This blog post begins with a song. Meet one of my most recent creations, “Kalamazoo.”
When I was just a kid
I always wanted to be
Just like pretty rockstars
I saw on MTV
I’d tease up all my hair
Wear my mama’s clothes
Grab the nearest hairbrush
And put on a show
Now that I’m older
I’ve got my own band
I sing my own songs
Guitar in hand
I’m still not a rock star
But I gotta admit
That celebrity kind of life
Just isn’t it
My biggest stage is the local bar
I might still drive a beat-up car
But I’m happy where I are
I don’t wanna be a star
But I’ll keep dreaming like I do
I just wanna be famous in Kalamazoo
I wrote this song a few nights back about my thoughts on fame and whether I even want anything resembling it at this point. You see, as a child, I desperately wanted to be a rock star. I was obsessed! I loved watching documentaries about my favorite musicians and how they rose to the top, and I’d always imagine my own story someday. I felt I was destined for the biggest stages on the planet.
Watch out, Coachella.
Obviously, it’s 2025, I’m almost 32, and I still have not “made it” in music in any significant way. My closest brushes with fame were touring with a pop-punk band and getting to the third round in American Idol (which wasn’t televised, so it doesn’t even count). I’m not noteworthy by any stretch of the imagination — I don’t even have my own Wikipedia article (yet). I should be disappointed, and maybe I am a little bit.
But a part of me is almost relieved.
My girl Chappell was incredibly vocal about her struggles with fame after her meteoric rise to pop stardom this past year. Here she is, saying how she really feels:
Those are some harsh words, but there’s a truth to it. Fame can be crushing and scary if you’re not prepared. People can be cruel to celebrities online. Unhinged creeps are a real problem. Eminem’s “Stan” may seem like an exaggeration of obsessive fandom, but truth is scarier than fiction. The Bjork stalker sticks out in my mind as one of the most horrifying incidents in music history, and who can forget what happened to poor Selena Quintanilla?
I still want to make music, and to be honest, I still want to be “famous,” just on a much smaller scale. I want to be locally famous. I want to be a prominent figure in the community and music scene. I don’t want the Grammys or the Versace gowns. I just want a city where everyone knows my name, and that’s what my new song is about.
I posted a snippet of the song to social media, and one listener described it as the feeling of being content no matter where life takes you, and I really like that. “Kalamazoo” is kind of my new philosophy toward success. It’s finding happiness and fulfillment wherever you are.
Even if that’s in a little Midwest college town with a silly name.
So I’ll keep dreaming like I do — I just wanna be famous in Kalamazoo.
I’m starting to really appreciate the concept of community.
You see, I realized something recently — up until last year, my wife Crass and didn’t really have a community of our own. We had a few friends, even a few ride-or-dies, but no village, so to speak. And every night was the same — we’d get home from work, sit on the couch, and veg out until we inevitably got tired enough to sleep. It was a life, but it didn’t feel like living. It felt like we were just wasting time until the sweet release of death.
“I heard you were desperate for friends.”
I think things started to change for us when I met my girlfriend (we’re polyamorous, to clarify). We actually met at a Valentine’s Day event that I was hesitant to even go to because I wouldn’t know anyone there. But I met Olivia, and she had this contagious energy about her. As I found out, she loved going to things like art shows and open mics and festivals, and I found myself following her to those types of events. Suddenly, I was doing more than just working. I was living.
But karaoke was the catalyst that led to the life I know now. When we first went to Fort Wayne for my ill-fated internship, Crass suggested checking out the local gay bar the first week. Which was very uncharacteristic of her, an introvert, but I think she was feeling what I was feeling at the time. Restless.
It was at the gay bar that we met the first karaoke crew. There was Kyli, feisty and charismatic, and Theo, her calmer (albeit very silly) best friend, and their pal Zariel, a big lovable goofball who could sing “Poison” by Bell Biv DeVoe like no one’s business. They were so quick to welcome us into their world. We started going on all kinds of adventures around town, and despite the internship falling through, I don’t regret a thing because of the people I met there.
As I’ve started to say, the real music therapy degree was the friends we made along the way.
I’ll admit it sucked moving away from them (which was the only part that sucked about leaving Indiana, where no one should be). We’d finally found a tribe to call our own, only to lose them almost immediately. But we had to do what we had to do, and that involved moving to Kalamazoo, where the universe had been leading us for years. I started to worry if we’d find our people in this town. It was a college town after all, and we skewed a little older than college age. Were we doomed to be lonely again?
Then Crass threw out the same suggestion that seemed to work in Fort Wayne — let’s check out the local karaoke scene.
That first night, we met so many fantastic people (and one awful person), and we were hooked. From then on, every Friday, we’d gather at Old Dog Tavern downtown and sing our hearts out. There was Steve and Luke and David, the three most wholesome white cis dudes you’ll meet this side of Mister Rogers (but with a lot more marijuana). There was Mary Emma, a beautiful and confident slightly older queer woman who quickly became someone I could look up to. There was Clara, a kind statuesque blonde bartender who could quite possibly out-belt Aretha herself. There was Kim, who admittedly sucked, but they can’t all be winners I guess. The karaoke scene had so many colorful characters, and I loved getting to build relationships with all of them (except Kim, cause fuck Kim).
They say no man is an island, and it takes a village to raise a child. I’m sure those proverbs extend to women and nonbinary folk as well. I don’t often quote from the Bible on here anymore because I know spirituality can be a touchy subject, especially with our current political climate, and I don’t want to alienate any of my readers. Still, there’s a few verses from my favorite emo song — ahem, Biblical book — Ecclesiastes, that describes this phenomenon perfectly.
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
-Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
I’ll leave y’all with this, and I promise it’ll all come together. When I married my ex-husband, it was a shotgun affair because of his faith, so I didn’t know a lot about him, like the fact that dancing is prohibited in his aforementioned faith. No one told me that until the reception. I was pissed. All I wanted since I was a kid was a fun session I could dance at with all my friends and family! I honestly should have been more of a bitch about it than I was.
I shoulda gave Bridezillas a run for their money.
Anyways, that marriage obviously failed, and when I remarried my current spouse, we had a small, intimate (also shotgun) ceremony that lasted all of ten minutes. So I never got my wedding dances.
As I mentioned in a different post, Olivia and I are engaged-ish. We can’t legally marry, but we can have one hell of a commitment ceremony to make up for it. And when one of my new friends found out about the disaster that was my first wedding, he offered to rally the karaoke crew together to raise funds for a ceremony for me and Olivia, one we could really dance at. It was enough to almost make me tear up. Not just the idea of finally getting to dance, but the idea of all my friends coming together to help us.
I have a community now.
Things aren’t great at the moment, and it has been weighing on me quite a bit if I’m honest. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next few years. The Trump administration already removed the T from “LGBTQ,” which does not give me warm fuzzies about the future of us queer folks in this country. Will I be rounded up and imprisoned or worse for loving another woman? I don’t know yet, and it’s scary. But I’m not going into battle alone. I’ve got so many good people in my corner now, and I have no doubt in my mind every single one of them would fight for me if it came down to it.
Community is going to be what saves this country. More than ever, we need each other.
Those were the words that made Liam’s eyes well up as the light of the computer bounced off his horn-rimmed glasses. His pink face turned into a puffy hot blimp as the tears streamed down in twisty little trails, leaving dark splotches on the collar of his shirt.
You see, those were exactly the words Liam needed to hear after the fight that led up to where he was now.
He’d been agonizing over what to tell his mother for months — no, years. He’d always kind of known. He never did fit in with the girls his age, and he felt drawn to this different, alternate version of himself, a version he was actually comfortable with. He’d made a clandestine ritual of throwing out his femme clothes and began seeing a doctor in secret for testosterone.
After several months, though, the changes were impossible to hide. His flute-like voice had started deepening into a warm tenor. His peach fuzz had begun turning into a proper smattering of patchy teen boy facial hair. He’d been concealing his already-small breasts with a binder. He even started smelling like your average 18-year-old guy (well, part of that was admittedly the Axe).
He had to say something. Anything.
“Mom,” he started, appearing in the doorway of the living room where his mother was seated watching Jeopardy. “I need to tell you something. I’m a boy. My name is Liam.”
“Leah—“
“Liam, Mom.”
His mother snatched the remote and made a show of muting the television. “Leah, this isn’t you. You’re my little girl.”
Liam crossed his arms. “Mom, I’ve never felt like a girl. I don’t want to be a girl. That’s not who I am.”
“Who put these ideas in your head?” she hissed indignantly.
“No one, I promise! I’ve always felt like I was different! I just have a word for it now, Mom. I’m trans.”
The remote flew across the room. “No child of mine is going to fall for that transsexual nonsense. Leah, go say your goodbyes to your internet friends, because starting tomorrow, I’m going to be monitoring everything you do online.”
Liam’s bright blue eyes went wide. “You can’t do that! I’m eighteen!”
“And you live under my roof until you graduate, Leah. I’m not entertaining any of this. You are a girl and you always will be. I named you Leah and you will die a Leah.”
Silence.
“I just wanted you to understand me,” Liam muttered, thankful the darkness of the dimmed living room concealed his tears. He turned away from his mother and bolted up the stairs to his room.
“‘Say goodbye to my internet friends,’” Liam repeated under his breath. “Like I have any.”
Desperate for advice, he booted up the search engine on his laptop and frantically searched “FTM forums.” FTM, of course, being the widely used abbreviation for “female-to-male,” or more precisely, trans dudes.
What Liam didn’t know is that “FTM” had another meaning he wasn’t aware of, one he’d not considered when he received a DM from a certain stranger.
WildHeart39: I see you’re looking for some advice?
LonelySloth2007: hi, I’m 18 and really scared
WildHeart39: Yeah, I was there too not too long ago.
LonelySloth2007: really? how did you tell your mom??
WildHeart39: It just got really obvious after a while and I had to say something.
LonelySloth2007: that’s exactly what happened to me
WildHeart39: How did she take it?
LonelySloth2007: not great lol
WildHeart39: That’s a shame. It should be a happy occasion, you know?
LonelySloth2007: exactly, and it’s like she doesn’t even know who I am anymore
WildHeart39: Were you close before?
LonelySloth2007: we were always really close but she can’t accept me like this
WildHeart39: That’s a real shame. You seem like a really sweet person.
LonelySloth2007: I needed to hear that, thank you 🙂
WildHeart39: I won’t lie, I’m a little scared myself. No one gives you a how-to guide!
LonelySloth2007: yeah, like the body changes are exciting but scary
WildHeart39: It’s almost like going through puberty again! Like what the hell are my titties doing?
LonelySloth2007: I heard all the fat gets redistributed though with all the hormones and shit lol
WildHeart39: Don’t get me started on the hormones! I feel like I’m going crazy all the time!
LonelySloth2007: is that normal?
WildHeart39: I think it is, but I think you get used to it eventually.
LonelySloth2007: how long did it take everyone to be accepting?
WildHeart39: I’ll be honest, a lot of people weren’t accepting. I come from a very religious family.
LonelySloth2007: my mom’s not religious, she’s just mean sometimes
WildHeart39: Sadly some people are just that. I always say that if religion never existed, people would find some other excuse to be a dick.
LonelySloth2007: that’s so true tho
WildHeart39: I don’t know a lot about being a parent yet, but I know that you’re supposed to love your child unconditionally, you know? I already love mine.
LonelySloth2007: you seem really kind
WildHeart39: I’m just trying to be a light, you know? The way they always taught us in Sunday school. Be a light unto the world, or whatever. At least I’m living out that part of Jesus’s message. Even if I’m a filthy sinner to most people.
LonelySloth2007: you’re not a filthy sinner!
WildHeart39: And neither are you.
LonelySloth2007: you really mean that?
WildHeart39: I know we’re just internet strangers, but I really appreciated talking to you tonight. I don’t think you’re a bad person or a sinner. I think you have a beautiful heart.
LonelySloth2007: …
WildHeart39: Did I say something wrong?
LonelySloth2007: no, just no one’s ever been this nice to me before
WildHeart39: I’m glad I could be that to you!
LonelySloth2007: I’m really scared things are gonna go wrong
WildHeart39: Listen, there’s a lot of uncertainty in this world, and to be honest, I’m worried for my little one. I hope I can give her the kind of life she deserves. And I hope if she ever comes to me with something that’s bothering her, that I can be there for her.
LonelySloth2007: you sound like a good dad
WildHeart39: *mom, but it looks like I’m going to be doing both duties anyways!
LonelySloth2007: fair enough haha
WildHeart39: Anyways, the cravings are hitting me hard tonight, so I’m gonna go DoorDash myself something. But keep your head up. I think you’re going to be just fine.
At that exact moment, a young woman logged off the first-time mom forum to order herself some cookies. She rested her hands on her swollen belly and smiled.
And somewhere on the other side of the nation, Liam smiled, too.
I was already kicking around the idea when this popped up as the daily prompt.
Come up with a crazy business idea.
Hear me out: Tinder for musicians.
Not for dating them (which, I can confirm, is always a bad idea).
Please note that I don’t know a damn thing about developing apps. But the engine seems to be there, you know? You get a person, you swipe right or left depending on if you like them, and if they like you back, you can talk to them. It’s so simple.
So what if we used that same idea for people trying to start bands?
I’m at a crossroads with all of my projects for one simple reason — they all lack a drummer. I’ve tried out several drummers for Wake Up Jamie and no one seemed to fit. My co-frontwoman’s little brother is filling in for now, but it would have been so much easier to just swipe right on a drummer and bring him into the fold that way, right?
I’ve tried luring them in with cheese and it never works.
But imagine a “dating app” for connecting musicians! You’d sign up for this theoretical app and list all of the instruments you can play, as well as your playing level. You could even post videos of yourself playing! Then, you’d scroll through until you find someone you’d want to collaborate with. Once you’ve found your guy or gal, swipe right, and if they’re also down, they’ll also swipe right, similar to Tinder or Bumble. But once you’ve made a match, you can message and coordinate a time to meet up and jam.
Honestly, a social networking site for musicians would fill the same sort of niche. Imagine a MySpace for musicians (okay, MySpace is mostly for musicians these days, but still). You’d add your friends and their bands and be able to follow what they’re doing. Sure, you can already do this with Instagram, but Meta sucks and Zuck eats kittens. Besides, this app would only be for musicians to join. Perhaps later there could be a “fans” option for joining. Honestly, I just really want to see the music scene become more connected.
So those are my crazy business ideas. I’m open to becoming an entrepreneur, but I’d definitely need someone to help with the technical aspects of things.
Because I have no idea how any of this stuff works.
On a related note, if you’re skilled at techy stuff (unlike me), let’s chat.
Full disclosure: I am not very happy about this turn of events. I don’t think our Orange Overlord is fit to be president, and I don’t feel safe as a queer woman in a country that voted for him. He’s um, not been great for us, generally speaking. So I won’t lie and say I’m not a little scared for my future and my loved ones. Should I be afraid? I don’t know. I’d like to think this administration will be too stupid to do any lasting damage, but considering the everything, we seem like we’re on a collision course straight to Germany circa the 1930s.
So I’ve been mentally preparing for whatever comes next. I don’t want to believe any amount of Americans would be okay with sending entire people groups to interment camps, but it wouldn’t be the first time, and judging by some of the comments I’ve seen on the internet, there definitely exist folks who’d want us imprisoned or worse.
Yikes on motherfucking bikes, dude.
I’ve written before about the alarming lack of empathy, and I think it’s at play here. Americans are so obsessed with themselves, I think we sometimes forget our humanity. We don’t think about how words affect people, or how our votes are going to affect people — let’s be real, we don’t think about other people at all. We don’t give a fuck about homeless vets or folks with cancer who need a goddamn GoFundMe to afford treatment to live. We happily threw the trans community and immigrants under the bus in the name of cheaper eggs, and that’s fucking heartbreaking.
I don’t think Trump is the problem, but I think he’s a symptom of a much bigger problem. We’ve proven to the nation that kindness doesn’t get you ahead — being manipulative and cunning does. How else would you explain the TikTok fiasco? He set a fire, then acted like a hero for putting it out. And people were stupid enough to fall for it. Now, he’s set himself up as “the champion of free speech” to the younger generation for defending a platform he wanted gone in the first place.
If shit really does hit the fan and we witness the death of democracy, I honestly don’t know what resistance will look like. I hope we are strong, and I hope we have enough brute force if push comes to shove and the other side chooses violence. But more importantly, I hope we keep our sense of altruism and kindness. I think that will be what get us through these dark years ahead. At the risk of sounding like a total hippie, we need more music, more art, more peace, more love.
Another Woodstock would be cool too (just maybe not the one they had in the 90s).
I’m disappointed in our country, but I’m hopeful things will turn around eventually. I truly do believe most people are good, if a little ignorant at times. I don’t want to believe half the nation knowingly sold us out for eggs. I don’t want to believe half the nation wants me dead for liking girls. I want to believe we’re better than that. But if shit gets dark, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.
This is going to be a controversial post. So hold onto your butts, dear readers.
A few nights ago, Reddit’s r/chapppellroan community was abuzz, and not in a good way. The red-haired pop songstress invited controversy when she asked her fans to create unhinged AI images of her and her cousin.
Also embracing the millennial finger mustache, which I thought we collectively decided to forget about.
The overwhelming response from her fandom was, well, scathing. A lot of fans were disappointed, to say the least.
CHAPPELL NOOOOOO
And they have reason to be. Artificial intelligence is an ethical landmine. I’m not even talking the environmental impact — remember, training a single bot can produce as much CO2 as five cars do in their lifetime. It already has the potential to put visual artists out of work, and honestly, music isn’t far behind. There are already fully AI songscharting. Being wife to a visual artist and a musician myself, you’d think I’d be as strongly against AI technology as Chappell’s fans. And for a long time, you would have been right.
But I’m not anymore. In fact, I think it can be useful — used correctly.
A good musician friend of mine introduced me to a certain software that utilizes AI to create full, complex songs out of, well, whatever you give it. I was hesitant at first, but one night, I was sitting at work bored to death. On a whim, I decided to flesh out some long-abandoned lyrics I’d written and toyed with the software a little. And I was shocked at how well the software could bring my visions to life. It hit me that I could use this technology to break through writer’s block. After all, according to the software’s terms of service, everything you beep-boop is yours to do whatever you want with. I could flesh out entire demos using AI!
And I can repeatedly listen to my own music like never before!
Let me be clear — I don’t support simply releasing what the software spits out. I think it’s disingenuous to put something out into the world and claim it’s yours when all you did was punch a few buttons. But I don’t see an issue with using it to glean ideas and visualize what you actually want to create. It’s the same concept for visual artists. Use AI to generate some poses or brainstorm ideas, but at the end of the day, your art is what you create yourself with your chosen medium.
I know it’s really easy for bad actors to use AI for insidious purposes, and I can’t argue that. Sure, making cute realistic neon owl families with AI is innocent enough, but what about Joe Biden and Donald Trump swordfighting with their penises? We have the technology to make a very convincing image of that…atrocity, and publishing it to social media has the potential to damage real people. For that reason, I think there needs to be significantly more legislation surrounding AI (or people are going to develop some really wild ideas about American politics).
Like people believing this man can actually shred.
Still, I don’t think AI is an entirely bad thing. It’s a tool like anything else, and every time a new creative tool comes out, people will declare it the enemy of true art. Painter J. M. W. Turner once said “This is the end of Art. I am glad I have had my day.” This quote was spoken in 1839 and is referring to the daguerreotype. But we still have painters to this day. And now that the technology exists, you can’t put the genie back in the lamp. Like it or not, AI will be a huge part of our future. As the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights succinctly put it:
AI has the potential to help our communities, but if [people] aren’t equipped to successfully enter the future of work, they will not reap the benefits.
In other words, now that it exists, it’s a necessary evil, and folks will have to learn how to interact with it one way or another, lest risk being left behind.
I’m not a believer in black and white thinking. I think there are way too many gray areas in our everyday life, and I think the use of AI is one such gray area. There are many ways to use it ethically, and there are just as many ways to misuse it for sinister purposes. At the end of the day, I don’t think Chappell should be cancelled for wanting to experiment with it.
Let’s be real though, is Chappell even cancelable?
Use it or don’t, just be excellent to each other. And for the love of God, do not generate that penis-swordfighting image.
Tomorrow is my first day of school. Well, back to school. I say “back to school” as if I haven’t tried and failed to do the school thing again three times since I initially graduated with my music and journalism degrees in 2015.
But I’m nothing if not persistent.
I’m trying to stay optimistic in the face of everything that is happening and will happen — financial hardship, music therapy falling through, the new administration taking over and probably borking the country, and probably a million other things I’m not actively worrying about but are still looming in the horizon. I’ve always been an optimist, maybe to a fault. I want to believe the best in everything and in everyone, but I’m learning that I’m a lot less optimistic when it comes to believing in myself. And why should I be? I’ve let myself down so many times, part of me is wondering how long this endeavor will last before I inevitably fuck it up.
That’s not to say I don’t like Jessa Joyce — I’m quite a huge fan of hers. But I feel like she’s just an image of that perfect, badass version of myself I put out there. I love who she represents to me, an ideal self in a way. Yet underneath Jessa Joyce’s glitter and confidence lives a different me, one that’s not really sure she knows what she’s doing. I wrote a song about it recently, actually:
I used to know exactly what I wanted to be
But now I really don’t know what I want anymore
Who am I supposed to be
When all my flaws catch up to me?
I was the brightest star in the whole damn sky
Right until I flew too high
When I wrote those words, I was reflecting on that version of myself, the one that stands on shaky ground as she realizes she’s at a crossroads. Do I go all-in on pursuing rock stardom and all of its trappings? Do I start a music academy? A recording studio? Both? Do I take up the art of luthiery and build guitars? Do I continue my education and become a music professor? Do I work as a sound guy for a church I’m probably too gay to attend? All of the above? None of the above? What if I can’t choose, or worse, choose the wrong thing, like I did with music therapy? I can’t afford to waste another 12 years studying something that I don’t even follow through with. Starting school again will be a good first step, but I can’t ignore the nagging feeling that I’m going to screw this up again somehow.
In short, I really don’t have it all together.
Earlier today, I was talking to my bandmates about an acquaintance of mine who just seems really excited to know me. Which is flattering, I have to admit, but I wonder how well that person really knows me. Because if he did know me, he would know I’m not anything to look up to. If anything, I’m a dumpster fire masquerading as a sexy rocker chick who knows what she wants and knows exactly how to get it. But at the end of the day, I’m still the same old dumpster fire.
Believe it or not, I’m not writing this from a state of depression. I’m actually having experiencing hypomania, the bipolar state where you feel REALLY GOOD but not so good that you drop $500 you don’t have on a boat (thanks, mania). I’ve been in a surprisingly good mood actually. It’s just I’ve done the “back to school” song and dance enough times to understandably be a bit wary. Is this really the path for me? Can I forge my own way and start a career I can be proud of? Will I be able to make enough money to support my partners and our future family? One thing’s for sure — I’m going to work my ass off to make this thing happen. If I keep grinding, eventually it’ll pay off, right? Right?
I’m writing this from a Starbucks during the period of time between my teaching gig and my trivia hosting job tonight. But this time last year, I was expecting to be a music therapist, working my big girl job and making bank. Obviously that did not happen, and to be honest, a lot of goals I had set for myself last New Years remain unaccomplished. But I’m not sad — the failures from this past year led me to where I am now, and I actually think I like where I am now better than where I would have been had I earned my MT-BC.
Still, there’s something powerful about setting new goals for a new year. I love a good intention-setting ritual. It feels almost witchy in a way, banishing the negative energy of the past year and manifesting a bright future ahead. So let me put on my witch hat and brew up some fresh goals for 2025!
1. Release a Full-Length Album
Would you believe I have an entire album’s worth of material I’m just sitting on? If I’m honest, I probably have several albums’ worth of material I’m just sitting on. And what good is music if no one’s there to hear it? I’d love to get at least one real album out into the world this year. I’d love to actually give it some proper promotion and go all-in on making it in music, now that I’m not bothering with music therapy anymore. I’ll be learning new recording and production techniques when I start classes as well, which will come in handy as I typically record everything myself. Speaking of which…
2. Finish My Coursework With an A or B
Like I mentioned, I’m going back to school for audio engineering. I have some friends in the program, including my dear bandmate, who I’ve observed many times become absolutely panicked over a particular class project. So I’m not going to hold myself to an impossible standard. I typically shoot for straight As, as ever since I was a child (I falsely believed) my parents demanded it from me. (They actually didn’t care that much — I put the expectations on myself because of freaking course I did.) But if I get a B in my classes for this program, I’ll be content.
3. Start a New Band
I love wakeupjamie, but it’s difficult to commute back and forth to practice when practice is literally two hours away. I have Syrin now too, but our frontperson writes all the music. So I want to start a another band that’s based here in Kalamazoo and plays the songs I write. I have a few potential leads as far as players, and I want to start playing shows by the end of next year. I’m still toying with band names, so if you got any good ones, leave ‘em in the comments!
4. Get Back Down to 140
I started drinking heavily in my mid-late 20s, which led to me absolutely ballooning to over 200 pounds. I’m not one to fat shame, especially not myself, but my fat was because of what was turning into a serious health problem, and it was causing even more health problems for me. I couldn’t get up the stairs to my own apartment without getting winded. Now that I’ve stopped drinking, I’m back down to 160, but I want to get back to the weight my old personal trainer said was optimal for my particular body, which is around 140. I’ve already cut back on calories quite a bit (thanks to ADHD meds murdering my appetite), but I want to keep walking regularly and incorporate more physical activity into my routine this year.
5. Start a Side Hustle
I’ve been trying to figure out new creative ways to make a little extra money for a while, but nothing seems to stick for long. So this year, I want to find something I love that I wouldn’t mind monetizing. I need the cash more than ever now that I’m starting classes again and don’t have access to any more student loans. I’m thinking of starting streaming again, but I’ll need to figure out a set schedule for that, because ADHD. I want to experiment with new ways to get my music out there though, and streaming might be a lucrative endeavor if I promote it right.
6. Write a Story (OF ANY LENGTH)
Sometimes I forget that along with music, writing was also one of my first loves. I finally finished and published the first story arc of Venona on here, but nothing really came of it. I do want to keep dabbling in fiction, though, as I truly enjoy making up stories and telling them to anyone who will listen. Maybe I’ll write more Venona, or maybe I’ll finally let it die. All I know is I can’t keep trying to force myself to write lengthy novels when I clearly don’t have the attention span for that, so I’m going to set this goal accordingly. Any length story will do. It just needs to get published, either on here or maybe even by someone else. I’ll have to research how to do all that, but I’d love to see my writing in print again.
…and those are my objectives for this year. I intentionally set reasonable, accomplishable goals for myself, because as every self-help book I’ve ever read emphasizes that your goals need to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound). So, human who is reading this, what are your goals for 2025? Feel free to drop those in the comments along with the best band names you can think of.
I’m cautiously optimistic about 2025, but optimistic nonetheless.
I had a realization a while back — one of the reasons I pursued music therapy was because it looked “good.” It seemed like a noble profession, using music to improve people’s lives in a meaningful, measurable way. I’d tell people I was studying music therapy and it was an instant “Ah yes, I can trust her, as she is clearly a good person.” All my boyfriends’ moms loved me for it, and strangers would tell me what I’m doing is so beautiful, so kind. It may just be playing guitar for some kid in a hospital, but to that kid, you’re a hero! And who doesn’t want to be a hero, you know?
I think I have a hero complex, and I think that’s what’s prevented me from jumping headfirst into performance instead. I always wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people. And if I became a rock star, who would I be helping except my own selfish desires?
The typical perception of pretty much everybody is that performing and the arts are just little “extras.” They’re nothing but fun little distractions, right? No one needs a movie or a comic book or music to live.
QUICK! GET HIM THE LATEST TAYLOR SWIFT ALBUM!
What I’m slowly realizing is that, while we don’t need the arts to live, we absolutely need the arts to really live.
When I moved to Kalamazoo, I searched frantically for work. I would have taken damn near anything, but I wanted to try finding a job involving music. And lo and behold, a trivia company was looking for a music bingo host in my area. And I mean, getting to essentially be part-DJ, part-game show host every night?
What is “the ideal job for Jessa”?
I love what I do. It’s a great gig. But for a while, I was feeling like what I did didn’t really matter in the long run. People come into the bar, play music bingo, and leave, going on to live their own lives. I imagine there are probably nurses and firefighters in the audience, and what I do must seem so inconsequential compared to what they deal with every day. And I think those thoughts were starting to wear on me, because I got complaints from one of the bars I work at that I wasn’t “engaging enough.” At first I was angry, because what do you mean I’m not good enough?! But then I realized maybe I’m not giving it my all, and maybe that was because I felt like my job wasn’t important.
So I determined that this show would be my best show yet. I dressed just short of a full drag queen getup, picked some banger categories, and drank enough caffeine to kill a horse. I promised myself I’d socialize the whole time, even if I wanted to sit down. I even moved the chair so I wouldn’t be tempted to just sit down. I was going to give this show my all.
Then, something amazing happened. Sometimes, when you put good vibes out into the universe, the stars align and give you exactly what you need in that moment. What I needed was a glimmer.
No, not the She-Ra character.
Everyone knows what triggers are, but I recently saw that someone coined a term for the opposite phenomenon — glimmers. These are the tiny moments that make life worth living. I experience a glimmer every time I laugh with my wife, or hug my girlfriend, or hear my parents say they’re proud of me. They’re what being alive is all about. They’re little moments of pure joy, which was exactly what I needed.
No, not her either.
I walked into the bar to an array of balloons. It was an older couple’s 55th anniversary, and I was going to be hosting music bingo smack dab in the middle of it. Thankfully, the couple was cool about me coming to blast disco at them and even joined in the game, along with many of the other folks in attendance. The older woman who was celebrating her anniversary came up to me and told me that her and her husband’s song was “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain. And anyone who knows me knows I never miss an opportunity to play Shania Twain.
Tangentially related fact: I was so obsessed with her as a small child, I’d draw pictures of her and not my mom. (Yes, my mom was a little jealous.)
When intermission came, the bar dimmed the lights, leaving only the hanging Christmas lights to illuminate the room. I cued up the song and introduced the couple to the entire bar. Then, everyone gathered around the couple with their phone flashlights. Seeing all of their friends and family surround them in a sea of twinkling lights actually made me tear up a little. The family would remember this moment for the rest of their lives.
A moment I helped make happen.
It’s easy to dismiss entertainment as an opium of the masses, even more so than religion, as Marx famously said. But I’d argue that entertainment is as important as the STEM fields, just in a completely different way. Sure, a particular song may be insignificant to you, but that song could have been the one thing that stopped someone from taking their own life. There’s a reason for this album’s existence. I know people who stay alive because they want to see what happens next in their favorite video game franchise. The arts and media provide those small glimmers that keep people going.
So maybe I will go all-in on being an entertainer and creator. Because someone somewhere needs my music. Someone somewhere needs a fun game night at the local bar. Someone somewhere is reading my writings about mental health and my own personal journey and feels less alone because of it. Artists, writers, musicians, video game developers, game show hosts — they’re all heroes in a unique but important way. Entertainment and art communicate ideas, and more than that, hope.
As of writing, we are halfway through December, which means the new year is lurking. As everyone prepares to sing “Auld Lang Syne” and kiss a stranger, now is the optimal time to look back at the previous year and reflect on how things went.
And damn, did they go awry this year.
My year in a photograph.
2024 was a trash-fire year for me, rivalling 2015 for the title of Worst Year of Jessa’s Life. 2015, of course, was the year I simultaneously got my heart broken by my crush of four years, graduated and realized I wasn’t going to find a job in my field and would probably never find success, and also dealt with some familial and health issues. But this year was honestly worse in every way. Like, this has literally been the worst one.
To think of how optimistic I was at the start of the year too. I was getting ready to begin the internship I’d been working toward for over a decade. I had just moved to Fort Wayne and was expecting an adventure. And what I got was a soul-crushing internship experience that I had to leave for the sake of my own mental health. I was going to drive my car into the fucking river if I cried one more time at that godforsaken clinic. I couldn’t handle the pressure. I failed.
Tail between our legs, we retreated to Niles, MI, where I could at least be close to my girlfriend. But we had trouble finding paid work in the area, our savings were dwindling, and we couldn’t afford to keep living out of AirBNBs. So my wife decided we should check out Kalamazoo instead, as we’d previously talked about it and decided it was a good central location between our family in Detroit, our new friends in Fort Wayne, and my girlfriend in South Bend.
Moving to Kalamazoo was the best decision we could have made, as the only good things to happen this year happened because of the move. My wife and I got involved in the local karaoke scene and made a lot of friends, which is new for us. We’d been shut-ins for most of our marriage. I decided that since music therapy was off the table, I’d pursue a different dream, one of becoming a producer and audio engineer. So I applied to the local university and actually made it into the competitive multimedia arts technology program. And I got back into doing what I love for a living — teaching music.
I realize I started this blog post very doom-and-gloom, but the more I write, the more I realize this year wasn’t so heck. Sure, we’re still broke and I still wasted so much time and money on a career that will never happen. Then there’s all the political unrest and the fact that the jabronis who won the election want to make my marriage illegal. But if there’s anything I’ve learned this year about myself, it’s that I’m resilient as fuck. When shit hits the fan, I’ll figure something else out. That’s what I do best.
Looking back at 2024, I don’t know how I could have survived without the people I’ve met this year in Fort Wayne and Kalamazoo. I never realized how empty my life was without my own little “tribe” of sorts. We’re social creatures by nature and we need each other. Maybe I’ll never be a music therapist. Maybe I’ll be broke for the rest of my life. But when I’m surrounded by the amazing folks I’ve met this year, well, you can’t buy that feeling. My Little Pony had it right — friendship is magic.
The real music therapy degree was the friends we made along the way.
I don’t know what awaits me in 2025, but I’m confident I can face anything now. This year absolutely took the wind out of my sails, but I’m going to keep persisting. I’m ready.
JESSA JOYCE 