Who needs therapy when there's Barnes & Noble?

So it's been a sort of gloomy week altogether for me.

Monday started out with a kick to my self-esteem - it sucks when you find out that someone you think a great deal of doesn't really think about you. At all.

Then Wednesday wasn't actually bad - but I didn't feel like I had time to pause and take a breath. Projects, plannings, meetings, execution of projects...by the end of the day my energy was zapped.

And then yesterday - more apartment drama. I swear, the staff here at my apartment complex doesn't know their residents from Ronald McDonald. I've been trying to relocate to a new apartment for a while now, and my lease for my current apartment is up on the 31st of this month. Every time I talk to the main office, not only do they never remember who I am, I get a new story and excuse as to why the new apartment isn't ready yet. And, I might add, it's always a crap excuse.

So by 6:00 yesterday afternoon all I wanted to do was drive to Chick-Fil-A and order about three chocolate milkshakes, drive back to my much-too-high-priced apartment and vegetate on the couch. Unfortunately, I've signed a blood contract with Ashleigh that we will eat healthily.

Thankfully, there's a haven for the weary - a respite for the depressed - a cocoon of safety for the oppressed.

No, I'm not talking about church. I'm talking about Barnes & Noble.

I walked in last night and immediately felt like...well. Home. The coffee aroma, the plaintive Ray LaMontagne drifting over the speakers, and books as far as the eye can see. Ah...

I just wandered around for about an hour, looking in all the book sections that interest me - fiction, Christian inspiration, biographies - and picked up and put down about sixteen books, telling myself that they will still be here two years from now when I've finished the jillion books I still haven't read on my bookshelf.

Then when I was in the music department, wonder of wonders, my apartment manager called my cell phone to tell me that (gasp!) a new apartment had just opened up, and I will be able to move in at the end of this month.

And the sun came out again.

Thank you, Barnes & Noble. I'm sure I'll see you again soon, even if you're not (quite) as good as a Chick-Fil-A chocolate milkshake.

Song I'm digging today: "Days Go On" by Greg Laswell

I discovered Greg Laswell in (surprise, surprise) the new music section at B&N. He's been played a bunch lately on "Grey's Anatomy." The whole CD is good, but I like that this song sounds completely upbeat, but has some pretty depressing lyrics: "I beg your pardon, love, but you've interrupted me/and the sad song that's played like a drum inside of me.."

Just fits the whole melancholy mood I've had going on lately.