You know that quote about sunshine and rain?

The one that goes something like “You have to experience the rain to appreciate the sunshine?”

Yeah. That one.

It’s true.

Weather systems aside, this is fitting in many other arenas of life. It’s the ‘it can only get better’ syndrome, when, at the bottom of the barrel you can only go up. It works both looking forwards as well as backwards, as when you realized how good your previous job was before you got the new one. It works when you realize that in your current state, it can’t get much worse, and anything to come will be better. It even works in relationships.

Let’s use an analogy. You have a pair of shoes — they’re fine. They’re practical, they’re functional, you like them, but they’re not necessarily your favorite. You’re longing for a new pair, a fabulous pair, a pair that just stops your heart and makes you excited about the day when you would have that pair of shoes. You act uncharacteristic — you charge them when you know you shouldn’t be using your credit card, you justify the purchase to yourself, to your friends, even to the shopgirl who, without a doubt, knows they’re a bad idea. But you get them anyway. Wow. What lovely shoes. And you throw the other ones away.

For a while, all you want to do is show off your shoes. YOU. HAVE. NEW. SHOES. And aren’t they fantastic? You, my dear, have made it with those shoes. Bravo.

Then you start wearing them. After all, they’re fantastic, why not show them off? And you notice it — a pesky little blister. Then another one. You are practically killing your sole, and your soul, for these shoes. For this promise of grandeur. For the embodiment of everything that you wanted in a shoe, just, as it seems, not really. Your fabulous shoes don’t seem so fabulous anymore. They’re just, literally and figuratively, rubbing you the wrong way.

Somehow the shoes, the ones that were so unexciting, the ones that you barely gave a second thought to, weren’t so bad. They were fine shoes, they served their purpose, and dammit — you know, you actually LIKED those shoes. Why the hell didn’t you realize it before? You were so jaded by the promise of the new, exciting, flashy and fantastic shoes that you were blind to the first shoes’ fantasticness. Now, all you want is to go back to your tried and true, your formerly unappreciated, your comfortable shoes– immediately.

The moral of the story? Take another look at your shoes. Be glad that you have them. Put some serious thought in before you’re lured by the appeal of the new shoes, because you know? Sometimes they just rub you the wrong way.

I arose from the couch, with cats laying lackadaisically prostrate around me, seeking the heat that is their loving owner and the fuzzy cat pad that is their obsession. Covered with yarn fragments and errant cat hairs, I noticed the indentation that my posterior had made on the green velvet couch, noticed that the grains of my $4.99 jean skirt from J. Crew that was purchased a size too large because, well, it was $4.99, had made a pattern in the velvet, noticed that I was sitting on one of the five remotes that still confuse me when I’m trying to turn up the volume. Traipsing into the kitchen to deliver a second helping of Parmesan couscous onto my blue and white Crate & Barrel plate (the perfect side-dish to a decadent pork tenderloin that yes, I DID cook all by myself!), I let the tears flow and noticed that one hit the rim of the plate with a big ‘plop.’ Yes, I was weeping into my food again.

I realized then that I may just have a problem after all.

Though I could likely blame it on some PMS-related function, I wasn’t crying over anything tragic. Not weeping for the poor in Africa, not sobbing over another broken heart (nope, don’t have one of those, for once!), not crying over anything really worth crying for. Alas, I was crying for a reason both embarrassing and somewhat pathetic.

I was crying for Sydney Bristow and Michael Vaughn.

The tragedy that these two are going through, it’s killing me. I mean, she’s been GONE for two years, and returns to find her beloved MARRIED to another woman? (And one with a mysterious English-esque accent, which I find all-the-more perplexing since apparently she’s from Virginia.) Poor Syd – she’s been through so much. The murder of her fiancé, the loss of her best friends (yes, both Francie and Will, who has been surprisingly absent thus far this season), the betrayal of her mother, the death of Sloane’s wife…where to begin? And just when she and Agent Vaughn were getting it on (and despite my horrific jealousy, since he’s been a permanent fixture on my top five list for a few years now), I was happy that they finally got together. I mean, isn’t it time to cut Syd a break?

Yes, I know. I gotta get some help. Anyone THIS obsessed with Alias needs a 12-step program.

Or a life.

They say that breaking up is hard to do
Now I know, I know that it’s true

We’ve all been there…when the object of your affection somehow becomes the object of your infuriation, the object of your annoyance, the object of your irritation. It doesn’t happen with a bang, more like a sigh. The formerly-adorable gesture of scratching his rotund belly after a full meal becomes the most vile behavior you’ve ever seen. His cute little habit of leaving the top off of the toothpaste is grounds for murder. No longer does the sight of him make you melt; instead, it makes you claw your own skin off, you feel so uncomfortable. Whatever the reason, whatever the impetus, it’s inevitable – you have to break up.

Breaking up with a significant other is never fun, but barring the ‘It’s not you, it’s me’ conversations, there’s usually a reason and years later, when exercising your 20/20 vision of hindsight, you realize it was worth it. Yes, you go through the depression, the anger, the eating of entire pints of Ben & Jerry’s (or Jake’s Ice Cream for those Atlantans) in one sitting, but slowly, surely, the ache drains away from your heart and one day, amazingly, it’s gone. You’ve survived, and can go off to begin the cycle yet again.

Yes, breakups I know. Breakups I’ve survived. Yet it’s not the typical breakup that I want to discuss today, it’s the quandary involved when you want to break up with a friend.

Friendships come about in many ways. There’s the girl you met on the first day of Elementary school who you thought looked like a brown-haired Little Orphan Annie that became your life-long best friend. There’s your college roommates who talked you through many nights of homesickness, doused you with perfume and made you put in your contacts the first time a boy called late night to come over for a ‘chat’, the people that you share post-work beers with, griping about your coworkers, the drudgery of your job, and how it would be so much easier to just hit your annoying officemate in the head with a stapler than hear him talk about ‘staying on the same page’ one more time. These people in your life, they’re special, but at times, you realized that some friendships have served their purpose and it’s time to come to an end. But how?

I’ve got the boy-breakup down-pat. The strategies, the statements, the clichéd reasons why it’s just not going to work out. But when it comes to friends, I’m smack out of ideas. I’m not good with confrontation; moreover, I avoid it like I avoid doing more work than necessary. Yet there comes a time when you realize that your ‘friend’ is actually more work than it’s worth, more frustration than friendship. When you spend more time wondering how to get out of an obligation with the person, spend more time complaining about the fact that his or her attitude is nothing if not energy-sucking and depressing, spend more time contemplating telling him/her off, you know you need to make a clean break. And it’s never easy.

As in romantic relationships, there’s basically two options. You can choose the honesty route, telling the person that it’s over, stating your reasons (true or otherwise), and going your separate ways. Or you could do what I advised my friend about when he wanted to ditch his gal…slowly fade away. Though all girls hate when there’s no closure, no measurable ending, no exact reasons why it didn’t work out, this tried and true method is well-known enough that after a few weeks of no emails or calls, they get the picture. Same with friend breakups.

The whole situation, however you want to spin it, sucks. Makes me wish for Brutally Honest Aubrey days with no repercussions, where, with Brandy & Monica’s song playing in the background, you can say “Step off, Bitch” with a clear conscience.

Or something like that.

The mirror in my office bathroom is by far the most unattractive place to ever view yourself. Upon walking in, you’re met with a frightening facsimile of yourself, looking orange and greasy and blemish-full, even on a day when (as a lovely surprise) your skin is looking quite smooth and blemish-free. (It’s karma getting me back from the travesty that was the breakout during Ali’s wedding.) It’s unavoidable – the mirror spans a wall and it’s not like you can wash your hands (or, in my case, your hand), with your eyes shut. Instead of the dashing young lass, clad in newly-dry-cleaned black linen pants (who said linen is for summer only?) and adorable Halloween-y shirt from Target, complete with the oh-so-chic mainstay of a jean jacket, I get a neophyte-looking gal with hair awry, skin the color of a clementine – a prime candidate for the “Clean & Clear Pore Strips” ad. The unfairness of it all…

While we’re on the topic of bathrooms, am I the only person who has a favorite stall? I get very irked if someone is occupying the stall directly ahead of me when I make my sojourn to the potty. Apparently, I’m quite anal. (Pun intended.)

Enough toilet-talk…let’s discuss elevators. I’ve pondered Elevator etiquette in the past, a poorly timed post that seemed trilly and trite and so innocent when the next day our very reality changed forever. Yet, praying that history doesn’t repeat itself, I again return to the topic with a few new thoughts. Every weekday morning I stroll, quasi-laxidasically, quasi-somnabulistally, into our office, a few minutes before 9, and unless we have a visitor in our office, I can almost assure you that I’m in business-cas attire. Granted, every now and again I throw on a cute skirt, put in my contacts and even – lo and behold – some makeup, but most days you’ll find Aubrey au natural. And, as such, I invariably end up in the elevator with the someone in the Antithesis of Aubrey Attire; i.e., dressed up full business garb. As our building also holds some very traditional companies (insurance & law firms to name a few), this isn’t necessarily that shocking. Yet every time I end up in mixed-attired company, I feel like I can read their inner dialogue, and yes, I really AM that young whippersnapper with no respect for company values and with a shitty work ethic. All because I have a predilection for my Paper Denim & Cloth (ostentatiously overpriced) jeans. What is the world coming to?

Speaking of what this world is coming to, apparently, it’s this. Please note the oh-so captivating section on her hair. Who knew that Biosilk could change the world?

And one last thought before I leave you. It’s amazing what one can do with a little Revlon Colorstay eyeliner and a picture of Eve…

I feel guilty.

Not because yesterday I had that second piece of Google’s 5-year Birthday cake, not because today I had a piece of some random office person who left it in the common kitchen’s cake, not because I am ‘trying out’ one of the cashmere sweaters that I’m supposed to be selling in the trunk show by modeling it for my coworkers, not because I bought the cutest blazer today even though I’m trying to save money, not because I didn’t try and make Sullivan lose a few of his already-too-ample 22 lbs, not because I yelled at Sebastian when he tried to drink out of my bath water this morning (really, that’s just unsanitary), not because I told the all-too-touchy-feely worker at Crabtree & Evelyn that my birthday was in October so I could come up with an excuse to why I wasn’t buying the bath lotion I so desperately wanted (waiting for my birthday, you see), not because I am still so overdue on a wedding gift that it’s practically illegal to still be my friend (ok, am actually feeling a bit guilty about that one), and not even because I didn’t show up last night for an outing even though I was the one to plan it.

No, today my guilt lies deeper, lies at the very heart of the weblog community. I feel guilty because I haven’t been reading other people’s blogs.

Silly as it may sound, I used to have a routine. Get to work, wake up a bit, have the requisite caffeine, and hit my ‘regulars.’ I’d catch up on what Josh & Sarah & Heather & Sarah & Helen Jane & Cati & CW & a few others were doing. I’d catch up on what happened in their lives, where they’d been, how their pregnancies were coming along, what they were writing, how much angst they were in with this guy or that one, and feel like I’d already gotten something accomplished before I had to go and accomplish the things I really needed to accomplish for the day. Productive, see?

But lately, my life has been crazed. Rush to work. Skip lunch. Stay late. Rush home. Do this, do that, do this & that & the other. I can’t find time to pay my bills (online, no less,) so I take my to-do list home and then bring it straight back to work the next day. In a constant state of flux, things get overlooked. And the losers, lately, have been the blogs.

A major indiscretion this is not; I would never chalk this up to keeping me awake at night as other people, issues, and burning questions (as well as learning to sleep with a cast and a cat who has decided that now it’s cold he needs to sleep under the covers, with his head mere inches from my butt, which freaks me out to no end) have been causing me insomnia. Nevertheless, I feel guilty.

I wonder if they miss me.

Wanted: Tall, Dark and Handsome.
If not tall, then medium.
If not medium, then short is ok too.
If not dark, then medium. Or light. Really, I’m easy.
As for handsome, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If I think you’re darling, then you just are.

Wanted: A man who swoons, woos, flatters, and delights.
Swoonage & wooage should be limited to me alone (and in a platonic sense, your mother, sisters, nieces, nephews & daughters, as well as cute babies of friends.) Public signs of swoonage & wooage include gazing lovingly at me from across the room when we’re at a party, talking to our friends, and not having to hang or smother me with attention, a random flower or two ‘just because’, and general kindness.

Kindness can never be over-rated, my sweet.

As for flattery, it’s always appreciated, but bonus points to anyone who can tell me when I’m 9 months prego that I look like a Goddess. Actually, telling me any time that I look like a Goddess is a bonus.

Flattery will get you everywhere, my darling.

You’re my delight.

Wanted: Intelligence, Patience & Ingenuity. If you can’t provide me with stimulating and intellectual banter, if you spell like a first-grader, if you don’t know the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’ or ‘their’ and ‘there’, then please, just go back and smother yourself with a pillow. Or at least go find yourself a pageant contestant whose beauty outrivals her brains tenfold. As for patience, I don’t have any. I need yours. Thanks in advance.

For these purposes, ‘ingenuity’ is a synonym for ‘handy’. Now, I can’t cook or even do electrical work to save my life, but every now and again I can whip up a feast or re-wire my bathroom. Similar traits are expected.

Wanted: Security. Not necessarily in the financial or physical sense, per se (though that’s always a plus), but security in our relationship. If you want to go to a bachelor party, go ahead. I trust you – or at least I’d better. Just show me common courtesy, affection, trust, honesty, and throw in a bit of adoration and security will come complete.

Wanted: Imperfection. Got stomach problems? Hairy toes? A funny mole (out of sight, that is)? It’s all good. I’ll adore you for your good points and love you even more for your imperfections.

I don’t need, nor do I particularly want, a perfect guy. I’d much rather find the perfect guy for me.

How hard can that be?

There’s days when I’m writing an email, and I find myself writing a sentence that I realize I could expand upon. Like yesterday’s post – that came from a conversation I was having with my friend and an email I started to another. The words just flowed out and – voila! 10 minutes later I had a post and it was live and phew, I had written my thoughts for the day.

There are other days, though, where I sit in my car on the way to work and notice little things, the cloudless Georgia sky or the smell of fall that has amazingly transformed this summer heat-haven into a glorious epiphany of a season, where breezes are cool and windows are kept open all day and all night long. I notice the small, simple beauty and small, simple idiosyncracies in our everyday lives and think “Hmm, could I write about that?” And then I don’t.

I struggle between the profound and the mundane, the extraordinary and the perpetually trite. I want my writing to move people, for people to read it and understand it and find themselves laughing aloud or nodding at their computer screen. I want people to disagree and write me, and tell me I’ve (yet again) got my head up my ass or am making a fool of myself because it’s blatantly clear who I am writing about. I want to find the balance between nothingness and everythingness, that what I say means so much yet so little.

Writing is a forum, it’s MY forum, to express what I’m thinking and feeling and observing and doing. It’s my outlet for honesty, and yet I’m still afraid at times to put it all out there. One of my friends told me a while back that he didn’t feel comfortable reading my site, felt like he was reading my journal and my secret thoughts. It’s reactions like these that both humble, flatter, and frighten me, because what if he’s right? What if I AM putting myself out there too much, making myself vulnerable, thus solidifying the fact that I’m never going to be that mysterious girl in the corner that the tall, dark, and handsome stranger wonders about. As often is the case, this is summed up best in a song:

“What’s the sense in being so sensitive
Can I trade this thin skin for a shell?”
(Capsized, Sarah Harmer)

Though there’s days I want a shell, want one to protect me from disappointment, disillusionment, discouragement, I don’t think I need a place to hide.

I really don’t understand how boys think. I’m sitting here, talking to my friend about her guy friends, her past love interests, these guys that were only weeks ago pledging their undying love, saying words that would make anyone’s heart melt, and are now being unnecessarily mysterious, and it makes no sense. I consider myself pretty adept in figuring things out, divulging the true meanings in the understated, in the silences between the talking, consider myself to be pretty intuitive, and I sit here and listen to her and nothing makes sense. Screw John Gray and his “Mars & Venus” hypotheses, screw over-analysis, I need a boy-to-girl dictionary, complete with an appendix of overused phrases that say one thing but mean another. If they can make a device to interpret what a dog means by his barks, surely they can make a device that will interpret guys’ silence, their coded, vague messages, their true intentions. It shouldn’t be this hard, don’t you think?

But it is. It seems that nobody says what they mean, nor do they mean what they say, any more. Instead of saying “I miss you”, we say “How are things?” Instead of answering that we’re laying awake, wondering what they’re thinking of while they’re no longer in our bed, wrapped around us, keeping us warm while we listen to the sound of the mid-evening noise, safe and protected and for once feeling like everything was right in the world, and knowing that we’ll be waking up to his smile and the normalcy and for once, not over-analyzing something, anything, we say “Work is Good.” We want to know if you miss us. We want to tell you everything. We want to just erupt with feeling, with emotion, pouring out our vulnerability and putting it all on the table, but instead we talk about painting our houses, about the mundane, trite matters that are the epitome of small talk. And we push our true feelings, our true questions, our true thoughts back down into our safe place where nothing gets said and no one gets hurt. Nothing risked, nothing gained.

Instead, we sit on IM and talk to our dear friends about it, trying to get their insight on why he hasn’t called, how to phrase this email, how to interpret the small talk and the fact that you both know that you’re ignoring the elephant in the room. We look to them for the assurance that we’re being denied by dodging the question, by asking or saying anything but what we want to say to you. We find meaning in songs, in words, in the sympathy of others. Because somehow, it makes it a bit easier to face if we at least tell our friends what we can’t tell you, that we want things to be back the way they were, that we want to try to make it work despite any obstacle that is in our way, and that we miss you tremendously.

So we listen to our songs, and take solace in the words of others, while we push our words away.

“You Know So Well” – Sondre Lerche

Use every chance you’ve been given,
She replied, after several days.
It’s no good to be perfect,
You know so well,
Things are easy to tell.

There is one thing I know,
It goes like this,
It’s that when I lose my sleep,
it’s you I miss.

I have told you this before
and my transparent mind
won’t cover see-through hearts
I’ll be straight with you now
Now I’m not what you want
just like the rest
and you feel like you’re subject to a test
But if there’s one thing I know it’s this
When I lose my sleep it’s you I miss

You sleep all night
you know you lie awake
Tell me, yeah
And time is running out
and you know so well
it may never be

I love weddings. The planning, the preparation, the excitement around two people coming together in front of their family & friends, publicly declaring their love and devotion to each other. Forgive my sappiness, but there’s little better than seeing the look on the groom’s face as he watches his bride walk down the aisle. Gets me every time.

That said, I’ve begun to notice a change in the wedding scene; to clarify, it’s the “And Guest” Syndrome. Let me provide some context.

For us singletons, an invitation to a wedding can come in many forms. You’re either invited with a guest or you’re not, and there’s various schools of thought on whether or not an unattached invitee should bring a guest. You’ve got to take into consideration whether or not you’re dating anyone, how serious it is, how long you’ve been together, and where the wedding is. You also can get the ‘feeling’ from the bride or groom, whether or not other singletons are coming unattached or not. My friend and I were discussing this a while back, and he brought up the 6-month rule; i.e., if you’ve been dating someone for over 6 months, a wedding invitation is allowable. Anything sooner, he postulated, could freak them out.

I tend to agree, but also want to throw a wrench into the mix; i.e., bringing a friend as your “And Guest”, especially if said friend is located in the same city as where the wedding is held. Depending on the circumstances, I would say this is completely allowable.

In the past, I’ve been more of the ‘go alone’ variety, only taking a date if I was seriously dating somebody and, even if I was in a relationship, rarely taking a date to an out-of-town event. I actually preferred this route, since a) making someone fly to places like Cleveland or Iowa can pose a potential threat on a not-yet-too-solid of a relationship. After all, I was only one of many “And Guest-less” people there, and finding someone to dance, cavort, and chat with was never an issue. Until recently.

Perhaps it’s because we’re getting older, perhaps people are just finally pairing up, but the last few weddings I’ve been to I’ve felt absolutely ridiculous without a date. Like the 7th grader on the side of the gym at an after-school dance, I’ve found myself observing as opposed to participating, feeling very foolish while the rest of the couples enjoys the wedding AND the company of their date. Even at age 26, feeling like you’re being picked last for the kickball team still feels like crap.

So I’m done. I’m breaking the rules. Despite the bride saying that there would be a ton of other people there without dates, I’m going to err on the side of caution and bring myself not just an “And Guest”, but a DDP: Designated Dance Partner. Better brush up on your waltzing & shagging skills, boys, because I may just put you to the test one day soon.

It’s funny – when you hurt yourself, you revert to childlike behavior. I’m no exception…Basically, I just want someone to kiss my boo-boo and make the pain go away.

Go ahead and laugh – I deserve it. It’s pathetic, really. And thus it leads me to declare that I’m going to need a little more coddling these days. Aubrey, Injured, is Aubrey, High Maintenance.

For all respective purposes, let’s pretend that the fact that I’m acknowledging this negates the inherent annoyances associated with a high-maintenance gal. Let’s also pretend that it’s a fun game, that when I send you irritating requests to amuse me, to humor me, to cheer me up while I sit here quasi-incapacitated on my left side, that you get 20 points to do so. Let’s also pretend that you’re not annoyed by me doing so, that you think it’s (somewhat) charming, and that you’re a bit more endeared to me because of it. How’s the little game of pretend going so far?

I don’t know what’s causing this – perhaps there’s something in the air that’s making me a bit more needy than usual, but take comfort in the fact that soon it will pass, soon I’ll be back to my only somewhat needy, mid-maintenance, quasi-annoying self.

But in the meantime, I’m gonna need a bit of attention in the way of calls, emails, visits & such. Please just humor me, and soon we’ll be back to normal in no time.