30 Days to Getting Over the Dork You Used to Call Your Boyfriend: A Heartbreak Handbook by Clea Hantman

Is it the season of breakups?

More often than not, I've been counseling friends with broken hearts. No wonder so many made New Year's vows to seek another soulmate.

I'd also like to take a moment, for any friend-of-a-friends who are reading this, to mention that my ex is not a dork. My ex is a sweetheart.

Except when it comes to They Might Be Giants. Then she's a dork. :)

Well, awesome readers, dry your eyes and pick up the ILL form, cause Clea Hantman--aka Super Clea of LSL's much-touted Hey Day!--is here with 30 Days to Getting Over the Dork You Used to Call Your Boyfriend: A Heartbreak Handbook.

This tiny but powerful title promises that the sun will shine again, the pain will end, and you'll be singing a new song , Chiquitita. However, no wallowing is allowed. Each day has a new bit of hard-won advice and mission to get you moving and discovering bits of yourself, topped with a haiku and served with a song . Following the five stages of grieving, Clea starts you off writing the saga of your lost love. After you've committed it to memory, you're instructed to tear it into itty bitty pieces and toss it over your head. It's a slightly messy celebration of new things to come! What fun!

When you hit the anger chapter, you'll be doing yoga and turning that nasty break-up letter into kistchy paper jewelry. Bargaining for her love? Get your mind off the torrid past by learning to flirt, or making your own little "Love is..." posters to stick about. Depressed? Feng Shui your room, remake your wardrobe, and script your life as a movie starring you. Accepted that she's hit the road? Research your passions, chart a world tour-de-force, and then reward yourself for the last 30 days of growth and:

Do something silly and ridiculous and flirtatiously fun with your friends. Like, throw a congratulatory party with lots of meaningless pop songs and yummy snacks...Or mark this day by having you and your friends communicate only through song lyrics!...Or maybe you and your friends can hold an all-girl poker tournament at your house, and instead of money, you play with gummy bears...Or you could gather the girlies together to create a magazine about something or someone you love. And you can do it in one crazy, fun-filled night...Or you and your friends could all plant little flower gardens in your bike baskets and then go on a parade all around the neighborhood and all around town. Yes, it's absurd, and yes, it's silly, but that's the point.

By rewarding yourself with a fun activity, you're rewarding yourself with a rousing good memory, a wonderfully delicious memory. And like I've said before, the good feeling you get from that memory is something you can return to again and again.

This is a fantastically dynamic guide to duct-taping your heart back together, following warm advice with proactive activities to get you back into gear. You may not be totally over that dork, but you'll be well on your way to a happier, well-rounded existence. Fun, portable, cheap and full of good spirit, I totally recommend 30 Days to Getting Over the Dork... to all the newly-singletons who need a kick in the proverbial bottom.

*Clea Hantman blogs at SuperClea and Clea's Corner

*When your month is up, check out Holi-Dazed, a free book about weird holidays in the zine-y style of the much loved Hey, Day! I have the whole thing from the original website and adore it to bits.

*The Getting Over the Dork blog follows up on Clea's love of indie music, posting tracks to sigh to and scores for your moment of revelation that hey, you're just not into her (or him) either

*30 Days to Finding and Keeping Sassy Sidekicks and BFFs: A Friendship Field Guide is out on April 14. Sweet!

Life is just more fun with friends. And who doesn’t want a sidekick in case there’s ever a need to fight crime or solve a mystery? Every girl needs at least one wonderful pal, and when you harness the power of friendship, life’s possibilities can be limitless. It might sound like kid’s stuff, but the support of a girlfriend can last a lifetime. Long after the boys have come and gone, a true blue girlfriend will still be by your side.
But like it or not, friendships take work, plain and simple. And that’s where 30 Days to Finding and Keeping Sassy Sidekicks and BFFs comes in—a field guide to friendship that will help you learn the basics of meeting new friends and keeping the old.

*Grrl.com founder Bonnie Burton's list of things to do to repair a broken heart makes for good extracurriculars during your 30 days.

*Still stuck? Read Ask Nicole for advice about love, life, and everything in between, and if you're brave, submit your own query

Art in the Heart, Dirt in the Skirt:It's So You edited by Michelle Tea

I like to let the city dress me up in its love. I know it's a good day when I leave my house and by the time I come back I'm wearing a completely different and more bizarre outfit.~Rhiannon Argo, "Art in the Heart, Dirt in the Skirt"

I'm not a very good book blogger. Sometimes, I don't want to write something meaningful--I just want to thrust It's So You: 35 Women Write About Personal Expression Through Fashion and Style in your hands and say "Read it! It's amazing! There's clothes and feminism and it's happy and soulful and incredibly queer friendly. There's a girl with bee shoes and a butch pinup paper doll and and grandmother with a marshmallow dress and Proustian memories of red lipstick and dressing to rock your own fucking world."

This is one of those times.

[My grandmother] loved every detail of dressing herself, and she instilled in me what she considered the important rules of fashion: Don't dress like everyone else; dress to make yourself happy; and once in a while enter your own fantastical world where it's perfectly normal to wear plastic and newspaper...I spent many days fashioning my own creations under her direction--a skirt made into a beehive, complete with beaded bees attached by coil springs, a pair of pants covered with little plastic rabbits and trees, and a long tube dress covered with fuzz to resemble a caterpillar. When I wasn't dressed as part of another world, I wore a sometimes-dizzying array of mismatched colors, prints, and textures.~Debbie Rasmussen, "My Grandma's Attic: Dressing Up and Acting Out"

I've noticed that Michelle Tea picks writers like herself: raw, experimental, but not without humor and quirks of personality. They have dizzying highs and heartbreaking lows and every experience in between, feverish to get the most out of life and living, to make sense of their pasts, to see beauty in ugly things and vice versa.  There are artists, models, many writers, witches, urban professionals, a psychic, a fashion designer, from every creed, color, social strata and gender expression. And the clothes! Oh, the clothes--pink Mode Merr girdles trimmed in rhinestone, a crushed velvet babydoll dress to wear to your first Ani DiFranco concert, a Hawaiian barkcloth dress, and it goes on, with a lot of love for thrift/vintage/DIY style. But more than just personal sartorial histories, each essay meditates on personal style as expression through a feminist lens. It's smart, incredibly readable, and wholly inspiring, just like Michelle Tea herself. So much love, so highly recommended.

Maybe fashion is our way of marking our evolution. I am wearing what I am wearing to help you know who I am and who you are looking at looking at, and most of all, who is looking back. ~Jill Soloway, "Look at Me"

• *The Michelle Tea Shrine
• *Her Myspace
• Notable contributers: Parisa Parnian (<3 Rigged Out/Fitters!), Ellen Forney, Felicia Luna Lemus, Debbie Rasmussen, Nicole J. Georges, Kate Bornstein

A Little Dose of Personal Style: Just For the Frill of It by Sonya Nimri

I'm a fiend for fashion. Give me your unloved vintage print tunics, chenille-textured blouses, and brocade Mary Janes, your rhinestone-trimmed chokers and dollar store glass rings. Putting together a great outfit is one of my favorite artistic outlets, but alas, when you are a size twelve, and under five feet tall, finding the appropriate gilded clobber is a wee bit difficult. Lately, I've taken to the idea of reworking what I've got to breathe a bit of life into my post-collegiate wardrobe.

Enter Sonya Nimri, and her DIY fashion guide Just For the Frill of It:

I want to make something that rocks. I want it to be unlike anything I've seen out there--a one-of-a-kind original, Sonya-fied, inspired creation. A piece that comes forth from my brain, which is filled with the influences of street fashion, the runways of Paris, my travels around the world, my latest ideas and notions, and more.

Nimri has an eclectic, colorful style that would be right at home in Shangri-L.A. Intimidated? Don't be. In this book, the focus is on reconstructing pieces you already own or can easily thrift, and adding creative embellishments to the finished piece. A ribby tank plus ribbon and a bit of lace becomes the Laced with Charm top; a little black dress and a handful of costume jewelry can make you a Mademoiselle Coco cocktail frock. Starting with an excellent guide to What You Should Own and How You Can Do It (I especially appreciated the illustrated sewing diagrams, which continue throughout the book), the title progresses through an extravagantly femme collection of shrugs, skirts, purses, and creative miscellany, such as a brocade cummerbund and pansy-covered purse. The pieces featured are young and trendy, but that's the idea of books like this one. Why go out and spend goodness knows how much on something that will fall out of style in just a season, when you can create it from bits and bobs you already own? And, better yet, why not create your own sense of style?

Just for the Frill of It is gorgeously designed; the photography is clear and bright, with a beautiful palette. One of the most charming details is Nimri's list of top ten things to do while wearing this piece; you can "bring your neighbor flowers" or "make a family collage" in your Granny Bolero, or "buy yourself a new antique ring" or "talk to the garden fairies" in the Ruffled Around the Edges Skirt. It's such a personable touch; I hope it carries over into her next book on jewelry-making.

My only caveat is a tiny one: I would have liked to have seen a greater range of body types within the diverse set of models. If I could find what I liked off the rack, I wouldn't have picked up a book like this in the first place, and I know young women of all different shapes and sizes who feel the same way.

Bored with your kit? Freaked out by the relentless ebb and flow of trends and styles? Then pick up a copy of Just for the Frill of It, and start making your own wardrobe fabulous as only you can.

Sonya Style, the author's website, has a plethora of simple recipes, costume ideas, and theme party guides. If you love modern-but-colorful room decor, definitely check out the decorate section for unique bits like the strapping room divider and still life wall flowers.
Her second book, Beadalicious: 25 Fresh , Unforgettable Jewelry Projects for Beads Old and New will be out on April 1st.
You can watch Sonya in action, including some of the pieces featured in the book, in her demo reel (I spotted the Let's Get Physical shrug and Highland Lass cardigan):

Change the world (one interaction at a time):The Guerilla Art Kit by Keri Smith

Despite serving my undergrad sentence at a painfully normal small liberal arts college, I managed to make the acquaintance of the few eccentrics that dared disturb our universe. One of them was a blithe spirit who wore kitty ears and hula hooped for fun and profit. "Here," I thought, "is the first guerilla artist I've ever had the pleasure of meeting in person." While we never quite carried out our plan to chalk quotes up and down the byways of Central Park, I tried to carry a little of E's nonchalance into the world at large.

Wait, you say. Guerilla art? What's that?

(My father asked if it's when people dressed up like gorillas and let animals loose at the zoo. I told him not to say that too loud, or he'd give people ideas.)

Technically, yes. According to Keri Smith, artist and philosopher, guerilla art is "any anonymous work...installed, performed, or attached in public spaces, with the distinct purpose of affecting the world in a creative or thought-provoking way." Think of that frozen-moment-in-time-at-Grand-Central video that's been making its way around the net. Of course it could be just beautiful, but even adding a beautiful thing to your everyday environment will make people stop and think, and isn't that what art's all about?
The Guerrilla Art Kit has a nice blend of theory and practice. Smith's words on her own experience and research in the world of guerilla art will make you want to get out there and start slapping eyeballs on your neighborhood parking meters and mixing up batches of moss graffiti. There are instructions for making seed balls, wheatpaste, and freezer paper stencils, illustrated in Smith's deceptively naive style. Mindful of ecological issues and the current social climate, she stresses impermanent, eco-friendly work that does not permanently deface the environment you are in. Dozens of exercises encourage the reader to send passers-by on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood, create wish trees and portable idea dispensers, and leave books and Polaroids for the taking. The last section of the kit (a sturdy little covered spiral-bound book printed on thick paper, the better to stash in your bag) includes stencil templates, stickers, postcards, and quotes for you to copy, cut out, and use.

Though she addresses the political side of guerilla art--some of her own work addresses her strong feelings against pervasive advertising--Smith explains that guerilla art is about expressing your own ideas:

Leave secret messages everywhere you go. Your ideas are interesting. Find yourself through recklessness and freedom. Revel in the idea of impermanence. Create your own world. Give back. Doodle. Listen. Plant. Stroll. Dance. Grow.

Wish Jar Journal is Keri's blog. Her website is also full of good things, like 100 Ideas, paper dolls, and instructions for a magic book.

This past year, she also published Wreck This Journal and The Little Otso Non-Planner Datebook.
There are many, many excellent interviews drifting about the internet. The best are at Craftzine, Arts and Healing Network (this one has an especial focus on guerilla art), and this podcast at Hip Tranquil Chick.
Stories from Space features the work of Helen Nodding (aka Ladybird), who builds tiny worlds and strange insects and leaves them in secret places that only the most observant would find.

Go For The Real Thing Every Time: Real Girls Eat by Anthea Paul

Ahh. Young Adult. Self Help. Two of the more embarrassing sections to be seen in at your local bookstore. I've never had any qualms about being seen anywhere in B&N (which lead to a delightful scene when several hardbacks fell on my head in the kidlit aisle), but should you choose to brave their cross section and peruse the YA Nonfic rack, you may very well happen upon a treasure like this one.

The Girlosophy series is well known for stunning photography and advice that ranges from the practical to the transcendent. They are essentials for the growing girl's bookshelf. Girlosophy: Real Girls Eat by Anthea Paul is one of the newest additions to the Girlosophy family. A guide to healthy eating and a cookbook, pretty and useful as the best guides are. The Girlosophy look combines clear visuals (and this is real food here, with all of its lumps and bumps and burned bits but still mouthwatering) and tropical colored text with a clean collaged style; very distinctive, very appealing.

Anthea Paul starts us off with a confession: she wasn't born with healthy eating habits, instead snacking and starving her way through her teens and young adulthood. After swinging from one bad habit to its extreme opposite, she took charge of her health and overhauled her eating habits entirely. Her advice here is solid and reassuring (I've been a vegetarian for twelve years and have heard all of it from my doctor at some point or another); she encourages a healthy relationship with food:

The point of Real Girls Eat is to urge you to enjoy your food in whatever form it takes. At the same time, it is also to help you understand how food nourishes you energetically, depending on the origins of the food, who made it, how it was handled and processed etc. Apart from choosing the best food available to you in the first place, you can imbue the food you are about to eat with sacred energy yourself...You communicate with your body every time you eat so make the experience a good one!

The second half of the book is devoted to recipes, 13 photoillustrated by resident Girlosophers and the rest set up around the clock (9-11 AM: French Toast Fingers. 3-6 PM: Spiced Chickpeas and Easy Hummus. 6-9 PM: Vegetable & Cashew Curry. 9-11 PM: Lychee Slushy). There's a good mix of veggie and omnivorous recipes, ingredients are listed in metric and imperial, and--my favorite bit--there's a List of Things With Which To Stock Your Cupboard , a life lesson I missed out on as a wee one.

Absolutely recommended for veteran Girlosophers and newcomers alike.

Girlosophy: Real Girls Eat by Anthea Paul
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell's

Read it, and feeling inspired? Glowinthedarkstars.com, the premier FLB fansite, has a recipe database for just about every meal mentioned in the Block canon (scroll down for the recipe section).

The New Breed of Scrapbookers: Scrap City by Paul Gambino

So loving parents of large families do it, that one's a given. Professional mermaids do it, too. So do the members of Bettie After Midnight, and tattooed sword-swallowers.

Of course they scrapbook. Everyone does nowadays. Good in that antique key stickers, rub on type and stunning handmade papers can be found in your local Micheal's. Bad in that unless you're into pastels and cutesy sayings, you'll have to dig around for suitable materials to illustrate such events in your life as "My First Day at the Strand, or Why Rie Isn't Allowed to Buy More Books Than She Can Carry" or "Marina's Day Scaring Necking Couples in the Greenbelt." Or maybe that's just my life....

Fortunately, within the past year more publishers have been coming out with material for the atypical scrapbooker and then some, this book being one of them. Featured within Scrap City are artfully preserved memories of a photoshoot in an antique train yard, a season's collection of art bras (no, really, with a collaborative Panty Journal to match), and anti-war protests in Italy. The styles range from Tracy Galasso's deftly simple pages with glassine envelopes and spidery text to the darkly baroque digital collages of Estelle Ever. Each artist was given free range to describe their work and techniques; my only regret is that more of them did not choose to write about the process and emotions going into the work as opposed to the actual construction of them. Though the artists receive top billing, the book closes with a short section on crafting your own scrapbook--I was especially impressed by the thorough discussion on archival materials.

Pick it up if you're a Somerset Studios kind of crafter and want something both pretty and practical for the coffee table.

Scrap City by Paul Gambino
Official Website (history, multimedia bits and bobs, sample pages, a place to submit your own pages, and so on and so forth)
Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Powell's

Inspired? Try Silver Crow Creations for the "fun to funky, pretty to poetic, esoteric to ethereal - gifts, artistic rubber stamps, art supplies, and sundries of all kinds," Turtle Arts for "journals, sketchbooks, journaling and altered book supplies" and FLAXart for arty gifts and chichi supplies to drool over.

Reflect the Soul's Hopes: Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks To the Dead by Christine Wicker

Women set the tone in this lakeside community where houses are painted in pastels. During the height of the summer season, when twenty thousand visitors come to consult the town's mediums, it resembles nothing so much as a sorority sleepover for aging sisters. They laze about the hotel parlor and fan themselves in the white rockers that line the veranda. They sweep down the streets in flowing dresses. Tinsel stars and crystals hang in windows. Christmas lights twinkle from porches all year long. Stone angels stand sentry on walkways, and plaster elves march across lawns.

Doesn't that sound like the most fascinating setting for a magical realist novel, something about the daughter of the only skeptics in town? Which would be a good thing, as she goes around scaring the hell out of the local charlatans until something real turns up.

I digress.

Lily Dale, New York is one of the last lingering communities founded around the Spiritualist movement. Heard of Victorian seances, table tipping and ghost photographs? All relics of the Spiritualists, who held the belief that contact with the dead was not only possible, but advisable for a fulfilling life. Nowadays, people flock to this tiny town with dreams of greed, or love, or just talking to their Mum or Grandpa or Rover again.

Christine Wicker entered into the project of profiling the town and getting the scoop on mediums with an open-minded yet healthily skeptical viewpoint. This proves frustrating , but never boring in a town full of people like Shelley, angel-loving founder of the Lower Archy of the Pink Sisterhood of the Metafuzzies and Blissninnies, or Lynn, a mother of five well into her twilight years who still takes the time to bicycle around town, bestowing blessings as she goes. After three years of research, Wicker comes to a satisfying personal conclusion that allows balance between being open to wonder and, as Lynn would put it, chatting with the toaster every morning:

Maybe Lily Dale's stories are like ancient myths that don't have to be literally true because facts aren't the point. The point is that such stories resonate with us spiritually. They answer our deep need to believe the universe contains order and purpose. In a post-modern culture, perhaps perfectly sane but spiritually adrift people retreat into their own visions because there are so few alternatives. Maybe Lily Dale fosters that, and maybe it serves a good purpose.

This one's for the Ruby lovers who would like to learn more about the otherworldly occurances that happened to its heroine, or anyone who wants a good dark-and-stormy-night read.

Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town That Talks To The Dead by Christine Wicker
Sadly out of print, but I recommend the fine booksellers at Alibris.com and Strandbooks.com
You might also get lucky at BookCloseouts.com (as of today, there are a hundred remaindered copies of this book), which sells overstocked books and has some of the best service I've encountered in online bookselling.