Still no test...but she made an appointment for me with a local oncologist.

Now...that CA 125 antigen test is not infallible, nor is it the end-all-be-all test for ovarian cancer. It is a marker though specifically for ovarian cancer.

So if they’re telling you that you have a massive tumor and it could be cancer...(two doctors over two visits..the word has been dropped about a dozen times...it’s also in the CT report...you’d think someone would bust out a needle...draw the blood...see what that looks like...and get you in the right frame of mind in case it is this horrible bastard of a disease!! Right? Wrong.)

The mass at the time was 10.3cm x 10.3cm x 7.1cm.

The oncologist couldn’t see me for a week...the gynecologist couldn’t see me until February 1st.

Yeah. No big hurry. I’m just having trouble walking. I’m in tears. I’m peeing...like a teaspoon at a time. I know that’s graphic...but if you don’t pee...you need to get checked. I felt like I was (and still feel, by the way) in the middle of a massive labor pain that wouldn’t ease off. It’s pain that makes you want to throw up sometimes. It’s super intense.

I went home that second time...sat down in my room...and I couldn’t help but tear up. I’ve cried two and a half times over the “state of things” since this started. Those are the “what am I going to do” tears...totally different from the “oh Lord this hurts like hell...dear God make it stop” tears.

Talked to our friend Eric who told me it was a shame I didn’t live in Nashville...because I could probably call Vanderbilt and be seen pretty quickly. Eric...was right. I’m three hours from Vanderbilt...but only an hour or so from Knoxville.

I called UT. (Go Vols!) That football situation isn’t ideal...but that hospital ain’t half bad.

Within less than an hour...the head Oncologist had looked over my CT scan and was working to get me in there ASAP. They’d have taken me that day...but it was too late in the day and I’d never make it down there in time. So...they scheduled me for Wednesday morning.

Before I walked out of the room that morning...they told me they were going to operate and get this out of me by Monday at the very latest. The schedule was full...so they needed to check on a few things before I left the hospital...just in case there was torsion or whatever.

I had a CA 125 test. That looked good from what I understand but my CT scan and sonogram looked sketchy. The mass appeared to be even larger since Saturday?!? (It showed up as being 12.6cm x 13.3cm x 8.3cm) They gave me a COVID test and told me to self isolate until my surgery...which is scheduled for tomorrow.

It was upon learning how much larger this thing had become...that I named it...”Larry King”.

I don’t know why...but that seemed to be the name that fit whatever this thing is inside me. In my mind...it looks like Larry King...holding two shot glasses. One shot glass is filled with Dewar’s...the other is filled with Metamucil. He has a cigarette hanging out of his mouth...but I don’t know if he’s a “smoker” yet.

If it officially comes back as cancer...I’ll let you know. If it doesn’t...I’ll let you know that, too.

I’m not writing this for pity or attention...on the contrary. It’s all a lot for me to take in...and I’m just not sure how to process it all. Writing it out sort of helps.

In the middle of all of this over the past week...Tom Starr passed away. He was such a sweet man. There’s a picture that he took of us at CRS...it’s me...Tom...Lisa McKay and Heather Davis. I think Heather wrote a caption that said something like “it’s so hard to believe half of the people in this picture are gone”.

That was pretty heavy.

I’m still trying to process that actually. I thought the world of Tom, loved Lisa McKay (she got me when so many others didn’t)...and just to the left...there I was. I felt like a jerk for even taking a moment to feel bad for myself. There are so many other people who have it so much worse than I do. And what if there’s nothing to this thing? What if it’s just some sort freak thing? There are so many people who’ve fought so hard and powered through so much and here I am...maybe worried for nothing...getting ready to have surgery...and it feels wrong to worry about myself. Whatever is done is done and I’ll fight whatever I need to fight. If it’s not cancer (oh God please let them all be wrong) then I have a lot of things that I need to do...and other people’s opinions and judgment that don’t have any place in my head or the right to exist in my life’s body of work or otherwise. I’ll just keep praying for them.

I keep telling myself those doctors could be wrong. Until I see a pathology report...this isn’t real.

While I appreciate and am thankful for any prayers you can send up on my behalf...please don’t feel obliged to write anything on this post. Seriously. I just needed to get this all out and behind me.

I HATE “bleeding on the internet”. It’s a serious pet peeve. Not everyone is worthy of knowing everything that’s going on...nor should they be expected to care...but I realize sometimes people need reinforcement and support. I still don’t like sharing MY business on here. It feels weird. I’ll talk about things on the air...that I don’t care to regurgitate on Facebook.

I’ll talk about award shows, TV, things that are funny...pictures...but it’s not my business who you vote for or what you believe in. I’m just glad that you DO. Better to have convictions and purpose than be apathetic. Over the years...it’s been amazing to see how a simple picture I’ve posted or link (without even commenting on it...just a pic or simple URL) how it can make people lose their minds.

You will never solve life’s problems on Facebook or any other social media platform. It controls you. You/we are merely the peanut gallery from which billions of dollars are “mined” every single minute we’re on here.

The smartest thing I ever had laid on me about social media was from an interview with a Silicon Valley person that said “If you’re not creating the product...you ARE the product. Think about that.

Our world is so messed up right now. And no matter what party you’re affiliated with...it just seems very wrong to lump everyone together and vilify them all. Not everyone is evil. Not everyone is right or wrong. Writing people off is so inhumane. You really can disagree with someone and not hate them.

I remember being at a concert in a few years ago and had just learned some pretty tough stuff that was impacting a competitor, and shared that with one of the leaders that I worked with. They’d taken a huge blow...which was awesome strategically...but it happened at the same time the competitors PD had lost his mother. I remember expressing that I felt bad for the guy (specifically about losing his mother)...and without batting an eye...the guy I worked with said he didn’t feel sorry for him at all. “That’s just too bad!” He said other things but I won’t go there because that would reveal who that person is...and the person for whom he was speaking about that day. Now...in my heart I hoped that guy who up until then I’d had so much respect for...did NOT know what happened to this guys mom. It just felt gross talking to him. I never looked at him the same way again. It was all about depth. There was nothing there. Very disappointing. I once cared what this guy thought about me...but that was done. And living through this now underscores that feeling and reminds me on a personal level what really is important. That’s a lot for a workaholic like me to process.

I’m signing off now. It got sort of “ramblesque” there at the end. Sorry about that. As for all the other stuff...I’ll let you know how it all turns out.

[offrankies]

Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Again) || Frankie & Layla

timing: Sunday Morning (7/6), after Layla met with Nic. parties: @laylacooke & @offrankies​ summary: Layla finally comes home, and tells Frankie she killed a man. warnings: panic attack tw, some very minor violence, and lots of sad. 

Layla was quiet as she slipped inside the front door of Graham and Frankie’s apartment. Her hair was still wet and the clothes she was wearing were 4x too big on her; an old t-shirt and sweatpants Nic had let her borrow. And while her neck, wrists, and ankles had nearly healed, they were still somewhat raw and tinder from being chained up all weekend. But it was what she had done. What she had remembered she’d done, that made her feel the worst. She was quiet and the tears that had tracked down her face had long since dried. All she had wanted was to go to bed and sleep away what she had done. The guilt that was consuming her, and if she never woke up, she was fine with that.

The past three nights had felt like a nightmare. Frankie had managed to continue her normal life during the day - if by normal you meant being on the verge of a nervous breakdown and unable to carry conversations without ending up screaming or crying. But the nights were horrible, and she had only managed to sleep at all because her body couldn’t handle being awake any longer. Her eyes were glued to her computer screen, tired but not enough yet to fall asleep when the faint sound crunched leaves reached her ears, probably from her sleep deprivation, and then the door. Layla. The teen rushed out of the door, but her feet frooze the second she saw the red hair. She was a mess, wearing clothes that were definitely not hers, and… were those fresh wounds?! Tears immediately started forming on the corner of her eyes, making her sight blurry, her hand flying to cover her mouth as a choked sob tried to make its way out. Between her anger, pain and relief, she had no words for her.

Shit. She was caught. Stopping dead in her tracks, she supported herself with a nearby wall. Layla was so tired and worn down and her eyes were so sad. But seeing Frankie standing there on the verge of sobbing was the thing that broke her. Collapsing to her knees, she let what tears were left in her small, broken body fall out, while she crumpled under the pressures of what she had done. Would Frankie be able to see that? She still wasn’t entirely sure what powers the woman held, but if she could tell that Layla had murdered someone in cold blood, would she still want to be around the redhead? She covered her face in shame. Shame for what she had done and shame for putting those who loved her, especially Frankie, in so much pain, “I’m...sorry...Frankie...I’m...so....sorry.” Her words came out in broken, muffled sobs.

No matter what would happen, Layla would always be the love of her life, and that meant that Frankie would always try to put her happiness over hers. Watching her collapse on the entrance of the apartment brought a pain in her chest she hadn’t felt in months, not since she had woken up one day and the other was gone. She didn’t want to go through that again, she didn’t want to lose Layla again, and she was more than willing to push her own anger and pain to the side in order to comfort her. Without a second thought her feet carried her over, kneeling in front of her and wrapping both her arms tightly around her, pulling her in so she could continue sobbing in the comfort of her chest. Her right cheek was pressed against the top of her head, eyes tightly shut as her own tears fell and disappeared on Layla’s hair, and she softly hushed her. “Shhh-- you’re here--- Nothing else--- That’s alI I- I care about right now.”

Feeling the woman wrap her arms around Layla made her breakdown even more. Her body had gone limp in Frankie’s arms. How was she supposed to explain that she had just killed somebody? That she had taken a man’s life in cold blood and actually recalled every bit of it. And more importantly that a part of her, the feral animal part, enjoyed it. She couldn’t handle this information. Couldn’t process it, but maybe if someone else knew...someone else cared...Pulling out of Frankie’s arms, she looked up at her and spoke, “Frankie, I-I have to tell you something…” She raised up one of her arms and wiped at her eyes trying to avoid the injury to her wrist. She was broken. Pitiful looking and lost. And perhaps more scared than she had been the night her parents went after her.

Hazel met brown through glistering tears when the other pulled away, and Frankie finally took a good luck at Layla. Beyond her physical appearance and her desperate need to take her hand and kiss the damaged skin on her wrists, the older girl wore a shocked look as she realized something. “Your… your aura changed.” The words came out unconsciously as her hand moved to cup her girlfriend’s cheek, her focus now on the swirling colors around her. The colors were essentially the same - the familiar light blue mixed with the recent purple - but there were bright, red tinges all around it. She had seen them before, briefly, on other people but had no idea what they were - her knowledge limited to her grandmother telling her to stay away from people who had them. They were threatening to look at, and for a moment all her anger disappeared, curiosity taking its place, before she shook her head and  locked her eyes on Layla’s once more. “Listen- Before you say anything --- I love you. Fuck, I love you so, so damn much and if you do that again I swear to God I’m going to… to….” Her voice broke, her whole face wrinkling as she tried and failed to start sobbing again. “Don’t-- Don’t ever leave me again like that--”

Looking into Frankie’s eyes, the wolf took in every bit of sadness and agony that her girlfriend held. Her own heart was shattered, but what was left was starting to crumble and turn into nothing but dust. She hadn’t realized what this had done to Frankie. The memories it must have brought up and flashbacks of the night Layla had left for good. Going away like that, despite the fact that she had left a note, had to have been so hard, and it made the eighteen year old feel even worse than she thought she already could. How could she tell her what she had done? How was that fair to drop that on her? Maybe it was best kept a secret, unless Frankie specifically asked, “I-I just didn’t want you to get hurt. I can’t control what I am when the moon’s full, and if I ever hurt you physically or worse…” She shook her head, “Baby, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how many times I can say it or if it even holds value anymore…” Layla let her eyes fall, “I love you. I love you with every part of my being...that’s why I left back then and this weekend...I can’t lose you either. Not like that...not at the hands of the animal I’ve become…”

“Don’t say that--” Frankie cooed her, now both hands cupping Layla’s face, and she leaned forward so their foreheads were pressed together. She refused to believe it, no matter how many times Graham would tell her, or how much Layla believed it herself: she was no animal, she was no monster in her eyes. If anything, the teen in front of her was at the most fragile point she had seen her in their lives, the most human she had even been. “You won’t hurt me. I know you would never, ever do that, so get that thought out of your head.” Looking down, her hands fell so they were now laced together with Layla’s now not so perfect manicure, and she had to hold back a sob, the raw, red skin a painful contrast to her pale skin, and Frankie hated herself for not being able to protect her. “I don’t… I can’t go through this again. Promise me you won’t hurt yourself again. Not… on purpose, anyways.”

She closed her eyes as she felt Frankie’s hands on her face. Anytime her girlfriend touched her or spoke to her, it gave Layla a comfort and peace she had longed for after she left Nashville. And here she was, once again, in the presence of the most amazing human being ever. How had she been so blessed? She didn’t deserve Frankie. Frankie deserved so much better. But Layla knew she didn’t have the strength to do that or to leave her. Not again. Not knowing the hurt it had caused her, but especially because this was the woman she had hoped she would get to spend the rest of her life with, “Just know, I’ll never forgive myself if I do.” She watched Frankie’s hands fall and intertwine with her own. It was the heartfelt plea that got to her though, “I promise, but I don’t know how else to stop myself from hurting anybody...from killing again…” It had slipped out from the sobs that were now leaving her mouth. Frankie knew. She hadn’t intended for her to know, but now she did. And Layla immediately grew quiet, heart almost stopping in fear of what the woman’s next reaction would be.

It suddenly felt like a cold knife had gone through her gut, and her heart, and all her vital organs, heartbeat skipping a beat but not in a good way. The calm facade she had faked in order to comfort Layla suddenly broke, eyes slowly opening wide in shock as the realization of what the werewolf had done hit her. “Wh-What?” Killing? Frankie’s whole body tensed. “You--- What?” The idea of the other teenager hurting someone was surreal (she was a vegan, for God’s sake, she wouldn’t hurt a fly), but her talking about taking a human life was straight up a cruel joke. “I--- No-- Stop fucking with me---” But by the way Layla was crumbling in front of her, quiet yet still devastated-- it was definitely no joke, which only made it worse. With a joke she could get angry, she could yell at her to not do that and then move on with their lives. But actual murder? Nothing had prepared her for this- well, maybe Graham had, but her brain and heart were too struck to think, to be rational, but it was impossible. The corner of her mouth started to twitch as a horrified look slowly made its way on her face, and she unconsciously let go of her girlfriend’s hands, cradling her own against her chest.

Frankie’s reaction wasn’t what Layla had expected. In fact, she wasn’t sure what to expect. But she could feel herself sinking lower and lower. Like a piece of dirt. Something that needed to be thrown out with the garbage. When the woman pulled her hands away from the redhead, it made her jump and look down frantically at her own hands then to Frankie’s and back to her own. Her jaw was quivering, eyes wide. Heart shattered completely now. Even her own girlfriend; the love of her life, was disgusted with her. Swallowing the knot in her throat, she turned her head away looking past the woman she loved. She could no longer bear to look her in the eyes. What she had done was a crime. It was one of the worst things you could do; take a human life. As someone who had always fought her parents tooth and nail to save the lives of werewolves and other creatures, Layla had become the thing she had dreaded most...a monster. Without saying anything, the eighteen year old got to her feet, and began to move past Frankie, but paused. She wanted so badly to say something, but she didn’t know what. No words could ever explain how broken she felt and how much she had hated herself right now, and the hand she almost put on Frankie’s shoulder lingered slightly above, before giving up and pulling it back in without making contact. Instead, she went to the bathroom, shut the door, and locked it.

No matter how much she yelled at her brain to move, to go after Layla when she stood, Frankie remained quiet, unmoving, and her eyes fixated on the empty spot where the teen wolf had been as if time had frozen. The red tinges. Stay away from those. The only reason her grandma had told her that was because she knew. Because she knew what the scattered red surrounding an aura meant. They were killers, murderers, and her girlfriend was one of them now. NO. That’s not her. She desperately wanted to believe that it truly hadn’t been her, that it had been the thing, the wolf, the beast inside of her- but that would mean believing that there were two Laylas, and the whole point of moving to a new town to be with her would lose its meaning- it would’ve been for nothing. It didn’t matter what she thought now - if she had killed an innocent person, what guaranteed her that she wouldn’t hurt her next? The human’s mind was spiraling, her breath starting to quicken and sharpen, and what if she turned while they were sleeping - or worse, while they were surrounded by other humans and killed not just her, but others? No- No Layla wouldn’t- It had to be an accident. There was no way it had been on purpose, something must’ve happen, something must’ve--- That’s not her. That’s not her. That’s not 

Several minutes had passed, perhaps even an hour, before Frankie’s body was able to move again. It felt sore and weak and tired and for a moment she considered letting herself drift right there, in the middle of the living room, until Graham came home and found her asleep. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t just leave Layla, no matter what or why she had done what she had done. After everything they had been through, she needed to be strong not just for herself, but for both of them. 

Slowly, almost painfully, she dragged her feet to the only closed door in the small apartment, and with closed eyes, she pressed her forehead against it. “... Babe?” Her voice was hoarse from all the crying, her exhaustion no longer just in her head, but it came out soft, as if luring a stray animal that was too scared to come near people. “I’m… I’m so sorry. I’m an asshole, I---” She pressed her lips together, to contain a sob. “I didn’t- I wasn’t expecting to- to hear that from you at all and I just-- Fuck, I don’t even--- I don’t know what to- What I think about… that but-- I just--” A deep, shaky breath. “I love you. And-- No matter what you say or do or think I will--- Nothing will ever make me stop being utterly-- totally-- ridiculously in love with my best friend.”

Layla didn’t know whether to cry. Scream. Break something. So, instead, she just slid down to the floor. Silence was her best friend at the moment. Nothing she could say would ever change the fact that she had killed a man, and she feared what was going through Frankie’s mind. How could the woman she gave her heart to love her after this? Love her for what she had done? No, she wasn’t in control, but she was the beast. It didn’t matter how much she replayed it in her mind, even though she did every damn second since it had happened, she was never going to be able to change what she did or justify killing an innocent man. Instead, she simply sat there just being. Nothing more and nothing less. At this rate, if she sat on the floor of the bathroom the rest of her life and never came out, it would be just fine. Everything would be fine. But the silent tears rolling down her cheeks said otherwise.

It had seemed like an eternity before she heard movement. And in that long amount of time, her mind raced from all the people in her life. Frankie. Ari. Simon. Graham. Ulfric. Winn. The other wolves. Rio. Kaden. How many of those people wanted her dead or gone out of their sight? She knew that if Graham found out, she would be back on the streets, and that was the last thing she had wanted. Sleeping in elements with only God knew what lurking around White Crest? But more so than that, her mind went back to Frankie. Every time. How would this woman ever want to marry her after this?

As soon as Frankie spoke, Layla turned her head to the door, staring at it as if she could see through it and see the woman looking back at her. She listened to her plea, but there was no point in it. Frankie could never be an asshole. She had no right to apologize. This was all Layla’s fault. From the day she first defied her parents and everything in between. “Don’t apologize. I don’t deserve your love or your heart.” Her voice was flat. No emotion. How could a monster have emotion? “I don’t deserve anything.” She turned her head back to face the front.

The lack of emotion in her response felt like yet another stabbing in her chest. Was she rejecting her? “No-- Layla—" Her hands now pressed against the wood next to her face. “You—you deserve the whole fucking world, and the stars and the moon, and you deserve happiness and a long healthy life with kids and three cats and a loving wife that will love you no matter what--- You deserve me and everything the world has to offer---” Frankie’s words had started soft but had slowly turned more and more desperate, not able to hold the tears back any longer. It didn’t matter what she said or what she did now – Layla’s mechanical voice cut her open from head to toe, and the human was too exhausted, too scared, too in love to pretend it didn’t hurt anymore.

“Don’t--- Don’t do this.” The human choked on her own sobs, images of all the time they had spent together flashing in front of her closed eyes. The day they had met in school. Their first date despite neither of them realizing it had been one. The first time they held hands, at Layla’s house, watching Buffy. The first time they kissed, in the locker room after cheer-leading practice. The day Frankie asked Layla to be her girlfriend. The day Layla punched Denisse on the mouth because she had called them nasty lesbos. The day they had come out to their families. The first day they had said I love you meaning more than just friendship. Frankie’s heart was threatening to run off her body through her mouth. Was this it? Had they fought against earth, air and sea just to watch everything disappear one second to another?

Hand curled in a fist, waves of sobbing washing over her and drowning her in a sea of sorrow she didn’t have the means to escape, the only lighthouse that could guide her home so close yet so far locked behind a simple door. Knuckles met wood as Frankie hit the door once, and then another time, the muffled sobs turning into loud cries. Knees gave up, and her whole body crashed against the floor, arms wrapped around herself in a poor attempt to hold herself together. 

Layla leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. Drowning out everything else, including Frankie’s sobs, the young wolf just listened to the heartbeat of the woman in the other room and the steady thumping. Since becoming a werewolf, it had been the way Layla connected with people. Knowing they had the same heartbeat as her. It gave her solace. Calmed her nerves. It was a way for her to relate and to still feel human. And it had been one of her favorite things to do when the two girls would just lay in bed and watch Netflix or talk or even just be still. Even as a human, Layla had fallen asleep to Frankie’s heartbeat more times than she could count. It’s why, when she had been living with Ariana, she would listen to Ari’s heart. To connect. But now that she was back with Frankie, she knew the rhythm like the back of her hand. Every missed heartbeat. Fast. Slow. And right now it’s all she wanted to hear. All she wanted to connect with. Not words. The meaning of the word sorry had lost its value with as many times as she had to apologize to people. And she knew one day, people wouldn’t listen anymore. It was human nature. Who would want to listen to someone say sorry a million times anyways?

As she listened, she got caught up in the steady pulsating, so much so that when Frankie began pounding on the door, it startled her, releasing the wolf. Feeling a slight shift in her body, she released a quick yelp at the pain. Chest heaving, she opened her eyes to find her hands had shifted, dawning fresh claws. The same ones that had killed a man only hours prior, and it angered her. The one thing that had brought her peace, and it was gone, because she couldn’t control what she was.

Climbing to her feet, Layla peered into the mirror seeing herself as dangerous and worthless. With her hands tightly balled into fists, she felt the razor sharp nails dig into her skin drawing blood. Between hearing how broken Frankie was and knowing what she had done, she couldn’t stand to see her reflection anymore and sent a fist as hard as she could into the mirror; glass shattering onto the sink and floor. Realizing what she had done, the teenager started crying again as fresh blood seeped from an injured paw. With her knees hitting the floor once more, she crumpled up wishing for her old life desperately, “I just want my old life back...I just want our life back...I didn’t mean to hurt him. I didn’t mean to…” 

The weeping and the need for air between each sob had made Frankie’s body fall almost into a rhythmically broken and sad tempo. Guilt was eating her, and had she been able to watch past the veil of her tears, she would’ve noticed any color swirling around herself had suddenly been drowned out by darkness, no color longer visible. It was painfully funny how all the feelings she had thought she’d never go through again after Layla had ran away were coming back, even more ruthlessly than before despite only being separated basically by 5 inches of wood. But could you blame the teens for feeling too much, too hard, and not realizing everything that the future had yet to show them?

The sound of broken glass took her out of her stasis, the realization of what it came from making Frankie’s head snap. Hands clawed at the knob as she desperately tried to get a hold of it and open the door, but was met with the subtle resistance the lock offered. “Layla-” Voice was high pitched and filled with panic, and fist met wood once, and twice, and more times than Frankie could remember. “Layla, please, let me in---” Everything she did felt like futile attempts at getting through to the young wolf, her words were useless and seemingly held no value to her girlfriend anymore. It didn’t matter how hard she tried, Layla’s voice was too soft for her to catch what she was saying, and all that did was turn her stomach even more. Slowly, her body gave in once more, except this time she wasn’t looking at the bathroom anymore, but instead rested against the door, her face wet, hands bruised and her heart completely broken.

Layla could barely look up at the door, when Frankie started begging for her to unlock it. Her mind was telling her one thing, but her heart was telling her another. She was shutting out the woman she loved, because her own brain had let the haunting thoughts of what could happen and what had happened, seep in, blocking out any logical reason to listen to anyone, including the woman desperately trying to get in. While her heart ached, something kind of fierce, in her chest. But she had somehow managed to calm down enough to let her heart win out over her head.

Pulling her paw to her chest, she used her good hand to reach forward and unlock the door, before sinking back down into herself. She wanted Frankie close. Wanted to smell her and feel her warmth and hear her heartbeat once more. She wanted to feel loved, but not out of what her head was saying was obligation. She wanted to drowned out the thoughts plaguing her weak mind and just love and be loved in return, but the looming thought of death and knowing what Frankie could see when she looked at Layla remained in the back of her mind, and she couldn’t shake the feeling of being judged by the one person who had never shown judgement towards her in the past.

Frankie wasn’t sure how much time had passed when she heard the door unlock. It could’ve been seconds, perhaps hours, but however long it had been, the tears flowing down her face hadn’t stopped at all, hazel orbs looking as empty as her soul and heart felt. When she moved to stand up, all her body groaned in what could only be described as a mix of exhaustion, pain, and sadness, but the young human paid no attention to it - whatever the human was feeling was once more pushed aside, the need to be next to Layla and cradle her against her chest bigger than anything. However, her hand stopped when it grabbed the knob. Opening the door meant there was no going back, and despite never having the intention to leave, entering the bathroom was a binding promise that no matter what happened next -more murders or worse- she’d stand by her side.

And the teenager was oddly in peace with that decision.

The creaking wood filled the silent apartment, and the first thing her eyes landed on was the broken glass mixed with blood that sat mainly on the sink, but that had still found its way all around the bathroom. She had heard it, but she still let a surprised gasp escape her lips, the first thing entering her mind being how she needed to clean that before Graham came back. But the mundane thoughts quickly left as she looked down at the broken girl, the aura swirling around her perfectly matching hers in color, except the werewolf’s still had the bright red spots in it. Stay away from the reds. Her whole chest clenched once more, but this time she didn’t allow her emotions to control her. She sank on her knees too, arms wrapping around the girl. “I’m sorry.” Frankie mumbled, and wasn’t completely sure if the apology was meant for Layla, for her grandma, or even for herself, but that didn’t take away how sorry she felt nonetheless. Arms tightened around her girlfriend, her chest pressed against her back and her face burrowed in her hair. “I’m here. It’s gonna be okay. We will make it okay.”

[acoolchickouthere13]

July 10, 2019- Amazon prime day concert

July 23, 2019- shares likes with Joe on Instagram, shoots the lover music video, releases the Archer single in the livestream, and gets VMA nominations, does an interview with CBS Sunday morning

First secret session in London Friday August 2nd, 2019

Karlie Kloss turns 27 August 3, 2019

I still believe this was taken during the Australia winter 2016 trip, when Taylor was “26”

August 4th, 2019

Second secret session in Nashville Sunday August 4th, 2019(Over 100 fans were in attendance, apparently, as the event was said to include guests from a Nashville session AND an alleged Rhode Island session. (There are rumors the original Rhode Island session was canceled because the date got leaked))

August 5th, 2019 Nashville

“When we talked seven years ago, everything was going so well for you, and you were very worried that something would go wrong.

Yeah, I kind of knew it would. I felt like I was walking along the sidewalk, knowing eventually the pavement was going to crumble and I was gonna fall through. You can’t keep winning and have people like it. People love “new” so much — they raise you up the flagpole, and you’re waving at the top of the flagpole for a while. And then they’re like, “Wait, this new flag is what we actually love.” They decide something you’re doing is incorrect, that you’re not standing for what you should stand for. You’re a bad example. Then if you keep making music and you survive, and you keep connecting with people, eventually they raise you a little bit up the flagpole again, and then they take you back down, and back up again. And it happens to women more than it happens to men in music.

But you also had good things happen in your life at the same time — that’s part of Reputation.

The moments of my true story on that album are songs like “Delicate,” “New Year’s Day,” “Call It What You Want,” “Dress.” The one-two punch, bait-and-switch of Reputation is that it was actually a love story. It was a love story in amongst chaos. All the weaponized sort of metallic battle anthems were what was going on outside. That was the battle raging on that I could see from the windows, and then there was what was happening inside my world — my newly quiet, cozy world that was happening on my own terms for the first time. . . . It’s weird, because in some of the worst times of my career, and reputation, dare I say, I had some of the most beautiful times — in my quiet life that I chose to have. And I had some of the most incredible memories with the friends I now knew cared about me, even if everyone hated me. The bad stuff was really significant and damaging. But the good stuff will endure. The good lessons — you realize that you can’t just show your life to people….words are my only way of making sense of the world and expressing myself — and now any words I say or write are being twisted against me. People love a hate frenzy. It’s like piranhas. People had so much fun hating me, and they didn’t really need very many reasons to do it. I felt like the situation was pretty hopeless. I wrote a lot of really aggressively bitter poems constantly. I wrote a lot of think pieces that I knew I’d never publish, about what it’s like to feel like you’re in a shame spiral. And I couldn’t figure out how to learn from it. Because I wasn’t sure exactly what I did that was so wrong. That was really hard for me, because I cannot stand it when people can’t take criticism. So I try to self-examine, and even though that’s really hard and hurts a lot sometimes, I really try to understand where people are coming from when they don’t like me. And I completely get why people wouldn’t like me. Because, you know, I’ve had my insecurities say those things — and things 1,000 times worse….But I can’t really respond to someone saying, “You, as a human being, are fake.” And if they say you’re playing the victim, that completely undermines your ability to ever verbalize how you feel unless it’s positive. So, OK, should I just smile all the time and never say anything hurts me? Because that’s really fake. Or should I be real about how I’m feeling and have valid, legitimate responses to things that happened to me in my life? But wait, would that be playing the victim? ...I needed to grow up in many ways. I needed to make boundaries, to figure out what was mine and what was the public’s. That old version of me that shares unfailingly and unblinkingly with a world that is probably not fit to be shared with? I think that’s gone. But it was definitely just, like, a fun moment in the studio with me and Jack [Antonoff] where I wanted to play on the idea of a phone call — because that’s how all of this started, a stupid phone call I shouldn’t have picked up….I don’t think I’ve ever leaned into the old version of myself more creatively than I have on this album, where it’s very, very autobiographical. But also moments of extreme catchiness and moments of extreme personal confession….

But is the idea that as your own life becomes less dramatic, you’ll need to pull ideas from other places?

I don’t feel like that yet. I think I might feel like that possibly when I have a family. If I have a family. [Pauses] I don’t know why I said that! But that’s what I’ve heard from other artists, that they were very protective of their personal life, so they had to draw inspiration from other things. But again, I don’t know why I said that. Because I don’t know how my life is going to go or what I’m going to do. But right now, I feel like it’s easier for me to write than it ever was.

...I’m not scared anymore to say that other things in my career, like how to market an album, are strictly strategic. And I’m sick of women not being able to say that they have strategic business minds — because male artists are allowed to. And so I’m sick and tired of having to pretend like I don’t mastermind my own business. But, it’s a different part of my brain than I use to write. [THIS IS AFTER SHE SAID DBATC WAS INSPIRED BY “SOMEONE GREAT” ON ELLEN]

You’ve been masterminding your business since you were a teenager.

Yeah, but I’ve also tried very hard — and this is one thing I regret — to convince people that I wasn’t the one holding the puppet strings of my marketing existence, or the fact that I sit in a conference room several times a week and come up with these ideas. I felt for a very long time that people don’t want to think of a woman in music who isn’t just a happy, talented accident. We’re all forced to kind of be like, “Aw, shucks, this happened again! We’re still doing well! Aw, that’s so great.” Alex Morgan celebrating scoring a goal at the World Cup and getting shit for it is a perfect example of why we’re not allowed to flaunt or celebrate, or reveal that, like, “Oh, yeah, it was me. I came up with this stuff.” I think it’s really unfair. People love new female artists so much because they’re able to explain that woman’s success. There’s an easy trajectory. Look at the Game of Thrones finale. I specifically really related to Daenerys’ storyline because for me it portrayed that it is a lot easier for a woman to attain power than to maintain it….for me, the times when I felt like I was going insane was when I was trying to maintain my career in the same way that I ascended. It’s easier to get power than to keep it. It’s easier to get acclaim than to keep it. It’s easier to get attention than to keep it….maybe this is a reflection on how we treat women in power, how we are totally going to conspire against them and tear at them until they feel this — this insane shift, where you wonder, like, “What changed?” And I’ve had that happen, like, 60 times in my career where I’m like, “OK, you liked me last year, what changed? I guess I’ll change so I can keep entertaining you guys….the question posed to me is, if you kept trying to do good things, but everyone saw those things in a cynical way and assumed them to be done with bad motivation and bad intent, would you still do good things, even though nothing that you did was looked at as good? And the answer is, yes. Criticism that’s constructive is helpful to my character growth. Baseless criticism is stuff I’ve got to toss out now….I’ve never been to therapy. I talk to my mom a lot, because my mom is the one who’s seen everything. God, it takes so long to download somebody on the last 29 years of my life, and my mom has seen it all. She knows exactly where I’m coming from. And we talk endlessly. There were times when I used to have really, really, really bad days where we would just be on the phone for hours and hours and hours. I’d write something that I wanted to say, and instead of posting it, I’d just read it to her.

the lyric in “Daylight,” the idea of “so many lines that I’ve crossed unforgiven” — it’s a different kind of confession.

I am really glad you liked that line, because that’s something that does bother me, looking back at life and realizing that no matter what, you screw things up. Sometimes there are people that were in your life and they’re not anymore — and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t fix it, you can’t change it. I told the fans last night that sometimes on my bad days, I feel like my life is a pile of crap accumulated of only the bad headlines or the bad things that have happened, or the mistakes I’ve made or clichés or rumors or things that people think about me or have thought for the last 15 years. And that was part of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video, where I had a pile of literal old selves fighting each other. But, yeah, that line is indicative of my anxiety about how in life you can’t get everything right. A lot of times you make the wrong call, make the wrong decision. Say the wrong thing. Hurt people, even if you didn’t mean to. You don’t really know how to fix all of that. When it’s, like, 29 years’ worth. No one gets through it unscathed. No one gets through in one piece. I think that’s a hard thing for a lot of people to grasp. I know it was hard for me, because I kind of grew up thinking, “If I’m nice, and if I try to do the right thing, you know, maybe I can just, like, ace this whole thing.” And it turns out I can’t.

It’s interesting to look at “I Did Something Bad” in this context.

You pointing that out is really interesting because it’s something I’ve had to reconcile within myself in the last couple of years — that sort of “good” complex. Because from the time I was a kid I’d try to be kind, be a good person. Try really hard. But you get walked all over sometimes. And how do you respond to being walked all over? You can’t just sit there and eat your salad and let it happen. “I Did Something Bad” was about doing something that was so against what I would usually do. ...a couple of years ago I started working on actually just responding to my emotions in a quicker fashion. And it’s really helped with stuff. It’s helped so much because sometimes you get in arguments. But conflict in the moment is so much better than combat after the fact.”(x)

Third secret session in LA Tuesday August 6th, 2019

Also does a livestream announcement

August 10 LA Party with YNTCD and ME! Costars #drunktaylor -purple nails

[fyeahcamcountry]

Cam: The Otherside - track by track

(Apple Music)

'...“I was a total idealist,” Cam tells Apple Music. The Nashville country singer, who’s also one of the city’s most sought-after songwriters, says the five years she spent writing her sophomore album were some of the hardest of her life. “I had this Disney idea of how the world worked, and at some point that just...broke.” Tracing a string of major life changes—breaking up with her old label, inking a new contract, marrying her husband, and welcoming her first child—The Otherside reflects a dramatic shift in thinking, or her journey through disillusionment into clear-eyed realism. That evolution unlocked a new side to her sound. “My songs have always pulled from my psychology background, but I had this filter on and didn’t even know it,” she says. “Once I took that off, I could be so much more honest. I could see the world, and myself, for exactly what they were.” Read on as Cam tells us the inside story behind each song.

[[MORE]]

Redwood Tree

“I grew up in the Bay Area with a redwood tree in my backyard, and I did a lot of thinking up there. I wasn’t raised in a specific religion, but the most magical, awe-inspiring experience I can think of is being in the redwoods, feeling so small. It’s like a cathedral in that it reminds you of your place in everything. Fallen redwoods have rings that represent the thousands of years that they lived, and you’re like, ‘Oh, we’re just flies buzzing around.’ We wake up one day shocked to realize our parents are suddenly old. Like, when did my dad's beard get so white? I had watched the movie Arrival around the time we wrote this song, and I loved the idea of time not being linear. The soundtrack has these voices that go ‘Da, da, da, da,’ and we nod to that in the production. I hope time isn't linear. I hope I get more time with my parents.”

The Otherside

“Tim, or Avicii, came to Nashville a few years ago to write for one of his albums, and we were in the studio with Hillary Lindsey and Tyler Johnson. He started playing this piano melody over and over and over again, and I don't smoke cigarettes but when Hillary took a cigarette break, I was like, ‘I'm going, too.’ It was just so intense. He was really stuck on this thing. While we're out on the back porch, she and I came up with an idea for the chorus, and he loved it. But he fiddled with it for hours. He was thinking about cadence, about how we speak, about code-mapping it onto a melody, and about the actual phonetics. Tim never wound up releasing that song, so I was like, ‘Ooh, maybe that means I can.’ Even though it’s such a heavy thing not having him around for the final edits, I did feel this great responsibility to work my ass off to get it right. Because I knew that’s what he would have done.”

Classic

“On the other side of the spectrum, this is one of those songs that just magically fell into place. I went up to New York for a few sessions with Jack Antonoff at Electric Lady Studios, and it was so fun. Creatives tend to beat themselves up a lot, but Jack and I sat there jangling around on this 12-string guitar and writing a song that had this nostalgic Simon & Garfunkel ‘Cecilia’ vibe. It’s about how there are people in your life that outlast everything else—technology, fashion trends, swings in politics, whatever. Nothing's a constant in life, but a few people are. It was inspired by this moment when my husband and I were in Argentina and he found a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. He doesn't smoke anymore, but he goes, ‘I’ve got to smoke these because they don't make ‘em like this anymore.’ And then he looks at me and goes, ‘That's a country lyric.’”

Forgetting You

“I was writing with Lori McKenna, Tyler Johnson, and Mitch Rowland, and we’re all pals from working on various projects together. Still, I always get nervous when I go write with Lori, even though she's so humble and chill, because I’m like, ‘Don't embarrass yourself in front of the poet of our generation!’ Which is to say, I knew I needed to bring in something cool. I had this line, ‘I'm getting older/But you never change.’ The song is about holding on to the concept of someone from the past, and measuring everyone up to them even though it’s no longer real. That's why you keep moving forward but they never seem to age.”

Like a Movie

“Before we were married and had a kid, I’d come home from tour and my husband and I would have this tiny bit of quality time together. And the truth is, we’d usually get high and go to Walmart. One day, we were unloading all our groceries and I was like, ‘How did you know it was me? How did you know not to settle for someone earlier or wait for someone else?’ And he just smiled and said, ‘Because when I met you, it was like a movie.’ Now, I can remember when we met. I was a mess. It did not look like a movie. But it was so, so sweet. I wrote with the love junkies—Lori McKenna, Liz Rose, and Hillary Lindsey—and the strings are David Campbell, who’s actually Beck’s dad. Jeff Bhasker wanted a ’50s movie soundtrack vibe with strings that swelled like an orchestra, and David immediately got it. Apple Music did a teaser video for the album, and if you watch it, there should be video footage from that string session.”

Changes

“I usually write all my own music, but this is the first of a couple songs on this album that I didn’t. I guess I feel like it's cheating. I'm supposed to be digging all this personal stuff up and figuring myself out, so taking someone else’s song feels like a shortcut. But I trust Harry [Styles]’s writing. I feel like he tries so hard to be himself in his music, and he doesn't take it lightly. That pursuit resonates with me. The demo had Lori McKenna singing with Harry on background vocals and his whistle, which is still in the track. It was amazing to hear a song that someone else wrote that clicked so much with me personally. It’s about feeling like you’ve outgrown where you're from, and you don't really want to admit that. It’s kind of an uncomfortable thing to say, but I love when things are uncomfortable. That means it’s important.”

Till There's Nothing Left

“This song has steamy sexual energy... Like, ‘I'm giving you my whole heart but also my body and a quickie in the back seat.’ While we were recording my vocals, I was trying to sit back and make it cool and sexy, and I realized I was blushing. I was blushing because society tells us that sexuality is a private thing. If you want to be respected as a woman, if you want to be considered intelligent, you can’t be sexual. But then I was reminded of my grandmother who was raised Baptist on a farm in Saskatchewan. She's the one who gave me the sex talk, unbeknownst to my mother. She said, ‘Sex is like a milkshake. Once you have it, you're always going to want it.’ She was comfortable with her sexuality without it being the main thing about her. So I thought, ‘If a woman born in the 1930s on a farm in Canada can own it, I can own it.”

What Goodbye Means

“A friend of mine was going through a divorce. It was pretty ugly, but he was being so kind. I asked him, ‘How are you being so nice right now? I don't get it.’ And he said, ‘Because she might change her mind.’ I still get goosebumps thinking about it. We've all been there, not quite ready to accept the reality of something, and that's okay. You've got to take it at the rate you can take it. This song has such a classic melody. It’s warm. For some reason it feels like a summer evening in New Mexico to me.”

Diane

“This song is a response to Dolly Parton’s ‘Jolene,’ and man, it really seems to resonate with people. Crowds sing it back to me in this emotional, over-the-top, theatrical way. I suppose most people have had infidelity affect their life one way or another, but it’s hard to watch people you care about go through it. There's so much shame around it that you don't get to talk about what you need or how to heal. And you almost never get to hear the other party’s side. So ‘Diane’ is my moment to role-play, I guess. I'm the other woman and I slept with your husband and I didn't know he was married, but you’ve got to know the truth. Parton's lyrics to the other woman include the word ‘please,’ and that just killed me. She's so humble and human, asking someone to please not take the love of her life away. Immediately, I was like, ‘That's the narrative. That's what is so often left unsaid.’”

Happier for You

“This is the other song that I didn't write, and it’s from Sam Smith and Tyler [Johnson]. Sam and I have a great relationship because I helped write the song ‘Palace’ for their album and then they brought me out on tour. We have a lot of trust. When Lindsay [Marias, Cam’s manager] and I first heard this demo and Sam came in singing, our jaws dropped. The emotion was so raw and honest and real. I love the juxtaposition of saying something very loud and publicly—to the point where it almost feels proud—but actually it’s something that makes you want to curl up in a ball.”

Girl Like Me

“This is the author's note at the end of the book. Natalie Hemby had come over and started playing a verse on the piano, and I was like, ‘Oh god, that is so sad.’ And she's like, ‘It's your story. This is your comeback story.’ It’s funny how sometimes you can’t recognize your own self. Writing this song was uncomfortable but in the best way, trying to pull lyrics out in the chorus (‘They’re going to give up on you/You're going to give up on them’). You can’t just become jaded. You have to push through. It’s a gift to be able to see life for what it is, and to see yourself for who you are. I think anyone who has been through that phase of disillusionment will think, ‘Oh, yeah, tough. But this side is better.’”

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Taylor Swift is a feminist. I know people don’t like to acknowledge this, but she is. 

How can we know this?

Because she’s talked about it. 

She admitted that where she grew up in Reading Pennsylvania, she never heard the word feminism and it wasn’t something talked about. That it took until years after moving to Nashville when she was a teenager, to learn about it. And whenever she heard it, it was always in association with terrible things. Women who claimed to be feminists saying horrible things she didn’t agree with. Definitions she was given that described feminism as more of a hate group than anything.

So this 18 year old who is supportive of POC, LGBTQ+, and religious freedom, didn’t want to identify as something that seemed horrible.

And then she learns that some of the people she admires most identify as feminists. But they’re not bad people and they don’t wish bad things on others so how can they be feminists? And this forces her to dig deeper. And she has to ask questions and learn. 

Meanwhile, she is slut-shamed for having a normal dating life when even one of her exes admitted most recently to sleeping with hundreds of women in his life and no one called him a slut or shamed him for it. He was given pats on the back even.

People started complaining about her writing about her experiences in romance when the current music trending, mostly written by men for men, is doing the same, and going further to objectify women, but none of it is being criticized like her music is.

And then they start talking about her body and how it’s either too lanky, too tall, not sexy enough, and men aren’t getting this level of treatment. Their worth isn’t being placed on their bodies and how sexually appealing they are to other men.

People start questioning if she’s even smart enough to handle the kind of job she’s gotten into. She has to fight for the people on her label to listen to her marketing decisions. Some of them don’t believe she truly gets the business for what it is and should just let the men handle the work.

And she goes all of this while educating herself in the time she has. And she admits on television that she doesn’t think she as a 22 year old, who still doesn’t know enough about everything going on, has a right to tell people what to do and believe when she’s still learning herself. It’s like the blind leading the blind.

She has to admit that ‘no one can steal someone from you if they didn’t want to go’ and people can’t be stolen to begin with. She has to come to terms with how problematic one of her older songs was, and she did so pretty quickly. She’s gone 10 years without playing it or acknowledging it despite some younger and unaware fans asking for her to play it at her shows at some point.

Taylor Swift calling out people’s anti-feminist behavior even while she’s still young and unsure of how she stands among the pack isn’t wrong. If two grown women, who proclaim themselves super feminists, abandon what they claim to stand for just to poke fun at a 22 year old woman for dating, then they are in the wrong. Using a quote from a woman those two women admire, to point our their shitty behavior, isn’t wrong either.

A lot of people believe in feminism until Taylor Swift is involved. Suddenly they drop their beliefs to attack her for writing about love, not being sexy, being a blonde woman(obviously must be stupid then), or even... not being feminist enough for them.

She’s been doing feminist things her entire career. She did them before knowing what feminism was. She did them while knowing was fake feminism(the kind anti-feminists try to claim is true) was. She does them while finally having full knowledge of what feminism really is.

People like to act all righteous when it comes to Taylor Swift. Y’all like acting as if you came out of the womb perfectly, politically correct. And that isn’t the case.

I didn’t call myself a feminist until I was 20 because any time I’d heard about it beforehand, it was in a negative light and all the women I knew who claimed to be feminists were anti-gay or anti-trans or pro-white supremacy and I sure as hell wasn’t going to connect my name to anything like that. It took me 20 years of life and a lot of free time on my hands to educate myself. 

People want to go about giving others a chance to change and grow but then when they do y’all can’t handle it.

[colbybrocksbitchh]

Meet My Girlfriend

You and Colby finally go public with your relationship

Requested: no

~Colby’s POV~

I quietly set up the tripod and the camera so that it is facing my bed. I swallow and take a deep breath. I turn on the camera and sit down on the bed.

“What’s up guys it’s Colby Brock and welcome back to my channel. Now this video is one that I’m honestly terrified to post. The reason for that is I’m really scared that you guys are gonna take this badly, considering how you’ve taken me having friends that are girls. So please hear me out.”

I look down at my phone smiling at the text y/n had just sent me. I slide my phone back into my pocket and look back up at the camera.

“I’m about to introduce you to my girlfriend, she’s on her way right now. Guys I can’t even explain in words how much she means to me. She makes me happy, happier then I’ve been in a long time. When I met her I was starting to get depressed and I was seriously considering taking a break from YouTube.

She helped me realize and remember that fire and passion I have for making you guys happy. She’s funny, and smart, absolutely beautiful...

God she’s so gorgeous...”

At this point I run my fingers through my hair smiling to myself. I still can’t believe that I’m lucky enough to call her mine.

“She puts supermodels to shame I swear. I genuinely have never met anyone as gorgeous as she is, especially when she doesn’t wear makeup. God I don’t know how I got so lucky.”

At this point I started to feel the blush creeping up my cheek, I absentmindedly bite my lip thinking about y/n. I’ve been freaking out about filming this for several weeks no, and I almost decided not to....but I figure after dating for nine months she deserved to be able to openly say we are together.

At first it was her idea. She’s been a fan for a few years and knew how the fans could get, so she proposed we didn’t tell anyone online. But recently I could tell that it was getting harder. Every time someone turned on a camera we had to put distance between ourselves so that no one would know we were together. She was introduced to the fans as one of Kat’s best friends. Granted she was one of Kat’s bestfriends but I could tell she was struggling, and I was too.

There would be times that we were cuddling on the couch and had to desperate for one of Jakes videos. A few times we were making food together when Sam came downstairs so we had to pretend to ignore each other for the most part.

It worked, the fans never really suspected anything. There were a few tweets shipping us but mostly everyone believed that I was single and that y/n was in a happy relationship with someone who preferred to keep his life private.

She always said she didn’t want to deny dating anyone so this is what we thought was the best option. She would talk about us and our relationship, but would say she was dating an unnamed guy who didn’t like social media. This gave her a little freedom and kept her from going completely mad because of our secret.

“She’s a major part of my life and I’m tired of having to pretend. So today is the day that we are coming out to the public, she just doesn’t know yet.”

It’s at this point that I get a text.

Hey baby, I just pulled in. I’ll be up soon, plus I brought us Tender Greens 💕💕

“She just got here. I’m gonna go get her and when I come back I’ll introduce her to you, although most of you already know her.”

I turn off the camera and walk downstairs. I smile as y/n walks through the door carrying our food. She hangs her keys up and walks over to me. I wrap my arms around her and hug her tightly.

“Aww baby I was only gone for three days.”

When she says this she crinkles her nose and laughs.

“Yeah I know, but I missed you babygirl.”

I pull away and smile at her winking.

“I have a surprise for you shortcake.”

She furrows her brow confused but smiles.

“Ok, what is it? Should I be worried? I don’t see any cameras? “

She laughs as she says this, looking around to see if she was being set up for a prank. I grab her hand and lead her upstairs. I turn on the camera and we both sit down on the bed.

“Cole? What are you doing?”

I kiss her cheek and look at the camera.

“Guys this is my gorgeous girlfriend y/n!”

I hug her as I say this and she just shyly smiles. Usually she’s a very outgoing person, I must have surprised her.

“Wait, we’re coming out? We’re announcing to the world that we’re dating?!”

At this point she’s practically bouncing up and down with excitement.

I nod my head yes and she waved at the camera, kissing me on the cheek.

“Hi everyone!”

I can’t help but stare at her as she introduces herself. Her blue eyes sparkle as she talks about me and how long we’ve been together. Once she’s finished I turn my attention back to the camera.

“So I figured we would do the girlfriend tag, but I guess it’s kinda gonna be a mukbang as well?” I say lifting the back up and laughing.

Once y/n and I each have our food we start the questions.

“So y/n, where did we meet?”

She looks up and kisses me before turning her attention back to the camera.

“So about a year ago my friend and I decided to go explore the abandoned stadium in Nashville. We recorded it for my channel and within two weeks we had two thousand more subscribers and at least ten thousand views. After that we steadily kept growing the more we explored. Eventually we decided to move out here to LA. That’s when Sam and Colby dm’d us asking if we’d like to do an exploring video with us, which we obviously replied yes. It ended up going so horribly that they never posted it but we became great friends. Eventually Colby asked me out and the rest is history.”

“Yeah that video went so wrong, her friend Courtney fell off the second floor to the first and broke her leg, so we ended up calling the cops on ourselves to get her an ambulance.”

We both laughed as we remembered the events of that day. That was the first time I ever met her and she looked absolutely gorgeous then, I still remember what she wore.

She had on our limited edition orange Halloween hoodie with some leggings, and high top converse. Her hair was in a bun and her face was clean of makeup. I knew from the moment I met her that she was someone special, and now here we are.

We continued to record for another twenty minutes before ending the video.

“Thank you guys so much for watching today’s video. Please be nice I’m totally in love with this girl, she’s the most amazing thing to have ever happened to me.”

“Awww thanks babe.” She says kissing my cheek before I continue on.

“Make sure to leave a like and subscribe, and leave a comment telling y/n how freaking gorgeous she is.”

She rolls her eyes blushing.

“Don’t forget to follow my social media as well! Colby will link it down below or I’ll kill him.” She says laughing.

I end the video and place the camera down on the table in front of me.

Y/n sits on the bed and tries to take out her phone. Before she can I push her back to the bed gently and kiss her neck.

“I love you so much babygirl.”

She pulls me close and tells me she loves me too. I lightly jump over her so that I’m also laying down beside her. I wrap my arms around her and pull her close as she lays her head on my chest.

“I’m glad we don’t have to hide anymore.”

I run my fingers through her hair as I whisper in her ear.

“We will never have to hide again. Now the world is gonna know you’re mine and mine alone. I love you, now let’s take a nap.”

I kiss her cheek and close my eyes. I feel her smile and I slowly hear her breathes get softer as she falls asleep.

God I’m the luckiest man alive.

~Hey guys it’s Tay! I hope you like this it just kinda came to me while I was sleeping last night. Much love 💕~

[awake-and-strange]

This obituary by Janis Ian about Anne McCaffrey is very A Passion for Friends:

There've been so many mentions of Anne McCaffrey in the post below, I thought to post this homage I wrote for Locus Magazine when Annie died. I miss her, a lot. I kept a few of the most precious books she gave me, but last time I opened one I burst into tears... I feel fortunate to have loved someone so wonderful, to have been loved in return, and to miss her this much. From Locus Magazine: THE MASTERHARPER IS GONE "I have a shIelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens." —Anne McCaffrey I miss her fiercely, more than I have any right to miss her. I remind myself of this whenever I run into her at the library and am stricken with tears. She was not kin, was not connected to me by family ties, not even a distant cousin. Not even Jewish. I have no right to miss her this much. And once in a while, when I chide myself for my silly sentimentality, the sudden lightning that pierces my heart gives way to a duller, deeper pain. One I can live with, perhaps. Like today, waking to a terrible cold, with headache and foggy brain I reach for solace. Put on my red flannel comfort shirt, add my favorite PJ bottoms, then a pair of  fleece-lined slippers. Make my favorite tea, cover myself with an old patchwork quilt, and reach blindly for a book on my “comfort shelf.” Of course. I can’t escape her. Hours later, still miserable, I finish "All the Weyrs of Pern"  for the umpteenth time, and scold myself for the tears that fall – first, because she is gone, and second, because I never really succeeded in telling her just how much she meant to me. I’d never heard of her when I stumbled across for "The Ship Who Sang" at my local library. I wrote to her, saying that it had moved me profoundly, wondering how a prose writer could have such a clear understanding of a musician’s soul. Being one myself, I said, a musician that is, and would like to send a copy of my last record in gratitude. She responded with a laugh that she had never heard of me but oh my, her children had, and could we trade books for recordings? And so, we began. I raced through everything she sent – such generosity, so much that it took two large boxes to ship it all. She, in turn, told me that while she appreciated the beauty of my “Jesse” and the clarity of “At 17”, she was writing her current novel to the beat of my one disco hit, “Fly Too High.” I laughed aloud because it made an artist’s sense to me – dragons flew, and Anne flew with them, regardless of the beat. It was the third or fourth email that she began with the salutation “Dear Petal,”.  Petal. Me? I responded that of all the things I’d been called, no one had ever dreamed to name me “Petal”. She answered briskly that obviously, they’d never seen me bloom. From that day forward, I was her Petal, and she my Orchid. We corresponded ferociously, both all-or-nothing no-holds-barred types, Aries to the hilt. Weekly, daily, sometimes hourly. Dropped out at times when one of us was “on tour”, came back to it as we could. The time passed. Her beloved agent died. My parents passed away. She got a scathing review; I sent a few of my own. She was stuck on a chapter, I was stuck on a verse. We got unstuck, stuck again, and through it all we talked, comforting one another as only a “good hot cuppa” can. She picked me up herself in Dublin, leaning on a cane, nervous to meet in the flesh until I ran into her arms and smothered her with hugs. She drove between the hedgerows with complete abandon, a total disregard for ruts or speed limits, while I clutched the seat and wondered who’d get the bigger headline if we crashed. Annie, I decided, for she was truly a two-column, bold print kind of gal. By then, she was always “Annie” to me, or “Annie Mac”. My larger than life friend, who consorted daily with dragons and starlight, her own luster never dimming  beside them. Once, after she showed me the rock cliffs of the Guiness Estate and explained that Benden Hold looked just like that, she asked if I would write a theme for it. For the movie? I said. “Yes”, she said, “A theme. Because if Menolly came to life, it would be with your voice.” I say this not to brag, but to indicate the trust between us – such trust that when I got home, with no film in sight, I began sketching out some notes for “Lessa’s Song”. I wanted it to be haunting, the way her words haunted me. I wanted it to be sweeping, like the thrust of dragon wings. I wanted it to be everything I could bring to her, a gift for someone whose words took me out of my world and into hers. As she said herself, “That’s what writing is all about, after all, making others see what you have put down on the page and believing that it does, or could, exist and you want to go there.” I hope someday to finish that melody. I hope it’s good enough for a MasterHarper to sing. I hope she regarded me worthy of the title. Because that’s what she was for so many of us – the MasterHarper, singing in prose, songs that reminded us of where we’d been, and what we could become. She came and stayed with us in Nashville, bringing a broken shoulder and trusting me to care for her. We visited Andre Norton, Annie insisting I not just drive but sit with them and listen to “a bit of gossip”. These two women—one writing at a time when pseudonyms were necessary for a woman to get published, the other cracking the New York Times bestseller list with, of all things, a science fiction book, and by a female at that!—talked of publishers, rumors, scandals old and new, while I sat as silent as an unopened book, wishing I’d thought to bring a tape recorder. At first, as her health declined, she bore it cheerfully. “I’m bionic now, Petal, complete with metal knees!” she declared. “Better than ever, and no pain.” She kept to her writing schedule, doing what she could to help her body retain its youth. Swam every day, bragged about her granddaughter’s accomplishments at school – “First prize, don’tcha know!” and commiserated over our various surgeries. We sound like a couple of old Yiddishe mamas, comparing whose surgery was worse! I laughed, and she laughed along with me. Neither of us reckoned on the psychic toll. “Old age is not for the faint of heart,” she quoted, as her energy began to leech away. How is it we artists always forget just how hard it is to write? how much work it is? How can we ignore the vast psychic drain that accompanies every act of creation? We both knew it from her Pern books, when going between enervated even the hardiest of dragon riders. But somehow, we never expected it in “real” life. It’s only when we lose that effervescence, through age, through illness, through sheer attrition, that we realize how necessary it is to our work. How fundamental to our beings. “I can’t write.” She confessed the shameful secret to me not once, but dozens of times, as if repetition would prove it a lie. At first, playing the friend, I tried to reassure her. Then don’t! Take some time off, Annie. Restore your body, and the brain will follow. Talent doesn’t just disappear, you know – it lies in wait. But she knew better. “I'm still not writing.  I think I know how Andre Norton is feeling, too, because I suspect that she's finding it very difficult to write, as the wellspring and flexibility that did us so much service is drying up in our old age. And no false flattery. AT 76 I AM old, and she's in her nineties.   It takes a lot of energy to write, as much as it takes you to keep on adding flavor to your song presentation. Sorry to blah at you but you're one of the few people who does understand the matter when an artist questions their output.” I responded in kind. "No worries talking to me about not writing... I sure as hell know the amount of energy it consumes. Every time you sit down to write, it's a performance. Only you don't have the luxury of props - no lights, sound, other actors to step behind when the inevitable fatigue hits. Heck, Annie, I'm feeling it more and more now, and you've got a quarter century on me.  I notice it mid-show; two hours used to be a piece of cake. Now I feel myself flagging at 45 minutes, and I really look forward to that 20 minute intermission, if only so I can have some water and sit for a few minutes. "Same with writing, for me. Used to be able to sit and write for 6 hours at a stretch. Now I'm good for two if I'm lucky. Part of it's my back, but most of it is - I fear - just that I'm older. It sucks." And she wrote back. “Must write. There are IRS problems. You wouldn’t believe. Mouths to feed, people depending on. Advances already spent and gone. Must write.” And so, she wrote, but for a while there was no joy in it. Still, I loved what she wrote, and told her so. I was proud of our friendship, not because she was so damned famous, but because she was so damned good. She even used my name in a book – Ladyholder Janissian in Skies of Pern – and roared with laughter when I admitted I’d been so wrapped up in the story that I hadn’t even noticed. But she knew – as artists always do – that while her ability to plot continued apace, the actual writing of it was becoming an endurance contest she couldn’t hope to win. “Turn more of it over to Todd,” I argued. Her son had a real knack for a sentence, but it was hard for Annie to let go. Of course. What artist can? “His words may not sing the way yours do – yet. He doesn’t have your lyrical grace – yet. But he will, Annie, you’ve just got to let him breathe!” I said it and said it and said it, to no avail. Then came a day when, 25 years younger and an ocean away, I finally lost patience and angrily berated her. “Damnit Annie, quit complaining and just stop! By God, you have created a mountain of work, an incredible legacy that will endure and be read by zillions of people long after both of us are gone – so quit whining about what you cannot do and start looking at what you have done. It’s time, Anne. Take this unbearable weight off your shoulders and stop!” I sent the email off and waited for her response, fearing I’d gone too far. A day. Then another. Finally, sure I’d lost a friend, I called to ask just how angry she was with me. Oh, no, not at all, she’s “in hospital.” She took a fall. She’d write soon. And she did, quoting me and saying “I knew you, of all people, would make sense.” A sweeter absolution I’ve never had. We continued our friendship, bitching about our bodies, menopause, the inevitable “drying up” of everything that comes with the feminine mystique. You cannot imagine the luxury, for me, to have a compatriot a quarter-century older. As an artist, I admired her work. But as a woman, I was relieved to have someone relentlessly honest about what was to come in my own life. We traded constantly. I sent her Lhasa de Sela, Sara Bettens. She sent stories about her animals, and the garden. One spring she changed my salutation to “Dear Crocus Petal – there are eight coming up now!” We planned  to visit Prague together in September ’01, but then came 9/11, and I chickened out. To be brutally honest, I was afraid to fly. Annie gently took me to task, then went off with someone else instead. I will regret that for the rest of my life. She went into the hospital for the last time while I was touring the UK – just a ferry boat and an ocean of commitments away. Knowing how out of touch she’d feel, how fretful she’d be, I tried to call every day. We fell into a pattern – I’d wait until I was in the van, then phone her up and tell an off color joke, a bawdy story, a bit of kindly gossip. Sometimes about people we knew in common, Harlan perhaps, or Scott Card, whose work she admired. Sometimes just a silly series of puns I’d found on line. Whatever it was, I wanted to make her laugh, because I loved to hear her laugh. She died while I was on vacation, just days after the tour’s end. I’d brought a copy of Dragonsinger with me because on vacation, I always brought a few “comfort re-reads.” I’d fallen asleep over it, waking to an email from Gigi. Please keep it quiet until I can reach everyone, she asked. My older brother Alec is still in flight, and we don’t want him seeing it in the paper before I can reach him. I called with sleep still in my eyes and heard the hum of people behind Gigi’s answering voice. It was fast, it was painless, it was everything Annie had wanted. No lingering. A “good death” for her. But not for me. It’s hard to open my computer knowing there will be no “Dear Petal.” It’s hard, after knowing such a warm and giving shelter, to go without. Sometimes I run across a sentence that sings to me, and jot it down to show her. And sometimes, when she leaps out at me from the cover of a book, I remember she is gone, and it hits me like lightning, fast and lethal and completely unexpected. It stops my breath, until I remind myself that she is gone, but I am still here. When the lightning hits, I comfort myself with this. The beauty of Anne’s writing is that she makes it all seem, not just possible, but normal. For men to go dragonback. For women to become ships. For young, unwanted girls to become MasterHarpers. For brains to pair with brawns, and sing opera under alien skies. And for an unlikely friendship to bloom, a pairing no one could have imagined, between a petal on earth, and an orchid in flight.