Messages From Melanie

My dear ones,
Can you stand it, mammas got to talk ~ but first let's just sit here and we'll be quiet…
... um ... ... ohh ... ... ahh ...
I want to collect myself, blink back some tears.
Sometimes I just wake up with a song, you know or I have to write it down for this little girl who can't read or write yet, but she is a dear. Now quite honestly she may never become literate, but oh, she has a gift. Some people think it's me, but it is really her. And she is beautiful and knows it ~ knows just how to use those button eyes. I just can never say no to her. I ask her sometimes, "Are you sure we dare say it like that?" She doesn't even humor me and I just write it like she tells me.

There hasn't been one solid night's sleep since all this crazy love stuff began and I know some of you have been wondering, what is up with this Melanie person? And I wanted to write and tell you, but every time I start to write a new song gets in the way. It's been a song a day. Of course, some days take a long time. I haven't been keeping track. But any moment now, even if I keep writing songs they're going to make me leave the recording studio and I'm not sure I really want to. It's dimly lit, cozy and quite peaceful in there and in the little "dungeon" I know for certain what my job is. I love that. Out there, where I'll be very soon, it's so uncertain. Part of my job it seems, will be to become twenty-something and although time has always been elusive to me birthdays are a good way to keep track and since I became fifty I've lost track and that isn't such a hardship. So those of you who find it important to get the numbers right, you can just keep that information or talk amongst yourselves which you do, I know you do. So here I am some fifty-something and ready or not, "Hello TV," live and/or phone in radio interviews, catching trains and missing planes and what do you mean they don't allow pets in this hotel? What about Mozart? I don't have the iguana anymore. He bit Beau Jarred's finger, well they don't actually bite. They clamp down with their mouths and what you're to do when this happens, is nothing. You are not, above all else, to move your finger, otherwise the razor sharp ridge they have inside their mouths, will do what razor sharp things do when you slide your finger along them. They'll give you a slice right there, on your rasgueo strumming finger. And even though Beau Jarred knew the facts, when the jaw came down, the pressure kept increasing and even though he kept very, very still. It was one mean iguana. So he finally tried to pry its little mouth open ~ but no. So he tried shaking it off and the pressure increased. Beau Jarred was certain he was going to lose his arpeggiating finger, so we pulled the thing off. The iguana's name was Greensleeves and turned out to be a female. No one wanted to interact with Greensleeves after that, so we found her a new home. She had babies, grew many inches and then left her new home mysteriously.

So you can't bring pets on the road. Children, yes ~ that's why I had them in the first place. I got lonely for my dog, and Mooch, my cat, who were smuggled into many a hotel room. Oddly enough you can bring children into any hotel and believe me, pets do a lot less damage per my experience. So fine, Mr. Hilton, I'll just bring my little children instead. Then they all became older and didn't want to play with Mommy anymore ~ except for Beau Jarred. Although we don't play in the tub these days, we have a great old time making music together. And once in awhile Leilah and Jeordie come along. Now there, look at that. I begin to talk about my children, and don't I sound normal? I'm impressed.

This is my maiden voyage into the world of the WORLD WIDE WEB. I am now my own ambassador and my first official duty is this first official message on my first official web page on my very-own-first-official-dot-com. Even though I've never done anything like this before, don't worry about me. I'll be okay. That's not exactly true, I actually have written an email or two but I've gone back to pen and paper (quill and India ink are sometimes not readily available). Just today I wrote a letter to a dear friend and was thinking if this was an email I would have titled it in the Subject Line, or in a few words summed up what the gist of the letter would be. When I began the letter I didn't have any idea of what I was about to say and when I finished the letter I wouldn't like to have summed up the whole thing with something lame like, "Just want to say hi" or "I never used condoms and I only have three children lucky huh."

Crazy Love is out and in stores everywhere on September 24, 2002. And in my reality, its simply my best. It's an album of new songs with the exception of three, which for all intent and purpose, never really came out and just for future reference if I do re-record songs that I have recorded before, it's not because I've run out of new stuff but because perhaps I need to give them another shot. My songs are my children, too. I hold them up sing and nurture to them ~ make them look good in front of others and when they're on the team (the album) I cheer for each one, but secretly have my favorites or least favorite moments in them. If I'm in a room with people and we're, say listening to my new album, I'll glance around the room to see if they noticed how little "Gladys" or my "Benjamin" has used an especially clever word for his or her age. Or I may silently demand attention on the way my adorable "Sadie" is delivering her rendition of "My Darling Clementine" ~ And then if they don't get it (the listeners) I make my children do it again ~ I hope they don't grow up hating me for this. Sometimes I'm a cruel mother and leave the songs for dead. Maybe someone else will pick them up. It's no matter to me.

It's been a long time since I reached out for you. It never ceases to amaze me, I never think of it without choking up, that you you're still there, and some of you gone have through so much. And sometimes we went through it together ~ and where others might have abandoned one as flighty and sometimes as missing or gone as me, you knew and kept the light on so there would always be a way home. Thank you.

Yours in crazy love,