Free parking space! Not.

So, Friday morning, I'm having coffee in Old Town with my friend Chris, and we hung out for about an hour and a half. Then we parted ways for our respective cars.

As I approached my car I notice: MY BACK LICENSE PLATE IS MISSING!!

I can't swear that it didn't happen earlier while it was parked on my street, but I think I would have noticed it when I got into the car that morning. The irony, assuming that it was stolen on Cameron Street is that I didn't park in a garage or even at a meter on a more populated street because that spot was FREE. Not anymore!
I reported it to the police, so the plates are registered as stolen. But I'll have to replace them, because even as I type this, I'm imagining thieves in a scary masks on a major heist using my plate on their getaway car.

Plus the DMV requires it. And I have to go there in person and everything!

That was one expensive parking space.

On a positive note, being between jobs means I have plenty of time to stand in line....

All we can do is keep breathing

I wrote this a while ago, intending to post it to some anonymous depression-focused blog I created, but it's part of who I am (sometimes) and I think it really belongs on the Chronicles. I don't feel the need to be anonymous anymore.

I like "Grey's Anatomy." I think at its best, the show can be genuinely moving. It's no "Buffy"--pondering the nature of good and evil and what it means to have a soul. But definitely glimpses of the simultaneous fragility and resilience of the human heart.

I also really like its music. I'll leave it to others to analyze what that says about my hipness or lack thereof, but I enjoy what I find. And sometimes I find pieces that resonate. Like the song I currently can't get out of my head: "Keep Breathing" by Ingrid Michaelson:

I want to change the world. Instead, I sleep.

Wow, did that catch my attention the first time I heard it. Not that my aspirations were ever quite that lofty, but there are things I thought I would do and I haven't. Projects I want to do, but don't. Specifically, this current relapse has been all about apathy. A lack of desire and energy to do anything but keep body and soul (and my dog) together. Like the song goes on to say:

All that I know is I'm breathing.

Pretty grim, right? And it's definitely felt like that sometimes. Full on episodes of that scary nothingness that is woven into the fabric of depression--what I like to call "the abyss." But I also find another meaning in the song--a subtle shift in the lyrics:

All I can do is keep breathing

Like, as long as I'm breathing, anything is possible.

Breath, in various contexts, is kind of a personal touchstone. Like another song I picked up from Grey's: "Breathe (2 AM)." The tension--musically and lyrically--continuously intensifies, as life throws itself at the narrator, building into a crescendo. The movement and urgency are reminiscent of developing panic attack. Pulse racing, brain sprinting as you try to just hold it together. And then you remember:

Breathe, just breathe.

Taking deep, measured breaths has been a major coping mechanism for me for so long, and while sometimes, during really sustained bouts of panic, only a little valium will do, I like the reminder that sometimes it's possible to just pause and slow it down a few beats.

Or, as the great philosopher and poet Paul Hewson (aka Bono) would say:

And if the night runs over

And if the day won't last

And if your way should falter

along the stony pass

it's just a moment

this time will pass.

Die, rodent, die!

You know your life is seriously out of balance when you keep having to interrupt your work freak out/my-therapist-has-been-out-of-town-for-weeks call to your father in order to yell, "shit!" "get away!" and "goddamn mice!" at a particularly bold rodent headed for your dog's water bowl.

All of this while you're waiting for the valium to kick in.

Our Daughters, Ourselves

Onslaught.

It's an award-winning short film from Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. The tagline: Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.

I don't have a daughter. But I do have a niece. And more painfully, I have a mirror.

I don't like what I see in it.

Which is ridiculous. I am not hideous, deformed or even just plain ugly. But sometimes I think I am. In the mirror, on the scale, trying on clothes, just walking around. That little voice in my head: You're fat. You're getting old. Is that a wrinkle? A new gray hair? Is my neck starting to sag? My eyelids droop?

I'm 38 years old and in pretty good health and shape for my age. I could stand to lose a few pounds--for my health--but I'm certainly not falling to pieces like some decrepit old house.

And what if I were? Is it no longer possible to approach 40 without Botox and a plastic surgeon on speed dial? Is youth our only currency?

These are not just the narcisstic ramblings of one neurotic type A personality, but thoughts that most women I know share. After all, we're all subjected to this barrage every day.

The film is a 60-second, turbo-charged distillation of everything advertising and the beauty industry have to throw at us.

Very cleverly done. It captures our crazy-making beauty culture perfectly. There's even a split second image of a woman kneeling before a toilet, presumably on the verge of purging.

Read Advertising Age's review of the ad--including appropriate calling out of Unilever for also producing Axe body spray and Slim Fast.