I live life (loosely) adhering to the following rules in determining my course of action – in any activity, I ask myself the following questions:

1. Are you having fun? (If yes, keep doing what you’re doing and enjoy the hell out of it. If no, go to question #2.)
2. Is it a good story? (If yes, go for it. If no – STOP. DO NOT PASS GO. END SAID ACTIVITY NOW!)

As such, I usually end up with some damn good stories and enjoy myself in the meantime. I mean, I really probably shouldn’t hook up with that hot 22 year old because, um, he’s 22 but please review the above questions. YES AND YES, obvi.

My friend Jess adopted a similar outlook on life, specific to the holidays. Drink before the Goog holiday party? ‘Tis the Season – go for it! Wear a mistletoe hat? Sure! ‘Tis the Season! Get drunkle on Vodka Sodas with no dinner (See below for the aftermath of THAT adventure)? Yep! Repeat it with me – ‘Tis the Season. LOVE the Season, really. Mean it.

Yet the Season may be the end of me – there’s something going on EVERY NIGHT. Dinner w/Cam on Monday, Concert w/Manlio on Tuesday, Concert with Chris on Weds, Sharon’s birthday on Thursday, Naughty Elf party on Friday, Coconut Bangers Ball on Saturday, and Sunday? SUNDAY we do laundry. Or Tahoe. We’ll see.

You get the picture…it’s definitely no rest for the wicked (or for the naughty, an adjective I’m adopting as my own for the Season. Who wants to be nice? Not me. Naughty all the way, baby!) Lila is NOT happy with my social calendar either; in a rare example of her brilliance and propriety, she ate my entire advent calendar, chocolate included. Lila Belle ain’t down with Festivating. Bitch.

So wish me luck, people, wish me rest. Wish me laundry that doesn’t take two loads to dry (no time for that!), wish me endurance to ROCK OUT every night, and to trudge my weary bones to work every morning. (Except for Friday – we FAWC on Friday  – Friday Afternoon Working from Cafe, for those not in the know.) Wish me jingle bells and mistletoe, fishnets that don’t snag, and self-tanner that doesn’t streak. Wish me all of that and more, and I’ll reward you with many stories of regalia. After all, ‘Tis the Season!

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Bedhead, originally uploaded by Aubs.

HOTT, I know.

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video uploaded!, originally uploaded by Willo.

Willo busts out video mode on our trusty Canon SD700 at the awesomest times – specifically, at last week’s Google Holiday party. After all the dress debacles (they both came, Thank God!)  the whole Festivating was awesome. More Pics here and I’m overdue in a full-scale writeup, but as you’ll see below, fun was had by all. A minor caveat: I haven’t yet heard the sound on this video (I’m pretending to be listening in a training session) but alas, even without sound I’m both thoroughly amused and mortified. I’m certain you’ll enjoy.

Watch all the DebauchAubrey here.

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Clearly you’re doing it wrong, originally uploaded by Nicole Lee.

It’s amazing I used to be a fashion writer. I mean, how many fashion writers do you know that hate to shop? And I’m not talking about "hate to shop because I can’t spend any money and it’s torture" (like I used to say), I just HATE. TO. SHOP. I love to have, and love to wear, and love to flaunt and flirt and twirl and twitter in my attire, but the shopping? The procurement of fashionable items? Odious.

It is for that very reason why, when forced into shopping by a friend or a Mom or by DayDrinking™, I will buy something that looks good even if I don’t have a specific occasion for it…yet. That’s why I own twenty+ cocktail and formal and ball gown-y type dresses. And that’s where our story begins today.

In college, my roommates made fun of my two addictions: Duvet Covers and Cocktail Dresses. I had an entire closet full of them; after all, we DID have cocktail parties to go to (and you certainly couldn’t wear the same dress twice if you wanted to hold your Southern head high at the next sorority Chapter meeting; I mean, the PARTY PICS WERE UP ON THE WALL! That’s worse than wearing white after Labor Day. Geesh.) So, through the years I’ve accumulated quite a collection of fancy shmance dresses so I became known as a great last minute date because a) even though I probably wouldn’t make out with you – beggars can’t be choosers after all – I also won’t make out with your roommate/best friend/Frat President (unless he was a Lacrosse player. Achilles heel, sorry) and b) I already had something to wear, and got ready VERY quickly. As such, I gallivanted my college career from one cocktail party to the next, and exited replete with quite a beautiful collection of fancy frocks.

These dresses have made their way from Chapel Hill to Charlottesville back to Chapel Hill to DC to Atlanta (times five) and now to San Francisco. Along the way, a few were given away to friends or our friends who eat out of trash cans (I mean, I really REALLY think I’m doing the homeless a favor by clothing them in Nicole Miller now and again…even if you don’t have a house, you can STILL look fabulous!) but for the most part, the collection has remained intact, growing only occasionally when Bloomies is having a sale or I end up having to go to a formal awards dinner in Australia and only brought casual clothes. So, it goes without saying (even though I’m saying it) that I don’t often have to look for formal dresses. This SHOULD be the point when I say "The End, Love Aubrey" but in this story, unfortunately, it’s not.

It’s not because I have NOTHING to wear to my corporate Holiday Party tomorrow. Yes, usually I do speak in hyperbole but in this case, it’s pretty much the truth. Yes, there are dresses, but even review by discriminating friends have concurred and it’s with furvor that I say: I have nothing (appropriate or well-fitting) to wear to the holiday party. Zero. Zilch. Nada.

Damnit.

So, being the forward-thinking proactive like Type-A girl that we all know and love (or at least lust after from the Blogosphere), I suspected that this might be the case due to weight loss and the fact that I hadn’t bought anything new in a few years in the fancy shmance category, leaving everything just a wee bit towards the "out of style" range. (And yes, Mom, I COULD wear that "classic black dress" but really, BO-RING. I’ll wear that with clients. Or with people I don’t want to see my cleavage. Because all 8000 of you Googlers, come on & check out the girls! You KNOW you want to.)

Anyway. No Dress.

I tried everything on, and everything looked stupid on me. Or way too big. Or outdated. Or just boring. Or all of them wrapped into one fell swoop o’ crappy attiredness. (In most cases, the latter.) So I reached out to friends. Daisy has dresses! Ali has dresses! Jess has dresses! And Aubrey has a body that NEEDS dresses! Perfect match, right?

Wrong.

Damnit redoux.

Nothing fit correctly. Or was the same case as my stupid frocks…too short…too big…too tight…can see my nipple through the lace top (true story). Whatever the case, I remained dressless as of yesterday morning. That only leaves me with one option: express shipping.

Off to BananaRepublic.com I went…and alas, there was a dress I tried on but didn’t buy because the red was NOT a pretty red…but online they offered it in a different color. In CRANBERRY! I LOOK PRETTY IN CRANBERRY! Click, click, size 6, over-taxed AmEx, and voila! It will arrive within two business days. Friday. I will sit at home and wait on my signature-required dress on Friday while Working From Home. (Ok, time for "The End, Love Aubrey" yet? Sadly, no.)

Today, in looking for my shipment notification (and hitting refresh a thousand times on my crappy new Yahoo mail folder – aka, where I send all my spam) I realized it hadn’t GOTTEN a shipment notification. And so I called, and said "This will arrive tomorrow, right?" to which the surly, under-paid phone monkey glibly told me that in VERY small print after clicking ANOTHER link or two it says, very unclearly, that you have to order by noon EASTERN time for it to be guaranteed two-day shipping. And since I ordered this at 9:36am PACIFIC time, I was thirty-six minutes late. Meaning no dress. I promptly tried the friendly, begging approach – nothing. Then moved on to the loyal customer cajoling approach – nada. This, of course, sent me into the harried, frantic, crazed beatch that comes out when phone-monkeys get their kicks from RUINING MY LIFE as I screamed and told him his website design was CRAP and MISLEADING and I BUILD WEBSITES FOR A LIVING GODDAMN IT! There is no penalty for embellishing when one is in this state; for all he knew I was a master fucking designer, yo. I bet I made his wall of fame of irate customers, and I hope to GOD they WERE recording it for training purposes. Asshats.

So here I am, 9:30am this morning, no dress. The party is tomorrow. I’ve shopped the mall (forgot to mention that…I DID GO SHOPPING! I also tried on every friekin’ dress in a size six in this entire stupid city at every boutique and fancy store and crappy H&M minus Forever 21 that I really just didn’t get around going to. Sorry, Forever 21. I bet you have my dress and it’s beautiful and I’m a jerk for not coming in but I just can’t handle it. Love ya, mean it.) So back to me. 9:30. No dress. I’m now enlisting the help of others smarter, wiser, and in the know; meaning, I’m begging Daisy to steal something from the Bebe catalog rack that will fit me, only to find out that they’re all size Smalls and alas, I am a Medium. Damn  you, boobs. (A phrase I never thought I’d hear myself say, or write. I’m even a little appalled at myself right now, as I’m sure are you.)

So we online shopped, and Daisy sent me to Nordstrom.com. I told her I had BEEN there, I had even been to the off-limits  COUTURE section, and nothing was good. In fact, things were matronly or ugly and even our BFF Marc Jacobs let me down. He is SOOOO off my Christmas card list this year, bastard. But alas, I started playing around, and there it was. The perfect dress. Delicate, yet current. Tailored, yet low-cut (heh.) Basically, the culmination of naughty and nice and – well, say it with me – quite fitting. Pun intended, obvi. So – after the Banana Republic incident – I called Nordstrom STAT. They told me I had 23 minutes to order it for it to come tomorrow. Rapid click, rapid click, size 8 (just in case – I’ve got good bras if needed), sorry AmEx I love you, click, DONE. It’s supposed to arrive sometime tomorrow – it had better arrive by 4 when the bangtrim/blowout is occurring or else I’m hiring a housesitter – and voila! We have a winner.

We also have nearly an empty bottle of xanax, an overtaxed AmEx, and a very weary me, but at least I won’t be wearing a toga. And now, without further ado, it’s time for….

…The End, Love Aubrey.

I’m attempting to clean my desk. As we’ve seen in the past, maintaining a clean desk is quite difficult for me, and yet after cleaning and organizing and Christmasizing Casa de Sabala this weekend, I’m somewhat inspired to be in a place that doesn’t make me have to take a Xanax to function in. (That, and they’re making me move out of my cozy office with a wine fridge into a cube upstairs wherein I start inventing new swear words to try and scare my new ‘neighbors’ with.)

In doing said task, I figured I’d tackle my file-thingy that I keep random crap in to pretend that I’m organized even though really, it’s just a metal mesh thingy that keeps the aforementioned random crap (that I never look at, btw) from taking over more desk space. I don’t think I’ve gone through this metal mesh thingy in four months, so I decided that the perpetual pile-r would actually GO THROUGH the stuff in the metal mesh thingy and throw things away. (Yes, you read that right. I WAS GOING TO THROW THINGS AWAY!) In doing so, I came upon an envelope of pictures of me and an ex from a few years ago, immediately sending me back to a quasi-relationship that made me feel as insecure as I did when I was *IN* the relationship. There are pictures of us together, appearing happy, appearing coupley, but in viewing them I was struck with the memory of always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then I found the letter. It was addressed to my ex, stamped, yet remained unsent. It was also sealed. I had a vague recollection of not sending it for a reason, but couldn’t exactly remember why. So I opened it.

It was dated October 10, some time in the past.

I remember now. We broke up on October 11th. Or, more accurately, he broke up with ME on October 11th. So *THAT’S* why I never sent it.

The thing that gets me the most is that it’s an apology letter. An APOLOGY letter, saying I’m sorry for pressuring him to say what’s on his mind, to say that he missed me; basically, I’m apologizing for trying to get confirmation of his feelings. Part of me must have known that the end was near; after all, if your boyfriend can’t utter those three words (and no, not THOSE three words; the "I miss you" words) he probably doesn’t & you’re in for a quick trip to dumpsville. I ended the letter with the following phrase:

Not going to bug you anymore for not saying it, but going to say it myself since that’s me.
I Miss you – Aubrey

In looking back, had he not broken up with me the next day, and had I not known enough to withhold sending this letter first thing in the morning, he should have dumped me for this alone. Can you say PATHETIC? I won’t go into the rest of the letter, but suffice it to say it followed suit in its insecure, unsure-of-our-relationship talking-in-circles self-protection vulnerability. In looking back, I can understand why I would have written it, yet I’m embarrassed and somewhat appalled by  my ability to be walked all over. I’m far from perfect in relationships these days and yes, sometimes too much remains unsaid, but at least I don’t find myself apologizing for things I should never apologize for, things that I should be demanding in the relationship in the first place.

With all due respect to parties whose names I’ll withhold, what I should have said was:

Dear John,

Our conversation last night was shit. You are one hell of a pu**y for not being able to speak your feelings; I deserve better. If you don’t miss me, or can’t say it, then I’m clearly with the wrong person. Go find yourself someone who’s ok with your emotional retardation because I’m certainly not.

The End,
Love,
Aubrey

I wonder if I could get a false postmark dated a few years ago and send the revised version anyway…

The song starts playing at the café where I usually spend my Fridays, this new coffee shop that is right around the corner from my house and has an awesome selection of coffee, ISN’T Starfucks, and is the equivalent of my “Bigfoot Lodge”, only without the alcohol. Which is probably good, considering if it did, I might never leave. EVER.

This café, they have a feed of music that has a great variety, often rewarding my guilty pleasure of pop music with a little Sarah McLachlan or Tracy Chapman or – dare I admit it – U2. I mean, we all need a little “All I Want Is You” to realize that somewhere, someone should feel that way about you, and you shouldn’t settle for anything less. That, or perhaps Bono was full of shit, just like the rest of you. Jaded much, Aubrey?

So I find myself listening to lyrics, and – as always – overanalyzing them, since they often are so very fitting for the current situation I’m in. It’s as if the gods of music sent that song directly to me, a not-so-subtle hint to open my eyes, to realize what I’m doing wrong and to just listen. I love those taps on the shoulder, those “a-ha!” moments when you feel like the song was written just for you, just for right this second, just so you could glean a little bit of wisdom from it. It makes you feel like someone out there has also felt what you’re feeling, adding a touch of validation to whatever inane situation you are finding yourself in right now.

As of late, I’ve been very affected by sappy love songs; that’s not to say I’m usually immune to them, especially since if we know anything, we know I’m a romantic at heart, as socially unacceptable as that may be. But for some reason, I’ve not just been affected, I’ve been Affected, similar to the way people are Affected by those they care about in an active, as opposed to passive, sense. This music, it is Affecting me. Greatly.

The songs that are making me perk up my ears run the gamut of formats, genres, voices, etc. What they have in common is the fact that they’re all about love to some extent, though I suppose that could be said for the majority of any of the songs ever written. It’s as if in our quest for the meaning of life the songwriters have realized that we already really know what it’s all about: Love. That, or the fact that it’s the common thread that weaves together generations and cultures and men and women and sells records. Perhaps that.

I’m a cynic; usually, I hear a man crooning about unrequited love and I think “Yeah, right. As if you really feel that way. You just want to get laid, douchebag.” Me? Jaded? Never.  But lately, it’s like something has changed, a subtle shift. Sure, I still get that initial knee-jerk jadedness, but I also get a concurrent feeling of hope, of the fact that maybe that IS possible, that love and romance does exist out there and I should be more open to it. That maybe someone out there hears “All I Want is You” and thinks of me. I mean, it’s possible, right?

What I find to be so interesting, however, as I’m acknowledging that I could possibly softening in my cynical views, I find myself pushing actual romantic opportunities away. It’s like I’m opening myself up to the possibility in theory only when, at the same time, I’m closing myself off to the possibility of something more. For the first time in a while, there are people that are awesome and genuine and fun and stimulating expressing interest in me and while part of me feels like THIS is what I’ve been waiting for, acknowledges that THIS is what I deserve, I find myself having no interest in it whatsoever. Defense mechanism? It’s possible; like most of you, I don’t do vulnerable very well. But I feel like it’s something more, and this dichotomy of feelings vs. actions intrigues me. I want to understand this contradiction.

It may have something to do with living through my own  – and my friends’ – pain as of late. I see them getting hurt by people’s callousness, by the insensitivity of others; find myself still recovering from wounds inflicted too long ago, surprising me in their depth and severity. I know that love takes a risk, that moving forward can require a sacrifice you didn’t ever think you’d be willing to make, and we do this on good faith that hopefully it’s worth it. Because I firmly believe that whole “’tis better to have loved” BS that “they” hope we’ll take as gospel because after the tears have dried, you’ve at least learned something. The heart is a muscle, after all, and like in exercising ANY muscle, the way you build up strength is by actually creating little tears in the muscle, and the growth occurs by the healing of these tears. In relationships and love, you grow not from the happiness but from the heartache. And yet somewhere, hidden way down under many, many layers of optimism and openness, I must inherently believe that it’s NOT worth it, acquiescing perhaps to my greatest fear that there’s no guarantee that I’ll ever find what I’m looking for or that perhaps when I do, I’ll realize that I didn’t want what I thought I did.

Is that what’s happening here? Am I too close for comfort, finding myself pushing everything away out of fear that I’m going to be disappointed – again? When you finally get what you want, do you realize that you no longer want it?  Or am I just a girl who thinks too much, feels too much, loves too much and hurts too much that she’s become numb to it all and  this constant contemplation is all I have to make sure I’m still feeling, the proverbial “pinch in the arm” to make sure you’re still alive? Until I figure that out, I suppose I’ll still be here, working towards the time when it all makes sense and I can, with conviction, admit what I want and say “The End, Love, Aubrey.”

On Laguna Beach, everyone’s favorite guilty pleasure, Cameron and Jessica have a chat at the beach about their past (they used to hook up.) He asks her if she really thought that she’d ever end up as his girlfriend, and she says no, shaking her head as the camera pans out for effect. He then apologizes, saying he’s sorry, prompting her to ask just what he’s sorry about.

"I’m sorry I was the wrong boy," he says.

I was shocked. In one sentence, he said what we all really want to hear. Deep down, we need an apology for just that, for not being the right person. The fact that this is coming out of the mouth of a 16 year-old boy floors me, since it certainly hasn’t been said by people nearly double his age, or at least not to me.

You can only get back what you put out, so here goes.

I’m sorry I was the wrong girl.

Your turn.

We all know I’m into music. But it wasn’t until lately that I’ve found myself being way,  Way, WAY into music, going to shows a few times a week and really loving learning about new small bands. I suppose when you stop traveling, you’re able to go see shows on a whim (or even make plans, buy tickets, and STICK TO THEM. Novel concept, I know.)  So I now spend my days working on an Audio (read: Radio) team, managing terrestrial radio buys, while simultaneously listening to Podcasts of Bagel Radio and KEXP. There’s some irony for ya.

So last night, when Ali suggested that we go see the documentary "Before the Music Dies", I jumped right in, even selling my Ray LaMontagne tickets to a fellow Tar Heel Craigslister to see it. (Also, it was raining and gross out and I didn’t feel like BART-ing en solo to Oakland. Who could blame me?) Anyway, the film was playing at The Independent (one of my favorite places here in SF to see shows) and Ali, Harry & I went before seeing the Bon Savants at the Elbo Room. (Which was AWESOME, by the way.) Not knowing what to expect, I found myself in a room of like-minded music lovers who were interested in hearing the filmmakers’ views on the changing world of music we all collectively obsess about. I don’t want to give too much away, but expect about an hour and a half of true, raw interviews from musicians and music lovers alike on the status of music today, and why it’s so important that we experience much more than what the Clear Channels of the world want us to.

So, find a free evening in your city and go see it. Or, better yet, if you’ve got the space, host a screening. It’s (most likely) free, and it’s good for your soul. Enjoy.

It was freshman year – I had just taken my last final. My parents were loading all of the random, stupid college stuff I had accumulated over the year into the back of a cargo van, and walking back across the quad it occurred to me that I really, REALLY needed a CD for my walkman to endure the 11-hour drive that should have taken 9 if my Mom hadn’t needed to stop and pee every thirty minutes. Her addiction to Fresca was about to drive me precariously close to the edge of sanity. Detouring to the Blockbuster Music (remember those?), I picked up the newest Dave Mathews CD and tried to prepare myself for the drudgery that was about to ensue. Looking back, I so should have spiked my Diet Coke, but clearly, I wasn’t as wise as I am today.

I listened to the entire CD a few times, finally settling on "Say Goodbye" and promptly set the track to ‘repeat’. It was around this time when I came to the conclusion that the man in the song was so desperately in love with the woman in the song that he would take what he could get which, in this case, was just one night with her. Naive? Oh, HELL yeah. I’ve already confessed to that here.

I ended that post saying I wish I wasn’t that jaded, wish that I maintained some of that youthful hope and innocence and belief in the inherent goodness of spirit in all of us instead of the reality of what life, what love, actually entails. That  it’s full of pain and tears and humiliation and vulnerability and most days I really, REALLY just hope it’s all worth it. Because – let’s be honest – I’m doing pretty fine here by myself these days and the thought of engaging in another "relationship" (dating or NonDating™, as it may be) seems to take too much effort. Feelings are boring, Kissing is Awesome, after all.

And years later, I find myself still dissecting lyrics, still finding meaning in words like:

But I know your heart belongs to someone you’ve yet to meet
Someday you will be loved.
– Death Cab for Cutie

I hear that and still find hope, hope in his honesty, hope in the fact that even though he knows he can’t, or won’t, be the person who loves her (after all, "in the morning [he] fled, left a note and it read, someday you will be loved", and we all know that people who pull a runner aren’t exactly the type we want to date anyway) that he knows she’s worthy of it regardless.

Worthy of it…how do we determine our own worth? Women are so quick to blame themselves for every snafu in the relationship, for every bout of silence or weirdness or length of time between a text message response, that despite claims otherwise, I think that we are somehow hard wired to at least associate our inherent worth with the affection of another. That’s ludicrous, that’s wrong, that’s uncorrolatable, but – sadly – I think that’s reality. I read about women like Jane Fonda, women I find to be strong and outspoken and brilliant, in retrospect being able to say that they felt that they were worthless without a man. And that scares me to death for two reasons. One, because there have been moments at my weakest, saddest, sobbingest that I’ve felt that way; I’m not proud to admit it and I don’t think I generally believe that, but somewhere, at some point, there must be at least a question of that if I can make that correlation. (That, or I shouldn’t have had that last glass of champagne. Probably both.) The second reason is that I’ve come to realize there are no guarantees in life, no course of fate that I’m blindly following that will say that yes, one day I will get married and have children and live happily ever after. I think we each define our "happily ever after" and that most times, it’s by turning our common lives into happy ones, whatever that means to the person. I see all of my friends – ok, MOST – getting married and having babies and while I’m so excited and congratulatory and lucky to have them all in my life, I also understand that this is actaully drawing them farther away from me. Marriage, Children, all of that, changes people. It has to. It SHOULD. But in doing so, I continue to get the "Met anyone yet?" questions that to me makes me feel like they just want me to join their tribe so I can talk about stretch marks. (Disclaimer: I love them all, I know they just want me to be happy, and I appreciate it. But sometimes I feel like the world is moving on and I’m just standing still. Sometimes.)

What I think I’m trying to say here is that yes, I’m jaded. Yes, I’ve seen a lot of things, experienced a lot of things, and continue to question a lot of things. I don’t know what will make me happy, but I do know who will, without reservation: me.