Settled Into The Glass Half Empty
The sky’s a blur
My drug my friend
Sometimes you can’t avoid the lonesome bitter end
She’s breathing in some nicotine
And when she’s down
She’ll drown this town in kerosene
To: TaylorHanson@hanson.net
From: adelaide.quinn@cameron.edu
Subject: We need to talk.
So… any particular reason why I had to find out from our friends and then fucking Entertainment Tonight that you have cancer?
To: adelaide.quinn@cameron.edu
From: TaylorHanson@hanson.net
Subject: Re: We need to talk.
Of course there’s a reason. Did you think I wouldn’t have a reason, Lady?
I know you. I know this is freaking you out, and I know it’s hurting you. And I thought I could save you some of that hurt, somehow, if you didn’t know. Obviously you would find out eventually, but I was buying myself time. Time to figure out how to tell you myself that at nineteen years old I’m facing my own mortality.
For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.
To: TaylorHanson@hanson.net
From: adelaide.quinn@cameron.edu
Subject: Re: Re: We need to talk.
Okay, I don’t not understand that. It makes a sort of sense. It still hurts, though. I just wish you could have found a way to tell me before I opened my big mouth and asked someone why it had been so long since I’d heard from you.
I guess this means you won’t be visiting me at college any time soon?
To: adelaide.quinn@cameron.edu
From: TaylorHanson@hanson.net
Subject: Re: Re: Re: We need to talk.
I know, Lady. And I am so, so sorry. It shouldn’t have happened that way. None of this should have happened the way it has.
You wouldn’t want to see me like this, darling.
Despite what I told Taylor, I didn’t understand it at all.
I spent the rest of my Christmas break in a haze. I slept scandalously late, not even caring when my mom came into my room in the afternoon and yelled at me for still being in bed. I just couldn’t find it in me to care about anything.
That lack of caring extended to my classes, of course, and was reflected in my final grades for the semester. Neither of my parents were particularly impressed when I logged onto the school’s website and looked up my grades. They had wanted to see this brand new online feature, but I dreaded it. I had only actually failed one class, but that was one too many, even if it was just a sociology class that I could retake or replace with some other elective. It was the principle of the matter, I supposed.
Neither of them really knew how to handle my bad grades, though. There had to be some explanation, they reasoned, but couldn’t agree on what it was. I offered them little; the truth was more than they wanted to hear, and “I can’t sleep at night” wasn’t enough, it seemed. I didn’t know what else to say. The college algebra class had been somewhat hard, but my unimpressive grade in it was based on lack of attendance, not lack of comprehension. How could a former straight A student explain that to her parents? How could I tell them about the nights I’d laid in bed until 6am, unable to sleep no matter how hard I tried? Or the times when I went to class wearing pajamas under my hoodie and smelling like last night’s alcohol?
I couldn’t tell them about any of it.
One evening, Dad came to my bedroom and sat awkwardly on the edge of my bed. I couldn’t even remember another time when he’d been in my new bedroom in the four years since we’d finally finished the upstairs remodel. It felt strange to have him there. He rambled for a while, telling me about his own college calculus class that he’d had to take twice before ultimately flunking out of college anyway. I think he was trying to tell me that he understood and could read between the lines of what I was telling him. Or maybe he was just drunk. I could smell beer on him, a smell I’d become even more familiar with since starting college.
The conversation didn’t help very much.
From the horse’s mouth
Posted by TaylorHanson
Hey all you Hanson.net members.
I just want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who has offered me their support in the past few months. This has been a very trying time for myself, the band and our family. But I’ve always said that we have the greatest fans in the world, and you guys continue to prove me right over and over again.
I know you guys want to show your support by sending me gifts, and those are very appreciated. We’ve made no secret of the fact that we donate many of the gifts we receive to local charities and hospitals. Those kids need dozens of teddy bears and legos far more than we do. Now I’m one of those kids. Most of the others being treated for my particular type of cancer are children, and they are all so much more brave than I could ever be. We’ve started hand delivering a lot of those gifts to them, and I want to let all of you fans know just how much your gifts have brightened my days and the days of all these kids.
So I guess the choice is yours. Keep making kids in one Tulsa hospital happy, or find a way to send your gifts to kids somewhere else in the world. They may not know who you’re thinking of when you do it, and I may not know you’ve done it, but that’s okay.
There will be more details on the website soon about a benefit concert being held on my behalf by a few of our friends here in Tulsa. Ashley is organizing that and I think he should be posting some information on the forums for anyone who wants to attend or donate (to charity, not me). I hope that I’m feeling well enough to put in an appearance at the concert.
Once again, thank you guys so much for everything you’ve done for us. Ike or Zac should be posting some album news soon as well, because I’m not letting a little thing like cancer get in the way of the music. We’ve got some clips of new songs that I think you guys will really like, and those will be on the website soon.
My birthday had never been much of an event. Even when I tried, it didn’t really work out the way I wanted it to. When I was in elementary school, I’d had a few parties impeccably planned by my mom, with practically everyone in the entire grade invited. It felt wrong, though, especially once I realized that I wasn’t all that popular. Once I realized that few if any of the party guests really cared about anything other than the cake and party games, I opted to just spend my birthdays at home, sharing a small cake with Mom.
Now that I was at college, I had hoped to have something more of a birthday party, but I wasn’t really sure how to make it happen. Mom decided to bake me a large cake that I could share with my friends. Since my actual birthday fell on a Monday, she could bring the cake to me that Sunday and take me out for a little dinner, just the two of us. It seemed like a good enough plan, so I told Sarah and Melanie about it and they took me shopping—since I still didn’t have my own car—for chips, sodas and whatever else we might need at the party.
I struggled to drag myself out of bed and get dressed before Mom arrived. She wasn’t coming that early, but I’d become accustomed to sleeping in so late on the weekends that I was lucky to have time for a shower before the college’s cafeteria opened for dinner. I’d scheduled all of my second semester classes later in the day, but I still tended to skip out on them when I felt like it. Even with a better schedule, being awake before noon on a Sunday hurt.
Mom arrived exactly when she said she would. It was a short drive from campus to the Mexican restaurant I’d asked her to take me to for my breakfast lunch. She didn’t really care for Mexican food, but she’d agreed to it, since it was my birthday. As soon as we arrived, I dove right into the chips and salsa. I decided I would have to tell Melanie about this place. There was a Taco Bueno near campus, but even it had nothing on this restaurant. Maybe she and I could find time to come out here at some point. I knew I was a burden, though, making her drive me everywhere, but there wasn’t much I could do about it as long as my parents couldn’t agree about whether or not I needed a car.
“So,” Mom said, not touching the chips herself. “I was thinking about going to visit Aunt Joan in Kansas, and maybe looking for a house there.”
Mom’s family was originally from a small town outside Wichita, and for whatever reason, she’d always missed it. I didn’t really get it; Kansas looked just like Oklahoma to me. Just a lot of grass and cows. She missed it, though, and we often went up there to stay at these little campgrounds near some of the parks. I wasn’t surprised that Mom wanted to find a more permanent place to stay when we visited.
“Okay,” I replied, scooping a bunch of salsa onto a chip.
“Your Dad’s not coming with me.”
Now I understood. She wasn’t looking for a vacation home. She was getting a divorce.
“Am I coming with you?” I asked.
“If you want,” she replied. “You should probably stay with your dad, though, at least on paper. That way you can keep your in state tuition.”
It was all so matter-of-fact. I wondered how long she had been planning this. When dad’s drinking got really bad while I was in middle school, I had assumed that their marriage couldn’t possibly last much longer. I figured they would hold out until I left for college. Christmas break had been good, though, at least where their relationship was concerned. They almost seemed happy. I had thought being alone, without me to deal with, was doing them some good. Evidently not.
“He got arrested for a DUI last month,” she said, as though that explained everything. “He’s pleading not guilty, and he’s got this whole story about some friend of a friend driving his truck for him. Supposedly this guy—of course he doesn’t remember his name—got out and ran after pulling over for the cops. It’s just ridiculous.”
I could only nod. What did she expect me to say to that? It did seem like a ridiculous story, but there was a part of myself that always wanted to defend my dad when she complained about him. He was my father, after all. She could just leave him, but I didn’t have that option.
By the time our food arrived, I didn’t have any appetite at all. Some birthday.
I can’t say that I ever really expected my first Spring Break to be like the movies. If I couldn’t even manage a decent birthday, I didn’t think Spring Break would be much better. Rather than try to make some sort of plans that I knew wouldn’t work out, I just let my mom come and pick me up to spend a week at home.
Home.
I didn’t think it would even feel like home anymore, with Mom already in the process of moving out, and it didn’t. We had never been a loud family, but now the house was even quieter than usual. I stayed locked up in my room as much as I could, avoiding any possible conversations about my grades or the strange burgundy shade I’d dyed my hair on a whim the week before.
When I did emerge from my room, I was immediately hounded by requests to see my midterm grades. Mom had done her best to check up on me during the semester, as much as she could from three hours away. Every time, I had lied my ass off. When she demanded to see my grades, though, there was nothing I could do. She stood over my shoulders and read the online report card—three Ds and two Fs—then stormed out of my room, screaming about how I was just like my father.
Minutes later, I cautiously walked downstairs to find her throwing suitcases into the back of her car. I didn’t stick around to ask where she was going.
The next day, my aunt Joan called to inform me that Mom had made it safely to her house, but it probably wasn’t safe for me to talk to her. She assured me it was just a midlife crisis and things would be fine, but I didn’t really agree. Whatever it was, it meant I was alone at the house with my dad, who seemed to be spending even more of his time drunk than he usually did.
By the middle of the week, I was going insane. I was stuck there at the house with absolutely nothing to do, and we were very quickly running out of food. Dad was apparently in the habit of getting dinner at the golf club on his way home from work, so he didn’t notice how bare our cabinets were. When he came home one evening and then immediately left again with a friend from work who reeked of beer and was far too friendly with me, I saw my chance. I left a note that I was taking his Jeep, not sure if dad would really be able to read it by the time he returned, and set off for the grocery store.
Somewhere along the way, I got sidetracked and found myself heading for Brookside. I remembered that it was the night of the benefit concert for Taylor. I hadn’t wanted to go, even though Mom had mentioned it over and over. I didn’t know what I would say to him if I saw him again. It just felt awkward. But without thinking about it, I found myself parked near Barkley’s as thought that was where I’d planned on going.
Barkley’s wasn’t a very big place, so I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid Taylor if he was there. I didn’t even know if he was well enough to attend the concert. What if he wasn’t? What if he looked different? I almost talked myself out of going inside entirely, but finally, I did.
Admiral Twin were already on stage when I walked inside. They were pretty well known around town, and were one of the only bands playing that night who I was familiar with at all. A few of our mutual friends were playing, I thought, but I didn’t spot any of them. I didn’t see anyone I knew in the crowd. I supposed these were all Taylor’s friends, few of whom I had actually met.
Barkley’s only served drinks, not food. I didn’t think a soda would do much to curb my appetite, but it was my only option. I swirled my straw mindlessly in my drink as I sat alone at the unoccupied table I’d managed to find near the stage. I guess not many people wanted to sit so near the music, but I didn’t mind if it gave me a headache. Over the past few days, I’d gone from crying my eyes out to feeling strangely numb, so I doubted I would even notice if the music made my ears bleed.
“Adelaide!” A voice called out during a quiet moment between songs, and after glancing around, I matched it to Zac. He slung himself into the other empty seat at my table. “I didn’t know you were here. I’m glad you came.”
I shrugged. “Seemed like the thing to do.”
“I’m sure Taylor will be happy when I tell him I saw you,” Zac replied.
“Isn’t he here somewhere?” I asked.
Zac shook his head. “No, he umm… he wasn’t really feeling up to it. I’m standing in for him, I guess.”
“Oh,” I choked out. I should have been relieved, but a part of me wasn’t.
Just then, another band I didn’t recognize took the stage and began playing loudly. Zac leaned across the table so I could hear him. “Hey, do you want to get out of here? We could get something to eat and talk, maybe?”
“Yeah,” I replied, although I wasn’t entirely certain he wasn’t asking me out on a date. I didn’t think so, though. He and I had seemed to agree after the prom that we really were just friends. I gave him a small smile. “That’s a good idea, actually. I’m starving.”
A few minutes later, I pulled the Jeep into a spot at the Sonic down the street. Zac had suggested a few other sit down restaurants nearby, but I didn’t feel like dealing with any sort of crowd again. Besides, I figured there was a good chance that Hanson fans would be lurking around anywhere we went. What would they think about seeing Zac Hanson alone with the girl he’d taken to prom just a year before?
“So, this is kind of familiar,” Zac remarked after the waitress took my money, handed me the food and skated away.
“How so?” I asked, then it hit me. “Oh, us sitting in a car eating. Yeah, I guess it is.”
“I know that whole night was really awkward, though. I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. My life was kind of an awkward mess then. But when isn’t it? I guess I could have worse things to complain about though…”
We fell into an awkward silence then. It felt wrong to complain about what I was going through when I knew Zac’s brother was in the hospital fighting cancer. I hadn’t really ever known anyone with cancer, except for my grandmother, but I was too young then to understand what was happening to her. All I knew was that one day she was fine and then she was in the hospital and I couldn’t see her. Then she was gone. I didn’t want Taylor to just be gone.
“Umm,” I cleared my throat. “This is probably really awkward to ask, but… how is Taylor? I mean, I know he’s sick but… well, I don’t really know any more about his condition than any random fan would, and I hate that. I just want to know how he’s really doing, you know?”
Zac’s eyes widened a little. “You haven’t talked to him?”
“No, just a few emails,” I replied.
“Oh,” he replied. “Well, umm… he’s still going to be getting chemo for a few more weeks. He should be finished with it next month, if everything goes well. That stuff’s really hard on your body, you know, so there’s all these other side effects, and if it’s too hard one week, then he can’t get the treatment the next week. So far it’s all gone pretty well, though. Not like he would tell us if he wasn’t doing well. That’s kind of how we ended up in this mess to begin with, I guess.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’d been getting really tired and out of breath for like a month, and none of us thought anything of it. We’d just tell him to lay off the cigarettes and he’d laugh it off. Everyone had been pretty down about all this record company crap, anyway, so our minds were on that. But before we were supposed to go onstage at this charity thing, he just totally spaced out. He wasn’t asleep, but we just couldn’t get him to get up and eat anything. The boy’s skinny, but he puts away food even worse than I do, so we knew something was wrong. Mom finally forced some water and half a slice of pizza into him, and he got through the show… then passed out as soon as we got backstage. We took him to the hospital right away, and they found a tumor on his ribs, pressing into his lungs. It wasn’t just exhaustion making him so tired—he really just couldn’t breathe.”
It was a lot to take in. I just stared blankly at Zac and nodded.
“You know,” he said, his voice so low I could barely hear him. “This kind of cancer… Ewing’s sarcoma, it’s this really rare bone cancer. Usually just little kids get it, and only like 10% of them even survive. Taylor’s trying to be positive, but…”
He didn’t need to finish the sentence.
We ate the rest of our food in silence, and then I drove him back to Barkley’s. He gave me a hug and promised to tell Taylor he’d talked to me. I told him he didn’t need to tell Taylor about all that he’d told me, and he promised that he wouldn’t. I didn’t know if I would hear from Taylor after Zac talked to him, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
I didn’t go back into the concert. I didn’t think I could. I drove on down the road, tears falling freely down my face. It was a good thing I knew my way around because I could barely even see the road. I steered the Jeep into a Food Lion parking lot and sat there for a long time, until I ran out of tears. Once I did, I went inside and finally bought the food that had been the whole reason I’d left the house in the first place.
Thanks
Posted by TaylorHanson
I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who attended the benefit concert in Tulsa last week. It also served as something of a birthday party for me, even though I wasn’t able to attend. Birthday cards and gifts are still pouring in at the house and the hospital where I’ve spent so much of my time lately. It’s not exactly how I imagined spending my nineteenth birthday, but a guy could do worse than having so many friends and fans who want to show their support and love.
We’re hoping to make a short trip out to LA in the near future to keep pushing forward on the album. When I have more news about its progress I will let you guys know. I can assure you that I’m definitely getting a lot of writing done these days. Isaac even brought a guitar to my chemo session a few days ago and we let the other patients watch our creative process in action. When this album is finally released, we’re going to have a little documentary of the entire process so that you guys can see it, too.
More music news soon, I promise.
I barely went to back to class at all after spring break. I managed to drag myself to the few I was still passing, but only on test days or when the syllabus told me a paper was due. I didn’t really care if I did well. I didn’t even care if I passed. But if I didn’t leave my room at all for the rest of the semester, my friends were bound to notice.
How could I ever explain any of this to them? They all knew that my parents were divorcing, and none of them really seemed to get why that would bother me so much. After all, I was an adult. Trying to explain how my mom had kicked me out of the house she didn’t even own yet… it sounded horrible and unbelievable, so I just didn’t tell anyone.
Melanie and I got a lot closer as the semester went on. She had a bad habit of skipping classes, too, so she didn’t bat an eye when she saw me still in bed at one in the afternoon. I liked Melanie. She was over twenty-one, so she indulged my growing appetite for alcohol, too.
She had a million different boyfriends and guys she swore were just friends, and a bad habit of inviting me along when she wanted to hang out with them. It was awkward, but if she promised me food and alcohol, I couldn’t refuse.
One of her guys, I think his name was Brandon, lived in an apartment off campus. A cloud of thick, strange smelling smoke drifted out when he opened the door to let us in. I soon tracked it down to the pipe one of his friends was holding. I’d never known anyone who smoked pot before, but I wasn’t stupid enough not to recognize it when it was right in front of me.
I was, however, unable to refuse it when that nameless friend passed it my way as soon as I sat down on the couch.
From her spot next to me, Melanie whispered instructions on how to smoke it. I inhaled long and hard, like she said, until I felt it burn the back of my throat. With my lips held shut, I passed her the pipe and waited. And waited some more. It felt like liquid fire flowing down my throat, and when it hit my lungs, I couldn’t stop myself from coughing. A few people chuckled, then assured me it would get easier in time.
When the pipe came back around, I took another hit. The second one went down more smoothly and I barely coughed at all. With each pass it made around the room, it seemed to get easier and easier for me. Soon I was drifting off in a haze, unable to focus on whatever movie it was we were supposed to be watching on Brandon’s grainy old television set.
I felt numb. I liked it.
Music news
Posted by TaylorHanson
Hey Hanson.net people! As Ike said on the Hotline a few weeks ago, happy two year anniversary to the fan club, and a huge thanks to each and every member.
I have some music related news for you guys today. As you know, we’ve been recording away on the album as much as we can. Usually we do a lot of recording in Los Angeles, but most of this album has been recorded right here in Tulsa in our very own, top secret studio. Okay, it’s not so top secret. But it is right here at our house, so it’s very convenient.
Anyway, I’m happy to announce that we’ve finished this album. After recording dozens and dozens of songs, we’ve picked the ones that we think are the absolute best and now we’re just putting on the finishing touches. I can’t make any guarantees about when this album will be released, but we are definitely aiming for a date in the fall of this year. This delay will ensure that I’m able to get out there and promote it as I would like. What would a Hanson album be without a big world tour to go with it? I know you hate waiting, but I promise this album will be worth it.
We’ll be posting some more pics, videos and audio clips in the coming weeks to give you guys a look at the album we’ve been slaving away on. So stay tuned for that.
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.”
― Edgar Allan Poe