A list of things I’ve asked for on Twitter:
Advice. I was on an Australian tour, in a small coastal town, and found a growing red spot on my thigh that I assumed was an infected bug bite. I snapped and posted a picture and several people, including one EMT from Canada, warned me that it looked more like a staph infection than a bug bite. I got myself to a doctor. They were right. Staph infections, if untreated, can lead to amputated limbs and death.
Song lyrics. I’ll ask things like, What’s a three-syllable word for something naughty that you’re not allowed to take to work? Stress on the first syllable. Please be as creative and surreal as possible. (I needed only two things to fit in the lyrics, but so many answers were so perfect that I changed the nature of that entire song, “The Ukulele Anthem,” to accommodate twenty-three of them.)
Pianos everywhere. I’ve practiced and written songs in people’s houses and apartments, and borrowed at least fifty digital keyboards for ninja gigs and practice. (Also crowdsourced: guitars, basses, violins, wah pedals.)
Car rides to the airport. (I call it “twitch-hiking.”)
A neti pot. I asked where I could buy one in Melbourne, and a nurse who worked at a local hospital grabbed one from the supply closet and drove it over to the café that I was twittering from. I bought her a smoothie and we had a wonderful chat about nursing, colds, and death.
I once crowdsourced a wedding gown for an impromptu music video I shot while on tour in Texas. I’d come up with the idea to walk into the ocean dressed as a bride, so I twittered to see if anyone knew a good thrift shop I could hit. Instead, a woman who’d just gotten divorced volunteered to drive three hours to deliver her own wedding gown. I invited her to the shoot itself, and hitched a ride with her to Galveston instead of with my film friends. Along the way we went hunting to find a veil. The only one we managed to find was in a roadside novelty shop that sold bachelorette items. It was covered with little glued-on plastic penises. I peeled them off.7 Driving to the beach, my new friend told me about her divorce (long story, short: he was a dick). She watched the video shoot from the pier above the beach, and I felt her eyes on me as I traipsed her long, flowing gown into the waves, where it got covered with sand and sea scum.
That was pretty fucking liberating, she said when the shoot was over and we were wringing out the dress in the parking lot. Thank you.
No, thank YOU for the dress. It was perfect. I think we should find a plastic bag for it…it’s pretty gross. What are you going to do with it?
I was thinking about that, she said. I think I’m going to dye it blue and cut the train off. Recycle it into something I can dance in.
EXACTLY, I said.
I was still trying to figure out if marrying Neil Gaiman The Writer was a good idea.
I was in love with him, that much was clear to everybody around us, even if it wasn’t always clear to me. I kept coming up with reasons that it just Wasn’t A Good Idea. Our lives were too different. I would slowly drive him crazy. He was too old. The list went on.
Luke was a musician I’d met at the Edinburgh fringe festival two years before. We’d fallen in fast friend love, a fall made only slightly awkward by the fact that the night we met I’d convinced him to make out with me (and, somewhat confusingly, succeeded) not knowing he was inarguably, 100 percent gay. He still claims I am the only woman he’s ever snogged. I’m proud of that.
How long have you and Todd been together? I asked. We were sharing a late breakfast in Sydney, where we both happened to be touring at the time. I was grilling him about his long-term relationship, hoping I could find my own clarity.
About five years, give or take.
And how much older is he?
Ten years, about.
What’s the difference in your incomes? I said. If you don’t mind me asking.
It’s not massive…but it varies. We’ve agreed to split certain things and float each other when we need help. I spent almost half a year out of work last year when Todd took that huge gig in Vegas and I followed him there. It hasn’t been easy, but we’ve found a balance.
It doesn’t worry you, I said, that he might, I don’t know, always be ahead of you? Not older…or richer, per se…but just, like, ahead of you in terms of aging, and life experience? It’s morbid, but don’t you think about the fact that he might DIE on you? And then do you feel like an asshole for thinking it?
Well…you know that Todd is HIV positive, right?
But I hadn’t known. I looked at my tofu scramble, feeling like an idiot.
Jesus. Luke. Nobody ever told me.
No, no, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. I figured someone would have told you. And I’m still negative, in case you were wondering.
I asked nervously, gently, because I wasn’t sure if you were supposed to pry about this stuff:
When did you guys find out?
Oh, he said offhandedly. Todd was HIV positive when I met him.
What?
Todd was HIV positive when I met him, he repeated.
And it wasn’t…a deal-breaker? I felt ashamed even as I said it.
Amanda…it wasn’t a question of deal-breaking. I was in love with him.
And then Anthony got sick.
Really sick. And nobody could figure out what was wrong. He was losing his balance, he was having trouble hearing, he was losing his vision in one eye. The doctors didn’t know what to tell him. His calves hurt. His arms hurt. Anthony looked about twenty years younger than his age, and had always been the picture of health; walking everywhere, kayaking, doing yoga. I called him from the road every day, and every day there was a new mystery ailment, a new pain alien that had landed somewhere in his body to launch a fresh attack.
I felt bad bringing him my own stupid problems, but I knew he loved helping, so I continued to lay my life at his feet. My business was an unwieldy mess as usual, and as my fanbase had grown I’d tried out several hotshot managers who worked in big offices running the careers of the famous, but finally gave up on that idea: I pared things back down to me and a dedicated staff of three people who understood me. My income was neither huge nor predictable, but I was getting along fine and able to pay everyone, mostly because I performed relentlessly: it had become a running joke among my Cloud Club housemates that for six years I’d been announcing my impending break from touring, during which I would finally clean up my apartment. I was off the label but unsure of my next step; I had accumulated a pile of great songs but wasn’t certain how I was going to release them. Neil was waiting for his youngest daughter to graduate from high school in Wisconsin (where he had raised his kids with his first wife), so that we could move nearer to each other…probably in New York. Every time I came home to Boston for a break it seemed I was battling the flu, a post-tour depression, or a bout of existentially harrowing PMS.
But while my problems felt mundane compared to the frightening and undiagnosed pain my friend was in, he listened patiently, laughed with me, and advised wisely, as usual. For a few months, Anthony went to every doctor, every specialist. The eye doctors treated his eyes, the hearing doctors puzzled over his ears. Nobody could figure it out. We were all getting more scared. One day, his eyes and head started to pound so badly that Laura rushed him to the hospital. I raced back from a show in New York.
They took a biopsy from his temple and they told him that he had giant cell arteritis, a whole-body inflammation of the arteries that strikes people at random.
He was pumped with a giant bag of steroids, taking in enough prednisone in one day to supply a bodybuilder for an entire year.
Watching Anthony in the hospital that night was hard. He likes being in control of any given situation and gets anxious when things don’t go according to plan. I’d always viewed him as a worldly, jet-setting adult when I was younger, but as I circled the globe and kept boomeranging back to him, it was becoming more clear to me: he’d built himself a little office in a little town surrounded by things he had known all his life, things he could
trust. He was strong on the outside—he had his black belt in karate—but he was fragile and sensitive to sudden change on the inside. Anthony had been abused physically and emotionally as a kid, and he’d told me the stories, a few here, a few there, and had even started writing some down. They were frightening. But whether he was writing or chatting, I was always impressed and struck by his sense of humor about the abuse and its aftershocks.
It hurt to see him there, hooked up to strange machines, vulnerable in a blue hospital gown as the doctors and nurses came and went, poked and prodded. Laura spent the night, curled up next to him in the adjustable bed. Friends took turns bringing food.
It wasn’t fatal, thank god. His vision and hearing were damaged, but he’d live. I exhaled. I didn’t think I could handle it if something truly bad happened to him.
I used to play a game with myself in high school and college, my own self-taught version of method acting, and it came in handy for a few theater productions.
If I ever needed to cry on command, I had a trick.
I would just think about Anthony dying.
It never failed. I’d burst into tears no matter what.
I don’t really have stalkers.
In order to have a stalker, you need to be a decent stalk-ee, and I’m terrible. I don’t think you can stalk somebody who’s available after every show, and who announces which café she’s writing in and tweets pictures of her coffee, telling you to drop by and say yo. It’s not really interesting to go through someone’s trash when they’ve already twittered pictures of it.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want stalkers.
I’ve had fans follow me, and occasionally bug me. If I feel stalked, I deal with it in the most direct way I can: I go to them. I tell them what I’m up to at the moment, ask what they’re up to, humanize myself, and then ask them respectfully…could they please stop sneaking covert photos from across the café, and just come over and say hi, give me a hug, and then leave me to work?
Anthony called me this morning, Neil said.
I hadn’t talked to Anthony in a few days—I was on the road. In my absence, and because of the sickness scare, he and Neil were becoming closer—texting, connecting.
I knew that Anthony was doling out relationship advice when Neil needed it—the same way he’d been doling it out to me for years. We were both relying on him for under-the-table, nonstop marriage counseling. We started referring to him as “The Godfather.”
He’d even given Neil a phone therapy session on How To Deal With Amanda And PMS, and talked Neil off the ledge a couple of times when our relationship would hit an impasse and we’d march off to our separate corners, unable to cope with each other. My PMS can be brutal: I transform from a pretty reasonable person into a black hole of doubt, despair, and existentially flailing Muppet arms. To be safe, I bought Neil a book about the chemical workings of hormones and the feminine brain, which he studied like a set of stereo instructions, hoping that he might be able to understand the finer settings of this Monthly Irrational Icequeen. Miraculously, it worked. He downloaded an app to his phone that indicated when my period was due to arrive, and around that time he stopped taking things so personally.
How’s he feeling? I asked. I haven’t talked to him since Monday.
Anthony had been recovering, but in and out of doctors’ offices and hospitals for the past month. I tried to call him at least every other day, to get the sick-friend weather report.
He gets more test results back next week, said Neil. He’s annoyed with the steroids they’re making him take, and he’s angry about everything. I can relate. I once had to take the same steroids for a week, and I just remember thinking everybody around me was incredibly stupid and irritating. And we talked about you. He told me a funny story about you and one of your ex-boyfriends.
Oh NO. Which one?
Aaron, said Neil. He told me about the time that you and Aaron were having some kind of problem, and Aaron went to him for advice. Anthony told him, “Whatever you do, just give her some space. Leave her alone. And for god’s sake, don’t throw yourself at her feet or bring her flowers or anything.” And how the next day Aaron showed up at your house with a giant bouquet of flowers.
Ha. Yeah, I said. Aaron wasn’t a very good listener in general.
He also said something very wise. He said: “Once she hits ’em, they stay hit.”
I laughed. Yeah, that’s a thing he’s been saying for years.
He also said: “You’ve got a tiger by the tail, Neil-i-o.”
Ha. That’s such an Anthony thing to say. He actually called you Neil-i-o?
Yes, Neil said somewhat proudly, setting me off into a giggle fit.
Darling, I really like Anthony. I was worried in the beginning that he didn’t like me. I think he wants to be my real friend. Do you think so?
I stopped laughing. Neil was being so serious about it.
Yeah, I think so, honey. I think he does want to be your real friend. I think he loves you.
What? Why? Neil sounded amazed.
Well, first of all, because you love me. But more…because you keep offering to help. You’re buying the ticket. That’s what makes you a real friend, to him. But even more…because you ask him to help with our relationship stuff. He loves to help his friends with their problems—that’s his thing, it’s his gift. And if he wants to help you, and you let him help, it seals the deal.
Really? said Neil. I was worried about being a bother. Then, puzzled, Buying what ticket?
As I was really hitting my couchsurfing and crowdsourcing Twitter stride, I booked a ticket to London on Icelandair at the start of a long tour. The catch was that you had to connect through Reykjavik, where they hoped you might stay a day or two to pump some money into the Icelandic economy.
We landed in the tiny Reykjavik airport and my connecting flight was delayed, so I went, like you do, in search of a power outlet and a sandwich. The sole airport café was out of sandwiches. I sat on the airport floor emailing for about an hour, and when they still hadn’t posted a new departure time, I approached the information counter.
As I stood in line, I looked up and, cartoonlike, one by one every single flight switched its status to CANCELED.
The volcano had just erupted.
We were on the opposite side of the island, so there was no imminent danger, but there was no saying when planes would be flying again. A day? A week? They didn’t know. I was supposed to be in London that night, doing press for the BBC, and then flying to Glasgow the day after to start the tour. I emailed my crew, who were scheduled to meet me in Glasgow. They were all grounded in America. All air traffic to Europe had been canceled. Things did not look good.
Everybody stranded at the Reykjavik airport was given a hotel voucher, and the airline started organizing shuttle buses.
I was stuck in Iceland, a place I’d never been and where I didn’t know a single person. Standing at the baggage carousel, somewhat stunned, I twittered the situation. BAM: someone volunteered their bar for a ninja gig that night, the fans in Iceland made themselves known, and a folk songwriter who’d once opened up for me in New Zealand saw my tweet and introduced me via text to her childhood friend Indiana, who screeched up to the airport terminal wearing a cowboy hat and blasting classic rock from her car stereo.
As everybody else glumly queued for the shuttle bus, I felt like some kind of lottery winner when Indiana jumped out of the car, hugged me, threw my luggage in the back, and whisked me away me into the lunar Nordic landscape.
You’re a friend of Hera’s! she shouted over the Jethro Tull. So I love you! Where do you wanna go?? You’re in Iceland! You have never been?? You make music?? I’ll take you anywhere!!!
Let’s go to those thermal baths! I shouted.
Yes! To the Blue Lagoon!!! she shouted.
Who are you!? I yelled back. And what are you supposed to be doing today instead of babysitting an American stranded by a volcano erupting on your island?!
I
’m a grad student!!! My thesis is late! Fuck my thesis!!!! she replied, and proceeded to host me for the entire day, asking me about the music I made, taking me to the thermal baths, and enlightening me with stories—over a dinner she let me buy her in a local restaurant—about how everybody our age in Iceland was fleeing to mainland Europe due to the current economic climate.
After dinner, Indiana drove me to my ninja gig, which I’d been twittering and texting into existence for four hours straight: I’d twittered back then texted the guy who knew the bar owner who was keen to host the gig, I’d twittered then texted the person who was willing to loan a keyboard, and I’d twittered everybody in the world to please tell Iceland that I was playing a free, all-ages volcano-inspired show that night at Kaffibarinn at nine p.m.
That night was one for the books—or at least for this book. When we pulled up to the bar, the piano and speakers were already set up, the whole room cheered, and the place was so jam-packed that I had to crowdsurf over the crowd from the front door to get to the piano in the corner. I went straight at it, pounding out songs by request and trying every variety of vodka that was being passed from the bar to the piano, and twittered pictures from this glorious accidental moment all night (#StrandedInIceland #SoAwesome). The audience was made up of a few dozen hardcore fans who couldn’t believe I had suddenly materialized in this country I’d never toured in, a few dozen people who’d never heard of me, and a handful of Americans, Europeans, and Australians also stuck in Reykjavik who had twittered their situations and been flagged down by fans who told them about my spontaneous gig.
It all happened on just half a day’s notice, and it had the camaraderie of an international outpost bar, like a fleeting whiff of Rick’s Café in Casablanca. I enjoyed enough Icelandic vodka that evening that I didn’t even bother to make a mailing list. The country is small. If I came back, it seemed a single tweet would probably suffice to gather all of Iceland on a moment’s notice.
The Art of Asking Page 19