Today, for the touristy portion of our time, we (Steven, Aimee, Greg and I) ate at the Blue Moon diner, visited JoLynn’s store (Tokens, in Hell’s Kitchen), and briefly wandered Times Square, which is such a sensory overload that it’s amost like not doing anything at all.

There’s a point at which too much becomes totally Zen and Times Square achieves that. (In spades.) Steven hates it. If I lived here, I’d never go over there either. But as a tourist, I thought it was, well, touristy as fuck. So much crazy shit to look at!

After that we went back to Patti’s and rehearsed again.

Aimee, me, and Greg on the train to rehearsal

I really like Patti, she’s dry as hell and she cracks me up. (Plus she curses as much as I do, which I like in a girl.) She gave me a lecture for drinking out of her collector’s restaurant glass with Tweety Bird on it, replaced it with a paper cup, and then showed me her rather extensive collection of kitchy collector’s restaurant glasses. (Remember those 16 oz. glasses you could get from McDonald’s or something in the late seventies, the ones with all the Warner Bros. characters stencilled on them? She has a full set.) Rehearsal went well overall. I still think the group’s a little large, but it’s not my project.

Barbara, Steven, and Maggie Roche, at Patti’s
(sorry for the lack of flash and resolution, this is a camera phone pic)

After rehearsal was over, we waddled over to Amsterdam and ate dinner at Monsoon. Greg hooked up with an old friend of his, John, who came to meet us there, and Karen’s man Larry came too. John and Aimee knew Katy Garnier in common, so John called her and she showed up too. Dinner conversation was animated and stimulating and funny, and the food was great. Particularly the asparagus/avocado roll appetizers with the peanut dipping sauce and wasabi.

John paid the tab for all nine of us (or rather Time-Warner picked up the tab), bless his heart, and then we went outside and sang three of the a capella charts on the street corner. By the time we were done singing we had a crowd of about twenty, all wanting to know who we were and what we were doing and where they could see us. We did Sweet True Love and I wailed my solo right there on the street; it was fun hearing my voice bounce back from the buildings over the traffic. (I’m SO loud when I want to be.) John came over to me afterward and put his hand on my shoulder and gazed at me. I said, “You like me now, don’t you.”

He gave me a sardonic grin. “I like you very much now. You wail like a black girl.”

Sometimes I love being me. People meet me, think I’m funny, dismiss me. Then they hear me sing and give me this look. It’s so satisfying.

After much standing around and chatting, Steven and Aimee and I caught a cab back to Steven’s because he had to make a phone call at 10:30 and his cell phone had died.

Now I’m sitting on the futon chatting with Aimee, waiting for Steven to take me out for a damn cocktail. I am so craving a cocktail.

Tomorrow, we have to be at Live Wire (the studio Barbara’s using) at eleven to record. I intend to get up early and warm the hell up; I very much doubt my voice will be particularly supple at eleven in the morning since I don’t even really wake up until about 9 o’clock at night. Four singers on a mic; it’ll be a totally different recording reality.

I’m still madly in love with New York. I love the vibe. I love the people. I love the insane pace. I love the whole fucking thing. Nobody gives a shit; it’s wonderful and crowded and dirty and I don’t want to leave.

Right now I’m using JoLynn’s laptop on their balcony in their adorable expensive Chelsea apartment, and three dudes are about to have a fist fight on the sidewalk below. It’s warm and humid as hell and loud as fuck and bright as day at eleven o’clock at night, and I love it here.
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