Warm music, Cold apartment

I used to be engaged to be married.

I was 19, had just moved to NY, was totally and completely broke, met a nice guy, needed to be saved... blah blah blah. Girls hear this: never EVER need anyone to save you but yourself! Or Superman. But only the REAL Superman. No imposters! Or.. ok... Spiderman would be ok too. Pretty much any super hero would be ok to be saved by. BUT ONLY if you are about to fall off a building as it collapses or are about to be cut in half by a man with 8 metal tentacles. ONLY THEN OK?

Wait, I'm getting off track.

Where was I. Oh... I was engaged. And I realized it was a TERRIBLE idea (he was nice and all, but not for me and I was waaaay too young). So I broke it off and moved out of our pretty Brooklyn brownstone. We lived on the top floor above an Italian family that scared the shit out of me. The dad would get pissed at his kids and scream, "Don't you go to sleep tonight! I swear to god, you better sleep with one eye open because I WILL KILL YOU!" I'll tell you I don't know if those kids went to sleep, but I sure did. Slept like a baby. No, no... I was being sarcastic! I didn't sleep at all!

Ahem. Moving on.

I moved out of our pretty brownstone (death house) and stayed in my friend Kirby's house in... well I guess it was kind of a closet. It was small but I was so thankful to have it. And eventually I found my own place. It was a room in an apartment in Tribeca for $1,000/month (way more than I could afford but I was there to prove my independence and that meant going deep in to debt! yay!!) with a tap dancing, pot smoking, Rockette roommate. We'll call her Amy. Because that was her name. The place was awesome because a) it was in the city, b) it was like a cave... no windows except a small one at the end of my room that got almost no light so you could sleep (off a hangover) like nobody's business, and c) we could have great parties there. It was pretty perfect for a girl who never went to college and wanted that "let's do it up!" kind of experience.

And then winter came along. And it was NOT GREAT. The apartment, I came to find, was owned by the Mafia (truth) so therefore when the heat broke and started to spew black SOOT out on all of our belongings (belongings being: clothing, beds, lungs... that sort of stuff), we had no choice but to turn it off and freeze to death. Winter is cold you guys. It's cold outside and it's cold inside a concrete apartment with no windows. I got a small space heater, but I pretty much spent the entire winter freezing.

The only thing that kept me warm and happy (did I mention I also didn't have cable?) was listening to music. The music I remember listening to at that time was Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," Radiohead’s, "Hail to the Thief" and Norah Jones', "Come Away with Me." I might say I Freedied those three albums so much it almost needed a new term.

So say what you will about Norah Jones (Snorah Jones, I've heard) but I absolutely love her voice, love her music, think she's super super talented and love the fact that despite all her success she's pretty much rejected Hollywood and the glitz and glam. I don't think she expected to win 8 Grammies for her album making her NORAH JONES... not just plain old Norah Jones.

Well last night I met and hung out with plain old Norah Jones. My boyfriend and I went to see her play with a new band called Madmo at the Delancey. The band is NOTHING at all like what she's ever done. They wear black eye masks, wigs, the songs ROCK, there's little sweet Norah Jones up there rocking it out with an audience of 20 loving every minute of it. Her band-mate Daru (who sang backup for her albums and has her own music and is really talented) is in the band with her and they have a drummer too... who I am now forgetting his name. But anyway, they ROCK. And I can't find their music anywhere online to show you, so you'll have to just trust me on this.

And... where was I going with this story. I know it was another one of those awesome Paul Newman moments. I DON'T think it was so you guys would think I was totes cool. You already do, right? ;) winky face

I guess it was just one of those moments where someone I really admired and respected turned out to be even more down to Earth than I thought they could be, more talented, and a really nice person. It was pretty swell. Can I say swell? Swell.

So then we partied all night long and Norah held my hair back as I puked on Delancey Street.

Sigh. Unfortch... that was a lie you guys.

I turned into an old lady and went home for sleep and let the cool kids stay out drinking and whooping it up.

Sometimes I'm so responsible I want to die.