Blog Birthday Guest Post: Alyson’s Turn!

I have known Alyson since, what? 2005 at least. We met on LiveJournal and she came all the way from New Hampshire for my baby shower a year later. I’m grateful to have had several chances to spend time with her over the years and we’ve been kicking around the idea of planning a winery trip next year, which would be amazing on so many levels. She has been a constant source of support and encouragement for me, in all aspects, not just writing; and she is also one of the few people I have met in my life who understands what it’s like to listen to music and feel like your entire body and soul is a giant cavity being swished with bourbon, and that going to a show is like our version of fucking Sunday mass.

It’s a huge honor that Alyson took time out to write this for me.

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So, I have been thinking about your greatest hits, and I am finding that the ones sticking in my head the most are the ones in which you write about your Pappap, the ones in which you attend shows and Warped Tour, and the Christina ones because you are so completely real about the giant fuckshow that friendship was, without blaming anyone. You just tell the truth. In that one and in everything you write.

I re-read the Pittsburgh Warped Tour one and was like, wow. This one.

I love your posts about music. Your passion for music runs so deeply, it hurts, and you make us feel your pain, and it’s beautiful.

Also, the Manuel ones make me laugh to the point of tears. Your writing always makes me feel something; it was your writing that made me want to know you, after all.

1. An Old Person’s Perspective of Warped Tour: A Boring Interview with Henry J. Robbins

2. Henry’s Downhill Battle Mountain

3. The Christina Chronicles: The Worst Memorial Day Weekend, Part 1 – The PB&J

(I randomly chose those two on behalf of Alyson as an example of the music and Christina categories.)