Walkie Talkies #5 – The Story of Us

I was born this way. After all, the Goddess of Creation makes no mistakes. So, today I live openly and shamelessly, and I must admit, I do indeed live for the applause. I am the queen of a chorus of forgotten romantics, called upon to sing the national anthem of heartbreak, loudly and proudly.

This is my true story, one of self-discovery, self-actualization, and the realization of my best intentions. I remember my past all too well, and it replays over and over again so many times in my head. To be able to move on and be the Phoenix I was meant to be, it’s time to commit my story to digital white paper, so that it may be set free into the pages of history.

Today is likely to be one of the most emotional entries I’ve put into my nascent Walkie-Talkies series. This is the exercise in which I pace around the house or our property at large to air out all the things spinning in my head around some subject.

As I first spoke this Walkie Talkie into existence, I was experiencing some very difficult times as late. My wife and I were experiencing major struggles in our relationship, and while we kept telling ourselves that everything’s okay and “we’re good,” we weren’t.

What’s funny is that this Walkie Talkie wasn’t sparked by a desire to air out the dirty laundry piling up in my marriage not yet four years old. No, it began with a reflection on a phrase I noted from a 1960 book called “Growing Up Absurd.” This guy named Paul Goodman actually wrote the manuscript in 1959, so what follows is going to be a bit shocking in that it could easily be written today.

“Growing Up Absurd” is a seminal book of the 1960s when it comes to education. Due to the dozens of notes that I’ve taken on this book, I’m sure this guy will come up often in future Walkie Talkies – and their sedentary counterpart Sitty Chatties. In this case, I was wanting to chat about when Goodman was talking about aptitudes of our youth going to waste. He wrote that the “present waste is nothing new.” Yeah, wasted aptitudes were something significant even then. Think about that for a second, and just how long ago that was. This is now 2025, so it was 65 years ago. That’s before both my parents were born!

One hundred years after the publishing of Thoreau’s Walden, which introduced the concept of brain rot, the rotting was already becoming a cancer. Now it’s become a pandemic worse than the infamous Black Plague or COVID-19. It’s destroying the lives of literally billions of people.

When it comes to my own aptitudes, from the day I turned four, I knew myself to be a future singer-songwriter. But for the first few years of life, I was a mess, bouncing off walls and regularly rambling incoherent nonsense. I couldn’t say many words properly. Yet one day, suddenly the light switched on in my head. I just became extremely talkative, speaking almost like a normal person. But I only became that way because of music, especially the likes of John Denver, Boston, James Taylor, and other artists who birthed 70’s and 80’s classics of pop, folk, and rock. Also, it was then I decided my name was Amelia. This name I gave to myself gave me power. Funny that I didn’t know until much later that said name meant “industrious and fertile,” as those are two adjectives that define me perfectly at my core.

I most adored country music, especially for the stories told within it. Country music stars have always had an aura of “ordinary man” (or woman) about them. You don’t need to be super gifted musically or even have a great singing voice or anything like that. Country music doesn’t require jaw-dropping talent, just that you must have important stories to tell. One thing my mom said that has stuck with me forever is if you have something to say, you must be the one to write it down. So, country music gives you the opportunity to put your words to music and tell your story with the benefit of melodic accompaniment.

Therefore, I’m like, okay, I’m gonna “Write It Down in Blue,” which is one of my favorite Alabama songs of all time. It’s part of why I write with a blue pen when I have something important to say. (Interestingly, Emily does, too, as our shared favorite color is blue.) You know I love Alabama, because even though they’re from the Deep South, they’re Democrats, not far-right conservatives with streaks of nasty bigotry running through their cold veins. They’re not like many other people from Alabama, who are narrow minded, their souls overrun with dogmatic propaganda. The band members – Randy, Teddy, and Jeff – from this band are cool characters, far as I know.

As a youth, I sang and acted like a girl, because I have girl brain. But my body was intersex, leaning towards the masculine side of the gender binary. Thus, my parents chose to raise me as a boy, despite me having a personality and manner that defied this strict gender bias. My dad was like, if you’re going to sing, you need to sing like a man. So, I trained my voice to sound like a guy. Fortunately, thanks to my intersex condition, I was good at it and still am to this day. But I used to have incredible vocal range in my formative years. I could sing androgynously, like a girl, or like a guy. I could mimic the singing of anybody I wanted to, just like a human jukebox.

Still, everybody thought it was weird that I had such an unusual singing voice. For the longest time, it seemed the only people that were ever attracted to me were gay men. Obviously, I am a HUGE fan of LGBTQIA+ folks, as I most certainly fall into several of those lettered categories myself, especially the L, Q, and I. So, yes, I’m only attracted to females, so while I love the attention of homosexual males, I needed to reject their advances as gracefully as I could. I broke a few hearts along the way and lost great friendships due to this misunderstanding of my often completely hidden femme gender identity.

Yes, folks, for those who thought I was simply a gay man. I only like girls romantically. I love boys, but only as friends. However, of course I will fall for and date trans girls, too; obviously, trans girls are girls, just like me. And girls who are boys, and boys who are girls, because fuck the gender binary!

Anyway, I knew for many years that I needed to be a Diva known as Amelia. But everybody in my life made fun of me, behavior often stemming from good intentions, and I just didn’t have the self-confidence to overcome their steering me towards a dark horrible period where I was masking and dying inside. I wanted to have a whole scene of friends, being the pathological people pleasing ENFJ individual that I am. It didn’t help matters, though, that I’m a high-functioning autistic, either. I’m proud of my status now, but that’s a whole new can of worms to open, deserving its own dedicated essay.

So, entering my teen years, I simply ditched my whole singer-songwriter dream wholesale. Yet I kept writing the song lyrics and just called them poetry. To this day they are preserved in my poetry collection, Take My Hand and Lead Me Through the Fire. So, my songs still exist, just formatted as poetry. I still have the melodies in my head, too, for the day I will convert them back into proper lyrical structures.

Unfortunately, no one gave me much of a chance on the musical front, outside of piano lessons I took when I was younger. But I hated performing at piano recitals, so I quit and turned inward to just composing ditties I kept to myself and writing lyrics that most people scoffed at. So, at school, when I took my CATs (MROW!) – the Career Aptitude Tests – they said I should be a researcher and a writer. Naturally, that’s what I did. This is what I continue to do today. It’s still what I’m best at doing. But deep down, I still wanted to be a singer-songwriter. And I never gave up on my dream.

What I did was, I started falling in love with all these rando divas. Not romantically falling in love, mind you. It’s more wanting to be just like them and gleaning every single little bit of information I can get from them. It might seem like I’m obsessed. But really, being an autistic person, especially one that’s high functioning as me, just wants to know anything I take interest in with completeness. It’s never meant to be creepy or invasive, but it’s never intended as anything but adoration. You want to know them fully as a person, and you want to know how they think.

Knowing someone fully can freak a lot of people out, but it’s only meant out of a platonic love. You want to know how their process works, and you want to know how everything they do works. How did they come up with their songs? Who do they work with when they write their songs? Why do they choose the chord progressions they do? Why do they do this? Why do they do that?

Sadly, my own musical aptitude went almost completely wasted, because I am a queer trans girl. I was constantly berated and told no one likes a queer and that I needed to be a man. I was told God hates queers, which makes absolutely no sense. While the teachers at my private Christian school were quite compassionate and kind, the administration called me a child of Satan. Thus, I needed to be removed from the school population post haste. Yeah, people wonder why I turned to witchcraft and divination – quite successfully, in fact! Again, a topic for another essay…

Moving on… when no one was around, however, I continued singing and practicing my modulation. Thus, I became a halfway decent singer. Then this website called MySpace came around. It was the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to aspiring singer-songwriters. Naturally, I started singing covers.

I’m trying to remember the first cover I ever put on MySpace. But I do remember one of my best ones being of a song called “How to Save a Life” by The Fray. To this day, it continues to be one of my favorite songs, because I’ve always felt that at the end of the day, music is what saves people’s lives. That is certainly the case with me.

So, I had this amazing aptitude for singing and modulating and vibrations and harmonies and melodies. And I was a decent piano player in my youth. But I gave up on lessons because honestly, I figured I wouldn’t make it while being forced to play the role of a boy? I didn’t yet have the example of Lady Gaga to follow just yet. Although there was Tori Amos; I don’t have a good excuse! Anyway, speaking of Gaga…

NEW YORK CITY!

Now, let’s flip over to this place called New York City. You know, it’s this little Hamlet that’s by Philadelphia. There’s like 25 bazillion people there, though, packed in like stinky, oversalted sardines. And they call it the Big Apple, which I always imagine taking a big bite from, because that’s just hysterical. I always wonder, why don’t we have the Big Orange? Anyway, I’m digressing.

In this bustling metropolis, there’s this wonderful human being named Emily Slatin, who went through fucking hell in her teens and needed to find a career. She decided to go into fire rescue and EMS. On September 11, 2001, Emily got called to come down to New York City immediately. But for whatever reason, the truck wouldn’t start. Because it wouldn’t start, Emily ended up not going to Ground Zero until months later.

Not going probably saved her life and gave her another 18 years of career. She spent her career saving thousands of lives. Yet, all she got for it was shit on at every fucking turn. During most of that career, she was run out on town on a regular basis for the horrible crime of being the best at her job at any given time. So, she wasn’t in one place long enough to get a pension or anything like that.

Yet, even with all the adversity, she still became Lieutenant Specialist before she turned 40. Thing is, while Emily is obviously fantastic at fire rescue, because of her aptitude at engineering, plumbing, electrical, things like that, she got to take full advantage of her talents for the good of society. But she got paid like shit. Therefore, the only way she could make it was to work 80 or 90 hours a week. Meanwhile, during this exact time, I’m in high school. I was a freshman in high school when 9-11 happened. And I will never forget it.

BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS, USA

I was in a film production class. During the next class period, they sent us all home; they even recalled the buses to evacuate us. I got home and saw the news. I’m like, oh, great. There goes the whole planet, right? World War III is about to happen. Well, WW III didn’t happen, but it might as well have happened. What happened next? Over the next few months, I got to watch a whole bunch of people I went to school with go overseas and die in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, from that day forward, I always said, I will always respect military and public safety with all my fucking heart. But the government can fuck off.

Anyway, so Emily could have easily died in the 9-11 cleanup. I’m so glad she didn’t, obviously. She went on to have a 20-year career, which is great.

Meanwhile, while Emily was literally saving lives in New York City, Queens, and the rest of Long Island, this little motherfucker was stuck in high school, being treated like fucking shit. I wrote some stuff in my notebook about how much I love public safety and praising the people sacrificing their lives for American ideals. But the government needs to pay for all the lives being lost. I’m like, the mythical Blue Phoenix needs to come and burn down the whole goddamn government.

Someone in my class saw this somehow, reported me, and I almost got expelled for planning to blow up the school, which is absurd because that was mentioned nowhere in there. Why would I wish harm on the school? That makes no sense! Still, I wish that had happened, because then I would have gone to the vo-tech and learned some useful skills. Anyway, my parents kept me in school by threatening to sue the whole school district, unfortunately. The good news is the superintendent took my side and a fucking asshole principal got fired over it, so that’s cool. I became a hero at that school for that principal being fired, and the assistant principal moved up and was awesome. Anyway, because my parents made the great point that you’re only going after my kid because HE (sad face) is queer.

Whatever! My bestest friend Steve and I were really into this band called Linkin Park. You know, they’re pretty good. Like, I was never into rap, but because of Mike Shinoda, I learned how to rap, which is awesome.

Okay, let’s go back to the waste of aptitude. So, I was writing these fucking brilliant papers, and my teachers were like, who the hell is your kid? Where’d your kid get this from? Because I wasn’t a songwriter anymore, at least not officially, I decided to try to be the next E.B. White and become the next great American essayist and novelist.

Thing is, at the time, they were like, you need to write a five-paragraph essay. I’m like, uh, no, sir! Fuck your five paragraph essay; go to hell, fuck off! So, I’d literally get zeros on assignments for not following the directions. There were these worksheets they give you, which have these little boxes and you have to write a whole essay in them. I’d be like, fuck you, and I’d literally purposely write around the sides of the fucking box.

But then, junior year, I had this amazing English teacher named Mr. Gans. (Yes, that’s his real name.) He literally said, now that you’ve passed the MCAS, just forget the five paragraph essay. Now what you’re going to do at home every night is write a journal entry. They can just be a paragraph each day. At the end of the week, you’re going to hand in five essays. Those journal entries became the beginning of many of the essays that now exist in my archive to this day. Mr. Gans was the greatest fucking thing that ever happened to me in English, and that’s why I wanted to be an English teacher.

What’s interesting is the memory that resonates with me the most from that time – I wrote about it before in Chronicles of Absurdia – basically this girl came to class one day, and she realized she left her folder at home with her journal entries, Mr. Gans was like, I’m sorry, but I have to give you a zero for this week’s assignments. She flipped her shit on Mr. Gans, took off, and just started blowing up. Everybody was so pissed!

When we left class, everybody’s like, Mr. Gans is such an asshole. I said to my friend Dave, “No, he’s not an asshole, because guess what, at the end of the day, if you show up at work, and you leave your shit at home when the assignment is due, you’re gonna get your ass fired! You’re not gonna get a zero. You’re gonna go work as a fucking fry cook for fucking Burger King, alright?”

So yes, Mr. G is trying to teach an invaluable lesson, so that you don’t fuck up in the future. Then the next year, my senior year, I had one of my favorite teachers of all time, Mr. Tocci, who was teaching psychology in literature. It’s in this class which I read One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd (which I refer to all the time in my writing), along with a whole bunch of other books, including the Shakespeare play Othello. But my favorite book from that whole class was this book called Heart of Darkness by Joseph Campbell. I’m not gonna go too much into it, because I’ve written about it before, so I’m not gonna go too far into that

Anyway, those two guys, Mr. Ganz and Mr. Tocci, made me as a writer. So, Mr. Gans taught me how to write a journal, and Mr. Tocci taught me how to do character studies. To this day, I continue to do character studies because of that second class. I will continue to write like that until the end of frickin’ time. Finally, I was putting my aptitudes to the test. The problem was, I wasn’t using my vocal abilities and my musical abilities. At least my bestie Steve and I liked the same music, we were able to just scream and belt and rap and shit. Yeah, I was able to at least use my skills in a fun way. But all that while, Emily was using her skills to literally save people’s lives. Honestly, that’s all I ever wanted to do, to become a star only so I could save people’s lives with my words.

NEW LONDON, NEW HAMPSHIRE

Fast forward, past high school graduation, and I go to New Hampshire. It was the worst experience of my life to that point. People were awful to me. But the Writing 102 teacher was nice. I don’t remember her name, but she was cool. I passed that course with flying colors, because you know, obviously, I’m a writer, that’s what I do. My greatest skill is writing and always will be. And I spent two of the worst years of my life at that college. Half the professors were amazing, the other half of the professors can all go to hell.

I did have an awesome English professor named Tom Healy, who was the one who taught me about how the Epic of Gilgamesh literally exposes the Bible as a complete fictional fabrication that stole from superior ancient literature. That Epic is the greatest thing that ever happened in my life. So, Tom Healy was the one who introduced me to the field of forensic reading. Of course, I didn’t end up going to school for that, because I would need to have a degree in it.

Oh, by the way, guess in what field you use forensic reading? Public safety! Why did I want to be in public safety? Because it’s is fucking awesome! Problem is, and I’ve mentioned this previously, the only reason I did forensic reading is forensic reading is not just used in law enforcement. It’s used in the judicial system, and fuck the injustice system! But 98 percent of public safety people, at least the ones who are properly trained, are fucking heroes!

BROCKTON, AGAIN… ☹

Anyway, let’s move on. After two years of that hell, I decided to transfer to a State College in Massachusetts. Then I suffered two more horrible years. But during the summer of 2007, I was watching CMT. I And there was a video of this gorgeous curly-haired blonde girl with the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen in my life. She sang this beautiful song about how this guy she adored. They were friends, yes. But he went out with another girl. Now, that’s stupid, because of how hot this girl was. Yeah, she was 17 at the time, but I wasn’t interested in her in that way anyway.

This lovely lady was born in 1989, only two and a half years younger than me. That made her my immediate contemporary, so I was impressed how great a singer and songwriter she was. I’m like, this girl is going to end up being the greatest star of all time. That’s because it seems people don’t recognize her, just like they don’t recognize me. This girl is amazing. I want to be just like her!

Her name? Taylor Swift. The song was “Teardrops on My Guitar.”

Because of this song, I said fuck it, I’m doing this shit. I started recording demos left and right. But I never sent any of them anywhere because I’m like, I suck. I had no confidence. But that’s only because everybody told me they sucked, because I sounded like a girl, or worse, a gay guy. I simply ended up deleting them. Stupidest shit I ever did.

I will say though, right before I left New Hampshire, I did have one final positive experience. I was in my dorm room singing “Beautiful Day” by U2. My next-door neighbor in the dorm knocked on the door, he said, “Who was that singing just now?” I’m like, why is that? He’s like, “Because that was one of the greatest voices ever. That girl sounded amazing! Who’s your girlfriend?” I’m like, no, that was me. He’s like, oh, and kind of slinked away, like he was secondhand embarrassed just like the ghosts on the terrace. Thanks, Taylor, for ruining my brain! (LOML reference). Anyway, that guy never talked to me again.

But yes, that is how I fell in love with Taylor Swift. Tay is the reason I decided to pursue music more seriously. Initially, I was going to study music theory and education at another local college. But at that point, I’d already lost so many credits in the transfer from New Hampshire that I decided to stick to something strictly academic. I stuck with English instead of History.

Sadly, the English department in Massachusetts were the most elitist motherfuckers of all time. I just left and failed those classes out of sheer not attending them. My fourth year I made a couple of good friends, but then they ditched me for some reason. I don’t know what I did wrong. They took me to the LGBTQ center and I just wasn’t ready to admit I was trans yet. (Fun times!) But at least in the middle of me writing a bunch of suicidal shit, this little country album called Fearless dropped. “You Belong With Me” became my favorite song ever. That album did OK. Yeah, it was that Taylor girl again…

While I was going gaga over Miss Swift, I endured the whole travesty of a fourth year of uni. After a run-in with the last professor I dealt with in my entire life, I quit university life forever. I went full-time into the building materials industry where I was already working part-time anyway.

SCHOHARIE COUNTY, NEW YORK & STILL BROKE TOWN…

So, back to that Emily Slatin individual. This is now 2009. Emily is in Schoharie, which is where she was for most of her career. She was with this individual who was abusing her left and right, spending all her money faster than it could come in. Meanwhile, I was doing marketing stuff in building materials. At the beginning, I was doing mostly and managing databases. But I started doing Constant Contact newsletters. I started doing social media. and WordPress, the latter which I use exclusively to this day. (I dabbled in Weebly for a bit before I learned my lesson there.) I learned my most valuable real-life skills from working.

I wasn’t getting paid great money, but I was making significantly above minimum wage. Also, because the building materials industry was considered necessary during the crash of 2010 (whenever the big financial meltdown was), I kept my job. After all, my mom and I were the entire marketing department for this $200 million company. All my friends were out of work, while I still had a job making 25 percent above Massachusetts minimum wage. And I didn’t even have a degree!

It also helped that in 2010, Taylor dropped her most underrated album ever, Speak Now, which had so many bangers it’s ridiculous. My favorite from that record is “Long Live!” Taylor wrote and arranged EVERY SINGLE SONG on that record! What a LEGEND!

I worked at this independent dealer for four years. But once I could tell that I was never moving up in that company, I kept looking for other opportunities. Unfortunately, by that time in the marketing field, not only did you need a bachelor’s degree for a full-time job, but you also needed a master’s degree for anything that paid more than what I was making at the time.

After three years of the 40-hour week grind, I had a complete nervous meltdown. I ended up having to go off my anti-anxiety meds because they were making me manic. I only recovered quickly thanks to being inspired by one Stefani Joanne Germanotta. LADY GAGA! And KP Kitty (Katy Perry) helped out, too!

Because my meltdown was entirely due to medication, my job let me come back. I was there for about one or two more years. Then one day, my boss blew up at me one day and I said, I’m done and just walked out. Then I wrote a note to my office coworkers, saying that I love you guys, but I need to move on because I’m underpaid and underappreciated, but I wish you all the best!

Well, a week later, I got a registered letter with a restraining order to stay like a hundred feet away from all the properties of that company. I’m like, what the hell did I say? I wasn’t threatening anybody. But then I started posting on my personal WordPress with a whole bunch of suicidal poems, because obviously I wanted to die after that. They started harassing my mom, and she realized that basically EVERYBODY outside of sales fricking hated me! Besides the salesmen making bank with my efforts, there was only one person in that entire company, an accountant, who I was good friends with. So, I was forced to move on with my life. Unfortunately, I kept trying to get another digital marketing job, which never materialized, forcing me to take piecemeal work from former associates just to get by.

By then, this was 2012 and the greatest album I’d ever heard in my entire life came out. It had this song called Holy Ground. It has a song called “All Too Well.” It has a song called “Red.” It has a song called “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” It has a song called “Trouble.” It has a song called “treacherous.” This album was FIRE. Like, you would take the CD, and you dropped it on the floor because it was burning your hands, and it would light your entire house on fire! That, of course, is Red by Taylor Swift.

Swinging back around to the topic of aptitudes, clearly Taylor Swift was able to use her aptitudes for songwriting. She never went to college, and she just produced one of the greatest albums of all time. Sure, it didn’t sound country. It was like a country pop fusion, but it was so good. I’m like, holy shit, Taylor Swift’s going to the next level. So, I’m watching the Grammys like Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. We get to the biggest award ever, Album of the Year. And it goes to… Random Access Memories, Daft Punk? That’s not a bad album, by the way, but it’s NOT RED! I literally wanted to die. As it turns out, Taylor Swift took it pretty hard too, as she should.

The whole world cried when Taylor cut her beautiful curly hair up to her shoulders. (Actually, it looked damn good, IMHO.) But as everyone thought she lost her goddamn mind, she then created the best album of all time again, 1989. And I’m like, God, Taylor, stop it! By this time, it’s 2014 and I have been struggling to get freelance work. In fact, the only freelance work I had was two people that I knew through my job. And it was enough to pay my bills. In fact, over the course of a month, it was a little bit more than I made at my previous job.

Also, I was only doing 20 hours a week of work. So, I had a lot of time to listen to Taylor Swift, Linkin Park, My Chemical Romance, Breaking Benjamin, Green Day, The Killers, and so many more amazing bands. Then I started getting sick and kept coughing. I went to my doctor, and he says I’ve developed bad asthma. I’m like, okay, that makes sense. I have bad allergies. Well, it turns out I had a basketball sized tumor in my chest. Nothing minor. I only almost died.

Well, here I am dying, and I met this girl online on a writing website where I was making significant money. We really hit it off on Facebook Messenger and decided to meet in person around Christmas time. Unfortunately, I was in the hospital getting chemotherapy the week before the holidays, and she showed up a couple of days before I went home for Xmas. Soon as I set eyes on her IRL, I fell madly in love with her. I thought, this is the forever woman for me. I’m going to have kids with her and make everything happen.

DENVER, COLORADO

Six months later, I’m cancer free. I decide to go back to Colorado with this amazing woman who I adored. Fast forward a couple years later and amidst various tragedies and difficulties, a certain album dropped. I heard this great song come on the radio. I’m thinking, this is some good R&B music. Wait, hold on. “Are you ready for it?” This is Taylor Swift! What is happening? Tay’s record, Reputation, just dropped. It’s amazing, and any chance I get, I destroy my hearing blasting that record, especially “Getaway Car!”

Fast forward to 2019. By this time, Emily had left the fire department in a rather unfortunate way that I’m not going to get into. It wasn’t her fault; they basically forced her out. So, she’s sitting at home, taking pictures while her girlfriend beats her up. Things are going badly in Colorado with me, too. One day after a heated argument, I got in my van and just took off. I drove right up to Green Mountain in Evergreen, Colorado, and I was going to drive off the edge. I’m blasting the radio, and a song comes on I’ve never heard before in my life. The singer said, “Combat, ready for combat.” OMG, that’s Taylor! It was a song called “The Archer.” OMG, Taylor wrote a song to save me at this exact moment!

After having a good long cry, I went home, and not long later, we moved to a bigger place. A week later, I gave my ex an ultimatum and it was decided it was best if we just permanently parted ways.

BROCKTON YET AGAIN! OMFG!

I moved back in with my parents while I figured out what to do next. On May 8th, 2020, my 33rd birthday (which is also my ex’s birthday) I’m creating my “goodbye” playlist. I have a razor blade in my hands. I know this is dark, but don’t worry! Obviously, I’m still here. I’m putting together this list and I’m looking for a specific version of Katy Perry’s “ET,” but I couldn’t find it. Then I noticed a thumbnail with this cute redhead girl, and I’m thinking, “Who are these kids, First to Eleven?”

I click on it. Immediately, I’m blown away. Holy crap, who are these kids? The guitar player was amazing, the drummer was on point, and the singer was like nothing I’d ever heard in my life. I’m like, they’re teenagers and they sound like adult performers, like what the hell? I learned their names are Audra, Matt, and Sam. I immediately put away the razor blade in the bathroom. I’m thinking, these kids are fascinating!  I can’t die now. I need to hear more of these guys!

Next, YouTube suggests me another cover from First to Eleven of Dua Lipa’s song “New Rules.” I open it up and Audra’s there with Sam and Matt and another guy that I don’t recognize playing bass. Next to Audra was the most goddamn beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I’m like holy shit! And her voice was just like nothing I’d ever heard. I’m like, who the hell is this girl?

I found out that her name is Addie Nicole and she’s from a band called Halocene that had been around for a few years. I’m thinking, why have I never heard of them? Addie’s singing is phenomenal! Thanks, YouTube algorithm for never showing me any of this absolute LEGEND! I immediately look her up and find out that she’s been in that band for 9 years at that point. By 2020, she was married to the guitarist of her band, and they had a small son who was born in 2019. So, I’m like that’s cool; they must be going places.

Over the next few days, I went through as many First to Eleven and Halocene songs as I could. Both bands had a whole bunch of originals. I’m like, why are they not on the radio yet? What is happening? What is life? Why are these amazing talents not making it? At this point, I gave up on my past career, I decided to dedicate my life to promoting the ever-loving piss out of amazing young musical talents and elevating struggling creatives.

Suddenly, it hits me that we’re in the middle of a musical renaissance amidst the COVID Pandemic and few are paying attention. Then Taylor’s like, oh, hey guys, I just released an album called Folklore. I’m thinking, Tay, you just came out with Lover! There’s no way you could have written an album that fast! I listen to it, and apparently, she’s an indie artist now. What is happening?

You know what, I’m gonna go be the person I was always meant to be. I’m gonna go be Amelia. I’m gonna go be a singer. I’m gonna make it. But first I must figure out how to pay off my remaining $25 grand of college debt, along with all my other debts. That way, I can hit the reset button and change my name to Amelia. For my middle and last name, I decided to use my pen name for my middle and last name: Phoenix Desertsong.

Anyway, there are these kids that just have amazing musical aptitude. I want to be just like them. The problem is because of my cancer in 2014 and 2015, dealing with that, and getting long COVID around December of 2019, which almost killed me. I couldn’t sing anymore. My singing voice was gone. So, I had to reinvent myself and try to use all my expertise to basically find somebody who was willing to save me. And everybody was calling me a liar about my very true coming out and my expertise. Like there’s no way you have a dozen years. You look too young! There’s no way you could do all that without a Masters! It was awful and made me sad. But I preserved and started doing Writers Lifts on Twitter. Well, that was a good plan.

Then my hero came out of nowhere in July. On Audra’s birthday (July 11) no less. Emily sent me this link from her website, and I read it. It was called “Belong.” I commented the following:

“You most certainly belong, Emily! 😀

“I would have been, and still would be, honored to call you a friend 🙂”

The next day, she sent me another link. It’s called Little Ghost for the Offering. I thought, That’s from REM’s “Man on the Moon.” Who is this person? I couldn’t believe that somebody like this was in the fire department for 22 years.

She saved my life. I helped her out with social media, and she paid me generously for the privilege. Later in August, we met in person at my house in Brockton. We hit it off right away. Soon enough, when we were in Maine, she said, I’m going to marry you and pay all your debts off, allow you to be the girl you’re supposed to be.

RUTLAND COUNTY, VERMONT!

A year later, we’re living at Emily’s dream home in Vermont. We got married on my parents’ anniversary, actually by complete coincidence. The next year, Taylor drops another album called Midnights, which has my favorite Taylor Swift song of all time called Antihero. Audra from First to Eleven kills it. She and Addie are just ruining every song I ever loved every week, including making me like songs I hated. Of course, though, the music video for Anti-Hero, directed by Tay herself, is FIRE!

A few months later, Tay comes out again, and says, oh by the way I just released another album called Evermore. These songs are so fire that they literally burn COVID virus from your veins. I’m like, what is this? What is life?

Anyway, that’s how Emily and I got together. Suddenly, our individual aptitudes all aligned, complimenting one another, and I could finally use my skills to save people’s lives again. I saved Emily’s life, and she saved mine.

Also, it’s a beautiful thing that Emily helped me put that poetry collection together, because those are the best hundred or so of my songs that I kept. The bad ones I just destroyed. In fact, I had, like 400 poems, and 300 of them were so suicidal and depressing that I had to get rid of them. I had to have Emily read through them, and I know that when she read those poems, the good ones at least, she fell madly in love with me; like she wasn’t already.

Now, I’m watching all these kids getting messed up by left-wing and right-wing nutjobs alike. We elected this Orange person as president again. You want to talk about aptitude being wasted in 1959, 2009, or 2019? It’s going to get wasted all over again. Paul Goodman was right.

Paul Goodman’s book literally needs to be the number one book you read in education. If you’re studying education of any kind, Paul Goodman’s book literally needs to be downloaded into your brain. It opens your perspective how things in education have been messed up for a long time. But honestly, for me the only thing that matters anymore at all in this world is music. Music is the only way to heal this world.

But there is hope! In 2024, Taylor Swift wrote an album called The Tortured Poets Department! Taylor, oh my god. You just wrote the greatest album ever again. It was a great year for music. Sabrina Carpenter drops Short and Sweet. Ariana Grande drops Eternal Sunshine. Chapelle Roan! Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter! Gracie Abrams! Linkin Park’s rebound! 2024 was the best year for music of all time.

I’m gonna tell you right now, if you have kids, you need to teach them music. Music is the only thing that matters. Because at the end of the day, life sucks. Music is amazing. Also, Emily is amazing. She is the center of my fucking universe, and I’m never going to stop orbiting her, both of us riding Saturn’s rings into eternity. That’s all I have for today.

…

Before I go, I have to add that I decided to change my name for a third and final time, in order to reach my final form. When I announced my name change to Artemis Phoenix Desertsong in my favorite online community, the response was quite positive. But on the homefront, it was not. This was rather unexpected. What was more unexpected was the instant demand to know the reasons for it, when I was quite clear that I needed time to process how to explain myself. Because I did not make this decision lightly. I’m not changing anything but my first name and pronouns: I’m adding they/them.

First off, Artemis is my favorite Greek Goddess. It’s not close, the goddess of the hunt. Interestingly enough, and this was the first point I was gonna make, Artemis represents the virtue of chastity. I have NO interest in a sexual relationship with anyone for the time being. Just because I have strong sexual attractions means nothing. It’s what I do with that sexual energy that matters!

Most importantly, the name Amelia forces me into a gender binary. This was never my intention. I chose the name at four years old, but in the current political climate, it’s much easier to choose a name that’s unisex. I love the name anyway. Now I don’t have to pass!

I feel no hate any more for those who have wronged me in the past, because we are in the present now. I am angry, yes, that things have gone downhill in some unprecedented ways since all these strings of epiphanies have been thrust upon me. But so far, everything is playing out as planned through the revealing of numbers.

I am setting out to save marriages, not break them. Reconcile people, spread love, and kill hate with kindness. I’ve been hated so long that it no longer even fazes me. Anyway, that’s it for now. My name is Artemis, and you are awesome, and I love you!

• Artemis Phoenix Desertsong, Major Labels Suck!

P.S. Hey, “Espresso” won FOUR Grammys! Including BEST POP VOCAL ALBUM and BEST POP SOLO PERFORMANCE! GO MAYA! Live Sabrina FTW!

Taylor lost for Tortured Poets Department as Album of the Year, but at least, Queen Bey finally got her due with Cowboy Carter. Probably bought by her hubby Jay-Z, but it’s all good.

Also, the title of this Walkie Talkie was changed to celebrate “The Story of Us” by Gracie Abrams: