I kind of bitched out and broke a rule of blogging. The one that says you can't be a wuss and not blog when you're life looks like it may fall apart. I've gotten some very good e-mails from a lot of you. I feel stronger for the words you've shared with me. Thank you everyone for your kind thoughts.

I've spent this week faking smiles at work. Faking kind of works if you need to trick yourself into thinking everything is OK. I'm usually a spiritual person, but I've recently abandoned my relationship with God the same way I've abandoned my relationship with my blog. I need both to heal, and I need time to heal, also. I've forgotten that its kind of therapeutic to open up the blogger window and force myself to type. It makes me ask myself hard questions. What the fuck am I going to write about today? You don't really have to know. But you have to open that little window and say something, as often as possible. If you absolutely can't do that, you have to at least post pictures of britney and cletus.

I'm feeling stronger. I have to remind myself that I've been through a lot of tough things before, just like you have, and that it always works out Ok. Thats not to say its not painful and that I won't cry in the stall at work sometimes and blame allergies on my bullshit swollen eyes. But it does mean that things will be Ok. Eventually.

One of my weaknesses is that I deal with emotions way too late, and they all come on at once. When someone dies, or when someone leaves you, or when the Beastie Boys break up, I go through a lot of emotions at once for a pretty long period of time. I age a little bit faster for a few months, and I lie sleepless in bed and I get the shakes sometimes.

But one day, things eventually taper off. They get better a tiny bit each day, and one day you find yourself dancing on a beach and the bad things get tucked away. They never go away. They still resurface sometimes, but instead of crying or shaking you just kind of smile sadly because you're human and you're a rockstar and even though you rock, you still miss someone. Even Axl Rose wrote ballads about lost love. Even Joe Dimaggio, the Yankee Clipper who hit for 56 games straight smiled sadly sometimes. Some of you are smiling sadly now because you're reading this and its reminding you of someone who has learned to live without you.

But then you go back to dancing on the beach because you understand that everything is still interconnected. When someone puts a hole in your heart, its never really filled again, you just kind of stop digging into it. Or you go to your blog and you struggle with metaphors about holes and love.

Know that I'm very sad, but I also still find to smile, and those of you who take time out of your week to give me shout outs make that very, very possible.