Meet her by the water, baby...you'll have a really good time

I'm not quite sure how I only yesterday discovered two of my favorite chanteuses - Rachael Yamagata and Mandy Moore - will be in town very soon for your singing-away-the-pain pleasure, but judging by the fact there are still tickets available, this seems to be more the fault of the women's promotional team than my failure to stay up-to-date on the comings and goings of my favorite celebs.

Though Mandy is the undisputed headliner of this mini-tour and one of my oft mentioned favorite Hollywood personalities, my primary motivation in heading to the Birchmere in Alexandria on September 11th is without a doubt the soulful, original, she-just-gets-it lyrical stylings of my fellow hapa, Miss Yamagata.

See here, a video preview of her highly anticipated (at least in my apartment), soon-to-be-released fourth album, which as you'll see from the lyric excerpts in the clip, is assured to be just as introspective, maudlin and downright hope-defeating as her previous three efforts.

Yeeeeah, you're probably gonna want to leave the BF at home that night with a DVD...

No "Jolly Holiday" for me.

I don't know about you, but my first day of spring has been about as hopeful, enjoyable and fashionable as the day my unmanicured hands opened and my un-kohled eyes read that thin Harvard letter after softball practice on April 2, 1998.

So anyway, it's cold today. Like, really cold. So cold, in fact, I'm considering taking a cab the four and half blocks that presently stand between my noodlepuff and me.

Instead of the fresh mix of citrus and oriental vanilla I assumed would greet me outside my front door this morning, the city somehow smelled like China, which contrary to what those of you who haven't been there might think, doesn't waft of spices and intrigue but rather a mix among another person's toe-jam, a construction site porta-potty and the stink of half-assed Communism.

I didn't see a stitch of seersucker or Lily P., either, and though I listened as hard as I could, I didn't hear a single note of "Jolly Holiday" or "A Spoonful of Sugar" the entire day.

To top it off, I just looked down and realized I'm wearing flowers on my skirt. Black and white and geometric, not Laura Ashley, but still, flowers.

Further taking away from the optimism I prematurely assigned myself this morning was the fact that for the first time in recent memory, I didn't see one original fashion 'eff-up during the entire six minutes I vacated the office to fetch the Diet Red Bull I needed to help reinstate my zen after a tiresome phone call in which all the familiar cut-from-therapy phrases were once again pasted into my pearl-studded ear.

To stay true to my concept, I suppose I could tell you I saw a woman carrying a wicker tote, wearing lavender faux-UGGs, saggy-bottom tapered jeans, and a white blouse so sheer I could clearly read "38A" on the tag of her dark beige wide-strapped Maidenform bra, but when I started this blog back in December, I promised both myself and others I would never profile anyone in my office building.

Hopefully the chemical reaction between the $2.69 caffeine-release and my third favorite Rachael Yamagata song on repeat will somehow make for a more fruitful scouting session on my walk home.

As it is with everything, all of this would be so much easier if I had his - the proverbial his - flush bank account to shop away the pain stay-at-Mom style.