thirteenth new thing...

here i come again, just when you're about to make it work without me. did you miss me? yeah. i suspected that. please forgive me and my lack of blogging. though i haven't been writing, i have still been plodding along through this year long adventure of 52 new things. but it just doesn't seem to be as much fun without sharing it with you all. hopefully you will come back and continue the adventure with me. so hang on, 'cause here you come again, and here i go.

so for the thirteenth new thing of the 52 new things, i decided to do something i probably should have done as chubby twelve year-old but never got around to. i guess it was not meant to be. sorry debbie (oops, i mean deborah...). this week, i wrote and mailed a fan letter.

now, you might be wondering, who in the world would make me so starstruck that i would put pen to paper and gush about my feelings like a hormonal pre-teen. after years of obsessing over this actress or that musician. who would succeed where others had failed? you're messin' up my mind and fillin' up my senses, ms. carly smithson. something about an irish girl with raven hair and blue eyes just sends me scrambling for the expensive italian paper (thanks curt!) and rilke prose. but my love of all things dark haired and blue-eyed is nothing new. so what was so different this time around? a very interesting question. and not one i am sure i know the answer to just yet. but first, the muse.

she's beautiful. sure. but also talented. not to go all paula abdul on everyone, but that voice, that voice. oh my god. when she opened her mouth in hollywood week and sang alone all associations i had in my head attached to that song and an unfortunate boyfriend from middle school melted away. thank you carly smithson. thank you for making it ok for me to love heart again.

but it hadn't been all puppies and rainbows for carly on season 7 of american idol. in the second week of beatles songs (pet peeve #1: don't do a second week of the same theme. no one who had a transcendent moment in the first week of lennon/mccartney did anything remotely close to awesome the second week.) carly wore this unfortunate shirt, which totally distracted everyone from her performance of blackbird.

after this week, america placed her in the bottom three. and she was distraught and looked like she had totally lost her confidence. so i decided to send her a letter of encouragement. none of this "omigod. you are like the prettiest, most awesomest singer ever. lol." no. i quoted rilke and the bible and got all metaphysical. i talked about destiny and life's journey and joy. an excerpt:

whatever is meant to happen is already within you. that which we call destiny enters during times of solitude and quiet when we are the furthest from it and the least able to recognize it. it can be days or months or years before it blooms. but when it happens, when our destiny finally reveals itself, we know it the way a blind man knows the feel of the walls of his home. we recognize the truth of the moment because it was in us all along. Rilke says: "that which we call destiny goes forth from within people, not from without into them." so your "moment" is already inside you; its-- and your-- journey cannot be changed. have faith in what is to come and what has already come that you simply do not have the eyes to see just yet.

now, while i am certain it was my two hours of voting on two phones every week and not my letter writing that helped keep her in the competition a few more weeks-- that is until the ridiculous american public decided that this gem was simply not good enough (or too anti-christian. you decide. stupid reactionary, mouth-breathing hillbillies.)-- i would like to think that my words did not fall on deaf, erm, eyes? i can't wait for the tour (already have seats for two shows! woot!) and look forward to her album. who knows, maybe one of my new things later in the year will be meeting the person i sent my first fan letter to. hey, a girl can dream.