AnyaHard.com's Anthology of Inspiration

I have snuck into an abandoned iron yard at 4 a.m. to take pictures of the dawn.

I have poured cream all over Chad Shane's head.

I have sat for hours drinking black coffee on school nights with all my other seventeen year-old coffee house/philosopher/freak-a-zoid friends who gathered in the smoking section.

I have worked the graveyard shift at an all-night, Midwest truck stop/big top diner called The Carnival.

I have sat alone in the rundown project playground of my youth, staring at my broken, red, fiberglass horse, Firestar, and longed for the days of high adventure.

I have danced in the sewer-flooded streets of my hometown when the summer storms stayed just a day too long.

I have spun without mercy on the top of my dented, spray-painted '64 Chevy (Deluxe Edition) Super-Nova parked on the highest peak of Evercrest Cemetery at midnight.

I have bounded out the Factory doors, cut and bleeding in the blinding Sunday Manhattan sun; and, yes, Club Children, I still managed to make it down to the pier afterward (along with all the others) in fur-covered platforms to carry-on.

I have fainted from dancing too hard and too long.

I have come to live by the phrase 'everything in moderation'.

I have planted kisses upon many a strange club go-er's stomach.

I have teased, taunted and laughed my best AnyaHard purr in their ears, still ...

I have yet (even after all that shenanigans) been bold enough to let just one of them bring me home after the ugly lights have been turned on.

I have mooned, embraced and even re-drawn Obsession ads to tape all over my teenage bathroom walls.

I have rolled amuck in the dewy morning mud of the ripe strawberry patch, howling as loud as I could along with the rest of my grandmother's cats and dogs.

I have dared the Missouri River, only to discover I was unable to drown.

I have perched myself upon the blackened tar roof of my mother's HUD housing shack and blared the feedback of industrial music at the stars.

I have, with tears rolling down my face, sat on that same roof imagining the glittering skyline of an urban terrain.

I have cooked, cleaned and catered to a suburban family of four to pay my way through Silber's over-priced, over-hyped school.

I have surprised myself by coming to love two soccer-playing children whose parents' careers couldn't help but to ignore.

I have hosted A-list parties at nightclubs all over Beantown.

I have nearly twisted my ankle dancing to raise money for AIDS because my heart and soul told me to wear His white platforms while spiraling upon an eight-foot high platform surrounded by teens bused in by the thousands.

I have gritted my teeth and kicked those Frederick's of Hollywoods high above my head, all the while knowing, that if He were still here, that's exactly what He would have done.

I have been submerged in four feet of something really brown at the Palladium while promoting 'A T-Shirt Product of Artistic Social Wit' by two evil, drunk, leather-clad body boys.

I have dreamt I was a raven to a rock star in a place/space/universe so divine.

I have also had to wake up and face the truth -- head on -- that I actually do have the power to make my each and every one of my fantasies come alive.

And, I have, at twenty-one, really, only just begun to write.

As abnormal, fantastic and utterly bizarre as my life had become by the time I turned 21...

I never let myself lose touch of who I really was. Never did I let go of the mission I embarked on when, at 17, I left the Midwest and began 'The Great American Novel' journey to New York City (which I didn't even really believe existed) to fulfill the legend of ugly, poor, fat, white farm girl who grows up to become the big, important, generation-defining rock star.

Although that was the decadent plan, it wasn't as important as my will, which simply was to finally be excepted in totality for the artist I was and was yearning to become.

It never occurred to me as I excitedly bid my Mom goodbye, that I should be scared. Nor did I ever have any doubts that I wouldn't be able to accomplish my goals.

Perhaps, this was because (in order to survive the revolting, abomination that was my outcast childhood) I had already began writing a way out.

My life, in my mind, at that time was this surreal, happy-ending John Hughes movie/fairy-tale.

I got through each day because I knew someday, I really and truly would be Pretty in Pink.

If I faced the mass-individual-genocide of teen life without that happy-ending, underdog-will-win shell, I know I would have taken my life.

And it really scares me to think just how many brilliant visionaries, individuals and gifted artists we must lose before they too have a chance to become.

My deviance from reality was the first positive break I got. My fiction saved my life.

Along my journey, I often imagined returning to my ten-year high school reunion to share with them all my success. I wanted to show them that they were mistaken before, that I was beautiful and worthwhile.

I convinced myself that if I accomplished my goals, no one would ever again be made to suffer by them.

In the end, it was actually my need to be far enough away from their judgments and fear, that I was able to face the depths of my creativity and embrace the totality of my talent, drive and urgency.

I realized I was wasted on them and that there was someone like me, out there, literally dying for the inspiration that is my story.