This week I love, breaking the rules, Robert Downey Jr., Cat Power and most importantly realizations...

So...it's been two weeks since my last "Things I love..." post. I was starting to feel bad for the whole two people who spend a total of three minutes reading my entries. This week I decided to mix it up because, well, I can. The past two weeks, I just want to note, have been astonishingly negative for me and I need to get back into focusing on what I enjoy. So with that in mind, let's start the show :) Don't you love cliche phrases?

1. Breaking the Rules. Ok, I know this isn't a tangible object or really even something normally associated with love, but I am doing it! My reason for loving this comes from the fact that I have always felt I have done everything in my life askew from conventional methods. Just to clarify by rules, I mean like waiting for the guy to call, speaking your mind to friends and telling your mom her job reminds you of the fiery pits of hell. I do not mean, breaking the actual law....well in most cases I don't.

If I have learned anything in my life it is that drawing outside of the lines is always a more entertaining way to go through life. I am not up to site specific examples, but I suggest to everyone to try and stray from your normal routine, swallow the fear of being different and do it. You will be surprised, by yourself and your results!

2. Robert Downey Jr. He's hot, talented, funny and a bad boy turned good, but kept the attitude. So that's my description and my thoughts on that. Check him out on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. The article is titled To Hell and Back with Robert Downey Jr.

3. Cat Power. Nylon magazine had a very interesting article about the new Cat Power album, Jukebox, a few months back. Inside was the tale of heart break, loneliness and the sheer questioning of life and everything involved in it. Being a fellow tormented creative soul I felt like I could understand this extreme spiraling negativity that can suck you in when life decides that you have had it too easy and need some challenges....thanks life! The music she created is so moving, haunting, beautiful, touching and mysterious. Having only listened to the disc a total of two times, I am by no means a expert, all I have to say is as someone who has found themselves looking back on everything going "WTF world, when did I get here?" I found inspiration in being able fully take in and comprehend the emotions being conveyed. Definitely worth a purchase or listen. Very therapeutic.

4. Finally, Realizations. Who doesn't enjoy walking down the street and then getting blind-sided by a ton of bricks to the skull?! This has been my past week, and I love it. In this quest I have begun to turn my life into the pleasant experience it once was, I have been hit with new realizations left and right. Or that is how it feels. It has become all too common for me to sit down after a pointless day of work, alone, and think "what's the point of all this?" Yeah I may not be meant to be the next Richard Avedon, and won't save the planet, but I can be doing good for me. Really that's what important. I read a startling statistic that stress can take 7 years off your life, the same as smoking! This quickly made me realize the path to happiness, or at least contentness, needed to be a fast one because the life of a artist is always short and subtract 7 from that, well, you could say 'bye-bye' any day now.

So what I have loved this week was finding what made me smile. What made me stop focusing on all that was out of my control and figure out the little things I could do to be happy. This is a momentary lapse of optimism, so I am riding the wave, sorry if it was too sweet for your taste.