The music stuff. That’s official. The advice on my love-life? Well, that’s a bonus.

And he’s not the only wonderful guy handing out advice to me lately.

“Are you working on any new songs, Jess?” my pop asks, nonchalantly.

“Yep.”

“Are they sad songs about heartache?” he says, still playing at nonchalance.

“Uh…I guess…kinda…”

“Well, you better find another guy to break your heart soon…I mean, that gives you quite a lot of material,” he says, laughing now. And I am, too, cause we joke about everything in my family. You have to. Otherwise you’d be crying too much, I think.

But I wouldn’t mind a guy who doesn’t break my heart, if it’s all the same to you. 

I visited Rosa’s today with some friends. Rosa’s is a wonderful little Italian restaurant around the corner from my parents’ house. It has the best barbecue chicken pizza I’ve ever had. I am a little obsessed with it. Seriously. My friend Christian gets a little frustrated with me about it, because, I have literally arrived back from Japan and he’s all, “Let’s get lunch! On me! I’ll take you anywhere you’d like to go–ANYWHERE.”

I’m all, “Great. Rosa’s, then,” without missing a beat.

And he sighs. Because I think he is expecting me to say something a little fancier or a little less around the corner from where he works. every. day (of the week), or a little–well, not Rosa’s.

But, anyway, I have gained a reputation there for my taste in their pizza. So much so, that they haven’t bothered learning my name. No need, because they have their own for me. Something I realized when I was singing at a bar and the guys from Rosa’s happened to be there, too. They were like, “Barbecue Chicken? We had no idea you could sing like that!”

I was all, Barbecue Chicken? I had no idea you called me that! 

Anyway, today I get a facebook message from Andre, who works at Rosa’s. It says: ‘Barbecue Chicken! Someone posted a video on my wall last week of a girl playing and rapping and singing on the subway–I thought it was great, but only just realized it was you, after you came into the shop today! Way to go, Barbecue Chicken!’

Oh man.

Barbecue Chicken.

I’m kind of honored.

And it could be worse.

My favorite pizza could be extra cheese.

And it looked like this:

(that’s Wayne Tucker, Biet Simkin, me, and Tom Larsen, from left to right–they are incredible musicians; such a privilege to collaborate with them)

I also met with my publicist today. Yes, this means I have a publicist, which is quite new for me. She took one look at my safety pinned-together purse and was quite taken a back. “We need to correct this situation,” she said. “You cannot just walk around looking like…”

“…a homeless person?” I supplied.

She nodded and I made a mental note to drop my purse off at the leather shop this weekend while I am recording.

I wore three inch heels last night. This makes me 5’11. “You are sooooooooo tall,” said someone in the audience as I walked by them. What’s interesting about that kind of statement is that it’s hard to know how to respond, exactly. You can’t say ‘thank you,’ because it isn’t a compliment. You can’t say ‘so are you,’ because it’s generally a short person who makes that kind of observation. You could say that you are not so tall when compared to most trees, but that would start a conversation that you might not want to have. Plus, there are always bonsai trees–and they totally trump your argument.

I usually just end up agreeing and then trying to move the conversation on.

Oh, and here is a video someone took of us covering ‘I Need a Doctor’ from last night at Sleep No More, if you care to watch.

And that, my friends, concludes this blog post.

I am meeting a new friend who’s visiting from Britain tomorrow morning. We met because she interviewed me for a radio program, and now we’re hanging out. The internet is a crazy and wonderful place sometimes.

And I have been toting it one-handed all the while. Never knowing it could be any different. Never realizing that life was only one tiny revelation away from being SO. MUCH. BETTER.

Because, see, I go to Sam Ash today. I had to do a gig tonight and was prepared to bring all my instruments. Well, all two of them, anyway. But, I need to buy a stand for my keyboard, and get to talking to the salesman. “How in the world do you guys tote everything around on the subway?” I ask.

“I have a car,” he admits.

Must be nice. 

“But you have a Nord, you say?” he asks, and I confirm.

“Yeah, I got a dolly to roll it around,” I add.

“Why don’t you use the straps?” he says.

“The straps?” I repeat.

“The straps,” he repeats, this time.

“Uh…there are only tiny straps–and I do use them–I grip ‘em with one hand…”

“No, the back pack straps. YOU DO HAVE A NORD, RIGHT?”

“Yeah, a Nord,” I agree.

“And you have the Nord case–the red one?”

I nod.

“Then, use the back pack straps. Wear it on your back. Free your hands.”

“I’ve never seen those straps…” I say, but this time with a little less conviction.

“GIRL,” the salesman says slowly and directly, like he’s speaking to a monkey who is just learning his commands, “UNZIP THE ZIPPERS ON THE BACK. PULL OUT THOSE STRAPS. WEAR. YOUR. NORD. ON. YOUR. BACK.”

I say thank you and decide to try just that when I get back to my apartment. But I don’t expect it to necessarily happen. It’s the heart that is well-acquainted with disappointment that learns to keep things in check; to not rely on much until it’s tangible, you know. Don’t need no backpack strap-less gig bag breaking my heart. Not on an otherwise lovely Monday.

And, wonders of wonders, it works! It feels like magic, unzipping those hidden (well, previously to my eyes, anyway) zippers and pulling out those back pack straps. I strap the thing onto my back and walk proudly around the apartment, showing Betsy how much better my life has gotten in just the last sixty seconds.

You guys, I feel so bamf walking around the city with my keyboard strapped to my back. I mean, to be completely honest, it does get a little heavy after a while, and, not used to having my keys, my uke, and the stand on me in the subway, I did accidentally hit someone with the uke (“YOU GOT MY EYE!” a guy yelled. I felt horrible. But then he told me he was okay. And then I felt better)–but still, I can haul all my stuff all by myself and if that’s not the definition of a strong woman, then I don’t know what is.

And just think–what other revelations are just around the corner, waiting to make life better?

Now, if only my keyboard stand could be folded into ear muffs or something; life would be just about perfect.

FINALLY.

And then my therapist up and moved to Nashville. What can I say? Therapists have dreams, too, I guess. And in this case, my therapist had a husband with a dream.

But I have also met a few times with a counselor in Pennsylvania. I don’t meet with him often, because, frankly, I cannot afford it. But honestly, I am thinking that, for me, rich might look like voice lessons and therapy. LOTS AND LOTS OF BOTH. Expensive, wondrous mechanisms for better living, which I cannot afford at the moment.

But I wake up to a text this morning from my counselor: I have a cancellation at 12:30 today, if you wanna stop by and see me.

I groggily think about it (I have just woken up, after all), and realize that I cannot afford it. So, regretfully text him such.

No charge, he writes back, I think it’d be good to talk; you’ve been on my heart. 

WHAT.
OKAY.
DONE.

So I go and I tell him all of it. The little things that have been sticking to my heart over the past two weeks or so. The big things that have made me cry. The stuff that can only be described as: GOD DID THAT. The fears I still feel. The hopes I had thought were folded up, hidden in boxes and stored for another season, because surely they weren’t needed now. Not when nothing was happening. Over and over again–so many almosts and close calls and maybe next times and “keep your chin up, kid”s–to the point that, if people asked me what was happening in my life, I simply said not much and tried to change the topic over to their life.

Because I didn’t know how appropriate it’d be to tell them how I’d cried into my pillow last night again. How I still sometimes thought of him and wondered what he was thinking. How life could sometimes feel like a deadline that was yesterday, always yesterday. How my dreams scared me because I felt their power to usher in more disappointment into my life–felt it palpably. How I still think life is the most beautiful and poignant thing I’ve ever seen. How the sunset makes my heart hurt sometimes, it is so stunning. How the stars feel like friends with kind faces. How, in a lot of cases, I find television boring compared to all the stories that are unfolding around me. How Christmas parties are painful. How talks with friends are oxygen.

So, right: I don’t say all that, because who has the time or inclination to listen?

But I said a lot of that–adding a few details into the mix–today. And I feel so, well, taken care of. I probably didn’t even realize I needed to talk until afterward; but I did. And it happened. Not even because I could afford it; I couldn’t. Not even because I knew I needed it; I didn’t know.

But because there is a provision in my life that goes beyond what I have; it looks at what I need and then it gives me more than that, even. And everywhere I look, I see the provision of God.

Like I said: taken care of.

And today I felt it. Again.

So finally I just walked out of the bathroom and explained the situation to her. Though, seeing my fly open probably gave her the gist of it before I opened my mouth.

Enter: safety pin.

Have I mentioned that safety pins are basically my knight in shining armor? They are right now responsible for holding together: my purse, a pair of boots, and now my bright green jeans.

Who needs a personal assistant when you have safety pins?

“The good news is that a replacement zipper costs $10,” my friend told me.

And the bad news is that I’m out for the day and my zipper is busted and a safety pin is reflecting the sun from my crotch, I thought.

Oh well, C’est la vie, right?

I took pilates today with a teacher I’d never had before. And I happened to be waiting for the elevator with her before the class. And she kept hemming and hawing over the length of time it took for the elevator to get down to us. And then she got all frustrated over the fact that it was 6:30 on the dot and the instructor who was presently teaching in the studio had not yet finished. And then she got all mad at the lady giving a tour to prospective clients because she interrupted the pilates class (once it was well underway) by touring it briefly. All this to say: no matter how good the class was, I would have been less than impressed.

Because we are in a world that involves other people.

And they use the elevator, too. And they teach classes, too. And they have to do their job and give tours, too. And I think if we realize this (and if I realize this, because I sometimes get frustrated with the elevator and forget that maybe Suzie on the tenth floor needs it a little bit more than me right now. Maybe she’s got to go to the bathroom. Maybe she has a busted fly and–horror of horrors!–NO SAFETY PIN!) –well, if we realize this, then we start to practice patience. And when we start to practice patience, then all the good parts of life become much more accessible. Not that they weren’t there before in droves–but now we notice them. And, honestly, whether the good parts are there or not doesn’t matter as much, I think, as whether or not we notice them.

So, here’s to practicing patience. And realizing that we share the elevator with a whole building full of people who lead VERY! IMPORTANT! LIVES! too.

And, just to bring it round full circle, here’s to safety pins. Because they sure help when my fly has decided not to.

Would you like to know what, exactly, I was ‘taking in’ while I was playing and singing on the tv this morning? Why the heck did I write such a long song with so many words?! Those were my thoughts at the onset of the song. If felt like the song was impossibly long. A veritable marathon of music. Whoever thought ALL THOSE VERSES (two) and ALL THOSE CHORUSES (three) and a WHOLE FLIPPIN BRIDGE (one) was a good idea for just one song, anyway? Really, who wrote this crap?

Seriously. And now you know. Sometimes I feel afraid and sometimes I am not magical in my thinking and sometimes performing on tv feels like oh god oh god oh god oh god–help me not to mess this up! But then I get into the second verse and I start to enjoy it. And my new ukulele is singing along with me. And it didn’t hurt that the Super Cute Vampire From Twilight (does he go by any other name, really?) that was interviewed right before me said, “You sound really great.”

Vampires give the best compliments.

And now I can hear the sound of the rain against the window to my right. It’s falling and falling endlessly; like the universe lives generously; like the rain is a gift that will not run out. Reminding me that I, too, can live generously. That whatever is is that God has put in me will not soon run out, either.

And oh! I took a cab to get to FOX studios this morning. If you know my sense of direction and how it is comparable to the amount of times I’ve performed MC Hammer’s Can’t Touch This (um, zero), then, you’d understand. Probably a good idea to, you know, actually get to the studio, was the thinking that prompted getting a cab.

But I had to pay with a card, because I generally have no cash (so far we’ve learned that a). I generally do not perform Can’t Touch This and b). I generally have no cash. Moving on, class, excellent lesson today!).

So, I had to call the service that takes your card information, effectively allowing one to pay their fare. Anyway, the lady on the phone asked me for the reservation number–I asked the cabbie, and repeated what he told me. Then she asked me the name. “Name?” she said, just like that.

And this was a tough one.

I glanced at the name in front of me on the ID thingy that makes you realize this driver is legit and all that. Knowing I would probably butcher the pronunciation, I decided to just spell the whole darn thing.

“K-W-A-H-I-P-E-S-T-I,” I spoke into the phone.

“First name?” she asked me.

“I-T-L-A-N-A-R-I,” I said, nice and loud.

At which point the cabbie looked back at me and said rather urgently, “Hey! That’s MY name.”

Um, obvi, I thought.

“Sorry–I spelled it, cause I wasn’t sure I’d say it properly,” I explained, thinking he was upset about that.

“No–I mean,” he said, “Why are you giving MY NAME for the credit card?”

And then it dawned on me. And I started cracking up. “Hahahahahahahaha!,” I said. “I am so sorry–I thought that’s what the lady wanted–YOUR name.”

“No. She wants YOUR name!” he clarified.

And then he started laughing, too. And amid our laughter I managed to ask him two things: “Did you think we were related, when you first heard me spell your last name?” And also: “You didn’t want to pay for my cab fare today?”

We both laughed long and hard over that one. Which was a nice moment, actually.

And–funniest one liner I heard from a stranger yesterday, while he was walking off the subway car. He brushed past me and quietly said under his breath, “I tweeted your video.”

Hilarious.

And interesting that that sentence would have made absolutely no sense five years ago.

But it’s  a great kind of exhausted, because it comes from doing a lot of this:

Which doesn’t look nearly as difficult as it is. Does anyone realize how hard it is to record an instrument that is not your forte? Recording a piano is much easier than recording a ukulele. For me, anyway. I imagine this is not the case with everyone. But, luckily, one can take many takes in a studio.

Favorite quote today…Wait, not yet.

Because, first, let me give you some context. My pop had just picked me up from the train station and taken me back home; my parents’ three HUGE (see how effective it is to actually make the word ‘huge,’ well, huge? I need you to know these are not small or even medium sized dogs, guys)–but their three alaskan malamutes were making me feel very welcome. By sniffing me and stuff. You know, what dogs do. So my pop says to me very seriously, “No matter how famous you might get, Jess, you will always come back home to a place where the dogs will sniff your crotch.”

Which keeps things in perspective. Keeping it real, as they say.

And something else that’s real is I need to record vocals tomorrow. And so sleeping is a very good idea.

Good night.

When I’m feeling like the past is the only kind of fire I can ever warm my heart by again.
When I am feeling like I must rush to catch up, that I am that white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland who is perpetually late, late, late! Always preoccupied by the clock he clutches, by the knowledge that what he was sure he’d do yesterday isn’t even a guarantee for tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or any day, really.
When I am missing the shape that my life had settled into at one point.
When I am afraid that tomorrow will bring more change; when I am even more afraid that tomorrow will be exactly the same as today.

To all this, my friends and the maker of this beautiful universe, say the same thing. They say it over and over again, tirelessly; it sounds like doors slamming and hearts breaking, but something more, too; like the kind of peace that comes when you look to your hands and see them finally empty. The white knuckles are not so white any longer and now, oh dear God, NOW there is room for something that is pure life giving.

Like water, clean and sweet.

Like grace, undeserved.

Let go, they tell me so many times, swelling until it becomes the very sound of the wind rushing the leaves to the ground in the fall; the soft brush of winter snow sticking to the corners of the porch in piles, as if we could ever actually save some for later; the sound of springtime birds singing, not because they have to, but because it’s just another sign that they are alive; and I can hear it in summer, too. In the free swish of my skirt against my bare legs, my body having hidden behind sweaters and leggings and boots and layers of just about everything imaginable all winter long.

Let go.

It’s an anthem and a challenge; it’s simple but there’s nothing easy about it.

Nevertheless, let go.

It’s better this way, the universe keeps telling me, and who am I to argue?

“No!” I say, quickly. “I love the name Jane; I want Jane to be my daughter’s middle name someday,” I tell her.

“Why?” she asks. “Why do you love my name?”

“I love how it sounds, the nice, long ‘a’ vowel sound; how short a word it is, and yet how timeless.”

I don’t tell her that it’s vintage and I love vintage things. Because she is older than I and has already mentioned this once or twice, to the point where I think this must be a big deal for her–but maybe not in a good way–so calling her name vintage might not make her happy.

“Thank you for liking my name,” she says, before she goes in to sing.

“It’s perfect,” I tell her.

I leave the audition and go to meet a friend. We are going to try out a bakery we found. It’s French. When we get there, he orders a sandwich and I order soup. The waitress places what must be a sandwich down in front of him, though the only reason one would know that is because that’s what the menu says. It looks nothing like a sandwich. “This is the strangest dish I’ve ever seen in my life,” my friend says.

I offer him some of my soup.

It actually looks like soup, too.

Bonus.

I go off to meet more friends. They have an extra ticket to American Ballet Theatre’s Nutcracker. I am mesmerized. Riveted. And then laughing. Because there are bumble bees in ABT’s version of the Nutcracker. They dance around on stage during waltz of the flowers and look basically ridiculous. I don’t even know if it’s supposed to be funny or not; it doesn’t matter, though, because it is.

And in this little sequence of the events of my little life, I am content. In fact, my heart wells up with joy. I feel grace on me so tangibly, like the unmistakable heat from the sun. Nothing is perfect; everything is wonderful. I don’t always feel this way, but today I do and so, if you don’t mind, I’m not in any kind of rush to tomorrow.

Anyway, I ended up in Brooklyn. Oh, who am I kidding–I knew I would end up there. See, it’s just because my absolute favorite shop in the whole wide world is there. Cat-bird. That’s what the shop is called. And it holds such wonderful little unique treasures and interesting things. It’s where I found this today.

They always have something unicorn in it. Which is part of why I love the place, I guess. Unicorns and I go way back. To when I was four, I think. Four and sick in the hospital with scraggly blond hair never cut evenly a day in my life, if the pictures tell me anything about it. My two best memories of the hospital are when my brothers all marched in to visit and handed me homemade cards, one after the other. Just dropped them into my lap while I was laying on the hospital bed. I still remember it and it still makes me smile. And the other best memory was my parents, bringing me down to the gift shop and telling me I could pick out anything I wanted from the whole store.

Whoa.

So, I found the unicorn stuffed animal, and he moved from the gift room downstairs to my room somewhere upstairs.

I bought a tiny gift for one of my nieces who’s on my christmas gift list this year. I love to buy something from Cat-bird for someone I love. It’s like inviting them into a very good, very warm place, giving them something from there.

And then I found a vintage store. Of course. And the lady who works there–Francesca–had all kinds of fun dressing me up. “It’s just you can fit into everything, so it’s so fun to finally see these clothes on a body!”

And it was so fun.

Until she made me try on the World’s Tiniest Pants Ever.

“You’re a size ___, right?” she asked me.

“Yep.”

Then she sticks something into the dressing room while saying, “Great. Try these on.I can’t wait to see them on you!”

And then they wouldn’t go over my thighs, so I had to let her down gently. She’s still searching for someone to put those pants on. So, really, if you have exceptionally skinny thighs and no butt to speak of, pay her a visit on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn. Make her day.

She also stuffed my size 8 feet into a pair of size 7 boots.

Which made me feel like one of Cinderella’s step-sisters trying to squeeze into that magical glass slipper.

And I was always hoping to be Cinderella in that story, see, so it wasn’t the best feeling for me.

But I did find a pair of pants that fit like a dream, have this amazing tailored look, and the plaid ain’t too shabby, either. Done.

It was a good time tonight. I enjoy my company. I enjoy other people’s company, too. Like a nice guy I met, who bought me some pizza. I was starving, so it really came in handy. We had a good conversation. We realized that were both in South Korea at the same time. How weird is that?

And now look what I’ve gone and done–totally written a whole blog post. I had told myself I was only gonna post the unicorn card, and be done with it. Maybe say a thing or two about Cat-Bird. Ugh. I am a lost cause when it comes to writing less.

I suppose there are worse lost causes out there.

Oh, but one more thing about Cat-Bird. In it, I saw this apron, fitted with a whole row of pencils on the front of it, with large letters across, saying,

WEAPONS TO FIGHT FASCISM

I like it. Use those pencils. Write. Write your thoughts down. Don’t be like everyone else. Don’t form a government with no factions. Let us continue to sharpen each other with our pointed ideas, friends.

Okay, that’s really all now. Promise.