It’s far enough behind us now in spacetime that I think I can finally get away with letting my jaw hit the ground.

We just played a show at the Roxy with Jason Mraz.

Like just about every other young woman in America, I’ve been a fan of his since roughly 90 seconds into my first show, which Misha dragged me to back in 2001 after our fourth practice together as SWLLC. Since then, Jason and I have met a few times after shows, in passing, and I’m fairly confident I was the first person to bring his music to sub-Saharan Africa*, but we’d never really had any kind of meaningful interaction until this past week.

Now that we have, all I can say is: guh. I’m still kind of in shock.

The first time we all sat down to work on “I’m Yours”, Misha and I were both a little nervous, not wanting to fuck up in front of The Jason or come across as the rank amateurs we really still are, but by the fourth run-through we were just three dudes making music in a living room, and by the end of the night we were all just friends. His talents are no less mind-bending up close, but he somehow has the the most evenly balanced success-to-humility ratio of any man alive, and…I don’t know. He’s just one genuinely badass motherfucker, and I’m glad we finally got to hang out.

Equally badass were the seemingly endless number of friends we made and reunited with this week, from LA to SD to all points in between. Here’s a picture of Jon Marro and Trizzy P sandwiching the mystery woman I never met:

Jon and Billy christened it “The Mafia of Love,” and it just fucking is. From the she-Capo Annie Bethancourt to Consigliere Tyler Huff, to our countless equally entangled friends and well-wishers all across America, this is pretty much the coolest and lovingest crew I’ve ever encountered in my time on this planet, and I’m downright honored to be a part of it. Hopefully we’ll start having musical knife fights with other gangs once it warms up again.

*A Jason Mraz Demonstration, Burkina Faso, September 2001