What was that thing again about the best laid plans?

Tom and I had it all worked out yesterday: the chocolate-fueled study session, the fancy sushi dinner, the rockin-out rock show at Town Hall. And then slowly it all unraveled, and we couldn’t get hold of each other, what with one in the shower, and one in the computer lab, and one’s cellphone not working, and on and on. At one point the phone-tag voice message from the boy was: “This is ludicrous. Well, it’s not really Ludacris, it’s Tom.”

(The fancy sushi dinner story is, we wanted to fancy it up sushi-style at Sushi Yasuda, but when Tom got all forward-thinking and called ahead to make a reservation, they said they could only offer us a strict one-hour window between six and seven. Non mais, non: A strict one-hour window is no good for a boy and a girl who have been known to shut down a joint, so he gave them what for and we took our sushi business elsewhere, where elsewhere, last night, was the Irving Place Yama, which has always—except when, surprise!, you show up and it turns out they are closed Mondays (or Thursdays) (well, whatever it is, I’ve never been able to keep it straight) (you see why it is a surprise)—been good to us. I got the bill at the end, ’cause of Congratulations-on-starting-school-Tom, and, after grateful thanks, he said, “I’m gonna get you back so hard you won’t know what hit you.” “Are you going to get me with fish?” I said. “Yes,” he said.)

We hopped the N train to the neon wilderness of Times Square, where the part of the night that totally didn’t unravel was the Bright Eyes show, oh, Conor Oberst, you sure know what you’re doing. We got to Town Hall in the middle of the Tilly and the Wall set, but stayed in the lobby to watch the kids milling about in their indie rock uniforms instead. Then we went in the hall briefly when Coco Rosie went on, and, Coco Rosie, I just, I just, I don’t know, maybe I’m speechless. Between the crazella-voiced mental-hospital girl and the loopy opera girl and the hunched-over guy in the dimestore Native American feather hat, yeah, I think I’m speechless. Tom tried to give them a chance, but then we stepped out for bourbons and Cokes. Holding out the cup to me, Tom said, “Want some?” And I declined, but because the boy knows something about me, he said, “It’s sweet.” And soon I had my own.

And then we prank-texted Maud with the preprogrammed messages in Tom’s new phone—(“I love you too,” we said. “Who is this?” she texted back. “Hugs & kisses,” we said.)—and then we started to play Ms. Pacman on my phone, and then the lights went down, and then there was cheering, and then, well, oh, Conor Oberst, you sure know what you’re doing. There was a girl bassist in a little pink dress and a red sparkle guitar, she knew what she was doing, will someone teach me to play the guitar already? And there was Mike Mogis, who sometimes got to play a wild blue guitar, and he knew what he was doing, too. And Jason Boesel, well, he was on fire. I don’t know how he does it, Conor Oberst, how he hears all of it in his head, how he wraps the city into a country tune, how he folds the night sky into a song. We sat when the show was over, and then we sat some more. Then I came home and played “Lua” while I brushed my teeth, and when I woke up in the mousey morning today, I played “Lua” over toast and coffee.