Super Pumped

I am making progress! Today, I finally figured out how to get subscriptions working. Yes, that seems like it should have been a simple thing. It probably was when I was 40. Alas. (Why can’t we use emojis in blogs? Come on now. That seems like it should be a thing by now.)

Normally, I don’t think there are going to be many weeks where I can write two blogs, much less three or whatever I end up doing this week. School is coming, folks, and for me, it means having a high schooler.

That’s right. Those of you whose jaws are hitting the floor because you’ve been reading my stuff since my youngest was about two – she’s entering high school in just under a month. Ninth grade. Band. Football games. Friends. Parties. DRIVING. She’s my last one. The final baby to leave the nest. The one kid out of my three who knows pretty much every single word to every single Duran Duran song, she plays clarinet, listens to 80s music (did she have a choice though?), and while she declares she’s nothing like me, I hate to tell her, she is a lot like I was at her age, but a better person overall. It is wild watching her grow up.

So, I’m going to be very busy, very soon. But until then, my days are spent between the community band work I do, caring for my mom and aunt, and the mom/animal caretaker stuff I do around here. The blogging is fun. I’m enjoying it. We’ll see if I’m still enjoying it in six months or a year. I suspect I might. Besides, it has been a long time since I’ve given any member of the band a rough time, and honestly – I might even be a bit off my game as far as that goes. I need practice!

I don’t know how much of the Duran Duran “news” I’m going to cover. When I wrote for the other blog, I tried my best to stay on top of things without feeling like I needed to be the first to publish. This time, I’m just not sure. I think there is a space that exists for me that is somewhere between gushy fan girl and fan where I am free to just be me. Tell it like it like I see it, and try to just be myself. Love it or hate it.

That might mean one day, I’m writing about how much I still hate festivals and the fact that Duran is still doing them hurts my head – regardless of how great it might be for their career or how much other people love them. I don’t care. They should get their own blog and tell me all about it! Then maybe the next I’m gushing over how great Dom looks in pink. (he does, and no, I didn’t choose hot pink as part of the palette for this site because of that – I swear! The palette was already chosen before Hyde Park!!) One day, I might cry and grab tissues as I’m attempting to type out words to describe my timeless love for this band, and the next I might seriously die laughing as I make fun of LeBon and his dance moves. (Listen, I cannot help it if his dancing makes me laugh, and it isn’t like I can tease him about spitting for distance any more…COVID times and all.)

No, it probably isn’t all that different from other things you’ve read from me before. At the same time, maybe they will be. I just don’t know. Maybe I’ll feel super introspective and deep, but also kind of luxuriously superficial at times. I’m moody and grey, mean and restless.

I’m really not mean. I can be sometimes, I certainly have been before…but I don’t try to be that way. Sometimes, in print, people take things completely differently from how I meant the words when they were typed. That’s why blogging can be rough unless you’re just typing articles for a site and don’t have people commenting back. That reminds me, I opened the comments, too.

Why am I willfully taking this on again??? I must truly be off my rocker.

Once again, for those in the back or just came in late: I am not a journalist. I’m not even a writer. I’m a blogger. My opinions will undoubtedly be different from yours, and likely – I mean this – you will find that you don’t even like some of the things I say at times. Let’s agree to disagree when times are tough, and remember to celebrate the good stuff along the way. There are so many things that unite us as Duran Duran fans, and I’m going to do my best to try and focus on those things and not so much on the crappy things in fandom (although rest assured, they’ll come up from time to time).

I didn’t start this site as competition for anything else. And let’s be clear about that: if you are someone looking for a great way to get attention from Duran Duran, their management, other fans, etc – blogging isn’t going to do it. They don’t need bloggers, I guess. 😀 I think writing can be a bit of a gift. Not everyone can do it, and even if they can, I really don’t know that many people who have written or blogged for as long as Amanda and I have done, particularly for one band – especially with that “d” word in there. DAILY. You’d have thought we’d get brownie points somewhere at least for work ethic, but no. Duran fans are tough on their own. Extremely so. I’ve had other fans look right at me without even an ounce of regret in their eyes or tone of voice and say that what I’ve done (with regard to blogging) is no big deal. Painful? Yep. It stung, and I guess it is because at my heart, I kind of thought what we were doing WAS a big deal. Perhaps I thought too highly of it. Maybe I knew the kind of time and effort I was putting in was too much. Maybe still, the competitive nature of being fans forces people to be that cynical, and mean.

Now, I know people who have collected ephemera, written books, taken photographs, and done other podcasts and radio programs that have gotten that sort of attention and much more. I can justify the reasons for other people to be singled out for their efforts very easily, but yeah – it stung to watch it happen at times. I’d try to be happy, try to be supportive and grateful, but in the back of my mind – I always wondered why not Daily Duranie. (You want vulnerable? Here’s me being vulnerable!) For a long time, I wanted to be one of those people. Wanting to BE one of those people though, felt very competitive. In my case: I wanted what they had.

Well, long story short – I do still have an audio file of Roger thanking Daily Duranie. Getting that file felt like being validated, at the time. As much as I tried not to feel this way, I have to admit that having the band support something I’d done mattered to me. I’m open about the fact I’m a big fan. They’re my idols. I look up to them. Roger is my favorite band member. I think you get the point.

After that, though, I realized something. It made no difference. Sure, I loved getting the email from Katy and Roger. I sincerely appreciate the time and effort, and yes it bolstered my spirits. However, it didn’t make other people see me any differently. It didn’t make me see myself any differently in the mirror. I was still the same person. And that’s when I recognized that this wasn’t about Duran Duran at all. It is solely about me, who I am, and what I see when I look in that mirror. Free tickets aren’t going to change that. Toasting with members of DD certainly won’t make a difference (however fun that may be), even having a career doesn’t change what you see within. I needed to be happy being me. I needed my friends to accept me exactly as I am, not as the person they want me to be, or doing the things the way they want them done.

I waited a good six months before doing a single, solitary, thing because I needed to decide what I wanted, and how I wanted to proceed. For a great while, I would have told anyone who asked that I was completely finished writing. I’d said all I wanted to say.

There are many many many other DD fan blogs out there. I wish each one of them well. This is just a place for me and my voice. It’s just for me this time, no matter who reads or how exciting it might be to see that people have indeed read my words. As I’ve continued to say all along, I’d love it if people read, but even if they don’t, the content will be here because it’s for me. I don’t know where I found the second or third wind to keep going, but here I am.

I’m off to participate doing my first “love” – playing clarinet in my band.

-R