Kenny's Story - In His Own Words

I discovered Tori's music in high school. I was an avid poster on the Bjork messaged board (the 4um) and many people had been posting about Tori. This was around 2006 so Beekeeper was the talk of the town (with generally negative things said). Late in 2006 when my aunt who got me into a lot of the music I listen to today (and who is also gay) was living in a tent in our living room (seriously), I dug through her book of CDs and saw Tales of a Librarian. I gave it a listen and was captivated from the beginning notes of Precious Things. I went out and bought Choirgirl next because that was on sale at the local Virgin Records store. Listened to that album until it was unlistenable and bought another copy eventually. I still remember when American Doll Posse tracks started coming out (Big Wheel and BoC) and how I had never been that excited for an album release ever before. All during this time I was discovering who I was and my sexuality. Fast forward to the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008: I fell in love with a boy, eventually lost my virginity to him, yaddy yadda. A week after we had sex, he kicked me to the curb (my birthday, actually, 18th) and I found out I was just a number to him, 13 to be exact. A Sorta Fairytale helped me realize how stupid it was to love him from the get go and helped me realize that I knew all the warning signs were there from the beginning but chose to ignore them. 1000 Oceans also helped me let go of him. When my grandpa died, Your Cloud made consoled me. I wrote a poem about him inspired by Your Cloud. Fast forward to the beginning of 2012: I've been with my current boyfriend for almost 2 years at this point but he breaks up with me shortly after the new year. I had never been so heartbroken and sad in my entire life. I couldn't eat or sleep for days, and could sometimes hold down Jamba Juice (but nothing else). I went to counseling to get over the sadness and to address the issues he had with me that led to the breakup (I was incredibly clingy and insecure). Holly, Ivy, and Rose got me through that terrible period, especially the line "He waits for her to find the heart he left behind; he prays she'll find her way to be his bride someday" because I just sat and hoped he would come around and want to try again. We've now been together for 4 and a half years and our love is so strange and awesome. He is the love of my life. Since then, Tori's music has served to make me feel better about myself, empowered, and to enjoy life more. Bliss has always haunted me since first listening to Tales of a Librarian and has been a support system from day 1, especially through the breakup with my current boyfriend in 2012 ("maybe we're a bliss of another kind"). Drive All Night also haunted me since I first heard it; I request it in Oakland this tour and finally got to hear it in Miami! Even though I requested the song a while back, I was so grateful and felt like she was answering my request. I'm so lucky to have discovered Tori's music and to have been lucky enough to meet her and tell her about how her music helped me and how I played her music on my radio show (which I did for my MA thesis in linguistics in grad school, about Native American language revitalization). We chatted about languages and Native Americans and she was genuinely engaged, said she would love to learn Cherokee but that it would take so much effort. I told her not to give up!