Thing of the Week: Feeling Feelings, All the Wonderful Movies I Threw Away in the Middle of the Night Last Weekend, Laura Jane's "Rooftop Everybody" Coat

JEN'S THING OF THE WEEK: Feeling Feelings

I’ve been feeling a lot of feelings this last week. REALLY FEELING THEM. My studio flooded in the hurricane. I lost a good portion of everything I’ve ever made. Cleaning up the studio made me feel really exhausted. I’m still tired. Obviously, things were a lot worse for other people. It’s so sad. Homes  and possessions are gone. Art is gone too. A lot of it. People are really cold. Some people are still without power. I had a feelings meeting (aka dinner and a lot of coffee) with Rachel on Wednesday. We’ve both been feeling a lot of similar feelings and we frantically discussed them while eating a lot. We split this vegan peanut butter banana whoopee pie - it was delicious. It feels really good to have your feelings acknowledged and justified. We’re making a book together on feelings, actually. It’s started and is somewhere under a pile of paper in my studio. Anyway, I came home and felt gross. I ate too much. I went to sleep. I think I started grinding my teeth in my sleep. A physical manifestation of feelings!

Oh, the election! I felt a lot there too. I am very anxious in general so I was really nervous Mitt Romney could have won. HE DID NOT HOW GREAT IS THAT! Marriage Equality won all over the damn place! There is now a Lesbian & a Buddhist in the Senate. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Excitement and relief.

It’s my birthday on Saturday. I’m not a huge ~*BIRTHDAY!*~ person but I have been feeling some feelings about that too. So many feelings to feel.

LIZ'S THING OF THE WEEK: All the Wonderful Movies I Threw Away in the Middle of the Night Last Weekend

Last weekend I moved into a new house; it's so beautiful and I love it intensely. Moving was hell, as moving always is, and just when I thought it was all over and done I found a secret stash of all my VHS tapes in some stupid corner of the living room that I swear I never even knew existed before Saturday night. It was very late. I was very tired, and very, very hungry. I'd been packing and moving all day and I couldn't bear to pack and/or move one more goddamn thing -- and so I tossed the tapes into a plastic bag and threw them all away, in the hugely overflowing trash bin on the sidewalk. It instantly broke my heart; I knew it wasn't a smart move. But we do foolish things when we're fatigued and really that's my only excuse. So goodbye to all my favorite movies in the world, these movies that are so truly my friends. We had a good run and I'll never forget you. I miss you too much already.

LJ'S THING OF THE WEEK: My "Rooftop Everybody" Coat

Here is a picture of me in my black faux-fur coat while going through caffeine withdrawal and feeling very woozy on the first day I quit coffee. Reflected in the third panel of my mirrored armoire is the ghost of George Harrison watching over me. 

Here is a picture of Rooftop John and Rooftop George on Beatles Rooftop Concert Day. They are wearing beautiful coats and how cute are George Harrison's sneakers. 

I hated summer this year. I got really sick during a heatwave and breathing the air felt like choking to death on soup and it just kinda killed the whole thing for me. In summer I made up stories about gross grey November, which seemed like the thing to romanticize (I was hella depressed), and I imagined myself wearing a made-up winter coat that was the exact midpoint between Rooftop John's rooftop coat and Rooftop George's rooftop coat. Then my entire life fell into perfect focus and I found that exact coat at Value Village at the end of August.

I wore my Rooftop Everybody coat for the first time on November 2nd, the day I quit coffee. I wore it with my peach sari minidress, grey cable-knit stockings, dirty hair, no makeup and Beatle boots. It was the George Harrisoniest outfit I have ever seen a person who isn't George Harrison wear. I was so proud of myself for fashioning such a nuanced homage to George and it put me in the chillest George Harrisony frame of mind. 

I had eaten all my peanut butter stoned and deciding to quit coffee on my bedroom floor the previous night at 3 AM so when I woke up at 1 in the afternoon, after getting dressed in my George clothes, I walked down to Royal Thai and ate a plate of ginger chicken with some cute mushrooms that were not chanterelles but closest to chanterelles and looked like something a woodland elf would eat. I drank a cup of green tea and thought "Welcome to your beautiful new life of being a person who drinks green tea instead of coffee, you beautiful human." It was a very George Harrisony meal. Everything about that scene really dictated the tone of my November so far. I feel very calm all the time. My coat feels like a hug from a wombat and it's warm, I'm warm. I'm in love with this month of my life. The air smells like burning branches and glitter made of peppermint.