I've Got My Own Hell to Raise (as long as it's before 11 pm)

You guys! I went out! To a show! With a girlfriend! A nighttime ladydate! With cocktails! It was amazing!  Nighttime! And a regular bra!! FREEDOM!!!

(Yep, until the SUPER WILD HOUR of 11 pm. And then boy was I hurtin' in the morning, cause babies don't care how late you were up or how many Citron and Sodas you had (2.5, for the record) or about you stupid post-pregnancy feet not used to heels anymore ouch.)

All that aside, how long have we loved Fiona Apple? A long time. It was so long ago that I first heard Tidal and was struck by its exotic familiarity. For a very long time I have been trying to perfect the ascending notes of Slow Like Honey during my shower-singing sessions (much to the chagrin of many of my former roommates, I am sure). For a very long time I have been amazed that someone could string together lyrics like "you've no reverence to my concern" in a goddamn hit single. Fiona, man. Carrying forth the solemn torch of confessional poets like Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, combined with the badass self-preservation of Patti Smith. She keeps on making albums, surviving, and (perhaps unwillingly) serving as an inspiration to hordes of overly-sensitive young women who get all poetically mad at their boyfriends. Or the world. Whichever.  Not that we know anything about women like that. Not at all.

So, anyway. I had been silently moping over my presumption that the show -- because it was a social event happening in the evening and I just don't do that shit anymore -- was not going to happen for me. But one serendipitous conversation later (Tim mentioned to his friend that I had wanted to go and his friend said his wife, who is the sweetest person ever, also wanted to go but neither of us thought we would go because no one else had asked us to go wah wah waaah this is why you should just ask people if they want to do things, SELF) and I booked a lady-date to see an awesome lady-singer. I was thrilled to be out and happy to shell out the dough to see how Ms. Apple has grown up.

What I found out is that she barely has. Her voice was ferocious, ragged in some songs, on purpose. She danced like a feral yoga instructor or plopped herself down cross-legged and swayed like a little girl listening to records during musical breaks. She chastised the audience for talking during songs (people who talk during songs are bad in bed, she said. And so, um, I stopped talking). The whites of her huge eyes were visible in every part of the auditorium.  It was a tiny bit scary and fairly enthralling and the opposite of the shiny shiny polished pop star thing that a lot of music has become.

She played all the "hits" and several songs I had never heard before, including one batshit crazy song off her new album that is all circus bloops and jangles and was awesome and this description is why I am not a famous music critic. I liked it, and I want to buy the album and play it at high volumes in my car. There you go. 

And the show, the mere act of sitting in front of someone who has gone for the elusive it that is making a living sharing stories about yourself, nudged that part of me that identifies with writers, singers, artists, soul-barers. Not that I have DONE anything about it -- mama hasn't got the mental energy yet, but soon -- I was reminded she is there. The girl who used to carry a tiny notebook and dash off poems at cigarette breaks. The girl who felt too much and slept too little and thought that misery was the only true path to art. My greatest form of self-expression is through my kids, these days, and that is fine and good. But my former self, cut-off army shorts with Camels in the pockets, no money, bad boyfriends, sparking with creative energy self, yearns for another sort of outlet. Soon, I promise her. Soon.

xoxo, A