behold the neti pot

Originally uploaded by lollo photo [ nicole bruni ]

I have been sick, sick, sick all week with a raging sinus infection. Nothing was giving me relief. Nothing.

I heard about the neti pot before but never tried it. I was so desperate today that after work I went and bought one.

Oh.my.GOD.

If you have any sort of sinus issue, do yourself a favor and get one.

It’s the only relief I’ve managed to get all week. I can breathe again!

I was prescribed antibiotics and a nose spray (which cost $50 after insurance…for a nose spray!) that have done nothing for me.

The neti pot cost me $14.99.

Yes, it feels a bit odd to have water running one nostril and out the other, but after you get used to it, you just sort of revel in the funkiness of it all.

today was a therapy day and sometimes therapy days feel very blurry and very blue [82]

Originally uploaded by (lollo)

This past weekend I cleaned out my car. My trunk had been filled since I moved out of my apartment in March. By the last day of the move I was so tired and frustrated that I just piled things into my trunk and have been practicing avoidance ever since.

When I dug into the mess, I found the book that I read and read and read last year, during the time I was extremely sad about my relationship ending.

I brought it into the house and let it sit by my bed, afraid to open it…afraid to feel all of those things that I felt last year.

I flipped through it last night, reading all of the wrinkled and stained and bent pages that I know by heart by now.

I found this passage:

There’s something you learn once you’re over thirty. You learn that surviving is a matter of putting time between you and what hurt you, that time makes you stronger
and tougher in spite of yourself. When you’re younger, people tell you this but you don’t want to believe them. when you’re older, you take consolation in the fact. I had always wondered if the people who gave up, the ones who turned to razor blades and pill bottles, were the ones who couldn’t hang on another day or week. They were the people who slipped out of the gracious hold of time.

I’ve put a year between myself and what hurt me, and yes, it’s easier.

But sometimes it feels like it just happened.

lunch for today. super yums.

Originally uploaded by Nicole Bruni

In an attempt to eat healthier at work, I am bringing in leftovers so I have some control over what goes into my mouth (har har).

Today it’s leftovers from an awesome meal yesterday. Grilled chicken breast (I left the sauce off of it today but we made a homemade balsamic bbq sauce) and tri-color orzo salad with olive oil, lemon juice, arugula, feta, basil and dried cranberries (it’s a Giada De Laurentis recipe. We are Giada fans in our house. Did anyone see “Giada in Paradise” on Saturday? She was on Capri, and I am convinced that Capri is heaven on earth. I will go there for sure).

the magnetic pull toward impasse

Originally uploaded by Nicole Bruni

i was reading tonight and came across this sentence:

resistance is pushing against the world so that it will push back

major lightbulb moment for me. is this why i make things so difficult? so that i feel that the world at least knows that i’m there?

lucky 7

Originally uploaded by Nicole Bruni

when i came out of the gym i found this card laying on the ground next to my car right next to the door.

7 is my number.
i was born in the 7th month of 1970.
i was on p. 77 of jpg magazine, issue 7.
7 is my love.
7 is my next tattoo.

I’ll take it as a sign of good luck.

(I don’t believe in coincidences, at least not in terms of a coincidence being “luck.” In mathematics, two angles that coincide fit together perfectly. so a coincidence is that which fits together perfectly)

I need to immerse myself in something [72]

Originally uploaded by Nicole Bruni

One of my most vivid childhood memories is one from kindergarten. We had to color a picture of a cake. I wanted a chocolate cake, and I colored the frosting with a black crayon.

My teacher saw it and started criticizing me very loudly in front of the entire class, telling me in no uncertain terms that “chocolate isn’t black…it’s brown!”

I felt awful. I felt that I had failed. I was so embarassed. And from that point on, I never thought I was good at anything remotely artistic, so I simply never tried.

But I’ve always wanted to try.

When I started getting seriously interested in photography, I started to think of myself in some small way as an artistic person. But I still don’t really believe it.

I need to explore that, for therapeutic reasons more than anything. It’s not a secret around here that I’ve spent the last year in a half in a funk…rebuilding…trying to
figure myself out. I’ve been half-assed about it though. But I need to immerse myself in something right now in order to emerge from where I am.

I ran across someone here on Flickr that is working through Keri Smith’s “Wreck This Journal” and I thought it sounded like the perfect thing to get me moving creatively.

I finally bought the book last night and worked through a few pages. I sat on the porch on a perfect (although very hot) summer night, with my Starbucks lemondade iced tea (I am addicted) and my iPod and I got down to business.

Over an hour later, my colored pencil stopped moving, I looked at what I had done, and I smiled.

I’ll be working through the book and posting photos of it in the “Wreck This Journal Group” on Flickr.

If any of you need a creative jolt, or something to lose yourself in, go grab a copy and join me. I’m so, so excited about it.

Just dance it off!!

Originally uploaded by Nicole Bruni

My youngest sister in Philly was on a date last week. She and her date were sitting on a bench talking near a dance club.

Two scantily clad, extremely drunk and somewhat Lindsay Lohan/Paris Hiltonish girls were on the bench next to them, talking
about all of the drama of the evening.

As they stood up to walk back to the club, my sister heard one say to the other in her lovely drunken tone:

JUST DANCE IT OFF!!!

I’ve just found my new motto.