giving a little back...

I read Amanda's latest blog post with mixed sadness and hope.

She has cancelled/postponed much of her upcoming world tour to stay home with her ailing best friend, Anthony. He has cancer and is undergoing treatment and she is going to stick around, which is the most beautiful thing i have heard in these times of "me me me."

Getting the news there, not from Neil, not from Quiche, but from the written electronically-transmitted word made it more real, somehow. It gave me more time to understand, how much was really on the table here. Although Amanda presented many of the tour "penalties" etc, i know from having dealt with cancellations on tour before. Often, if you need to cancel a show, insurance has to be met, you have often to go through a whole charade of loading in, ONLY to load back out, just to meet these requirements. I won't bore you with details, but it hit me hard what she was doing.

What she did. For Anthony.

you can read more about these snowball-enemies & their pure undiluted friendship here.

In her same blog, Amanda brought to light that Fiona Apple, who I have worked with and have a great respect for, was cancelling her tour to stay home with her beloved dog.

Our cat, Batman, has also been given a "stand and deliver" tumor watch, he has been rapidly losing weight and surgery for him would be a death sentence at his advanced age. We knew it was coming, but seeing him shrink before our eyes, it's a crusher. A wait-&-see heartbreak. It's hard enough out on the road without feeling like you are missing life's milestones.

I have turned down several really good tours as of late to stay with Batty, and so has Drew, my roadie husband--also in part to make up for so many years of hit and miss... (once we even met at LAX just to make out for five minutes, before I flew off, as he was getting home)

Anyway, I read AFP's blog and thought, what could i do? I don't know Anthony, never met him, just ordered his book to get to know him a little bit better. (Got mine at our beloved Eljay's Books!) I don't know if he needs money, or if he would even take money.

However, I will pledge proceeds from the sale of the Conjunctions print drawn by that foxy Finn, Jouni Koponen. This print details the time when Neil was falling in love, illustrating a poem he wrote about this time. For the rest of the year, I will drop the price on the the unsigned prints to their original price of $38.00 (we do have a few signed-by-Neil, they will not drop in price--it's hard enough to track down Mr. Gaiman) I will send this money on to Anthony or to his preferred charity-of-choice.

to order unsigned, go HERE.

for a signed-by-Neil, go HERE.

as Anthony said to Amanda,

“if you love people enough, they’ll give you everything.”