my heart was mended

by a scottish man:

i heart you, jamie lidell. i heart your insanely rich soulful delicious not-even-in-the-least-bit-disappointing-live voice. i heart your angular shoulders and silly gold collar and white leather boots. i heart your goofy grin and jolty dances and total lack of pretension. i heart the totally sexy and complete way that beats occupy your body. and i heart heart heart the ease with which you move from heavy to soulful to light to violent to indulgent to sweet to aggressive to magical, as if all of those things inhabited you at the same time, all the time.

sigh.

thank you for making me happy last night, jamie lidell.

yesterday started out not so great. i woke up at my usual 6:45am, blurrily made myself a mug of earl gray and sat down at my laptop for my morning gig. my thumb and middle finger on my right hand are all ouchy and painful, and i notice i've developed a blister and a welt from burning myself cooking the night before, and my vanity wells up like an angry blowfish. but other than the ouchyness, all is well with me until about 8:05am, when while busily writing a summary about soft vs. rough toilet paper, or some such nonsense, i look down at my desk and notice an ant.

and then another.

and then, good lord, ANOTHER.

now, an ant problem in my bedroom would perhaps not be surprising if A) i was a slob B) i left candy out to rot or C) if i was a slob. i am, however, A) meticulous B) freakish about bugs and rarely leave food out C) meticulous.

so needless to say, i panic slightly. after noticing MORE ants, i tell DD i have to go, and promptly call my building manager (no answer, of course) and then frantically google "exterminator new york."

and i find my way to Absolute Death, exterminators extraordinnaire.

the nice fellow from Absolute Death calms me down, says he'll have two technicians out to me that afternoon, and in the meantime i should clean my rugs, get everything out of my bedroom, especially everything off the floor, and try to find the source of the ants.

so i do just that. in between my ant-vigilante-dom, i take C's keys and bolt to her apartment to borrow her vacuum. the top key lock doesn't work. d'oh! i bang on K's door, and yes! she has a vacuum. she looks for it, and d'oh! Y has taken it. since Y is at work, i manically call AB on both of his phones and leave panicked messages about my need for their vacuum. ten minutes later he sleepily calls me back and i rush over to their place to pick up the equipment. then i rush back home, and after removing everything out of my bedroom other than my bed and desk (this includes all the clothes out of my closet, the paintings, the stacks of books and papers and notes, my computer, my shoe racks ... EVERYTHING) i vacuum my little heart out, wipe everything down, dust, and then vacuum again. and i stake out the ants, which i think are coming from a little crack in my windowsill.

mind you, yesterday was also one of the busiest days i've had in weeks, work-wise; stupid freelance stuff to take care of, plus a million calls scheduled at WWD. so i vacuum, take call; kill ants, talk about the future of the fragrance industry; vacuum, make appointments for a vegas trip; kill ants, deal with crazed publicist.

Absolute Death shows up, and the very friendly techs seal and caulk up the source (i was right! some small cracks in my windowsill), spray down every inch of my bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, and regale me with stories of R.O.U.S.es roaming free in new york. apparently, rats really do go up into residential toilets. and they really are up to 2 feet long, including their tails. and yes -- they can recognize people that usually drop food or bring out garbage or otherwise feed them!!!

eep. ants no longer seem like such a big deal.

so after my ant extravaganza, i head into work, where i have a rushed couple hours of work -- but yay! my zappos showed up -- and decide i am too tired, cranky, and stressed about my disaster of an apartment and the general annoyance that has been my life lately to go see jamie lidell. besides, AM is being all iffy about it, and i wasn't up to going to a show by myself. not today. er, yesterday.

but back home, while scarfing down pork tenderloin leftovers -- which were definitely tasty but perhaps not worth the welts on my hands -- AM calls and says he's in. he doesn't have a ticket yet, but he's in. so he comes to pick me up, we hang out in my war zone of a home, get a little buzzed, and drive over to the bowery ballroom. at the door, evil of evils! the show is sold out. i debate going in solo, or going to queens with a very disappointed AM to his studio, or going back to williamsburg to have a drink, or just going home and calling an end to this very crappy ant-filled day. and then i start to hear beats ... lots and lots of beats.

i leave AM and am lured inside. jimmy edgar is on stage, pumping out some appealing, heavy and dark tracks. after a quick set change, my new husband, my heart of hearts, jamie lidell pops onstage. his 90-minute set included all the best tracks from multiply, the highlights being "what's the use" and "you got me up." he brought jimmy edgar out for a track or two, which was just ... hot. then he closed with a freaking killer mix of "when i come back around" and then encored with a singalong "multiply." the fact that this goofy-looking white boy had the moves of james brown AND the soul of a big black woman wrapped up in pipes of gold AND the hands of a badass producer AND the comedic timing of a vaudeville star AND could beat box AND could get a crowd of club rats, R&B fans, gay men and goth rock kids all blissed out and dancing together ... it was a beautiful thing.

and totally healing. i feel clearer and brighter. and to think, i almost skipped out on this night of happy anonymity and skin-tingling music. thank you, jamie! i heart you forever and ever.