I’m sitting here in bed after a very long day of this and that and everything else going wrong, and tomorrow is a huge, huge day here at the Blurbodoocery. Lots of exciting things are happening like my book signing in Utah, and lots of other crazy things, this and that and everything else, but I’ve got my laptop here shoved up against my bosom and it’s making it very difficult to take long, deep breaths. I can also guarantee that the angle with which my laptop is smooshing my boobs? HOT. Awkward, but oh so hot.

When I face really stressful times like this I always turn to music that I know and love, something that years ago got me through something tough. This week I’ve been listening to nothing but The Doves. At my desk, in the car, in the kitchen, here in bed as my laptop gives me a mammogram. They’re a band from Manchester (interestingly, where my husband served his Mormon mission in 1985), and when I lived in LA I saw them live twice. I’m not lying, it was the best live show I’ve ever seen behind Radiohead and Sigur Ros. There’s something about the giant sound, the way they swell to a climax, how almost every song they write makes me understand just a tiny bit more what it means to be alive, when I’m 80 years old I’ll still be listening to these songs. Here’s a great example, “Snowden,” off their last album released in 2005:

Back in 2001 their music was much of what I listened to when Jon and I first got together, and so to me the rhythm of their music represented what my life would sound like when living with my soul mate. Turns out it still does.