For the first time in my life, I am weak enough to be strong enough to ask for help.

I need help.

I'm tired of fighting with myself. I'm tired of having to convince myself to get out of bed, to do anything. I'm not asking for help because I'm weak. I know that now. Weak people can't ask for help.

---

Whenever I think about the last time I needed help, that I wanted help, it's a frustrating question to answer. When didn't I need it?

I think about when I failed math in seventh grade, and how in eighth grade Mr. Bell would tell me that the reason I didn't understand the quadratic formula was not because I was confused, but because I was stupid. And night after night, when I would come home and not do my math homework, I would sit in my room and be convinced that my parents would be mad at me for being stupid. I felt like a lie. My parents would tell me that it was okay, but I was sure that once they walked down the hall into their room they would shake their heads and sigh, and wonder what it would be like to have a better daughter.

The school I went to was not for people like me. The school I went to was for children of the well-off, who wanted to be doctors, chemists, mathematicians and physicists. I was the only child of a single mother. Until the age of three, I was convinced I was a giraffe, and after the age of three, I was convinced that art was my only salvation. The school I went to boasted the highest SAT scores in the state for a full decade, and had art classes, but they were down the longest hallway, jutting off the side of the building like castaways, past the gym and the locker rooms.

I know that I'm smart. I had classes where I excelled. But those accomplishments seemed to be inconsequential when they stood next to the hulking mass that I perceived my failures to be. Because I failed math, I was a year behind in science, and a few credits short on my math requirements. When everyone else in my grade started Chemistry - or in some cases, AP Chemistry - I didn't have a science course that year, because I couldn't take one. When I started Chemistry the year after, I was actually really good at it. But once the middle of the semester passed, and we got into equations that didn't make any sense to me, no matter how much I struggled I couldn't bring myself to ask anyone for help. I felt like I knew how people were going to react: They would take one look at me and scoff. "You're a whole year older than these kids in your class, and yet you still can't do better." I felt like no one wanted to help me (regardless of the fact that everyone was more than willing to), and that if I didn't ask, then I wouldn't be subjected to watching them ridicule me. I felt it was safer to know that they were laughing at me behind my back than to turn around and watch.

I felt like I was dropped into a pool teeming with sharks. All of these sharks were good at everything, and they were all going to be somebody once they got to the ocean, but I didn't even have the right equipment to allow me to flounder successfully.

In spite of it, I graduated high school.

When I was picking out colleges, I kept going back to one memory, when I was thirteen. My mom and I were coming home from theater practice, and we were talking about how I should start preparing myself for college. I told her that I wanted to go to art school and be an artist. She told me that, if I wanted to be anyone after college, that art school should be my last option. She told me an art career was suicide.

And I believed her. At that point, I had lost most of what was left of my self-worth. If I couldn't even have dreams that made me someone, then I must not be much of anybody to begin with.

---

I live in New York City. It's beautiful and loud and busy, and I can't go out in it anymore. Not like I used to. It doesn't feel safe. I feel like as soon as I walk out the door, anyone who sees me can see how many things I've messed up, and how much of a failure I am. I feel like strangers know that I failed math in seventh grade, and they know that I'm not in school like I should be, and they know that I'll never amount to anything. I'm scared of going back to school because I'm so preoccupied with the fear that I'm going to smell like a dropout, and everyone will know that I'm worthless.

And I feel bad about feeling like this, because I know it doesn't make sense. I don't leave the house often because I don't want to spend the whole time worrying about the entire world around me. I don't work on many projects like I want to because I'm convinced I'm just going to fuck it all up anyway, so why bother.

And it feels like sharing this with the world might be a failure too, but that's the first thought that's led me in the right direction - because if everyone already knows, then they don't care. And if they do care, it's not because they have come to actualize their suspicions on whether or not I'm a big ol' loser. It's because they care about me.

And for the first time, I'm learning to care about me too.

Which is why I need help.

Art, in the hands of the right people, is dangerous.


I wonder, if you saw me, painting your face on a canvas, if you would know that for a split second I was in love with you? Would you know that, yes, I actually DID have that dream about you where you tried to get me to run away with you, and leave everything, and for a fraction of that moment, I was considering it? Looking into that other familiar face, wondering if she could tell that I had a dream about you, wondering if she knew that the guilt I felt was actually guilt of something that I had imagined?

I wonder, if you remember that time that you stared me down without actually staring at anyone at all, and told me that it was mine, after the fact. I wonder if you realize that the look on your face broke me down into splotches of red and white instead of my usual, pale, blended self. I looked like watercolors, that night - but did you even realize that you had made a work of art?

I wonder, if I hung the picture I painted of you in a gallery, if people would look upon it thoughtfully, wine glass in one hand, hand cupped under chin, nodding sagely, purring to themselves in satisfied understanding that, in the crease under your chin, that pocket where I used purple instead of blue, that's where I hid the love I had for you - that momentary lapse of consciousness. These bristle lines were actually some sort of strained Morse code, that just needed someone with the right eyes to look at it and say "Ah, so she did have the dream, and the circus wasn't a metaphor, and when she woke up, the guilt wasn't residual."


I wonder, would you find that more dangerous than a gun in my hands?


(I probably would, considering I am brave enough to paint, but not enough to shoot.)

I wonder, if you came to watch paint dry with me, if you would catch that spot of red that I put there just for you, and maybe watch it dry, just so I could put my feelings into a word, and my word into a point, and let it evaporate.

(which is why I'd never use oils with you.)

Science says that matter can neither be created or destroyed. It is broken down into other things, re-purposed, transfigured, otherwise dismantled.

I often wonder - are there set limits on everything; happiness, fame, fortune, talent, stability?

Often times, before this instant in my life, I would find myself at a loss for what to do with the rest of my life - there were so many things I was good at, that I could do proficiently, that how could I possibly choose just this one thing to do for the rest of my life?

I wonder if the universe looked down on me, in my gray-and-white flannel pajamas, wasting away another Tuesday afternoon in a Bed-Stuy brownstone, and thought to itself: "There is talent I have given that is not being used. I should give it to someone who needs this."

I woke up this morning, panicked, uncomfortable, thinking far too much about things I really can't do anything about. I fell back asleep, reassuring myself "This will play out as it should."

But what if it is, and I just haven't realized it yet???

I have withered, and I fear it is not because of the deepening gray clouds, or the unwelcoming billows of 30 degree winds, or the lack of sunlight I have shown myself.



I have done it to myself. . . and now I find myself wondering:



What now?

It's been a while, hasn't it, Livejournal?

Tonight, Beth is out of the house, and I have (naturally) kept myself indoors while she's been gone. It was nice. I need 'me' time, and I was surprised to find how much of myself let go of all the tension I had been holding. Not to say I have tension around or because of Beth; but, when you're as self-conscious about the whole art-making process as I am, it gets hard to 'be an artist' when to 'be an artist' you have to be alone.

I wrote a little, I plugged away at some Photoshop stuff ( which I am slowly grasping a little more - Photoshop as a program initially intimidated the hell out of me, but as I use it more, it's becoming more natural. Half the time I wonder why I even use actual media anymore; you can't command-z away a mistake in the real world, I have come to realize), plunked rather half-assedly away at my ukulele, which I fear my muse saw and deducted creative points from me (it's the only explanation I have for not writing anything of substance), and harassed Sputnik for a few hours.

It was well deserved.

--
Since my last post, Puck has recovered 110%, and for everyone who donated, my mom and I can't thank you enough! You guys donated a combined total right around $1000, which is amazing, and covers just about 1/4 of his medical bills.

Yes. My cat is worth in excess of $4000. He's a lucky bastard that I love him that much.

I don't know how many of you follow Beth's Blog (see: a vast majority of you), but she and I rescued a feral litter of six kittens and their mother from the street a couple of months ago. Two of the kittens went to an amazing family in Michigan, the mother and another kitten went to a lesbian couple in Brooklyn, one traveled with Kim Boekbinder (one half of Vermillion Lies), a lovely man named Ryan, and myself to Boston to find a home, and the squirreliest one lives with us. We unfortunately lost one to (still) unknown medical reasons, but while we had him, he had us to love him.

Life here is slow, but enjoyable. Beth and I make regular rounds feeding the nearly two dozen feral and semi-feral cats we come across during our walks of our neighborhood; I paint and write and do arty things like that in between helping Beth with Post War Trade; I'm in constant lookout mode for a job that would let me do arty things all day and let me get paid for it (although I know how realistic that is, especially now when art is a luxury).

I'm thinking about going to school in Brooklyn - Pratt University - for a degree in Illustration. I'm sure that would ease tension on my mother's shoulders, and it would be nice to have some semblance of a routine again. I feel like I'm wasting away here - not because I'm here, but because I'm here and now that I am, my checklist is filled, and I don't know what to do from here.... I didn't write any post-checklist-graduation notes on the back.

Oh well.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.

Alright.

I know I'm asking a lot from people already, but I would drop everything I've worked so very hard to attain if it meant that everything going on right now would work out okay.

I have a cat at home. But he's so much more than a cat to me. He's the other half of me, that, even though I'm 2,000 miles away from him, keeps me running, and keeps me sane. Some people say that animals choose their humans. Before him, I never understood what that meant. The day he entered my life, I knew that was exactly what was meant to happen, at that moment; he was mine, and I was going to be the one to overflow the little cup he had inside of him, overwhelm him with love and positive things.

I got an e-mail from my aunt this afternoon - it was a very vague e-mail, but it talked about perseverance, strength, determination, and willpower. The more and more I read of this e-mail, the more my instincts bore at my heart until I couldn't hold back the tears. I hoped, prayed to ANYTHING that I was being paranoid, but re-reading "when I think of a small eight pound furred creation who fought so courageously, who had the gift of life and refused to relinquish it as he trusted that those who love him would find him before his last breath of life was expelled from his punished body", only further solidified my fears. I called her, and she affirmed what I had been feebly trying to tell myself just wasn't possible, couldn't be true.

My little boy got stuck in a swamp cooler overnight; he found a ventilation duct to our neighbor's cooler, and got in, but couldn't get out. My parents heard him mewing 24 hours after they started looking for him, battered, wet, and barely alive. Apparently, when they rushed him to the vet, most of his body had shut down. They had him in ICU for a day. He's getting better - he's the most determined, strong-willed animal I have ever known - and they're hoping to take him home soon.

If I could, I would throw all the money I have his way. Unfortunately, I don't have much in terms of a 'personal allowance' for this. Which is where you come in. So far, my parents have paid for his treatment, but I know they can't be comfortable with the amount of money he's costing. I'm putting my music on hiatus [which, if you know anything about me, should say a lot about my love for this cat]; I am postponing putting out my EP, just to make sure I can get as much help to my boy as I can.

I'm asking you to donate some, any money you can, to me, so I can send it to my parents, so they can pay for his medical bills. In return, when I *do* start up my EP fund again, and reach my goal, and make physical copies, you will receive a personalized copy, sent to your door.

I can't believe how generous all of you have been already - it's astonishing, and I'm so grateful - but I have, and always will, put Puck on the top of my priorities. He needs my help, and the only way I can really do that from so far away is try and help my parents with his bills.

If you can't donate yourself, maybe you know a fellow cat-lover who might want to help me help my little boy. Any and all donation sizes will get you a personalized copy of the CD. Please, spread this around your cat-loving [and even your normal] friends, family, whatever.

Everything that has been is so appreciated. Everything that will be will be appreciated in an exponential way.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.



We both do.

Hey everyone!

First off, Thank You to everyone who has found me through twitter, or my recent webcast! I'm so grateful to have as many new people finding my music and enjoying it!
Right now, I'm trying to put out my first EP. I'm going in for recording time the 16th [with the incredible Mark Marshall (shameless plug for him: I would not trust ANYONE ELSE to record my music. If you're in the NYC area and need some magic worked on your tunes, you can find him here)], and I'd like to have hard copies available ASAP.

If you donate, make sure to have your address in there... I will send you a personalized, signed copy of my EP as soon as I can get them - I will be stickin' my hands in the presses to get them to you as soon as I can!!

I would be forever in your debt if you could send your friends/family members/rich enemies my way, just to test the waters with them, see if they like my music, and if they do, let them know how they can show their support [and I will, in turn, show my deepest love for them!!]

Again, my gratitude for your SUPPORT is at an unquantifiable level - I'm just glad that if you donate, I can send a physical copy of my love your way :)

xo,
Kayla

I can't believe the last time I updated my journal was April.

Not because of how [relatively] short a time two months has been, but because of how much has gone on in those two short months.


Don't expect this entry to be prolific. Just long. I'm horrible with recounting things unless they've JUST happened - I get fuzzy on stuff quickly, which is why I rarely post, regardless of how epic [or otherwise] my life has been.


So.

I finally got out of Gunnison. I was going absolutely insane, but I did it. I got a car, but through vehicular complications I couldn't get it up to Gunnison, so I stayed a night with this delightful family that lived about an hour outside of Gunnison; it was so coincidental and I was so thankful that the guy that pulled in behind me at the gas station was kind enough to help me out. He and his wife were charming - she made me a necklace of blown glass beads, and I treated them to music into the wee hours of the morning. They drove me to my dorm the next morning, and I sat and packed for two days.

My mom didn't - and still doesn't - want anything to do with me, so I was basically at a loss for what to do about all of my things; I talked to my dad, and he said he would talk to my uncle [who has a truck, which would make moving my things around easier] about the prospect. Not twenty minutes later, my uncle called me, drunk and angry - which I really shouldn't have been all too surprised about - and bitter about how if I was supposedly trying to be independent, why was I asking for help from he and my dad? A similarly constructed conversation restarted every 5 minutes or so for a good 35 minutes, until he broke down and cried and said that he didn't know who I was anymore but he still loved me anyway.

He was right; he doesn't know me anymore. Not for the reasons he thinks he doesn't know me anymore. But, he was still right.

Long story short, I got everything I owned back into the 'burbs, where my uncle [on my mom's side] offered to keep some of my things safe while I was away.

I went to stay with my friend Steven at his house, and was, more or less, taken in by his parents as one of their own. I hadn't felt that kind of familial connection in such a long time. It was strange, having people support me. For months, I had only felt that from people on the other side of the country - their arms outstretched, fingers dangling and rejoicing at the prospects of ME and what I DO - and for a time I didn't know what to do with it.

I don't do well with generosity and gifts.

Four days after returning to the city - the only city I had ever lived in [we basically inhabited apartments or houses in a square-mile area from the time I was born until I went to college], the only city I really KNEW - I jumped on a plane, and flew to a city where, from the instant their thick, ocean air filled my heart, I knew I was home. I hadn't a CLUE where I was, or what I was doing there, but I knew that I had to be here in order to BE. A pink-haired girl picked me up at the airport, took me on my first subway ride, and brought me home.

Really home.

I walked up the stairs to the yellow brownstone abode, watched a secret-handshake exchange between a set of keys and two doors, and walked up sixteen excited, creaking steps to greet someone I met a year ago, who invited me into her house after one encounter so long ago.

The initial encounter - the one a year ago - was, at the time, monumental to me. Being somewhere - living somewhere - where I was expected to live and function in a left-brained house of electricians, bankers, carpenters, and mechanics AS a left-brained someone, my art didn't matter. It was a humorable passtime that, if humored too long, would delude me into thinking that I could do whatever made me happy for the rest of my life.

This woman, this stranger, this person who didn't have to give me the time of day took my art, took me, and appreciated it. Even if the encounter lasted only three minutes, if that.

Nearly a year to the day, she was standing at the top of the stairs of the place I would call home, holding me. Remembering.

Every day I took slowly, gratefully. Warmed myself up to the public transportation system of New York City, quelled my fears of overwhelming cityscapes, bathed in picketed sunlight, played music to strangers, made friends. Life was beautiful.

Surreal, but still beautiful.

In some ways, I moved for a girl. I moved for a girl, because she moved me. The dents in her exterior were charming, albeit intimidating, and I was fascinated; smitten, even. She was me, in many ways. Sharp-witted, a cramped musician drowning in the box that was 'the real world'. We both wanted to make something better of the places we were in, and didn't want to be in. We connected through our struggle to BE music, rather than just to DO music.

'It was so painfully simple to do', said Heart.

'There's something off', noted Head.

But Heart was too busy becoming tucked in the sheets of this girl.

After 26 months of nothing, this girl was everything.



Until a Tarot reading in the park.

This woman looked me straight in the eye and pried me open, like a knife in a clamshell. I choked on truth that worked its way into my throat and tied itself there.

A week later the girl, the woman, and I were comfortably numb in a bedroom that was not ours, and talked openly.

The girl left. The woman stayed.

The woman took the knife to her own truths, and cracked them open. Showed me. Handed them to me in beggar's hands, cupped, vulnerable, palms facing up in hopes of benevolence.

Two days later, we stared at the ceiling together, and she said "So, do you want to wait, or do you want me to kiss you now and get it over with?".

I had never been so scared in my entire life, but we lept.



Two weeks later, we fall asleep and wake up to each other.



Life is so comfortable and easy sometimes, it scares me.

so, things are looking up. i have my third set of ukes, and the designs are done - i should study for a test i have at 8 tomorrow morning, but i'm probably going to just work on the ukes some more.

oh well.

such is my life, right now. i have WAY more fun pouring black paint onto a canvas than I do doing stats. I got giddy doing that today, down at the Arts Center. Childishly giddy. It was so refreshing to know that the child inside of me hasn't totally evaporated for the time being. I know she's still in there, somewhere - I can feel her laughter when I think about all of the INSANE shit I'm going to be undertaking in the very near future. It's just been lately, whenever I have to be an adult and own up my shit, that's kinda forcing her into the sandboxes of my mind to go play on her lonesome.

anyway. main thing. which I would appreciate the shit out of people re-posting, re-blogging, just getting it OUT THERE.

There will be two parts, but spreading both around would be ROCKIN'.


So, I originally started this as a 'donate any amount of money to my paypal and i'll send you 5 songs!' kind of thing. that's still open. Then I opened it up to 'suggested donation of $3 gets you a cover of a song, and anything OVER that amount, I will personally write you a song. It doesn't have to be ABOUT you, or even FOR you. If you pay me, just tell me what to write you, and I am at your artistic mercy!'


My PayPal e-mail is finn.knave@gmail.com.

Now my friends Jessi and Edgar are joining in on me with this idea:

Attention Everyone!

I am planning a trip to NYC with the wonderful and talented group, known as Artistic Simplistic (Jessi Riese & Edgar Gonzalez Jr.
), to spread Ukulele/Guitar/Kazoo love around the Big Apple in June!

But, we need your help!

All we ask for is a little donation. If you help us out, we will serenade you! Suggested donations of up to $6 will get you a recorded cover song of your choice.

If you donate more than $6, we'll actually WRITE a song for you about anything you'd like! Yes, your very own personalized song to share with the masses!

And, you may possibly get something special in the mail.

:)

[link]



P.S. Please Re-blog, Re-post, Re-tweet, Re-Love and we'll love you forevs.



If you could help, or know someone who can, I would be forever indebted. :) Just, in your payment, let me know what you want [i.e., my songs & a cover, my songs & your own song, etc.] :D

THANK YOU!

so.

deep breath. this might take a while.

back in january i decided i was going to take a trip to florida to see amanda performing in ft. lauderdale. long story short, this 5 day road-trip excursion molded into a 1.5 week flight trip to florida. amanda was incredible - i would elaborate, but it's 3 am here and i'm fuzzy about it - i actually ended up seeing her twice, and went to a ben folds concert at the hard rock cafe on thursday. all the days have been blurring together, it's insane.

while i was in florida there was much rejoicing and music and artistry and love.

the only downside was, was my mom didn't know i had come here. and found out. and was not happy.


expectedly.

father was chill about everything, but, basically, my mom was irrational about things and has apparently sold my car, and plans to discontinue my phoneline, and has stopped funding me for school.

so, right now, i only have a place to live until the first week of may. which means, as soon as i am fucking able, i need to start making money.

i still work with postwartrade.com, painting ukuleles. obviously. but i need a permanent address to continue doing this. everything is kosher for this next batch - they should be at my school CPO by the end of the week, and I can start working on them. which means i should have $400 sitting neatly in my bank account within the next month.

I have started this already in several places, but I'm going to do it here, too. I have a donation-based thing set up, wherein you send me any amount of money to my PayPal, and you will receive 5 of my original songs.

I have also decided that I am going to do a part 2 & 3 to this. Part 2 entails having a suggested donation price of $4, and I will learn and cover a song of your choice on the uke. Part 3 states that, for $8 and a little info on you [even if you're a total stranger], i will write a song for you. it doesn't necessarily have to be ABOUT you, or even FOR you - i will do 'gift songs' if you'd like. I will write songs about your grandma, a bowl of cereal, fighting dogs, ANYTHING. i will bend to your whims, if you donate to me.


because right now I am relying on the charity of those close to me, and those that they are close to.

by all means, do not hesitate to send people back here if you think they would be at all interested in this. like i said, this will only work if people are INTERESTED, and get others interested.

also also, i am consolidating my life. ergo, i am selling a shitton of things. most of it's going to consignment shops and the like around the area, but if for some reason you're looking for something specific and you think i might have it, poke me. check with me.

i don't know why i put that on here. my mind is super foggy right now. i think this is what adults refer to as 'headaches'. this is an adult headache. the headaches of our childhood consisted of biological backfirings within our skulls... but adult headaches occur in the mind. behind the eyes. i can feel myself splitting in two directions.

is this what being an adult feels like?


anyway. hopefully i can talk to the gunnison arts center - where i am currently employed as a volunteer - about paying jobs.


life happens all at once, don't you see? life comes up behind you with a bat, and has someone else tap you on the shoulder a blinking before impact.

so life can get a good swing in. and so you don't have time to duck. the bruise is going to last a while, i'm sure. but i'm willing to take the time to heal.


also also ALSO. i have a fun adventure on the way. aka tomorrow, pretty much. more information on that later.


much love for the kindness instilled within the world,

kayla.

Super fucking important, guys...


Alright. So, I've been in Florida for the past five days or so for AFP. Which I'm sure everyone can appreciate.


... Long story short, I'm staying another week-ish. But I'm going to need help to do that.

SO.

If anyone's interested, I would be willing to send you guys the five tracks off of my CD in exchange for a little extra money. I'm not going to set prices, but I WILL say that a) the more the merrier [hahaha] and b) I really can't afford to sell this for anything under, probably, 6 bucks.

PM me if you're interested, or reply to this thread, with your e-mail and we'll get things rolling.


Right now, I can only do this through PayPal, so if you can't/don't have PayPal, I'm sorry for right now!!!

ALSO. If you have friends who you think would be interested, send them my way via an e-mail [finn.knave@gmail.com]. This needs to EXPLODE.


Thanks in advance, guys. LOVE. seriously.