This is the story, and you're not in it.

Over the last few days I've been talking and thinking a lot about break ups. It was sunny this weekend but that drab, sad feeling of the bottom dropping out prevailed, and the sun slipped away sometime early in the week, leaving us with gray clouds, chilly weather, and sniffly noses. We can't just ignore it, this feeling. I usually just try to ignore anything that bothers me - the dirty dishes, the overflowing trash, the finite breaking of a heart. But just like the dishes and the trash, these need to be addressed and overcome.

I was chatting with my best friend earlier. We're tired and busy. We need to clear our heads so we planned a night to wear heels and flirty smiles. We need to heal, we need to get past this, and we can do it together, right? Right.

I can't stop listening to I'm Not Yours. It's relevant for all of us, and you know who you are.

So how do you get over it?

Boyfriend in a bottle available on Etsy.

The Thing about Breakups

It's Saturday and the sun is shining. There are mushrooms growing on the side of my picnic table. I noticed them this morning while I was playing Scrabble and waiting for my head ache to go away. I didn't touch them though; I was slightly impressed and disgusted with their weird spindly growth. I want to do something for someone that is hurting but I'm not sure what to do. I want to tell L, listen to If You Had a Bad Time. Break plates in my kitchen. Hit the steering wheel in your car, beat on something. Drink a million beers in the sunshine with me, today's perfect for it...

I'm working on a new mix, something for spring. I first thought it would be about sadness, like the last one, but then I thought about revenge, then love, then back to sadness. We all carry our baggage in different ways.

It was a full moon last night so I'm not surprised about the things that happened or the conversations that were had. If real life was like movie I could predict the next scene, but our life is not like a movie. And we're still here. In the sunshine, on a Saturday, you and me.

Daphne D painting available on Etsy.

And the Case of the Empty Email

There is a situation in my life that makes me incredibly frustrated. I don't want to handle it, and don't know HOW to handle it, so I bitch and moan and let it get to me often. I know that these passive aggressive tendencies are not healthy or helpful so I started writing about it in my journal, once I started writing in my journal again after following Julia Cameron's advice. And it helped. Then I started working out and that helped too, but I can't make it to the gym every day and that frustration just keeps building up. So I started writing emails - emails without a To address, ones that I will never send. Empty emails, if you will. On these emails I can actually say what I want. I can place blame even where it's not due. I can fire off insults, I can explain disappointment and dread and all the things that I really can't say, all the things that don't need to be said, really, because it's not you, it's never you, it's me. No, it's not me. I was just saying that to be cliche. It's the situation. And it's you. And it's me. Hell!

The empty emails really do help; it's like sucking poison from a wound. There's a lot of poison in this wound though, and it only festers when life gets stressful and eventful.

So here are some other stress-relieving tips from me and from the good ol' interwebs. A list, if you will. Brief, informative, delightful.

1. Shadow boxing
2. High kicking
3. Breathing
4. Amigurumi-ing
5. Walking, even aimlessly

And, of course, my favorite: cursing. And the creative ways to incorporate bad words into your life.

Hollow Book Secret Safe available on Etsy.
The F Word Cross Stitch available on Etsy.

Can we go?

Now that I'm getting myself together and staying out of the bars, my friends and I are planning "friend dates" - just special times together where we actually DO something. And I think that this will be one of them. Watch the clip. Information about the event follows.

information from the light factory

GUY AND MADELINE ON A PARK BENCH Directed by Damien Chazelle 2010 / USA / Black and White / English Thurs. Feb. 17 - Sat. Feb. 19 7:30 PM Hodges Taylor Art Consultancy (401 N. Tryon - Transamerica Square) $5 Members / $7 Non-Members