Chapter 2 — The First Email from the Norwegian Girl

Week 2 · March 15–21, 2026 · Bushwick, Brooklyn · The First Email · Idun, age 16, Trondheim

The Couch

Week 2 of being in a fake band started on a Sunday. I had spent Saturday at Glaze, working a 7 AM to 3 PM shift, the early one, which I take voluntarily because the early shift gets the contractor crowd and the contractor crowd tips in cash and does not ask whether the oat milk is house-made (it is not; it is from the Oatly box). I had made about $190 in tips by 3 PM. I had walked home up Knickerbocker Avenue with the wind doing the thing it does in March in Bushwick, which is to say going sideways through the gap between the warehouse with the mural of the dolphin and the warehouse with the mural of the woman holding the watermelon.

It was, by Brooklyn standards, a good Saturday.

I came home at 3:42 PM. Bartholomew the cat was on the windowsill in the position he had been in when I left, which was the same position he had been in for the entire winter, which was a position I will describe as judgmental loaf. I made myself a sandwich. I sat on the green velvet couch. I opened my laptop, which is a 2019 MacBook Air with a sticker on the lid that says “I’d Rather Be Reading” that I bought from a poet at a Tilt Quarterly event in 2022 and that has since followed me through two breakups.

I checked DistroKid.

The song “Marcus, Your New Girlfriend’s Hat Is Bad” had been live on Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music for exactly four days and seven hours.

The song had fourteen streams.

I will tell you the breakdown of the fourteen streams, because I tracked it, because it was the kind of thing a 32-year-old in March in Brooklyn tracks when she has nothing else going on:

8 streams: my sister Joanna in Chicago, who had played the song twice on her phone, once on her laptop, and a fourth time over her car speakers on her commute, plus four more times by her husband Andrew (who, when she texted me about it later that week, had played the song “more than I expected him to and now I’m a little worried about Andrew”).
4 streams: me, in bed, on different nights, which I am not proud of.
1 stream: my mom in Cleveland, on speakerphone, while I was on the phone with her, while she said the song “sounds like the kind of thing you used to listen to in college, the sad-girl music.” My mom did not, technically, choose to play this song. I had played it for her. The stream still counted.
1 stream: my coworker Jules at Glaze, on her break, on her phone, in the alley behind the dumpster, while she smoked. Jules said it was “actually fire.” Jules also said this about a song by an artist named Ravyn Lenae the same week, so the bar may be calibrated higher than I am giving Jules credit for.

Fourteen streams. Total Spotify revenue at fourteen streams: approximately $0.057, which Spotify will not pay out until the account hits the $10 threshold, which at this rate would happen in approximately the year 2059.

I closed the DistroKid tab. I closed the laptop. I ate the rest of the sandwich. I watched four episodes of the flower-shop reality show. I went to bed at 10:42 PM, which was, by my recent standards, embarrassingly early. I slept seven hours and twelve minutes, which my Apple Watch logged and which I noted with the satisfaction of a person who has been failing at sleep for forty-six days and who has just had two acceptable nights in a row.

Sunday I worked the late shift at Glaze. Monday I worked at Tilt Quarterly from 1 PM to 5 PM uploading three poems by a writer in Iowa City named Margaret. Tuesday I had off. Wednesday I worked Glaze 10 AM to 6 PM. Thursday I worked Glaze 7 AM to 3 PM. Friday I worked at Tilt Quarterly from 10 AM to 4 PM. Saturday I worked Glaze again, the late shift, 12 PM to 8 PM.

By Saturday March 21 I had not opened the Suno app once. I had not opened the DistroKid dashboard. I had not made another song. The song “Marcus, Your New Girlfriend’s Hat Is Bad” was, in the catalog of things in my life, a thing that had happened, past tense, like a weird night in college, like the time I had bangs in 2018, like the haircut I would, by April, finally schedule.

The thing I want to be clear about is this: as of Saturday March 21, 2026, I was done. I had made a song. The song was on Spotify. The song had fourteen streams. The joke had landed for the people who needed the joke to land, which was me and Joanna and possibly Andrew. The Tuesday Saints, as a band, was already in the part of my brain where things go after they have been completed and before they are forgotten. There was no band. There was a song, and there was a name on a Spotify page, and there was, somewhere, a 32-year-old in Bushwick who was, finally, sleeping.

The next thing I want to be clear about is this: everything that happened in this book happened because of one email. One. Email. I have, since the email, thought about this often: how close I came to being a person who had made a Suno song once and had stopped, and how the difference between that person and the person writing this book was a 16-year-old girl in a city of 213,000 people in the middle of Norway choosing, on a Tuesday morning in late March, to fill out a contact form on a Bandcamp page. That is the entire delta. That is how thin the line is between “thing that happened” and “thing that happens to you.”

Here is the email.

The 2 AM Window (Hers, Not Mine)

The email arrived at 4:42 AM Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 24, 2026. That is 9:42 AM in Trondheim, which is the largest city in central Norway, population approximately 213,000, sitting on the Trondheim Fjord, founded in the year 997 AD by King Olav Tryggvason, and currently the third-largest city in Norway after Oslo and Bergen.

I learned all of this about Trondheim on March 24, 2026, in the next three hours, after reading the email.

I did not see the email at 4:42 AM because I was, for the first time in fifty-three nights, asleep at 4:42 AM. I saw the email at 7:14 AM when my alarm went off for my Glaze shift. The Bandcamp app on my phone had a red notification dot. I had not previously been aware that the Bandcamp app had notifications. I tapped the dot.

The email read:

From: [name redacted]@gmail.com To: The Tuesday Saints (via Bandcamp contact form) Subject: thank you

Hello,

My name is Idun. I am 16 years old. I live in Trondheim, Norway. I do not normally write to musicians but I wanted to write to you.

On Sunday afternoon I was on Spotify and your song “Marcus, Your New Girlfriend’s Hat Is Bad” came on a playlist called “soft sad girl spring 2026.” I did not know your band before. I listened to the song twice and then I cried for a long time. I am sorry to tell you a stranger this. I think it is okay to tell a musician that her song made you cry because that is what musicians want to hear, but I want you to know it was a real cry.

My mother died in October. She was 47. She was a teacher of literature at the gymnasium. She was the person who taught me English. She loved sad American music. She loved Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers and a band called Soccer Mommy. Your song sounds like the songs she would have played for me on a Sunday afternoon when she was making the soup with the carrots that we always make in the autumn.

I have been having a hard week. I do not know if you understand the kind of hard week where you have not done your maths homework for three weeks because every time you open the book you start to cry. It is that kind of week. I have one more week before the term test and I do not know how I will be ready.

Your song was the first song since October that I have listened to twice in a row. I think your song is funny and sad which is what the songs my mother loved were. I do not think it is bad, the new girlfriend’s hat. I think probably the hat is fine and you are sad about the boyfriend, which is your right. My mother had a hat she wore in the autumn that everyone made fun of and she did not care and she wore the hat anyway. I miss the hat. The hat is in the closet. My father will not let me move the hat.

I am sorry this is a long email. I wanted to tell you that I will buy your album when you have an album. I will save the kroner. I do not have a lot but I will save what I can.

Thank you for your song. Please make more.

— Idun, 16, Trondheim

I read the email at 7:14 AM in my bed. I read the email a second time at 7:15 AM. I read the email a third time at 7:16 AM. I sat on the edge of the bed in my t-shirt and the gray sweatpants. Bartholomew the cat was at my feet. The radiator clanged twice. My alarm went off again. I turned the alarm off.

I started crying.

I want to tell you about this cry because the cry was different from the cry on March 8 when the song first existed. The cry on March 8 was a wonder cry, the cry that happens when a thing comes into the world that you did not know was possible. The cry on March 24 was a responsibility cry. The cry on March 24 was the cry that happens when you have made a thing as a joke and the thing has reached a real human being and the real human being has, in good faith, taken your joke and placed it next to her dead mother. You cannot take a thing back from that. You cannot, having received that email, walk into the kitchen and say “actually the song was a joke about my ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s hat and the band is not real and I am a 32-year-old barista in Brooklyn and there are no other songs and there is not going to be an album.” You cannot. You do not have the right.

I texted Joanna at 7:34 AM.

Stevie: “joanna i need to tell you something” Stevie: “a 16 year old in norway emailed about the song” Stevie: “her mom died in october” Stevie: “she said the song made her cry in a good way” Stevie: “joanna she said she’s going to save up to buy the album” Stevie: “there is no album” Stevie: “joanna there is no album”

Joanna: “stevie.” Joanna: “stevie call me on your break”

I put on my black non-slip work shoes. I went to Glaze. I worked the 8 AM to 4 PM shift. I made approximately 91 oat-milk lattes and 28 espressos. I was, the entire shift, somewhere else. My coworker Jules asked me at 11:14 AM if I was okay. I said yes. Jules said “you’re being weird.” I said “I got a weird email.” Jules said “from who, the IRS?” I said “from a 16-year-old in Norway.” Jules said, immediately, with no follow-up question: “oh, the band is happening then.” Jules went back to wiping down the espresso machine. Jules understood, at 11:14 AM on March 24, 2026, before I did. This is why I love Jules.

I called Joanna on my 1:30 PM break. I sat on the curb outside Glaze on Knickerbocker Avenue. The wind was doing the sideways thing.

Joanna: “stevie listen to me” Joanna: “you have to make another song” Joanna: “you have to write back to her” Joanna: “you cannot leave a 16-year-old in norway hanging”

Stevie: “joanna it was a joke”

Joanna: “stevie. it stopped being a joke at 4:42 AM today” Joanna: “that’s how jokes work. someone takes them seriously and now they’re real” Joanna: “you have to keep going”

Stevie: “joanna I’m a barista”

Joanna: “stevie I’m a public defender. nobody asked me to be a public defender either. you become things by doing them. go back to work. make another song this week. write the girl back. be careful with her.”

I went back to work. I finished my shift. I walked home up Knickerbocker. I made myself an actual real dinner of pasta with butter and parmesan. I sat on the green velvet couch. I opened my laptop. I read Idun’s email a fourth time.

I wrote her back.

The Reply

I drafted the reply seven times. I will show you the version I sent at 9:14 PM on March 24, 2026, because the version I sent is the version that established the rule that became Rule 2 in the introduction to this book (“When you reply to fan mail, you tell the emotional truth even if you are lying about the band identity”):

From: thetuesdaysaints@gmail.com (a Gmail account I created at 8:42 PM that night) To: Idun Subject: Re: thank you

Idun,

Thank you for writing to us. I’m Mara. I sing on the song.

I want to tell you that I am very sorry about your mother. October is not very long ago. I do not know what it is like to lose a mother but I know what it is like to lose a person you used the same words with, and I think that is part of what you are describing about your mom and her sad American music, which is that she was the person you shared a private language with, and now the language has nowhere to go. I think people don’t talk about that part enough. I think the language is the hardest part.

About the maths homework: I am not your teacher and I am not your mother. But I will tell you the thing my own mother told me when I was 16 and could not finish my schoolwork because I was sad: do one math problem. Just one. Do the easiest one in the chapter. The easy one is allowed to count. You do not have to do the homework all at once. You have to do one problem. Then go to bed. Tomorrow you will do another one. The homework will get done in the way that things get done when you are sad, which is one problem at a time, with a lot of crying in between, and that is okay. The teachers know. They are not asking you to be unbroken. They are asking you to do the homework. The homework is allowed to be slow.

About the album: we are working on it. I cannot tell you when it will be done because we don’t quite know yet. But there will be more songs. The next one is coming next week. I will tell you when it is up.

About the hat in the closet: do not move it. Your father is right. The hat does not have to leave. The hat can stay in the closet for as long as it needs to. There is no rule about how long a hat is allowed to stay. The hat is not in your way. The hat is allowed to be where it is.

I am glad the song made you cry in a good way. That is the only kind of cry a song should ever ask for. I am glad you are still listening to music. I am glad you wrote to us. Please write again whenever you want. We will write back.

— Mara, of The Tuesday Saints

I read the email back four times.

There is exactly one true sentence in this email about the band. That sentence is “I sing on the song.” Even that sentence is a half-truth: a Suno-generated AI vocal sang on the song, and “Mara” is a fictional character invented at 8:42 PM that night with no backstory, no last name, and no Midjourney portrait yet (those would come in Week 5). “Mara” did not exist before I named her in the email. Mara, in fact, did not exist after I named her in the email either, until I gave her a face in Week 5 and a backstory in Week 4.

But every other sentence in the email — the sentence about the private language, the sentence about doing one math problem, the sentence about the hat in the closet — every other sentence is true to me, Stevie. The advice about the math problem is the advice my mom actually gave me when I was 16 and could not finish my own schoolwork because I was sad about my high-school boyfriend in Cleveland. The thing about the hat in the closet is what I would say to anybody about the things their dead people leave behind. The voice is Mara’s. The truth is mine.

I sent the email at 9:14 PM. I closed the laptop. I sat on the couch. Bartholomew got up and walked across my legs and sat on the other side of my legs.

I opened Suno on my phone.

I started writing the next song.

What Came Out

What came out of Week 2:

Idun’s email (received March 24, 2026, 4:42 AM Eastern).
My reply as “Mara” (sent March 24, 2026, 9:14 PM Eastern).
The decision (made on the curb outside Glaze on March 24, 1:34 PM Eastern, after Joanna told me to keep going) to make this a thing instead of a one-off.
A draft of the next song (started at 9:34 PM that same night; finished and uploaded to DistroKid March 31; titled “The Hat in the Closet,” dedicated wordlessly to Idun’s mother in Trondheim).

What also came out of Week 2 was Rule 2 of the three rules I would write down in Week 5: “When you reply to fan mail, you tell the emotional truth even if you are lying about the band identity.” I did not formalize this rule until two weeks later. I lived it on the night of March 24.

What It Paid (or Cost)

Cost in Week 2:

Gmail account for thetuesdaysaints@gmail.com: $0
Suno (recurring): $0 incremental
Therapy I should probably have been in but was not: $0
Cumulative Suno + DistroKid spend through Week 2: ~$48

Revenue in Week 2: Spotify streams climbed from 14 (Week 1) to 62 by end of Saturday March 28. The bulk of the increase came after Idun appeared to share the song with one Norwegian Discord server she frequented (I would learn this in Week 4). Spotify revenue at 62 streams: approximately $0.25. Still far below payout threshold.

Listeners-who-have-emailed-the-band count: 1.

Hours spent on the band in Week 2: approximately 3.2 hours, mostly the 2.5 hours I spent drafting the seven versions of the reply email, plus 40 minutes starting the next song.

The most valuable currency that arrived in Week 2: not money. The most valuable currency that arrived in Week 2 was a single specific real person’s email address, which I added to a Notion database I created the same night called “Real People I Owe Things To.” Idun was entry #1. By Week 12, the Notion database would have 340+ entries.

The “Wait, Is This Real Now?” Moment

The “wait, is this real now?” moment of the entire book is on the curb outside Glaze at 1:34 PM on Tuesday, March 24, 2026, when my sister Joanna says into the phone: “that’s how jokes work. someone takes them seriously and now they’re real.”

That sentence does the entire transformation. Before the sentence, the band is a costume. After the sentence, the band is a costume that is also a job. The job is small. The job is unpaid. The job has, as of March 24, exactly one client, and the client is a 16-year-old in Trondheim. But the job is real. The job has expectations. The job has a deliverable (the next song, by April 7, more or less). The job has a moral structure (don’t lie to Idun about real things; the band identity is allowed to be fake, the emotional content is not). The job has, by 9:14 PM that same night, a Gmail account, a Notion database, and a draft of the next song.

The thing about the “wait, is this real now?” moment is that it does not look like a moment. It looks like a thirty-four-second sentence from your sister on the phone while you are sitting on a curb in Bushwick eating a granola bar from your apron pocket. You will not recognize the moment when it happens. You will recognize the moment two weeks later, on the floor of your apartment, when the Notion database has 23 entries and you realize you have been writing a small letter to a small group of strangers and that the letters have started to feel like a thing you do.

If you are looking for the moment to recognize it, you will miss it. The moment is always in retrospect. The thing you can do, in foresight, is show up to the curb when your sister calls.

What You Can Try This Weekend

Your Week 2 Assignment

Set up a contact form for the thing you made. A Bandcamp page with a contact form is free. A Gmail address with the project’s name is free. A Google Form linked from your project’s bio is free. You need a way for a stranger to find you. Spotify alone is not a way for a stranger to find you. Spotify is a place a stranger can stream a song. Spotify cannot deliver an email. Bandcamp can. Gmail can. The Google Form can. Pick one. Set it up. Today.
Wait for the email. This is the hard part. The email does not always arrive. The email arrives for some things and not for others, and the things it arrives for are not always the things you predicted. The song “Marcus, Your New Girlfriend’s Hat Is Bad” was the most personal and most specific thing I could have made, which is why Idun found it. Generic things do not get the email. Specific things get the email. The specificity is the bait.
When the email arrives, reply. This is the second-hardest part. Most people do not reply to fan email. Most people are busy or scared or do not know what to say. Reply anyway. Take three days if you need to. Draft seven versions if you need to. Then send the seventh version. The reply is the moment the thing becomes a real thing instead of a costume. The reply is when someone else becomes real to you in return.
Make Rule 2 for yourself before you need it. My Rule 2 is “tell the emotional truth even if you are lying about the band identity.” Your equivalent of Rule 2 will depend on your project, but the principle is figure out which lies you are okay with and which lies you are not okay with, and write it down before you are tempted to cross the line. The line will get blurry by Week 7. The rule, written down in Week 2, is the only thing that holds. Write your rule down on the back of a receipt. Keep the receipt.
Open a Notion database, or a Google Sheet, or a literal notebook, called “Real People I Owe Things To.” Add your first entry. From this week on, every email you get and every fan you reply to goes in the database. The database is the operating manual. Without the database you will, by Week 7, lose track of who said what, and you will fail people. Do not fail Idun. Set up the database in Week 2, when you have one entry, before it is too hard.
Start the next thing. Do not wait until you feel inspired. The next song does not arrive on its own. You arrive at the next song. You sit on the couch at 9:34 PM after answering the email and you open Suno and you start typing. The next song will be different from the first song. The next song will, in my case, be slower, and sadder, and more careful, because the audience has changed. The first song was for me. The second song was for Idun. The audience changes the song. Let it.
Tell Joanna. Or your equivalent. The phone call is the operating system of the entire band. Without the phone call, every wrong decision is yours alone. With the phone call, every wrong decision is at least pre-screened. You need the brake. The brake is a person. Find your brake.

That’s Week 2. By the end of Week 2 you have one email from one stranger, one reply, one rule, one Notion database with one entry, and one draft of the next song. You are no longer the person who made one Suno song once. You are the person who is making the second Suno song. The second song is the difference between an event and a practice.

In Chapter 3, the Spotify dashboard does the thing where it shows you the line going up. It is a small line. It is going up.

The number gets to 847 monthly listeners by April 4. That is when the panic starts.

— Stevie, on the couch, Bushwick, March 28, 2026, the second song almost done, the email from Idun starred and saved, the Notion database open in another tab, the cat unimpressed, the radiator finally quiet, the band — for the first time — a band.