Posted August 20th, 2003 by Michelle

I couldn’t go to the doctor today. I woke with a dream still fresh, not in content but in feeling. My mother warned me that my good feelings were bound to be colored by relapses into sadness; she was right. I called the gyn, rescheduled for Friday, and crept back into bed until after noon. I was supposed to go to yoga and then sign up for an audition, but it wasn’t until 2 PM that I was ready to walk out the door. I went straight for Bergen Bagel, grabbed a veggie burger and then got on the train headed for Central Park.

By 3 PM I was on line (god, I really wrote “on” line as opposed to “in” line… I must be a real New Yorker now) for the Ben Folds/Aimee Mann show at SummerStage. I was by myself, waiting for the venerable James Amler to join me, and so I met the ten people near me and we watched out for each other until we parted late that night. I was in the first bunch of folks let in, so I hurried to the stage and settled, staggered between the first and second row. James got there by my second beer, and minutes before Ben Folds took the stage. I have to confess I’ve never heard his music before. I know my bretheren might see that as sacriledge but I certainly got to hear it tonight. The only problem was I surrounded by a hundred barely-out-of-their-teens girls, who screamed along so loudly that usually I couldn’t hear Ben sing. What a show. Just him and a piano, in the full sun, and he lit up the stage. He said a lot of funny things that went over the young women’s heads, but they laughed along anyway, and I saw how easily Ben and my brother must have become friends. I was sold. He writes great tunes and he wallomps the piano like no one I’ve seen.

And then Aimee Mann took the stage. I’ve been a fan since she stood up during the opera and screamed, “Hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry” to the chagrin of her video boyfriend. I’d never seen her live. It was one of those experiences that you wish you could relive a few times so you don’t miss anything. I knew 70% of the music she played, and when she started a tune I didn’t know, my mind started to wander in the directions her music pointed me. It didn’t help that I started the day off in less-than-perfect form, but it allowed me to try to think some of this stuff out. Or at least, manuver my mind to a place where it’s okay again.

James once again saved the day; at the wedding, he danced with me all night and made it so incredibly fun I almost forgot my woes. The Rombauer Cabernet Sauvignon helped as well, but James made all the difference. He didn’t know it, but all through Aimee Mann’s set, he was exhaiing on my sweaty back, cooling me and letting me know he was there.

As soon as the show was over, we headed to Blue Smoke where my terrific friend Hayley works. We spent a couple of hours there with her brother, boyfriend, and two friends from Missouri. She came swinging around the bar to sit next to me and demanded the short version of what happened at the wedding.

Listening to great music relieves you of yourself. I sorely missed my brothers, but it was wonderful, and it’s also exactly the kind of thing that I usually bail out of at the last second. I made a promise to myself after the wedding, however, that I would continue to spend time with these people who make me happy.