i mean....wine not? (Patreon)

hallo dear onesfirst!!!...i responded to every comment on the last post (there were about 100 - if you commented, go look!)...until we finally get the discord set up (we're working on it!!), responding to all comments here is the best way to keep in touch with y'all. and a warm welcome to the hundreds of new patrons...HELLO!!!! hello. welcome. 

greetings from lockdown day fucking FIFTY TWO!!! like a pack of cards, we are.

the new mashup video just passed 100k views just from word of mouth spread over the last two days. so…thank you all so much for all the sharing and talking you’ve been doing. if you missed it, it’s here:

https://youtu.be/N7ZDbBsjMt8

it’s funny.

i used to have such a cavalier bravado and certainty about what would and wouldn’t resonate with people. i’ve learned to be more uncertain and more humble. my instincts about what will or will not float are, i’d say, if i’m being totally honest, about 80% right. sometimes i’m very wrong about things. sometimes i make something that i feel is the beat piece of art in the world ever and it has no “viral” travel plans (like “the ride”), and sometimes i wrote something that i think is a throwaway and it becomes a seminal novelty hit (like “coin-operated boy”). you just never know with this sorta shit.

when reb and i finished the take of the mashup video, we looked at each other without speaking and knew we’d created something that effected US. 

but you never know how things are going to translate into tape and film, and you never know how things are going to resonate with the world, on the internet. 

you can....guess. we guessed this would resonate. we were right. i’m so goddamn glad we we were right.

………

SO....now for something completely different, how about break from songs about rape and abuse and feminism and all that jazz…to just share my mundane life and what i’m doing this morning in lockdown (day 52) while ash does his new lego and i’ve bought myself 40 minutes of freedom.

i love wine. 

and a lotta people love wine.

especially in hard lockdown.

truth be told: i've actually been nearly stone-cold sober for the past two months. life has just been too emotionally harrowing and uncertain, i've had too many curevballs thrown at me from all corners.....and i learned my lesson from the last new zealand lockdown when everything went to shit in a similar pattern. 

there was a point in april/may 2020 where i was putting away 3, 4, 5 glasses of wine a night just to self-soothe. unsurprisingly, it did not help....and i just felt like shit all the time. things during the course of this past month have been even more difficult than those weeks, if you can believe it, and so i've taken another tack: fasting, slowing down, not drinking. i just can't afford to be off my game with so much to juggle. i'm a solo parent again, i have to take care of myself and this kid. i'm the end of the line here. 

but it doesn't mean i can't BUY WINE. half of the pleasure for me, anyway.

AHA! yes.

the circle of reciprocity.

i’ve been the recipient of a lot of generosity and support lately on this little island, especially since neil departed again for the UK and i’ve been solo parenting in hardcore lockdown.

the people of this village have been quietly but steadily helping me out; supporting me in dozens of hidden ways that add up to a solo mom in lockdown not feeling quite so desperate. it's hard. but i've had angel hands reaching out. people dropping food. people checking in. people bringing hand-me-downs for ash. and so on and so on.

it’s hard to know how to return the endless favors but i always have a go-to solution that rarely fails. so yesterday i went out on a masked wine-spree to the corner store and spent $400 (thanks, patrons….yes, this is literally part of where your money goes every month) on thank-you wine and local-artist-designed greeting cards.

this little karmic wine-and-letter loop is going to pay back, and this is not an exhaustive list: 

-the people who have been helping to take care of and teach ash since we got to the island, incliding his teachers

-the guy i haven’t even met who dropped off some classical vinyl records to keep us comforted in lockdown

-the woman who is about to loan me an upright piano

-the new mover pal who will help move said piano and also help me pick up a used bunk bed for ash

-and last but not least my favorite clerk at the local paper plus (that’s the post office/stationary store), nick, who is always all smiles and cheers behind his mask as he sells us pens and stamps and books across the distance sidewalk counter in level 3. (nick also introduced me to the vinyl fairy and brokered the vinyl loan. here is part of it, for your pleasure...it's all the records at the bottom....

it feels good.

what goes around always comes around, my friends.

doing gratitude feels really good.

i wrote a whole best-selling book about this shit, but sometimes i lose the plot and it feels good to come back to the basics.

it takes very little. write a letter of thanks today. a text. send a message to someone who's been supporting you in some weird way. if you can afford it: drop off wine. 

it also doesn’t hurt that i’m also supporting some of the local antipodean wine-makers. a lot of them are losing business hand over fist because of the lockdown. (if you're a wine nerd: i love this 19 crimes wine. australian xanthea turned me onto it back when she was working for us). 

and yes - are you fucking crazy - of course i bought 3 bottles for myself. for later.

thank you all.....i love you. 

hopefully back soon with a piano update. 

and dude: i am holly hunter in the piano. the song has come true.

if you know, you know.

i haven’t had a piano, aka my voice, since fucken january. 

it’s been heeeeere, silent all these years. 

ok, months. 

whatever.

poems are hard.

wine.

x

afp

♥️🙏🏼🍷

p.s. while we are talking about wine….here is my waiheke friend xan’s weathervane. it came with the house she’s renting and she hates it. i fucking love it. i want it. it’s always wine time. or rather, all roads lead to wine.

 ------THE STUFF I SAY AT THE END OF EVERY POST————

1. if you are a patron and new to my work, don’t forget your patronage allows you access to ALL of my patreon releases to date. HERE is the link to download my latest big solo record, “There Will Be No Intermission”, and HERE is a link to download the PDF of the art/essay book that goes with it.

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http://amandapalmer.net/things

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5. are you new to my music and TOTALLY OVERWHELMED? TAKE A WALK THROUGH AMANDALANDA….we made a basic list of my greatest hits n stuff (at least up until a few years ago, this desperately needs updating) on this lovely page: http://amandalanda.amandapalmer.net/

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