the femiwriter

things i’ve been doing while feeling poorly (not writing, apparently)

It hasn’t been a good week. I’ve decided to stop trying to turn it around and just sulk for a bit, hopefully using all of my bad moods until mid-2012. With my recent sickly state and embarrassingly vacant social schedule (calculated how long it’s going to take me to pay my student loan so I’ve been staying in lots), I’ve had plenty of time to make lists of things to do when I’m feeling low. So here are my tips for your next rainy day:

The playlist

Some people like to listen to upbeat pop when they feel crap to lift their spirits. I’m more of a wallower, turning to my iPod to find fellow whiners and lonley hearts. No early Beatles for me, I’m looking for guitars gently weeping or bust. Bring out my CD collection from when I was 15 and wore three shades of neon eyeshadow and one of those bath tub chains as a necklace. My top picks for shutting yourself in your room and sleeping even though it’s 2 p.m. on a Saturday are as follows.

• Can’t Make You Love Me as covered by Bon Iver. This song makes my friend Katie cry. It makes me want to be a piano, namely the one under Justin’s fingers. The Bonnie Rait version verges on corny but Justin Vernon revamps it for hipster-folk everywhere. Pretty moving coming from the guy who tweeted last Sunday “Thankful as shit for the people who made me who I am” and “save me a waffle, man.”
• Case of You by Joni Mitchell. She had me at the first verse when she gives a shout out to Canada. This song is another one of my favourite ever and makes me regret giving up the guitar after five minutes of trying and not being gifted with the range of an angel. Best enjoyed while enjoying a fine Merlot (joke! $6 of no-name white for me!) and smoking one of your room mate’s crappy Belmonts. 
• The Trapeze Swinger crooned by Iron & Wine. Heads up, this version rules. How much do I regret missing this song performed at the Vancouver Folk Fest three summers ago? Ugh, just thinking about it put an extra week to my Debbie Downer phase.
• Jude Law and a Semester Abroad (Acoustic) whined by Brand New. Just in case you thought I was a bit cool for the last five minutes (ya right, I am definitely grooving to Justin Bieber’s Christmas album right now), here is a shout out to my favourite guilty pleasure on my playlist: Brand New. For those of you who know them, they likely exist only as a dirty memory of high school days past. They owned my heart in grade 10 and 11, and let’s be real, I still love them. Any mood, any time, any day, I’m down to hear Jessie Lacey whine about how his BFF (and singer of Taking Back Sunday) slept with his girlfriend. But for that story, listen to Seventy times Seven. Sample lyrics: “Have another drink and drive yourself home/hope there’s ice all over the roads/and you can think of me when you forget your seatbelt/and again when your head goes through the windshield.” Yep, no Google necessary.

The book shelf

Right now, Raymond Carver. My friend Will, who’s doing his fancy MFA out at UBC, handed his copy of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love to me and said “Wanna see what all the grad students are wetting themselves over?” I had always placed Carver in the same category of Kerouac, Hemingway and Bukowski (i.e. drunk white dudes that I don’t like to read) and assumed I wouldn’t be into it. After I read “Why don’t you dance?” a few years ago, I realized I may have judged this book too soon.

The best part about Carver? His characters have entire back stories that you have no idea about-and they have no intention of letting you in. They’re too drunk to tell you. But you get hooked on the hints they drop and you form the story around the empty kitchen, bed frame in the front yard and empty bottle of whiskey left on the front porch. 

Read it. You’ll be better for it.

The menu

What do you get when you blend December with me living at home in my parents basement to avoid disappearing in a pit of debt? Answer: Binge eating on the heaps of baking goods my mom produced in inhuman amounts every Christmas season. It’s a love-hate thing; mostly love, because I think it’s evolutionarily impossible to avoid gaining five pounds of hibernation weight. It rains a lot here and I need that to keep warm.  My mom is the best at getting the fridge stocked with all the goodies I couldn’t afford as a student. There is a block of havarti upstairs the thickness of all my university texts combined. Soon there will be peanut brittle, ginger molasses cookies, homemade fudge and chocolate macaroons (those are my holiday contributions), chocolate peppermint bark and shortbread. Yes, living at home might not be so bad after all.

Once I’ve eaten all the treats I just stare at Foodgawker. Nom nom nom.

The screen

The amount of Sex and the City I watched last weekend was atrocious. And then again Monday evening when I should have gone to yoga. I think my parents thought by not having cable in our house while we grew up they would raise studious, well-read children. Instead, we’re catching up on the childhood we never had by melting our brains with trashy TV (just kidding, I read, see above). I gravitate for the worst television when I’m sad. Project Runway, which I can take or leave normally, used to be my go-to in times of heartbreak.

If you are really looking for a day of loafing in front of the T.V., but don’t want to feel like a total waste of oxygen, might I suggest the following series: Mad Men, Six Feet Under, Dexter, Misfits. I advise adding in some Modern Family in between episodes, especially during Six Feet Under marathons, just to avoid spiraling into hopeless despair. 

 So there you have it. A recipe for the perfect way to feel crappy.  It’s proven* that with a healthy moderation of these routines, you can maximize the efficiency of your bad moods and you’ll be back party rocking in no time.

Proof? I’m heading out to a party now and I’m even wearing heels.

*by me.