I've been taking some time to reflect on the last 7 months, which has been some of the craziest time of my life. It feels hard to believe that 2019 started with death, my first close experience of loss, that I never really had time to mull over that. After that dramatic experience, I was thrown back into school, then to Europe, then back to school, all the while other things kept building on top of that, and everything just became this intense whirlwind of... life.
Despite all of this, there’s something that has been taking the forefront of my thoughts as of lately, and it’s so unlike me. I can’t stop thinking about all the people that I've encountered since January. Some old, some new, all of them giving me unexpected experiences.
My brain has just humming with bits and pieces of every single person that I've spent time with this year, the genuine conversations I've had, the bad encounters that left me feeling hurt, the good ones that made my face hurt from laughing so hard. The people that made my heart swell with love and joy, and the people that left me feeling winded by their selfishness. I value every single experience so much.
I've learned how much I appreciate the real human connection. I love the little things like eye-contact. People can hide behind the ego as much they want, even put up a hard front, but the eyes always tell the truth: the nerves, happiness, or even sadness. Also, physical contact is sometimes much more expressive than words. The simple gesture of holding someone's hand, hugging, or kissing, more often than not, can say so much more than a whole slew of words.
This year has involved a lot of breaking past my fear of human connection, that had built through bad experiences, and it's weird how much it has impacted me. Even the moments where a kiss ended in heartache, I am so happy that I took those leaps of vulnerability. Anyways, I've just realized that I want to spend more of my life around people, even if it's exposing me to the pain of loss. It feels so much better than cowering away and never knowing the answer, youknow?
Hey Interwebs 🕸, I got some exciting news!!
Today, I am officially an Amazon Affiliate — Can you believe it? A big time company actually wanted to work with me and my @grrrungeisdead account and I am so excited to get this kicked off!
My storefront is officially open and so far I’ve made “for your GRUNGE needs” shopping list, that includes some books on grunge that I really enjoy, and of course, records! However, I’ll be excited to add more lists for all my favourite genres of music, books and even little gadgets that I impulsively buy via Amazon!
If you ever want to buy something on Amazon, and are down to help lil ol’ me pay through school and support myself while I continue to write, be sure to hit me up and/or check out my store front so I can provide you discount codes, or just an affiliate code that will help me out!!
So cool that this is all kicking off after celebrating two years of writing! Thank you again for all the support thus far :)
Store: https://www.amazon.com/shop/grrrungeisdead / https://amzn.to/2N87Is4
August 13, 2017, I launched “missmephistopheles.com” a place for me to explore/discuss my love of rock music and poetry. Since then it has been SUCH a wild ride and has exceeded way beyond my craziest dreams. I never started my website to gain readers, let alone building a career.
I want to highlight some of my favourite moments of the past 2 years that have only happened because of my blog:
* my article on groupie culture: the stigma, the history and where I stand within that title (especially since people always confused my nerdy love of the behind the scenes of creating music and the techie side of it all, with wanting to “get” with the band)
* My first interview with the very kind dudes over at @thepalewhite who put up with terribly executed questions, it was such a learning curve for me.
* Going to Seattle to see both the Pearl Jam home shows and documenting it via video format
* Being invited as a writer to my favourite Shakespeare Festival two years in a row!
* Spontaneously going to Sweden to see Ghost and you guys donating your hard-earned money for me to meet the Cardinal/Tobias, so I could tell him about my journey as music writer (still my favourite thing ever tbh)
* Being invited to the Faust Opera as a writer
* Meeting two members of my other favourite band, @AvatarMetal, and learning that they already knew of me and my site
* Lastly meeting really cool music dudes along the way, such as @demobhappy, @somethinglikeseduction, @colonico_official, @matsflorstam , @mikestjean and so many more!
Thank you Team Interwebs🕸, for joining me along this journey!! it genuinely blows my mind that I now have an audience of over 20,000 people (@grrrungeisdead) that listen to my nerdy ramblings about my love of music, while trying to finish my degree and keep my two brain cells together. I honestly never claim to know what I’m doing, I just do it and hope for the best. So let’s keep that going for many more years, shall we?
