{"id":32232,"date":"2012-04-10T19:48:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/04\/10\/on-recording-marriage-and-the-problem-with-first\/"},"modified":"2012-04-10T19:48:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T19:48:26","slug":"on-recording-marriage-and-the-problem-with-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2012\/04\/10\/on-recording-marriage-and-the-problem-with-first\/","title":{"rendered":"on recording, marriage, and the problem with first world problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

neil-gaiman<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I\u2019m flying off to LA this afternoon. I see her tomorrow. It seems strangely appropriate that today\u2019s final (or possibly penultimate) Moment of Amanda is a long quote from her very own blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

amandapalmer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

when i went in to record the album that i\u2019m going to put out this fall, all i wanted was to have nothing else to do but Make the Record.<\/p>\n

i meticulously planned my escape for MONTHS.\u00a0
i wanted to do as nothing as possible, to give up as many mundane responsibilities as i could.
that included being a boss, a friend, an emailer, a blogger\u2026and a wife.<\/p>\n

it wasn\u2019t that i didn\u2019t have the time to do it.\u00a0
i could have easily set aside 2 hours a day to do those things. easily.
but i didn\u2019t want to. i wanted to go down the hole.<\/p>\n

i told everyone i was going. and then i left.<\/p>\n

my friendships, bless them, withstand a lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

my really good, strong deep ones have learned to exist like plants in drought climates.
they sometimes go weeks, months, years in some cases, with no rain.\u00a0
then, when it\u2019s time, there\u2019ll be a flood of love and attention.\u00a0
the friendships that can\u2019t survive the pattern\u2026those ones die, i guess, or turn into acquaintanceships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

looking back on the last month i realize how important it was to me that i put up the long-distance wall.<\/p>\n

amanda-in-person embraced life with a passion.
amanda-on-email-and-phone put up a Don\u2019t Disturb sign.
the paradoxes.
i set up an autoreply, but i still checked my email.\u00a0
i didn\u2019t want to feel responsible for answering any of it.
i would have marathon conversations on twitter, but not commit to having lunch with anyone.\u00a0
i wouldn\u2019t email people i knew well, but i would stop and have coffee with a stranger in a cafe.<\/p>\n

and neil?<\/p>\n

it amazes me how much i\u2019m able to love someone simply because they accept that i want to be alone to work.
that, in the true ironic twists and turns of love, is the ultimate turn-on for me.\u00a0
the ultimate turn-off? clinginess. neediness. damnation.<\/p>\n

i\u2019ve always been this way.\u00a0
pretty much every relationship i\u2019ve ever been in has walked through this fire and mostly come out scorched and defeated.<\/p>\n

i can\u2019t believe sometimes that i found him, and that he found me.<\/p>\n

two weird artists, flying in tandem, landing and fueling, flying again.<\/p>\n

we barely stopped long enough to GET married. it\u2019ll still take ages for us to move in together.
none of this seems strange to me, though.
it only seems strange in the company of other people who look at me with compassion and horror, as if i\u2019ve had a limb amputated, when i say i haven\u2019t seen my husband for three months.<\/p>\n

but it works.<\/p>\n

he wrote a book, i made my record, now we get to be together for a while and share what we\u2019ve done.
and we\u2019ll finally return to being in the same bed, where i\u2019ll play him the day\u2019s mixes and he\u2019ll read me pages that he typed from his handwritten drafts.
and this, to me, this is paradise. this is the dream of a relationship i always had in my mind\u2026and thought i may never find.\u00a0<\/p>\n

and there\u2019s a kind of compromise in every chafing moment, and we\u2019re both learning, bit by uncomfortable bit.<\/p>\n

but i\u2019m enjoying the work of love.<\/p>\n

i think he is, too.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026..<\/p>\n

i never really wanted to be a wife.\u00a0
it wasn\u2019t on the list.
i never even really wanted to be an adult.\u00a0<\/p>\n

i just desperately wanted to get to the part where people stopped telling me what to do.<\/p>\n

i never really wanted anything but to be as much in love as possible at any given moment.<\/p>\n

love defined by the moment, not the movies.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

neil-gaiman: I\u2019m flying off to LA this afternoon. I see her tomorrow. It seems strangely appropriate that today\u2019s final (or possibly penultimate) Moment of Amanda is a long quote from her very own blog. amandapalmer: when i went in to record the album that i\u2019m going to put out this fall, all i wanted was … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “on recording, marriage, and the problem with first world problems”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9076,1227,9075,9077],"class_list":["post-32232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-i-mean-we-certainly-spend-a-fuckton-of-time-together-but-when-were-busy-were-busy-and-thats-just-how-it-is","tag-anyway","tag-ha-amanda-you-know-my-brain","tag-neil-amanda-forever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}