Life's a fairytale!

It's about time I talked about what Vanessa Carlton's album "Heroes and Thieves" means to me. It's so strong but vulnerable, and her voice is able to shine in her trademark sweet and sallow radiance.

The album reflects all her ups and downs of the last few years of dating record label producers, being dumped by those labels (relationship-wise and professionally), and living life in the Nolita neighborhood in downtown New York City. Hence, her first track "Nolita Fairytale," which shows how ups as well as downs are really what make life a fairytale.

For those who I haven't talked to lately, I'm living my own 'Nolita Fairytale' of sorts.

The downs of my life have included issues of or related to patience: patience on others to grow up from the petty 'drama' of child and adolescent years that I never cared for, patience to finally reach an age when I could go out and live my dreams. So it's just a coincidence that on the brink of my first big break in life, I discovered her lovely voice again. And now, a little less than a year later, my dreams are really setting into motion, and I now walk the very streets she refers to with the songs in my head.

"Spent the last two years getting to what's real:" Yeah, I know a lot about that. It's no coincidence that celebrities flock to rehab in Utah. I consider my time there a rehab of sorts too. Time to sort out priorities, realize passions, make forever friendships, and just see there is more to the world than all the California materialist nonsense.

I'm going to give a shout out to my roommates from last fall (you know who you are). The tracks titled "The One" and "More Than This" helped them get over lame boy baggage from their pasts. We used to listen to them before tucking in last fall semester. The songs are hopeful and ultimately confident, but tinged with a beautiful vulnerability everyone has, but not all confess.

Her song "Spring Street" is now hilarious to listen to (not melancholic) for me because I currently work a block away from Spring Street in SoHo.



By the way, her Web site is adorable. I love the earthy whimsicality. It's so...her.

And she's coming to perform July 30 in NYC (with Joshua Radin and Alexa Wilkinson), so tell me if you'll be in town then so you can come too!