Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned From...

Amy Winehouse's Back to Black

A recent heartbreak has led me to embrace the philosophy the 21st-century sage, Amy Winehouse.

1. You don't really want to drink again. You just need friends. In the absence of friends, you are obligated to trash hotel rooms (and possibly hotel workers) while trapped in a drunken haze.

2. It's all right to both cause and be "trouble," as long as you maintain self-awareness.

3. "Fuckery" is a word. In fact, it is the very best word and the only way to describe this business of "playing [yourself] out like that."

4. Guilt can kill you... if your new girlfriend doesn't first.

5. It isn't enough that he loves blow and you love Poe. When he goes back to her (that killer new girlfriend), you feel free to go back to black, which could be a state of emotional oblivion--or that drunken haze from before.

6. Even if love were solitaire, it would still be a losing game.

7. Be your own best friend. He may walk away and make the sun go down, but you're grown, and your tears dry on their own.

8. Not even sleep can cure that ache in your chest. Stay busy until sunset.

9. Ghostface Killah is willing to ride with you and talk about your mistakes--even though you're no good.

Thank you, Amy Winehouse. I think I will have another drink and work on my beehive...