My Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day

Yesterday, I woke up crushingly depressed for absolutely no reason. I had parts of "Me and Bobby McGee" in my mind:

Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose...



I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday...

These lines were playing in a continuous loop, over and over like a pathetic scrolling marquee. Then I was absently flipping through a copy of BUST and saw a personal essay by a woman who had run away from home at age 15 and started hitchhiking all over the place. She said,

I left because my skin was on fire and everything broke my heart. I left because I could hear lust in the screech of a tire and craved it. I left because I was 15 years old and I was done with being a child.

Since the dark cloud was already there anyway, these sentences joined the marquee. I rarely get like that, and the first thing I want to do when I feel that way is try to shake it off. So I loaded my Winamp playlist of songs that cheer me up: "Let Me Blow Your Mind" by Eve featuring Gwen Stefani, "Family Affair" by Mary J. Blige, "Hypnotize" by Biggie, and "Head Over Heels" by the Go-Gos. (That Jerry Lee Lewis-esque piano solo will usually do the trick.) It didn't work. I tried to amuse myself by imagining making my students do silly things in class, stuff we used to do in my church youth group, like trust falls. That made me chuckle, but still didn't really get me over the hump. However, today I woke up determined to give my entire apartment a vigorous cleaning. I applied scalding, pine-scented, soapy water to everything, and now I'm much better, quite relieved. Here, then, is my valentine to myself:





Conversation heart maker via Feministe.