2004-08-20 - 12:09 p.m.

i was feeling bummed out yesterday evening. i finished a large painting i'd put a frenzied amount of work into (post partum depression?). i was at a sleep deficit. i'm having some existential dread about the future. on my walk home from the studio, i started calling some friends for company. the first new york-based person i got ahold of was j. we decided to stroll up to moto for an artichoke and a glass of wine.

after sipping some viognier and demolishing a lemon-drenched artichoke; j and i chatted about lovers, cats, the creative process, and people who are too bitter to accomplish anything. at about 9p, the nightly musical act organised itself into a young man playing jazz on an acoustic guitar and an androgynous woman singing her heart out. ruby rosa wailed and scatted her way through a handful of standards the way a school of piranhas eats lunch. she seemed to be singing in a way that struck precisely sympathetic chords to my own internal turmoil, unknotting and unclogging as the music soaked in. i was so stunned with admiration that j actually reached across the table to manually close my mouth.

we vacated our table to make room for the many other people waiting to partake of ms. rosa's graces. i left moto feeling much lighter and more relaxed. we strolled up broadway, j cadging cigarettes, me saying hello to my neighbors. i was asleep on my couch by 10:30p with a smile on my face.

all hail the power of jazz to save my soul. count on me to be swinging with the hepcats at tomkins square park this sunday, at charlie parker's birthday party.