Breakup Babe

2011-03-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Halleleujah! You can now see the complete archives of Breakup Babe here - in Breakup Babe Collector's Edition.

I was not able to restore them here due to some weird, fiddly things I did with the template years ago, but I exported the blog to one of Blogger's new templates - and voila! - they all reappeared.

Now I just need to get Super Brother In Law to help me restore the vintage Breakup Babe graphic that should be a the tope of the page.

Enjoy!

Rebecca

2011-01-04T18:06:00.000-08:00

Hello darlings, as of the beginning of 2011, my website and blog are now here.

See you there!

2010-05-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

Hmm. I just realized that all the Breakup Babe archives are NOT available on this single page as I originally thought.

You can only see through part of 2006, which, my God, is certainly not the heyday of Breakup Babe! No, she was really getting her groove on from 2002-2004. So you'll have to be patient until I can get those pages to show up again.

They certainly still exist. Why look at this!
I will ponder this. Meanwhile, happy May.

2008-01-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

Ha! I did it. You will now see *all* Breakup Babe entries once again in their sad twisted glory! All entries are here on this page. I could not figure out how to recreate the nice archive links in the sidebar so this solution will have to suffice for how. Hopefully it will not make your page load too slowly. Enjoy!

xo
BB

2008-01-15T17:37:00.001-08:00

Shortly, darlings, I plan to restore all my archives so you can read them in their entirety when you are 1)bored, 2)in the throes of a horrible breakup and desperately in need of comfort, or 3)want to voyeuristically enjoy the misadventures of a highly neurotic dater so that you can feel smug and superior.

Hopefully this is within my technical powers. We shall soon find out.

The blog Breakup Babe (two words) is very different from the blog of the same name as it appear in my novel BreakupBabe (one word, yes, very confusing I know). So don't go thinking that if you get to see all the archives that you don't need to buy the book, ohhh no! The blog of Rachel, the protagonist of BreakupBabe, is much more detailed than this blog ever was, and -- it's fiction! So, while you might recognize a few characters here and there from the real Breakup Babe blog, there are also a slew of made-up and composite characters - plus all sorts of wacky events that never happened in real life - whoo hoo!

Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure, here is a post from the distant year of 2003, when meaningless flings and broken hearts abounded, chased with a potent mix of Cosmopolitans and Celexa. You can find this post here and I've also reproduced it for you below.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003
( 7:23 PM ) Breakup Babe

Ok, people. I know you want to live vicariously through me. I know you want me to regale you with tales of lust-filled nights and love gone wrong.

I mean, the stupider the situations I get myself into, the more I have to write about, right?

But listen. I am now about mature. I am about practical. I am about screening. And making smart choices from the BEGINNING, when they're easiest to make. I am about not getting swept up into the moment, unless that moment has a future.

Oh sure I might get desperate again one of these days. I might let myself have a little fling if circumstances become dire.

But IRD was supposed to be a little fling, and look what happened with that?

So maybe, just maybe, you can think about my unborn children for once instead of your entertainment-starved little selves. Help me make the good choices, people!

Yeah I know. BORING, right? Well, so is living in the nursing home without anyone to visit me, OK?!

And meanwhile, I will help myself too. I am formulating a little questionnaire to hand out to potential...uh...whatevers. Questions will include these, and some others I haven't thought of yet.

What medications have you taken in the past?
Why are you not taking them now?
Do you hear voices?
How long did your first marriage last?
Why did you even marry that chick?
Are you less than 15 years younger than me?
Can you fix my computer?

Sugestions are welcome.

2007-09-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

Hello Breakup Babies old and new. How farest ye as nonexistent Seattle summer becomes beautiful, sparkly fall? Let's dig up a post from almost exactly three years ago, when I was in full-fledged Breakup Babe-o-rama mode. Ah how those Celexa-dazed days seem so far away. Funny how we can miss the traumatic times in our lives, isn't it? But those are the times we often feel most alive. At least the drama queens among us.

Monday, September 27, 2004
( 5:37 PM ) Breakup Babe

Egads. Remind me never to come back from vacation again, would you?

I am currently on Day 2, post-vacation, otherwise known as when-everything-fell-apart-at-work-and-in-my-personal-life-and-why- didn't-I-just-buy-a-house-on-the-Oregon-coast-when-I-was-down-there-where-it-is-actually-affordable Hell.

OK,OK, I exaggerate.

Things did not completely fall apart with Library Boy (who still has not trimmed his nosehairs by the way, despite me giving him a nosehair trimmer, and I don't CARE if he reads this, so THERE!) He merely told me last night that after some "soul-searching," he's decided he does not want to have children. This was after I put a wee bit of pressure on him several weeks ago, by blurting out, apropos of nothing, "I don't wan't to fall madly in love with you only to find out you don't want children!"

Ahem. Granted, this would be enough to make most men run screaming. But it had to be said, people!

Maybe I only want children because I have been brainwashed into thinking I do, because, after all, who wants to be awash in diapers and poop and vomit and drool for years on end when you could live in a nice home with nice furniture that isn't covered in strained peas, but damn it, it has nonetheless been in my general life plan since I was oh, two years old, and swaddling my teddy bears in diapers!

OK, maybe I didn't actually do that. It's just that I saw J. and A's superstar three-year old putting diapers on her Elmo doll and I thought it would make a good example of how we females are PROGRAMMED FROM BIRTH to put diapers on!

While we're on the topic of the superstar three-year old, I'll add that the high point of my vacation came with her. It was lunchtime at yet another beautiful empty Oregon coast beach, oh somewhere halfway down the coast. While the other adults milled about on the bluff above, we wandered to the beach to check out the scene.

Of course what does she want to do but take off her shoes and run in the waves? I, jaded and weary as I was, tried to resist the taking-off-shoe-plan, but when it was clear that she was hell-bent on touching that marble-green oceanwater with her toes, I was forced to.

Well! Never, I tell you, never have I seen a person be so happy or laugh so hard as did Superstar Child as we ran in and out of that water, which chased us and retreated like some crazy animal on that sparkling beach.

Those peals of laughter so packed with joy just broke right through me, people, and lo and behold I was happy too! Pure and simply happy to be there in that perfect moment. Feeling like I, too, was being chased for the first time by that big blue thing called the ocean.

So there you have it. One reason I want to have kids.

And now I have used up all my creative energy on that digression so let's forget about the rest of this dilemma til tomorrow, shall we?

Oh except to say that after that lovely discussion with LB, I then proceeded to have the best s*x of my life with him. Go f*cking figure.

2007-06-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I provided you with a everything-that's-old-is-new-again gem from the archive. Let's look back in time almost exactly four years, when Breakup Babe was at the height of her post-breakup boy craziness, heading out on a fourth-of-July backpacking trip with no less than three guys at a time. (Scroll down to the July 3 entry).Oh, those were the days.

xo
BB

2007-04-16T17:29:00.000-07:00

Darling readers -- pulled from my archives yet another delightful description of a going-nowhere date. Those of you who've read the novel note that I lifted some things from my real-life blog (for example, listing the prices of clothing and acessories, a humorous little touch if I do say so myself), but that in other ways, my real-life blog is very different from its fictionalized counterpart. If Rachel were blogging about this date, she would have gone on and on and ON about it. In a witty way, of course. Whereas I used my blog to give a pithy, high-level overview of things, always making sure to get in a good dig at the guy who was about to break my heart/dump me/not call, or say LJBF! (Which happened shortly after this date).

Monday, May 17, 2004
( 9:50 AM ) Breakup Babe

After our date on Saturday, I still think CBW is the Cutest Boy In the World. He did show up for our date, however, wearing flip-flops and reeking of garlic, which I did not take to be a good sign. Especially after yours truly had just spent a good hour showering, blow-drying, pouffing, smoothing, brushing, flossing, rinsing, and attempting different outfits.

I smelled, if I might say it, delicious, freshly scrubbed with Origins Pomegranite Shower Gel ($16) and generously spritzed with Christian Dior's "J'Adore" ($53), my hair gently tousled with some other overly expensive product that I can't remember the name of ($17). I had on a *new* and fetchingly low-cut shirt from Anthropologie (on sale at $35!), my size 4 Banana Republic jeans (they still fit!), and sexy black boots from Nordie's ($100).

I was in a word, one hot customer.

Anyway, despite CBW's rather weak start, we proceeded to have one of the most fun dates in recent memory, first taking in a fabulous improv show at the Pike Place Market Theater, then heading next door to that swank temple of hipdom the Alibi Room, where we dined with friends of his and I made numerous witty remarks while CBW nodded approvingly at my intelligence and my low-cut shirt.

After dinner (by which point his two martinis had neutralized the garlic smell) he and I headed downstairs where we danced feverishly for the next hour to the sounds of an Aryan looking DJ who dropped his glowing Apple in the middle of the whole thing, but was nonetheless quite proficient.

Dancing was mostly PG-rated (the low-cut shirt taking it out of the "G" range) except for the time when I whispered to him that we were alone on the dance floor, at which point he grabbed me and whirled me across the floor in a parody of "Strictly Ballroom," ending the maneuver by clutching me close to him for three precious seconds. Then, in our last ten minutes of dancing, he moved noticeably closer to me, bringing the rating up to a PG-13.

Then he drove me home and I rushed nervously out of the car, no doubt giving the impression that I wanted to get away from him as quickly as possible, when instead I just wanted to avoid any awkward moments, waiting to see if he'd kiss me (because I knew he wouldn't), or waiting to see if he'd suggest another date, or worse yet, suggesting another date myself - even though, of course, I wanted all that.

And there you have it. My PG-13 date with Cutest Boy in the World. Stay tuned to see if I get to go on another date with this guitar-playing, rock-climbing, bespectacled hottie in the next year or so.

2007-03-12T12:29:00.000-07:00

*Newsflash* *Newflash*

BreakupBabe: A Novel is a finalist for the 2007 Lulu Blooker Prize!

Check out the shortlist here.

If I win that 10K, I could finally buy myself that mail-order husband I've been dreaming about!

But I must not get greedy here. Even if I just won in the fiction category, why I could at least buy myself a new pair of shoes. But no, no. It's not about winning, it's all about ~~gloating!~~ being grateful for the impeccable taste of the Blooker judges who had so many other fine blooks to choose from.

I am so ~~hot~~ humbled.

Thank you, dear judges.

xo
Rebecca

2007-03-08T11:13:00.000-08:00

Hello Breakup Babe-ettes,
Here we have another oldie but goodie from the archives. Here we see Breakup Babe emerging from the throes of her broken heart to become - well - Breakup Babe, eager pursuer of mountain climbers, musicians, and all kinds of other pot-smoking, hard-living, loverboys.

Friday, September 13, 2002
( 8:08 AM ) Breakup Babe

Muscle Bound Climbing Boy (MBCB) walks into foyer where I am innocently getting my mail. I glance over, see who it is, and go into FlirtAlert®.

"Hi!" I say. Friendly yet cool. Opening my mailbox. "You’re H., right?" Turn away from mailbox and smile. He is looking stubbly. Tres masculine.

"Hi," he says, processing. His tone is neutral. As in, Who is this girl? Have I met her?

"I’m BB. We met just as I was moving in."

"Oh, right!" Light clicks on in his glacier-blue eyes. "You know, I’m sorry I missed your party, but I was climbing in the Cascades that weekend."

But of course.

"Really?" I say, very interested, but turning back to my mailbox so as not to appear too much so. “What did you climb?” As if I am an expert on the myriad summits of the Cascades.

"Mount Forbidden." The name of this precipitous peak trips off his tongue. He waits to see what kind of effect it will have, and I do not disappoint.

"Ooh," I say. "I’ve heard that one is really hard." Voice goes down a register on the final word.

"Do you climb?" There is a hint of eagerness in his voice.

"Yeah," I say, casual, modest. Perusing my one piece of mail. So what if I haven’t climbed anything in a while? Look up at him, and, just perhaps, the eyelashes bat. "But nothing that hard."

Then MBCB launches into a description of just how hard Mount Forbidden actually is, with its many thousands of feet of exposure. As he talks, look directly at him and shake my head a few times to indicate incomprehension of how a person could accomplish such a manly feat. Meanwhile, am sending subliminal signals. "You want to ask me to coffee…you want to take me climbing…you want to..."

"Well," I say, when he is finished, "It sounds much more exciting than coming to my party." Turn towards the stairs to indicate that I am ready to exit. Mustn't overstay my welcome.

"Yeah," he says, rueful. He is regretting – just a little– that he missed my party now. After all, he would have seen me in a backless dress.

"Well I was committed to it anyway." He starts heading down the stairs to his basement apartment. "But next time you have a party, be sure to invite me…"

But of course.

2007-02-16T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hello! I hope you are all suriving OK without that party girl Breakup Babe. I am hanging in there though I can't say that I don't miss her and that I'm not tempted to just open up and let it all out to you once again. I do believe that one day soon I will find a way to write about dating for the masses again, but until now, I offer you this post from the very early days. Note how I "swear" never to go to Ambiguityland at the end of this post, and of course, I did it over and over again over BB's four-year history, giving you plenty of juicy stuff to read about.

xo
BB

Sunday, September 22, 2002
( 2:14 PM ) Breakup Babe

NEXT STOP: AMBIGUITYLAND

The Dating Express has now stopped at my most feared and hated destination. That wasteland exactly between Friendship and Love: AmbiguityLand. Not only has it made its regular stop here, but the train appears to have stalled.

Some people love AmbiguityLand. You can see these weirdos walking around in their visors, cameras in hand, reveling in relationships that are not quite platonic, but not quite sexual, or relationships that are sexual, but not quite committed.

I am not one of these people. I stay inside the train, cowering. Headphones clamped over my ears. This is because I am, as Sexy Boy put it recently, in that quaint Alaskan way of his, “a straight-shootin’ son of a gun.” I do not like ambiguity in any form, but most especially when it comes to matters of my overly-tender, overly-optimistic heart.

When the train breaks down (as it has before) I’m forced to step outside sometimes for fresh air. But every time I do, I get smacked upside the head and knocked down in the gutter. Or I do it to someone else. Or maybe both at the same time.

Like last night, for example. Which, by the way, was not the first official night of fall. Because this year, I declare that fall begins TODAY, September 22. I have been waiting for fall for the last two months. For the beautiful, honeyed Seattle fall to carry away the heartbreak of this summer. Autumn is the time when my life starts turning bright jewel tones, like the leaves.

And so the stupid, stupid, heartbreak I felt last night when I made my misguided venture into AmbiguityLand was, I’d like to say, for the record, not indicative of how my fall is going to be. Because I am not stepping foot in that godforsaken place again, even if this train stays broken, and I have to sit my ass onboard forever.

2007-01-25T09:38:00.000-08:00

Now we go back a few years to Breakup Babe's prime to revisit a night with the Doctor. Remember him? Oh yes, how could we forget. One of the best characters ever to grace this blog, and he made it into the novel too.

You know, I am much more mellow nowadays, but sometimes I miss those melodramatic ecstasies and agonies of early, Celexa-fueled Breakup Babe.

Oh! You can now see my book as an offical entry in the Lulu Blooker Prize contest. Wish me luck!

xo
R

Sunday, December 01, 2002
( 4:13 PM ) Breakup Babe

OK, I know you’re all desperately waiting to hear what happened on my last date with the doctor. You can’t sleep, you can’t eat, you’re constantly on edge. What happened?, you cry out to anyone who will listen. Why won't she tell us?!

Well, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. I’m going to tell you what happened on that fabled last date. NOTHING, OK? Nothing! Jesus, I wish you people would leave me alone.

In fact, I’ve got much better stories to tell about Silent but Deadly Boy (SBDB), whose been “watching videos” with me a lot lately, but since you people can’t get enough of that damn doctor, here it is:

1)Doctor comes over to my house. Looking. Utterly. Drop-dead. Gorgeous. Exclaims over the great beauty of my apartment. Of my APARTMENT. Talks about himself. Lets me get a few words in edgewise. Alternates between obnoxious superficiality, which makes me want to boot him out the third floor window, and kind seriousness which makes me want to curl up in his lap and stay there forever.

2)We go to dinner at intimate restaurant. We act intimate. I get a thrill pretending I actually know this stunning specimen of manhood.

3)Get st**ed in Seattle back alley. Doctor teaches me extra-special technique learned in medical school for getting super-duper st**ed .

4)Go to to Doug Martsch (musical god) show. Doctor immediately becomes serious. Every single song is heartbreaking. Turns to me, when D.M. starts another crazy-sad cover, and says “I might actually cry.” Finally, FINALLY, wraps his arms around me. At the very end. The last two songs to be exact. I love the doctor.

5)We leave show. Doctor loses serious aspect and immediately becomes fount of obnoxious superficiality, made worse by the fact that he is super-duper st**ed , and I can’t follow a thing he is saying. I hate the doctor.

6)We approach my apartment. The eternal debate begins. Do I invite him up? Will he come up? What if I invite him up and he says no? Wouldn’t it be best NOT to invite him up? I invite him up. He says yes. I love the doctor.

7)He comes up. We drink water and eat ice cream and sit on opposite corners of the red Couch o' Love. Doctor talks about himself. Doesn’t let me get a word in edgewise. Alternates between obnoxious superficiality and kind seriousness, but focuses on the former. Feel myself carried along on a conversational wave that I cannot control and do not want to participate in. This is not me, I’m thinking. He’s not getting to know me, and I’m not getting to know him. I hate the doctor.

8)At one point, doctor looks at me with that LOOK. That shy, sparkly-eyed look that says “Gee whiz, you are so pretty and great and I want to kiss you!” I love the doctor.

9) The moment passes. He doesn’t kiss me. He leaves and gives me a long, warm hug. Says “see you later.” I have a big ache in my gut. I hate the doctor.

2007-01-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

So, here for your archival reading pleasure, we reminisce about a crush I had two years ago on a cute boy called the Charming Canadian who cruelly and oh-so-stupidly rejected me for some Canadian chick. I remember one reader writing in and telling me ecstastically how this was the best blog entry he'd ever read. I don't know about THAT, but it is sorta fun IIDSSM (if I do say so myself).

Also, note that I've made a lot more entries available on this page now - why you can read back over a year now! Of course, that's just about when the blog got dull, but hey, you've got quantity here OK?

Enjoy!

Monday, July 12, 2004
( 11:19 AM ) Breakup Babe

So. Thus beginneth the next two weeks of knowing those two canoodling Canucks are toodling their way around MY FAIR STATE OF Washington, no doubt falling madly in love as a cheesy montage plays to the tune of "I'm on Top of the World."

Here they are at Pike Place Market, laughing as a big fish flies right towards them and hits The Other Girl (TOG) on the head, and knocks her unconscious! Oops, ha ha ha! There goes that romantic dinner they had planned at Campagne!

Oh, there they are at the water's edge in Olympic National Park, heads bent over a tidepool as sunset streaks the sky, when TOG playfully teases a sea urchin,and OH MY GOSH it grabs her finger and won't let go, meanwhile injecting a paralytic poison! Oh ha ha ha!

Better yet, there they are at Mt. Rainier - MY Mount Rainier - which TOG, with her out-of-shape, untoned, pasty white legs, - would never be able to climb, not in a million years. Holding hands among the wildflowers, alone in their own little world, when OH NO! - an exhausted climber returning from the summit accidentally takes out the TOG when she swings her ice ax into TOG's kneecaps! An expensive helicopter rescue ensues and the rest of their romantic week is ruined as TOG is stuck in Harborview Hospital with the victims of gang warfare, oh ha ha ha!

Meanwhile, yours truly will continue to rip through the cluster of suitors that has suddenly swarmed around me in my drunken, scantily-clad state.

And I won't be thinking about them at all. NOT AT ALL.

2007-01-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

If you are a new reader who has come here from my novel, or discovered this site by typing something like "awful breakup heartbreak want to die" etc. in Google, then welcome!

However, here is the scoop: Breakup Babe is no longer an active blog. I will be recycling gems from my "hidden" archives here on a regular basis, which I know isn't nearly as exciting as hearing about my actual wild and kahrazy sex life, but unfortunately, as a major literary figurehead, I can no longer blog about that stuff. But you can visit me at my author blog and at Sparkly Sparkly, where I blog about the same old stuff I used to blog about here, minus the salacious details.

You can still e-mail me at breakupbabe@msn.com.

xo
Rebecca

2007-01-08T09:41:00.000-08:00

OK darlings, we're going to make this short and sweet.

I have been saying for years now that I need to take Breakup Babe off life support. I’ve kept her hooked up for way too long now. Don’t get me wrong. She is great. She made me who I am today (famous author, glamorous, rich, etc etc).

When I went through the Great Unpleasantness in 2002, she saved me.

For years after the Great Unpleasantess (a couple anyway), I really was Breakup Babe.

Frantic, needy, dating every messed-up attractive guy in sight.

But I don’t think I am Breakup Babe anymore. Not like I’m all happily settled down or anything like that, ooh no. I’ve been in my fair share of stupid dating situations, even to this day!

Yet I have grown up a bit since that period of my life. I’m still frantic and needy and frightened but less so. I achieved my lifelong dream of writing a novel, and that has given me confidence that I didn’t have before. I’m also just older and wiser and ready to stop having a nickname like “Breakup Babe” hanging around my neck.

But I love blogging way too much to stop. So you can still find me blogging at my author web site and on my new blog, Sparkly Sparkly. (Some of you diehards may remember I created a blog with this name way back when I was going through “secret” blog-creating phase.).

I always liked that name so I resurrected it. I like to think of myself as a sparkly person even though a lot of the time I probably am not. But I do wear sparkly eyeshadow sometimes!

In memoriam, I give you the very first BreakupBabe entry ever. Perhaps I'll make all the archives available here once again, but I haven't decided about that. Meanwhile, let's throw some flowers on her grave and go party.

xo,
BB

Saturday, August 10, 2002
( 1:58 PM ) Breakup Babe

Had a great time at a big, sensational party last night (except for my bout of uncontrollable, drunken crying ). Unfortunately, part of what made it fun is that I was hanging out with F. I KNOW! I swore up and down I wouldn’t do it, and really I didn’t do anything except let myself be hugged and touched and made to feel generally desirable.

If only it could stay like that. If only we could go out occasionally and flirt and fondle while the lights flash and the music plays, and that it could make me feel good and warn and forgetful, and then we could go our separate ways and the night would just vaporize into pleasant memories.

But of course today, I keep replaying all the pleasant memories in my head, because after all the rejection I experienced from M. in the last two months, it felt so good to have someone actually want to be close to me. And to have someone put their arm around me. I mean, maybe his motives were bad, and maybe he is a “wolf,” like S. used to say, and maybe he’s a wolf who’s preying on me in my most vulnerable time. But I don’t care, when someone puts their arm around you as you walk down the street, it feels loving and protective and it’s all so easy to forget that maybe all they want to do is fuck you and that once you do that, they’ll never put their arm around you again.

And it’s not even a question of whether he’s a good person or not, of if he can be, or he can be a good boyfriend or not, because even if he could be, he wouldn’t be a good boyfriend for me, despite this f***** physical attraction, which has endured over the years. Which is the whole reason I shouldn’t have let it get this far, but WHATEVER. At least I’m aware that I’m doing is silly and dangerous, which is more than I can say for myself the last time around with him five years ago.

But anyway, it was one of those nights where I could pretend (except when I was crying uncontrollably) that everything was all right, when I could --with the help of an attractive boy putting his arms around me and a good friend in a tight red tube top dancing nearby, and too much electric blue alcohol--dance the night away and feel young and glamorous and like the world was my oyster. Ha.

But I know from experience that the feeling of well-being stretches into the next day, even through the hangover and maybe because of it – everything is too fuzzy for you to really face yourself – and lasts maybe until Sunday night, when you go to bed knowing that you have to work the next day, and that work will be a series of anticlimaxes (waiting for e-mail from cute boys that never arrive), and that every moment in the hallway will moment braced for confrontation and laced with grief.

2006-12-31T12:27:00.000-08:00

OK, so now I am officially hiding out in the Bay Area suburbs. I have pressed the PAUSE button on my life. I am going around in giant sunglasses and a head kerchief so as not to be plagued by the paparazzi. I am actually even going to spend New Year’s Eve here because I have so many gazillions of invitations in Seattle that I am simply overwhelmed by my own popularity and wouldn’t know how to accept any one invitation without breaking someone’s heart. (Besides I have nothing new to wear).

So I am not doing too much of anything. Playing with my niece and nephew, who are now old enough to realize that I am cool and to throw excited fits (screaming, clapping, splashing of bathwater) when I appear. At least these particular fans can't talk yet so they aren't aren’t constantly asking me questions like, “When is the next book coming out BreakupBabe?? Do you have a boyfriend now, Breakup Babe, DO YOU DO YOU?

I am writing a lot. Enjoying the plentitude of my family’s refrigerators, so bursting at the seams, unlike my own sad fridge, containing one shriveled pear, and two nearly empty bottles of flat Pellegrino. Catching up with people I haven’t seen in a long time. Including one ex-boyfriend of mine we shall call the Rock Star, who, as I rediscovered, possesses a pair of extremely luscious lips which also have something to do with my prolonged hideout from real life.

After tomorow I can't put off the moment of truth any longer. I will return to my empty condo, my dying plants, my nonexistent love life, and my driftless employment situation. But it will be a new year and things will blossom once again someday because that's the way life goes.

Happy new year!

bb

2006-12-26T12:00:00.000-08:00

A great Blahness has descended upon me.

Although I love my family dearly, every single negative emotion rises to the surface when I return to the family homestead. Here I fight off boredom, memories of my father, the ghosts of adolescent angst, reports that every other person I grew up with has a blissfully happy marriage and 2.5 kids and is rich from some Silicon Valley startup that is now a billion-dollar behemoth.

At times, these feelings cause me to become panicky. I always threaten to flee early. This time they have just made me blah. So blah that I cannot even muster the energy to leave and am staying for two extra days. Of course there is a GIGANTIC STORM coming in which motivates me not to get into an airplane although I flew here in a GIGANTIC STORM too and thank God everything was OK because I was sitting by the emergency exit and would have been responsible for getting everyone out of that damn plane had we crashed, and really, how likely is it that I would have my wits about me in such a situation (although I study the safety card religiously each time I fly and always offer my seatmates Extra spearmint gum as an implicit bribe for helping me put my oxygen on should the need arise).

(But for future reference, I like sitting in the emergency exit row and there is more legroom which means my fellow passengers don’t mind as much when I have to go to the bathroom 20 times during the flight, which is an unfortunate result of my nerves that doesn’t mesh very well with the fact that I also *must* sit by the window).

In news of the non-Blah, I seem to have finally hacked out a plot for my latest writing project and am excited about it. The story is not a slam-dunk sell the way BreakupBabe was (I knew from the minute I conceived that project that I could sell it, even if it did take two years to do), but it is still a good, timely story with cultural relevance and quirky characters. Ha ha. I say that as if I’ve already written the thing, as if it were a piece of cake to take a good idea and put flesh on it.

But at least I’ve got a good idea. Never mind that my mother, when I outlined the plot for her, said I don’t like it at ALL. Thanks, mom! How many novels have YOU sold?! (Actually, she came around a bit when I went into more detail and assured her my main character was not as superficial as she sounded. That was always my problem in writing classes. Your main character is so superficial! my classmates would say. She is NOT! She has a very complicated inner life! I’m, uh, just not enough of a talented writer to show it to you! No one has really complained that Rachel is superficial, however; the main criticism that she gets is that she is “whiny.” Duly noted and my next protagonist not be a whiner! Well, maybe just a little bit of one.)

OK, where was I. Oh yes, I am excited about my current fledgling novel. It has taken me a year to get to this point. It was just over a year ago that I handed in the final copyedits for BreakupBabe and since then I have been floundering in a creative purgatory, but now---perhaps I am emerging!

Back to news of the Blah, I am in severe need of a numerous chiropractic adjustments, a massage, a Yoga class, a life, and someone to kiss on New Year’s Eve, as well as a cleansing fast to rid my body of all the sugar, fat, caffeine, and alcohol so recently ingested. My most vivacious self has gone into hiding and I present to the world a subdued and boring front that expresses my inner Blah, but other than that, oh, I’m surviving the holidays and I hope you are too.

xo BB

2006-12-19T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hmmph. Yesterday hit a recent low on the Lame-o-Meter.

Bleh. Let's say it again. BLEH!

Nearly every interaction I had with the male of the species yesterday was pure poison. Boys are icky icky icky! Please get them away from me!

The only exception was my reunion with my bandmates, who are all utterly charming, sweet, and guitar-obsessed boys. They are not icky. Even though they talked about guitars and amps and pedals and pickups the whole time and did not understand a word they were saying, except I did understand that maybe we would regroup in the spring. Yay!

That was one of only a couple bright, twinkling Christmasey lights in the grim purgatory that was yesterday.

As for today, well I guess I just have to try again, because what choice is there?

And by the way, thanks for all your many comments -- I do appreciate them even if I don't respond or reciprocate!

Yours truly,
BB

2006-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

I had a GREAT morning today, you know why?! I discovered pictures of my ex-boyfriend with his new girlfriend online!

I wasn’t even trying to cyberstalk him, I swear. I have studiously avoided cyberstalking since we broke up because I am EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY AND WELL-ADJUSTED like that! However, today I stumbled - oops! - into a picture of them, arm casually draped around her shoulder as they recover from a day of mountain derring-do that most mere mortals couldn’t even aspire to.

Not that I care, of course. I DON’T CARE. Because as you know, my love life has been so spectacularly successful since we broke up that, I have barely had a spare thought for him! I don’t think of him every day – certainly not! I don’t wonder what adventures he’s having or miss any little thing about him like how affectionate or smart or sexy he was--my God, what kind of loser do you think I am?

I have plenty to distract me like my career as a bestselling author (check out my Amazon rank today – 450,000!), my world travels to Mexico, my exciting and high-paid new job doing absolutely nothing, and a bevy of well-adjusted, emotionally healthy vying for my love, asking me to marry them, offering to support me, ETC ETC ETC.

Yeah. Life is good. Sooooo good. I couldn’t care less that she is some hot shot mountain climber like I could only aspire to be in my secret dreams. Why would I care about such things? Why would I care that as soon as she became available my ex-boyfriend lost all interest in me and went slobbering her way? I tell you, I DON’T CARE. And that feels GREAT!

I absolutely love the Internet. I mean, unless you’re Jennifer Aniston and can see your ex strutting around with Angeline Jolie on the cover of every single magazine, how could you discover the kind of things I did today? The touching beautiful snapshot of them that really just WARMED my heart because obviously they are so HAPPY and ADVENTUROUS and AMAZING together hurtling down those avalanche chutes and climbing those sheer rock faces together! I mean, I am so happy FOR them, aren’t you?

I really am. So. Happy. Now, if you'll excuse me, there are three plates of fudge sitting outside someone's office nearby and I plan to eat it all.

Xo
BB

2006-12-16T12:03:00.000-08:00

You will be glad to know I survived one of the worst storms EVER here in wind-whipped Washington. I was sleeping snugly in my bed for most it, the howling winds blocked by all the buildings around me, not a tree in sight that could threaten to fall down and crush me in my sleep.

I did, however, practically go insane during some pre-storm madness, getting stuck on the roads for THREE hours for a journey – that earlier that morning – had taken me twenty minutes to complete.

!@%$#$(*!

Yeah I thought I was being all hot sh*t by skipping work and going skiing, but nooo, that put me back on the east side of Lake Washington squarely at rush hour right before the worst storm EVER, and I paid the price. I have seen Purgatory and it is hundreds of taillights, unmoving, before you, stretching unto eternity. Luckily my ipod and my cell phone both had batteries, and my car had enough gas (barely!) to weather thousands of Seattleites going who the hell knows where at 5 miles per hour on a night they should have been at home!

Now Seattle has reverted to its default pale gray. No wind. No rain. No sunshine. Just gray. A damp, biting gray. I never lost power, lucky me, so the whole thing seems unreal (like most tragedies)-the people drowning in basements and getting hit by trees. I saw the detritus and the blacked-out houses but I floated on by it, lucky and unscathed yet more time.

(Pause respectfully here and in sadness for those who suffered in this weather disaster before moving onto to completely self-absorbed and fluffy topics).

A true romantic prospect eludes me at the moment, but you know what? It feels nice not try too hard. AND PLEASE DON’T TELL ME FROM YOUR PREACHY HIGH HORSE ME THAT I WILL FIND SOMEONE WHEN I STOP LOOKING! It is a horrible, vile thing to say, right up there with “Have a safe flight!” WHY WOULDN’T I HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT?!! Ahem.

In other news, since the novel I wrote in the fall is ENCRYPTED and I cannot open it (thanks, former employers!), I am on to the next one which involves a bevy of lovable and confused characters, who I am very much infatuated with at the moment, though I have no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going. It’s going to be a long haul writing this next book, but I am determined--never fear!

I keep thinking, oh, maybe I should freelance, get my name out there, take my nose of out fictionland, but for now, with a full(ish)-time job, I can’t spread myself too thin and I find that I’m drawn to the pretend world rather than the real. So I’ll stay in the warm, tropical world of my imagination as winter bears down. I might go somewhere else in a while but I don’t know where that is right now and I don’t care that I don’t know.

Actually, I do know where I’m going right now and that’s the gym. My gym, with its badly-flourescent-lit showers, its towels like paper, it’s lack of kickboards at the pool! Hmmph. It does have cable TV at every exercise machine so at least there’s that.

Adios,
BB

2006-12-13T10:57:00.000-08:00

There is nothing like getting some stressful news, then dropping your brand new laptop on the street (when it falls out of your unzipped bag), only to then discover that you’ve lost one of your new expensive earrings because you forgot to put the back on it this morning.

I am officially the most careless person in the world. I lose everything, from earrings to snowshoes to hats to expensive dresses. (Oops just dropped a big piece of my scone on the ground!). Lost my hairbrush last night, can’t find that pretty and pricey scarf I bought last winter, not to mention two of my winter coats.

My brain is a big fuzzball. It is good at figuring out things like what should character X say to character Y but try to get it to read a map and it goes blank. Or fix something mechanical. I have breadth but no depth. I can’t focus on details. They bore me. But they are so important! There are many things I want to do that I can’t because of this.

Navigate through the snow. Hang plants from my ceiling. Read the fine print carefully before taking a job so I don’t pick a contracting agency that has the suckiest benefits on the face of the planet. Remember what my family members actually do for a living (something to do with computers?)

I need to reread Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; I know it. I am so out of tune with the physical world. I live in the abstract realms of my own head, which is is filled with useless thoughts that get me nowhere and nothing except a dented laptop, lost earrings, lost in the world. There must be something I’m good at. I just can’t think of what it is right now. Hooking up with the wrong guys, maybe. Yeah, there you go, there’s my talent.

There must be something I’m good at. I just can’t think of what it is right now.

2006-12-11T09:19:00.000-08:00

So I had a realization this week about myself. And my writing.

My novel, BreakupBabe (WHICH YOU CAN FIND IN ALL THE STORES AND MAKES A GREAT HOLIDAY GIFT BY THE WAY!) is really about one character -- a comic, exaggeration version of moi--and her relationship with herself. A variety of boys move in and out of the story but what it boils down to is one girl's tortured, funny, silly (BUT OH SO-RELATABLE!) journey through her own head.

Anyhoo. It is not surprising I wrote such a book. I am a rather narcissistic and more than usually self-absorbed person. While I am a loving affectionate, I rarely consider the impact of my actions on others. I have a hard time seeing from the point of view of anyone who is not me, me, me. I crave company, am sensitive to social nuance, and good with people, yet...

I don't usually understand what makes them tick. To be a better person, and a better writer, I need to get inside the heads of other people more. I want my next book to burst with fully-drawn characters relating to each other in complex, dysfunctional ways, because those are the kinds of books I love to read. Have you read, for example, Emperor's Children? I couldn't even tell you exactly what this book is about but I was dazzled by the way the author dove fearlessly into the heads of 4 or 5 main characters and made them come alive, each in their own highly specific way.

I want to do that. I'm a little tired of my own head. I want to understand people better and care for them better, both in fiction and in life. The question is, how do I do this, other than just getting older and wiser?

Hmm. In other news, my wild weekend has drawn to a close leaving me with nothing but distant memories and a UTI.

xo
BB

2006-12-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

Bizarre week, my friends. It had everything. Tears, laughter, boredom, despair, s*x, drugs, and ROCK AND ROLL.

Oh yeah. Typical week for moi. minus the s*x, drugs, laughter, and rock and roll. Now that my beloved band is on extended hiatus and my own rock star career down the tubes, I still get inspired when I get to see totally killer rock bands like Jet who help me get things right in perspective.

“JET DOESN’T LEAVE THE ROOM UNTIL THERE’S A PARTY GOING ON!” yelled the lead singer to Key Arena on Thursday night, and right then I lightened the hell up. At least for the next hour.

Then the next day I was my even more-than-usually-uptight self due to a variety of things, including the fact that my new insurance carrier does not have mental health coverage and WTF IS UP WITH THAT?!!! Then there was some s*x and drugs and my mental health was just fine. But it was merely an aberration in my celibate, clean-living lifestyle so we won’t discuss it.

Anyhoo. If anyone would like to invite me to any kickin’ New Years’ Eve’s parties, why I’m sorting through my many invitations right now. Everyone could use a quasi-celebrity at their New Year’s Eve party, right? I’ll even sign autographs! Applications for handsome, kissable dates are also being accepted, but let me tell you the competition is fierce. I may be celibate and clean living but I still love a good makeout session more than anything on the planet (except, of course, for a good book).

Xo
BB

2006-12-04T16:18:00.000-08:00

Hmm. I am back at Geeksoft now and remembered something about it. Something good.

THERE ARE A LOT OF MEN HERE.

How I managed to work here for four straight years and not find a rich husband is a testament to my man-finding retardation. They are everywhere! In every office! Youngish, cutish, not so cutish, long hair, short hair, frat boyish, nerdy, hipster, mega-dork, fat, thin, hungry for love!!! Hungry for the love of a writer girl who will chew them up, spit them out, and turn them into novel fodder, no doubt!

Anyway. Blah blah blah. It is nice to be out of that seething cauldron of overwork that was my last job. I'm still contemplating dashing off a note to my old Hallway Crush, though he's probably forgotten me by now if he ever knew who I was in the first place. Hopefully I'll get some new Hallway Crushes right now. 'Cause you know what? I'm BORED.

I am really trying to be one with the boredom. To embrace it. To revel in my loneliness and know that if I am not chasing Mr. Wrongs all around town then maybe Mr. Right will show up. But my God. B-O-R-I-N-G. And I refuse to step into that crack den known as the online personals. Because then I will get a million dates and will be very unbored for a short period of time, only to get chewed up and spit out and end up more bored and lonely than before!

So there.

xo
BB

2006-12-03T17:09:00.000-08:00

Since I have not much to say today except to whine about how tired I am and how my life feels like it is in utter chaos, what with boxes clothes bathing suits books strewn everywhere, I thought, instead I would put up an old and somewhat entertaining post.

It is in honor of one of my fave ex-boyfriends, The Celebrity, who always complained about his nickname The Celebrity and how I was "mocking" him, because really he's only a quasi-celebrity (though more of one than me!), but anyway, as you can see from yesterday's comments, he now calls himself "The Celebrity" so he must have kind of liked the name after all.

He also had the honor of being the first guy I dated post-losing-my-anonymity, and though I tried desperately to keep it secret from him, discovered my blog before our first date and had a mini-freakout before deciding, ok, he would go out with me after all. Then I promised I wouldn't write about him. Ha.

Sunday, May 08, 2005
( 8:44 PM ) Breakup Babe

Last week, Breakup Babe experienced the fastest, most unemotional breakup of her breakup-laden life. It took all of thirty seconds and went something like this:

The Cute Personals Ad Stoner Guy with Whom She Had, Alas, No F*cking Emotional Connection Whatsoever (CPASGWWSHANFECW) calls her and says: “Hey, how’s it going?”

BB: “Oh, OK. You?” (BB has already decided she will not break up with him over the phone but will wait until she sees him that night, 'cause she's a classy kind of gal.)

CPASGWWSHANFECW: “Oh, fine.”

BB: (Oh my God, we always have the most boring conversations). “So, what’s up for tonight?” (No doubt he'll try to get me to have have sex with him again even though we have no f*cking connection whatsoever. The only reason I did it that other time was because he had such a big c*ck.).

CPASGWWSHANFECW: “Well (hesitates), I don’t think this is going anywhere, so I’m going to bail on tonight.”

BB: (Vastly relieved yet also annoyed, because she should have been the one to do it first!) “Oh really? That’s SO interesting, because I was going to say the SAME thing!" (I mean, you have a large c*ck and sexy eyes and have been perfectly pleasant up til now, but – guess what - we have have no f*cking emotional connection whatsoever! )

CPAGWWSHANFECW: “Cool.”

BB: “OK, well have a good life.”

CPAGWWSHANFECW: “Yeah, you too.”

Click.

So that was THAT. Quick and easy! And thank God, because I have much bigger fish to fry.

However, lest this racy post with its return to old form get your hopes up, don't get your hopes up. Because, while I am dating someone else with whom I actually *can* have a good conversation (and oh so much more) I'm not *!$ing allowed to write about him. Believe me, I would have plenty of racy stuff to say too. I mean, about feelings and stuff. Mmm, feelings. At the risk of getting the boot, however, I will give him a pseudonym: The Celebrity.

And no it's not Brad Pitt. We only went one ONE beach getaway together, and the whole time all he could talk about was: Do I get a part in the movie, do I, do I? Brad - Jesus - if you could act - maybe! I am giving him a bit part, however, because he did do me some "favors," and besides, he has a large - oh, never mind. I'll say this much - Angelina can have him, OK?

In other news, nice weather we've been having lately, dontchya think? And how about those Mariners?!

Yeah, I'm boring, I KNOW. But I must keep my word. Must. keep. my. word.

2006-11-30T15:23:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh but I am TIRED. Very thankful, of course, that no plane crashes occurred. But you know how it is when you arrive back home after a sun-splashed vaction, sleep deprived and smelling like an airplane back in the cold gray gloom. Can you say anticlimactic?

Yeah, it's like that. But let's dwell on the positive shall we? My vacation for one. Superb! For 3.5 days, I did nothing but sit under a palapa in the 80-degree sunshine, plow through books, drink Pacificos and margaritas, swim in the oh-so-warm Pacific waters, snorkel, eat, sleep, and prance about in my new pink bikini - which I put on as soon as I got up and didn't remove until dinner time.

Yeah. It was like THAT. I did not receive any marriage proposals on this particular trip to Latin America, however, my newfound (and might I add, deeply spiritually satisfying) celibacy was, most surprisingly, put to the test when, after my Mexico idyll, I went deep into Bay Area suburbia to visit my family. The last thing I expect to encounter into my hometown is an XXXtra hot guy to kiss, but that is exactly what I found there. XXX! (This, along with one-year old twins who have no respect for aunts that stay out late on dates and start screaming at 7 in the morning, account for my sleep deprivation).

Making it all the more anticlimactic to return home to the gloom where there is absolutely no one to kiss and I will once again embrace my aloneness as my good looks ebb slowly away.

However, I have taken a shower and washed the plane smell off and put on a sparkly barette and now I get to go do some glamorous author events and I'm still on vacation whereas if they hadn't booted me out of my job I would be SLAVING over my computer right now, my looks draining away even faster as I tried to meet a December 1 deadline; meanwhile all my poor coworkers are doing my work for me.

I feel so awful about that. As you can tell.

xo
BB

2006-11-21T18:53:00.000-08:00

So OK. I have no Hope. No crushes. No possibilities. No nothing. There was some Hope, briefly, in the form of Hallway Crushes and old friendships that seemed headed for something more, but I quit my job and that flirty friendship proved itself a spectacularly dead end, but it is OK because I DON’T WANT A FUCKING BOYFRIEND, HAVEN'T WE ESTABLISHED THAT ALREADY?

Oh sure it would be nice to have someone to warm me up on these cold rainy nights, but I have a friggin’ down comforter. I also have books, my most loyal bedtime companions, who don’t fart and don’t snore, and don’t wake you up with their squiggling around, and while they might not kiss you, they also don’t leave you until you are done with THEM.

Yeah, some hot s*x wouldn’t be so bad either, but uh, well, The Magic Wand is still cranking away after 12 years. It is making some funny noises lately, so let’s please hope I do not die in a vibrator-related accident (which I guess would be a fitting way for Breakup Babe to die, and better than some other deaths I could think of, but still). I would say I’ve gotten the most bang for my buck out of that thing than any other purchase I’ve ever made, HA HA HA.

Let’s see it would also be nice to have someone to talk me out of my neurotic moments but GalPal #1 is readily available by phone these days, and alcohol and peopl to hang out with are pretty easy to come by.

Plus, in my situation, you learn to appreciate the small things. Like devilishly handsome baristas who puts many hearts in the foam on your latte, and when he presents it to you says, “I’ve never seen so many hearts in one cup.” Whoo. I’m sure every woman who walks into that coffee shop is in love with that barista and I can SEE WHY. He should be aware that I tend to put cute baristas in novels, however.

Other good things. Male Yoga instructors. They are inevitably hot, and it is especially nice when they come around and make “adjustments” to you during your poses. The only unfortunate thing is when your workout garments smell horrible, which mine do most of the time because let’s say, washing my workout clothes is not my forte. Nor is taking a shower which may explain the lack of a boyfriend, not that I want one, but never mind about that…

So I’m going to Mexico on Thursday. It’s unlikely I’ll blog from there but you never know. I’ll probably be too busy getting a tan. Or something. It will nice to see sunshine again as the rain has been absolutely torrential and non-stop here. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I heart the rain. All’s I’m saying is it’ll be nice step outside in a teeny little bikiniand not a sweater jacket scarf hat gloves that takes me 15 minutes just to put on and off.

So if I don’t talk to you, have a good Thanksgiving. If my plane crashes, and I never talk to you again, well, I'm sure my family will publish all my old journals and those should keep you bored out of your mind for the next few years or until you forget about me, whichever comes first.

Xo
Rebecca

2006-11-19T20:17:00.000-08:00

Sooooo. It has been an interesting week. I shall summarize.

1)Quit job. Gave two weeks notice.

2)Came in next day and was told, no need to work two more weeks (never mind that your fellow employees will be saddled with all your work that you could have wrapped up had you stayed), here's two weeks severance and please pack up all your sh*t and get out. NOW.

3)Ahem.

After the original shock wore off, I was all too happy to take the paid vacation and skeedaddle; after all the whole reason I quit was because there was too much damn work to do and I could never get a handle on it because I just like having a life too much. I did, however, adore the majority of my coworkers and felt horrible leaving them with my work since they have far too much of their own; however if certain corporations want to punish their loyal employees that way, so be it.

The next day when I came to collect the rest of my belongings, which were nicely boxed up for me and left in a neutral area where I would not have to come in and see and be seen by my old coworkers because God knows what could have happened THEN, everything went off without incident until I got off the elevator and was about to make an escape to my car when I saw my boss's boss getting in. The nicest person in the world really, and one whom I felt horribly about disappointing, and, because there were supposedly "no hard feelings" in this whole thing (they said!), I looked over at her, prepared to offer a friendly smile, only to find her avoiding my eyes and pretending I didn't exist.

Which I guess I don't anymore. End of story.

Oh, except I was thus left computerless for a few days, since I'd been relying on the company laptop (as my own had expired some time agao) and that, as you can imagine, was a rude shock to my system. Not having a husband of my own, Odious Woman kindly allowed me to Rent-a-Husband from her to help me shop for my laptop. Husbands who consider Fry's their "church" are extremely valuable, and when they are as fun to hang out with as her husband, well, it was worth every penny of the $10 lunch I bought him for helping me navigate the treacherous world of extended warranties and RAM.

So, anyway, back to the boring topic of work, I'm going back to Geeksoft for a bit on a nice, cushy contract that will once again give me room to breathe and think and catch up on my damn sleep.

Meanwhile. My love life. Ha ha ha ha. It is soooooo steamy I can't even tell you about it! Hot hot hot. Yeah. This is how exciting it is. I thought I saw my old boyfriend the other day and I freaked out!

Whoo. I can hardly stand it, people.

I don't want a boyfriend now anyway. Got that. NO. WANT. BOYFRIEND. ME NEED RECOVER FROM BOYFRIENDS.

So stop asking me on dates. All of you. Sheesh.

xo
BB

2006-11-15T11:04:00.000-08:00

Hear ye, hear ye, anyone living near the fair town of Renton, Washington, should come drink cosmos with me and listen to me babble about my book tomorrow night. I answer any and all kinds of questions, you know.

Breakup Babe, who are you dating now? Ooh, don’t you wish you knew! BreakupBabe, what is your next book about? Ooh, I can’t talk about that! BreakupBabe, why have you been spending so much time in bed reading Nora Roberts novels and crying a lot? Because I know I’ll never find love as true as the love that Nora’s heroines find! And finally, BB, what are you most excited about at the moment! I am most excited about the fact that in one week I’m going to Zihuatanejo, Mexico, where I can sit my a*s down on the beach in my pretty new pink bikini, bake in the sun, snorkel with fishies, and let the last exhausting terrifying exhilarating overwhelming six months slip through my fingers like so many grains of hot sand.

Shoot. Now I’ve told you everything we’re going to talk about tomorrow night and you aren’t going to come ARE YOU?

Aw hell, that’s OK. I don’t care whether or not you support me in my star-studded, alcohol-spiked, supermall soaked tour of South Puget Sound. It’s YOUR LOSS.

In other news, there is both a little and a lot. Major upheaval is occurring that I am not quite at liberty to disclose. Suffice it to say I am spending a lot of time in bed reading trashy novels and trying to recover from all this chaos. I have embraced my misery whereas a few weeks ago I was trying to push it away. By embracing it, I will get through it faster. Meanwhile, I don’t even have the energy to chase boys around so unless the Hallway Crush gets his sh*t together and pounces upon me in the hallway, he’s fast losing his little window of opportunity. Quel dommage.

One thing I certainly cannot complain about right now is the rain. There is lots and lots of rain. Which is bad for people living in floodplains but good for melancholy types like me.

Over and out.

2006-11-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

Yours truly is not in her finest form.

For one, where I used to have an iron immune system, I currently get every cold that goes around. Maybe it’s because I ride the bus to work now, filled to the brim on these rainy days with coughing, ranting, sneezing people.

Or maybe it’s the stress of my job. I can honestly say I have never had a stressful job until now. Unless you count my job right out of college in a place I call Hell’s Butthole (a name I stole from a coworker), where I worked for two fallen angels doomed forever to be secretaries, and who wreaked their vengeance upon me.

My current job is not Hell’s Butthole. In fact, if you had told me, when I was stewing in the pits of Hell’s Butthole (which was, of course, located in a basement), that I would one day have the job I have now, I would have slavered and pulled at my tether and begged you to let me have it. I wanted a hip job with well-dressed coworkers and a view, one-preferably-where I got to hobnob with the literati.

Well, I’ve got it! (Plus, of course, I am the literati, and I hobnob with myself all the time.) It also seems to be killing me, but never mind about that for the moment.

There has been absolutely no progress on the Hallway Crush front. My hallway crush, while he does take notice of me, does not love me in the same way that I love him. I fear for our unborn children. It’s only Monday, however. The week is young. If only he would get in the elevator at the same time as me, we might say something beyond “hi!” But he never does! Why?!! Why is he AVOIDING me this way? Does he think I’m DESPERATE or something?!

If only H.C. knew what a good time I could show him right about now. Yessir. I’m BORED. And I’m LONELY. However, even without the help of General Celexa, I’m not panicking as much over this feeling. I don’t run out and date every attractive male in sight. I don’t compulsively place online personal ads so I will have company – any company! I stay home sometimes. I try to “enjoy” my own “company.” Yeah. I am so much damn fun I can’t stand it sometimes!

I also make glamorous celeb appearances at places like the Auburn Supermall! Now, if you have never sat at a table trying to sell your own book to hordes of big-haired shoppers hungry for Christmas bargains who don’t know you from – uh, someone else totally obscure – then you have not experienced true humility. My pitch went something like this. “Hey you! Person who doesn’t know me from Adam! Come sign up to win this free goody bag. We’re calling it our “Breakup Recovery Kit.” But you don’t have to be going through a breakup to enter haha!” Meanwhile, while unsuspecting shoppers are filling out their slips, say. “But if you DO know someone who is going through a breakup – or about to! - why, my novel would be a GREAT gift for them It’s all about my own horrible breakup, is quite hilarious – or so I hear, ha ha ha - and is all set in Seattle and I poured my heart and soul into it and I know you and everyone on your gift list will LOOVVE IT!”

At which point, some of them ignore you, some of them laugh a polite, fake laugh, and others say, “Oh really?” show a sincere interest, and pick up your book. They don’t buy it, of course. But a few do, and enough seem interested that you feel like a trek to the Auburn Supermall in the pouring rain (a trip which also resulted in three shirts from the “Banana Republic Factory Store”), was worth it, even though you went to sleep two hours past your bedtime, and woke up sick, hardly able to plow through any of the work that has piled up dangerously around your head.

But you know what, I have the email addresses of a gazillion people in Auburn and I am gonna own that f*cking town soon! In fact, I'm goint to to retire there when I get fired.

2006-11-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

So it seems a bit early to say this but there is a teeny-tiny chance that I am getting my mojo back.

Because I remembered something yesterday. Something that I’ve forgotten in the last month or two.

I TOTALLY KICK ASS.

That’s right. Oh, certainly, I have my problems. I’m messed up in love, confused about work, insecure about my writing, a hypochondriac, an obsessive-compulsive, a person full of ambivalence and fear and anxiety. But hey, what artiste worth their salt is not, might I ask you? If I weren’t effed up and overly-sensitive to the Great Pain of Life, I would never have been able to bring the world such a great artistic achievement as BreakupBabe: A Novel, now would I?

Mais non.

Now. Down to important matters. Since the world is once again my patisserie when it comes to men, I have a workplace crush. If anyone should know not to indulge in a workplace crush, it should be me. However, as I think I mentioned a while back, another spectacular car-crash of an office romance would make for a good sequel to BreakupBabe, oui?

My Hallway Crush (H.C) and I have not yet spoken beyond a shyly whispered "hi." But oh how my heart flutters when I see him! Handsome yet modest-looking, polite yet with a body to die for, my H.C. wears no wedding ring and has the hungry look of a single male; HOWEVER, his relationship status is unknown. Girlfriend? I hope to hell not or I will kick some serious a*s.

First things first, however. Before we can get married, we need to have a conversation. Any conversation. He is rather shy so I feel it will be up to me. But never fear, I have my opening line all prepared. It just has to be the exact right moment. Will it come today? (Which it should because I am wearing my special SweaterBraBreastEnhancingCombo!) DOUBTFUL. But the longer we put it off, the better, as undoubtedly all my illusions will be destroyed soon as we actually meet.

Which reminds me of a t-shirt my father had in the 80s and that my parents thought was the most hilarious thing ever, and that I never understood back then (even though I sometimes stole it and wore it to 7th grade P.E.) but I certainly do now:

"I have given up my search for Truth and am now looking for a good fantasy."

And, lemme tell you, in my fantasies, this guy is perfect.

2006-10-31T09:04:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have been a horrible blogger lately…mostly because every time I sit down to write something it simply come out as whiny, self absorbed complaining. There is not much to say, people, since I can’t write about WORK or LOVE. I mean, what else is there in life?

Yeah, I talk to you about writing, but that’s boring.

Sometimes I think about writing about WORK or LOVE and then I realize I can’t do it so then I don’t write anything, and…

These are the perils of being a celebrity blogger such as me.

To summarize my glamorous life:
-working too hard
-sleeping a lot
-reading a lot
-exercising a lot
-wearing sweatpants a lot
-writing the worst novel ever on the face of the planet
-drinking too much red wine
-fighting the urge to call people I should not call
-dreaming about a life where I write children’s stories in pajamas

OK so I mentioned WORK and LOVE in there but the references are so oblique, so vague, you can’t really tell who or what I’m thinking about right? What my grand plans and my great heartbreaks are? No you can’t! I’m a master of obfuscation.

Anyhoo, after that completely boring blog entry devoid of any real content, I would like to hereby announce that if you happen to be anywhere nearby the lovely town of TACOMA, WASHINGTON on this Saturday, November 4, you can see me! In person! Reading from my book! And talking about it! And shaking your hand and kissing you because I LOVE you so much for coming to see me and for buying my book. And oh, by the way, if you are NOT going to be in lovely Tacoma this weekend, you can always request a signed bookplate from me and I will send you one!

Xo
Rebecca

2006-10-25T08:58:00.000-07:00

All through this overly sunny week, the Kasey Chambers song "On a Bad Day" has been running through my head:

“Every time my tears
Have ever fallen
I keep 'em in my pocket
For a rainy day
So when it's pouring
I take them outside
I let the rain start washing
My tears away”

Then it poured down rain yesterday and instead of washing all my tears away, it just got me really, really wet.

2006-10-23T08:43:00.000-07:00

Well. I have not much to say on this grayish about-to-turn sunny morning except, uh, bleh.

OK, OK, that is a terrible attitude to have. Must cheer up. Must appreciate life in all it’s fleeting beauty. Must go back to psychiatrist and get prescription of little pink pills.

I was thinking, this weekend, as I strolled around sunny Portland, trying, and at times, succeeding to feel good, and at other times feeling immensely weighed down by the load of nervous tension that sits constantly on my shoulders these days, about all my various male friends and beaux who inhale the green stuff on a near-constant basis.

Just last weekend, I hung out with a male friend (not a beau) who, in his early fifties, pulled out a pipe several times a day—which shocked me, since the last time I saw this kind of behavior was in mid-twenties males. The men I’ve dated in the last year have smoked three to four times a week on average, if not more. Those of you who’ve read the novel know that Rachel has her most enduring relationship of the book with a charming stoner, who, on their first date, proceeds to get high in front of her.

“Sexy Boy... took the bong from Ganja King, settled back in the beanbag, and inhaled. Deeply. He suddenly looked like the fat, lazy caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, sitting on his big leaf and sucking on his hookah. Grotesque and lethargic, his eyes half-closed as he inhaled.”

I swing between disapproving and semi-tolerant of pot-smoking as a regular habit but then I also wonder, who am I to disapprove? I drink a glass of wine every night, take Xanax when I fly, Trazadone to help me sleep, and when my demons start to crowd in on me, I get the shrink on speed dial for a hit of Celexa. Is that really any “better” than smoking pot – except for the whole legality question?

We all know what my main dependency is, and that is men in all their stoned glory. But never mind about that. I’m tired of discussing such topics. What you really should know is this, and that is my Hugo House appearance has been postponed until further notice. It will definitely happen in the next couple months, but it’s not happening tonight. So stay tuned for info on that.

Oh, and if you are just dying to have me sign copies of your book and can’t wait for the international tour, I do have bookplates I can sign and send you! Simply email me with your address and I will sign it for you with my illegible signature and have one of my army of assistants, paid for by the gobs of royalties that are pouring in, stuff it in an envelope and mail it your way.

Xo
BB

2006-10-18T09:03:00.000-07:00

Finally we have a little rain around here! Sheesh. No doubt it will turn to sun later today, as Seattle has suddenly become a sunny sort of city. Sun, sun, sun, every f*cking day. I want my money back! You can’t even wear a wool sweater around here because by early afternoon, it’s summer all over again.

Except, wait, in the summer I was actually in a good mood. A deluded good mood, it’s true. But now that my favorite season has arrived, I’m in a slump. An overworked, underslept, tension-laced, under-caffeinated slump.

Whatever. Some new shoes would help. So would a stay at a good old fashioned sanitorium/spa somewhere. I swear, if I were Lindsey Lohan or Winona Ryder, I would be checking myself into the hospital for exhaustion right now, looking very pretty yet wan as hot young doctors came by to pump me up with vitamins and hot muscley Yoga instructors gave me daily private instruction so that I could recover my peace of mind.

In writing news, I am nearing the end of a rough draft of my “camp novel.” “Camp” not in the sense that it is campy funny, because really this novel is anything except funny, except in how bad it is, but “camp” in the sense that it takes place at a summer camp, or was supposed to. The story only really took off once I started writing flashbacks that take place in New York City between the heroine and her hunky non-committal (ex)boyfriend, so who knows where it will end up. Probably in the virtual trash can of my computer.

But, as we all know, National Novel Writing Month is coming right up, and this year, I am going to finish, damn it! I was a winner back in 2002, when I wrote the first draft of BreakupBabe. Each successive year I’ve attempted but failed because of book-related business that got in the way. But now that I have no book business to attend to (except watching BreakupBabe climb the charts, ha ha) and appearing at the Auburn Supermall, I can write another novel for Nanowrimo. Perhaps a sequel to BreakupBabe, sans the blog?

Speaking of which, if you have ideas for a sequel let me know! What should happen to dear old Rachel anyway?

For you Seattleites, just a reminder that I will be appearing at Richard Hugo House next Monday, October 23rd, along with my pal, the wise and witty author Diane Mapes. See you there, RIGHT?

Xo
BB

2006-10-13T14:39:00.000-07:00

My struggle to be a “morning person” continues.

Typical morning in the life of BB: Alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m., awaking me out of deep slumber and peaceful dreams about hearts in paper bags, etc.

Think, I should get out of bed immediately so as not to waste precious writing time, because if I do, I will never get next novel written, and will die unfulfilled and broken.

Lie there anyway. Think, I’ll skip a shower this morning. It will save 20 minutes. But then my hair will look like crap all day. Debate merits of shower. Think, It is pointless to get up and write anyway, I am such a hack. Look at clock. 6:51 a.m. Six minutes of precious writing time waster. Drag self out of bed in predawn dark feeling like regurgitated dog food.

After shower, stand in front of closet staring at clothes that are hanging higgledy-piggledy. See nothing that I want to wear. Want to lie back down. Slowly take one shirt off hanger. Sniff armpits. Put it on. Realize I want to wear other shirt. Look for it. Don’t find it. Dig through laundry hamper. Find it. Sniff armpits. Ugh. Throw back in hamper. Keep original shirt on. Search listlessly for pants to go with it. No, wore those yesterday. No, the butt looks like a diaper. No, no, no. Put on different shirt entirely. Repeat process until suitable non-smelly, non wrinkly outfit is found, doing everything in near-dark because I can’t stand to have overhead lights on, especially in the morning when they reveal far too much.

Sit on floor and blowdry hair because have no energy to do so standing. Once hair is blow-dried start to feel somewhat better. I am sort of cute. Now feel like dog food, only not regurgitated. Once I leave condo and have coffee, will feel better. But only half a cup of coffee so not as good as I used to feel. Grr. Remember, maybe, to make piece of toast. Finally. Leave condo, hair blow dried, makeup applied, outfit on (perhaps inside out), to get my 1 hour and 10 minutes of writing in.

Drink coffee. Write. Feel somewhat better. Maybe.

Go to work. Slave away. Drink a bunch of alcohol in company of cute boys. Forget problems. Force self into bed at 10 pm so as to be able to get 8.5 hours of sleep and get up before 7 a.m. again.

Repeat.

2006-10-10T09:03:00.000-07:00

Well, yours truly is still funkified, but whatever. Enough whining pour le moment.

On the positive, let’s get high on life side, the fan mail still keeps roaring in like a tidal wave! OK, more like a tiny trickle that comes from your broken faucet, but HEY, it’s great and it slakes my thirst for ATTENTION. Here is my latest favorite.

Hi there. I just finished reading your novel. I purchased it a few months ago as it was recommended to me from amazon.com, however, I just haven't had the time to start reading new books yet. I started it yesterday and now just one day later I've finished it just completely overtaken by the joy I received from the small book. Everything you wrote in the book was captivating. I can't wait for your next book. You are definitely going on the list of one of my favorite authors! Please keep it up.
Your newest fan,
Elizabeth

That’s right, mofos, I am spreading peace and joy around the world and don’t you forget it! Perhaps BB should go to Iraq and "entertain" the troops.

Hmm.

In other news, I have some appearances coming out so please check out the Appearances page of my author site to get the deets. You won’t want to miss my star turn at the Auburn Supermall either, Lord no. For you Seattleites, I’ll be doing a talk at Richard Hugo House on October 23 all about how you can get rich and famous writing chick lit just like me so BE THERE.

Now it is time to go sell my soul to the man, you know which man. The short one who wears the same shirt every day. Zoe wrote in to ask about my coworkers and whether they were cute. Why YES, Zoe, they are! There are many do-able honeys at the most successful e-tailer in the world and as soon as I get my chance to dive into another ill-fated office romance and get another bestelling book and more more more fan mail out of it, I will do it, I promise!

Xo
BB

2006-10-05T09:03:00.000-07:00

Dead people keep showing up in my dreams. The literally dead and the figuratively dead. My father, for example, who died eight years ago. My best friend from childhood who has fallen off the edge of the earth in New Mexico somewhere. My ex boyfriend(s).

Speaking of dreams, I had one not long ago where I cut my own heart out of my body and carried it around all day in a paper bag. Later I put it back in—badly—but well enough. As I carried my beating little heart around in it’s flimsy paper bag, I alternated between matter-of-factness: “Oh, no prob, I’ll just put it back in later,” to horror: “How am I surviving without a heart? What if I lose it? What if it gets infected somehow and I die when I put it back in?”

My father had a heart attack when he was 33and a heart transplant when he was 44.

I haven’t had a heart attack yet, thank God. But I do tear my heart out of my body and hand it out in a paper bag to to every damn cutie pie who walks by. HERE HAVE IT.

Then when it all ends, I stuff it back inside my chest, somewhat the worse for wear but still beating. Miraculously. There’s a new scar, a few years off my life, and one more ghost to haunt my dreams.

How's that for a cheerful start to your day?

Let's see, I am still only drinking half a cup of coffee a day and the trowel is still locked up in a cabinet somewhere.

I am an uptight bundle of nerves and miss old General Celexa. C'est la vie. I'm in a funk and this, too, shall pass.

xo
BB

2006-09-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Let’s get one thing straight. I am not giving up men! That would be like…I don’t know, insert your own creative metaphor here because I haven’t had enough f*cking coffee. (I haven’t given that up either, by the way, I’ve just drastically cut down).

I am simply taking a break from digging them up. Usually I’m out there in my clamdiggers, trowel in hand, unearthing them from dark, dank places from which they should probably never be removed.

I just temporarily put the trowel down, is all’s I’m saying. If some cute boy comes chasing after me, begging me to go on a date or get involved with him despite the fact that he’s oh, bitter, emotionally unavailable, too young, too old, insane, obnoxious, loutish, stonerish, bipolar, bisexual, hell, all he has to be is bipedal, I’ll probably say yes!

Does that clear things up for you? Just a little?

xo
BB

2006-09-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

It has not been the easiest of weeks because I am trying to cut two major addictions in my life: men and coffee.

Now I don’t want to get rid of them completely. That would be ridiculous given that I like them so much. There is nothing better than a delicious cup of Peet’s coffee on a chilly morning when you are cranking out your bound-for-the-besteller-list novel. There is nothing better on a chilly night than a nice, big—um, ok, never mind.

The thing is, neither are that great for my health. Coffee is OK in moderation but once I start drinking more than one cup a day it has certain ill effects of which I shall not speak. So now, instead of the big, tall cup of strong drip coffee I have every morning, I’ve taken to drinking half milk, half coffee and then drinking fake coffee (yum!) or herbal tea the rest of the day. Whoo. Hoo.

As for men, well, one can’t live without them. But I can, at least for a brief while, try to tone down my hunger for them. So for one week, I am attempting not to flirt with/chase/ask my friends to set me up with/othwerwise make any overtures to any men. Of course, I always have a number of flirtations going on during any given moment of my single life. But they are usually Level II-III flirtations, meaning they are with ex-boyfriends or friends I am attracted to who I will never get involved with for one reason or another.

This doesn’t mean I cannot respond to overtures. I can – and will! I’m just not going out in search of any new ~~meat~~. Men. I’ve got too many of them circulating in my head right now anyway.

One week. It's not so long, right? At the end of one week, perhaps I can renew my efforts for another week but for now I must have realistic goals. As a friend once told me, I would "flirt with a fencepost."

Mmm, fencepost.

2006-09-23T13:14:00.000-07:00

So I think I am in training for my next novel. I have been writing every day, at least a thousand words. I get up early, drag myself out of bed, go through the motions, because I know that one day – soon – I will have found another story and will be writing for real again.

I don’t know, exactly, what I’m writing right now. I’ve got a situation, some characters, and some very, very bad dialogue. Actually I’ve got several different situations and several different characters and lots of very, very bad dialogue. And one day, one of them is going to be my next novel. Maybe all of them will be. Perhaps they will all merge into some delectable literary creation! More likely not they will all be discarded and deleted someday but for now they live their imperfect lives – falling in love with the wrong people, working in crappy jobs, dealing with their disapproving family.

The most important thing is, that like an athlete, I have finally started getting back in shape. Although I don’t yet know what marathon I’m going to be running, I know there is one in the near future. It would be easier, of course, to drag myself out of bed if I did have a more clearly defined goal. For example, if I already had a book contract in hand and a deadline, and a decent draft to work off. Instead I’m at that stage where I’m creating something out of nothing and all I can do is have faith it will go somewhere. Sometimes, if I’ve had a bad night (and lately I’m not sleeping well), I first sit down in front of that computer and feel despair.

I think, “What’s the point? All I’m doing is writing shit. It’s not even a real novel. It doesn’t have a real plot. It’s not funny, it’s not interesting, it’s not anything, I’m nothing but a poser hack loser nobody.” But then I drink some coffee and I start to write, and even if it is some of the worst writing in the world, it’s writing nonetheless and it takes me away to the Speical Place. And after I’ve written my 1000 words I feel better about everything (that is, until the caffeine wears off), and know that the workout has served its purpose. It has given me at least an hour in my day that's good. And it’s getting me in shape so I can get another book to you before the millenium is over.

xo
BB

2006-09-20T17:58:00.000-07:00

OK. Since I am getting a million hits from Sam and the City, I'll put my maudlin summer posts back up. FOR NOW.

And since my author site seems to be down temporarily, check out ye old mighty Amazon.com to check out my book and read an excerpt that will HOOK YOU and not let you go.

xo
BB

2006-09-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

BOOM!

I am cutting off ties with summer. I was getting whiny there as the seasons changed, but now – with one day to go! – I am ready to let that fluffiness go and drink in the swirling leaves, embracing darkness, and endless red-wine tinged possibilities of fall.

(If you are a new reader and feel desperate to see the archives, drop me a line and I *might* take pity on you. I might not. We’ll see. )

Buh-bye, summer. RIP.

xo
BB

2006-09-19T13:08:00.000-07:00

This just in from the south! Christina from Charming but Single writes:

"I just got back from my some evening shopping at my local Barnes and Noble and your book was on my shopping list. I was about to comb through the section of paperback fiction looking for it, but I didn't have to -- because it was on the "Staff Recommends" shelf right in front of the section. Apparently I'm not the only one in town who reads your blog. Anyway, it was really cool. The recommendation card that says who recommended it and why wasn't up, but it was definitely front in center right when I got off of the escalator."

I just want to head down to that Barnes and Nobles and throw a big old party for them, complete with champagne and cupcakes.

xo Barnes and Noble in the south somewhere I heart you.

2006-09-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

OK now it is ninety-million degrees and I just want to take off my turtleneck. Why must the weather be so fickle. I ask you, WHY? If you are going to start out rainy, STAY rainy. Why do you have to lead me on this way? You know how much I love rain, and. YET. You must love mocking me more. You love getting my hopes up and knocking them down and watching me sweat the day through in my stinky f*cking turtleneck while those who left the house at a more reasonable hour than SEVEN AM were able to wear the slinky tank top that is appropriate for this ridiculously sunny travesty of day.

2006-09-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

Today I am wearing a turtleneck, thereby I officially declare it Fall.

(Alas, it is the same turtleneck I wore all through Patagonia. You know how it is when you go on a long trip and wear the same clothes all the time and then swear that once you get home you will never EVER wear that piece of clothing again? But you do it anyway because it is your only black turtleneck.)

It is still, officially, Rebecca Week until Tuesday but you know what? It was so not Rebecca Weekend. I was not perky. I was not happy. I was morose and glum and tear-splashed, certain that 1)I will hit old age alone and unloved (and wearing the same turtleneck until it is so crusted with food stains that the nursing home attendants will have to pry it off my body) 2)I will die a corporate wage slave 3) other stuff.

This is what happens when my Demons, Loneliness and Boredom get ahold of me. These desperate thoughts are also usually accompanied by stupid, weak actions. Call Boy X. Email Boy Y. Pretend that everything is just fine if I hang out with Boy Z.

The problem (a problem), I believe, is this. I went through that big(gish), sad, breakup in June and promptly proceeded to date my way effortlessly through the summer. The boys were just there. I didn’t have to deal with my feelings from the breakup. I just moved merrily along, but now that summer is fading like the flowery mirage it was, I gotta face facts. I still miss my ex. And I am fucking alone. Again. Forever. Until they pry the turtleneck shirt off me etc etc.

(The sad thing was, I got my hopes up about one of those summer flings. I started out so detached and carefree – like the wind! – only to end up feeling dangerously happy around this person. How could I have forgotten? HAPPINESS=DANGER).

Thusly I am just generally SAD, grieving over everyone and everything I have lost. Boys, earrings, that beautiful $300 dress I wore to my sister’s wedding (how the hell could I have lost a $300 dress?), my black cardigan, my pink, striped cap, youth and innocence, etc.

Maybe I will try to spend MONEY to make myself feel better. Too bad it doesn't buy love ha ha. Ha.

Xo
Rebecca

2006-09-15T08:58:00.000-07:00

Rebecca Week continues! Today, while purchasing my coffee at 7:40 a.m. in preparation to write, fully dressed and blow-dried (I’ve become such a morning person that I now even fit showering into my routine!), a beautiful and fashionable young woman comes up to me and says excitedly, “Do you write books? Are you BREAKUPBABE?”

I nod, ever so modestly, because I am nothing if not a superstar who knows she owes it all to the fans, and she tells me who she is – we’ve already exchanged e-mail in which she told me how much she loved the book – then says “I recognized you from your picture! It’s an honor to meet you!”

Bonus! I actually look like my author picture today thanks to that bleary-eyed 20 f*cking minutes of blow-drying my f*cking hair, which has to be the most boring f*cking task on the planet but anyway, as if all that flattery weren’t enough, she then tells me how she tried to read “The Devil Wears Prada” after reading my book and thought it was complete CRAP. “You are so talented!” she says as she departs the coffee shop in an outfit much more stylish than mine but of course I didn’t care because she makes me feel like a goddess.

Ah yes. The fans. I do so love them. In other news, I had a fabulous time at the Salon of Shame the other night (note you can even see a picture of me in the montage on the web site), at which I read from the first novel I ever wrote, entitled “A Life to Love.” It is all about a girl named Lanna who loves horses – one in particular named Huggy Bear – but then gets in a horrible riding accident during which she gets bitten by a rattlesnake, awakes in the hospital to be told by her parents she’ll never ride again, almost dies, but then not only recovers but rides again AND her parents buy her Huggy Bear! The Salon of Shame featured the best audience any kind of performer could ever ask for, liquored up and ready to laugh at EVERYTHING.

Hmm, I wonder what flattering thing will befall me next during Rebecca Week?

2006-09-14T08:59:00.000-07:00

OK! Thanks for the love, people. In continuing celebration of National Rebecca Week, here are some more Rebecca Raves.

you're book is soooo good! it's so different than any book i've r ead since, dare i say, Bridget Jones. it's chick-lit, but smarter. none of that Bergdorf Blondes bullshit. More melissa bank than plum sykes. anyway, it being Rachel Week and all, just thought i'd send you some props. You're the new wind beneath my words!
--from Sarah of Crazyvirgo

Brilliant job last night at Queen Anne Books. I'm glad I could make it. Your talk was lively, funny, and really captured the spirit of the book.
--from a coworker

I loved your book. I identified with your book, and it will go on my bookshelf with many of my other favourites! It was very reassuring in a time when I am searching to find my own way in this relationship world!
--from Tina of Life as a Single Parent

You are the most beautiful, intelligent, sexy, fun, and all around amazing woman I have ever met. Not to mention, you are adventurous as hell, independent, creative, affectionate. I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else.
--from my imaginary boyfriend

2006-09-12T08:57:00.000-07:00

In an effort to boost my currently-flagging morale, I herewith dub September 12th “Rebecca Day” and offer you some of the nicest things people have said to me recently or (not-so-recently.) Hell, I might make this whole f*cking week Rebecca week! If you've got anything to add about how great I am in, why chime in and maybe I'll quote you!

***Begin Rebecca Week Comments!!***Oooh, I love Rebecca!***

It was wonderful to see you again. I felt really good this morning, no doubt a result of your visit I always feel like the luckiest guy in the restaurant when we go out to eat!
-email from a friend

Last night I served the "Breakup Babe" (Rebecca Agiewich), who had a basil blueberry mojito and some tapas. She is just as pretty in person as her picture on her blog. :)
-from Two Cents & Frivolous Spending

-Your book was referred to me by Amazon.com when I requested other humorous books and I can't thank them enough. When you're not totally serious you are absoutely hysterical…Not to sound maudlin or anything, but my husband John passed away on April 8th - so very suddenly - and then you and your book came into my life. I needed you and God made sure I found you. It helps so much to laugh. You are a writter and a damn good one too!
-email from a reader

-I've read a lot of books in my time and I have to say, BB is the first book to ever make me cry. You have such a way with words. Can't wait till your next one!
-email from a reader

As an on again/off again fan of Ms. Agiewich's blog, I couldn't help picking up her book after hearing of her many promotional appearances all around the Northwest where she's been winning fans during Q&A with her real life wit and charm. With so much positive feedback circulating through local bookstores about the warmth and humility in her live appearances, my curiosity in the life of Breakup Babe was piqued once again!
--from an Amazon.com customer review

-You have magnificent breasts.
--Anonymous ex-boyfriend

***End Rebecca Week Comments!!***Oooh, I love Rebecca!***

Oh, and by the way, if you're looking for something fun to do tomorrow night, I'll be reading from something hideously embarrassing tomorrow night at The Salon of Shame. Come down, have a drink, and tell me how f*cking great I am. I need your love.

xo
Rebeccca

2006-09-07T08:49:00.001-07:00

This has been quite the spring and summer. Let’s recap shall we? A quick list of events:

Go on month-long trip to Patagonia.
Quit job.
Start new job.
Become published author.
Break up with boyfriend.
Go on book tour.
Date more than is good for me, trying to fill void.
Try to refrain from sleeping with any of my summer boyfriends.
Fail.
Know it will come back to bite me in the a*s.
Work my a*s off in new job (yes, the same a*s that is about to be bitten off).
Learn to become “morning person” so as to write next novel (which has absolutely no plot and the whiniest protagonist ever, yes, even whinier than Rachel).
Etc.

Phew. Is it any wonder I am tired? That I crave a beach vacation -- sun, sand, margaritas, a snorkel mask, and little tropical fishies?

Now that my favorite season is nearly here, perhaps I can relax. Slow down. Learn to be alone, as GalPal #3 is always telling me to do. As Sensible Girl is always telling Rachel to do in the novel. Unlike my protagonist, unfortunately, I have not been able to learn that lesson. A Gemini and an extrovert, I crave companionship all the time. It is my downfall.

WHATever. I am currently taking applications for companionship. If you are 1)male 2)smoke pot less than ten times a day and 3)are not so laden with emotional baggage that you are unable to move 4)willing to travel and climb mountains and perhaps support me one day, please apply within. As usual, a certificate of mental health will be required. (But, remember, I am easily bribed by compliments and caresses.).

xo
BB

2006-08-31T08:51:00.000-07:00

So I was supposed to have some sort of kick-ass day on Aug 29, according to Astrologyzone.com:

"Your very best day of the month will be Tuesday, August 29, when Jupiter and Uranus will be in gorgeous angles. The only way to describe this is that it will be a cosmic gift, and news should hit when you least expect it. Your career will bring the kind of news that will make you over-the-moon happy, and in the light of what might happen earlier this month, with the tension and uncertainty, this news might seem almost miraculous when it occurs. Nothing similar to this will happen again until 2008, although you did recently enjoy this aspect in late November 2005 and early May 2006. The third time may be the charm!"

Now it’s true my memory is going but I can’t remember any “cosmic gifts” being bestowed on me that day beyond those I already have my (youth(fulness), drop-dead good looks beauty, prodigious talent, charisma, abundant personal wealth, etc.)

I do remember that day being a motherf*cking b*tch at work. I do remember my publicist in NYC telling me she wouldn’t set up a reading for me in New York because it wasn’t “worth it.”

I don’t exactly remember feeling “over-the-moon-happy” except for five minutes or so during lunch, when I was one-quarter of the way through a margarita (yes I drank a margarita at lunch, take THAT), and laughing so hard I cried. Then the margarita wore off and the witty lunch companion went back to work and I just became over-the-moon tense again, which just doesn’t have the same ring to it at all.

Nothing “miraculous” occurred that I can recall, except that I got something halfway practical done in the evening, which was to shop for furniture. I believe I also put a few things away in my condo, and gained a little ground in the war against the utter chaos of clothes, backpacks, dishes, books, unmade bed, messy closet, unpainted walls, etc etc, that is always threatening to overwhelm me.

I guess those are all miracles enough. Jupiter and Uranus probably just went to find a Gemini who needs those cosmic gifts more than me. But you know. A teeny-tiny one wouldn’t hurt. Just to tide me over to 2008.

2006-08-29T07:48:00.001-07:00

[Note: Do you have a funny, crazy, dating or breakup story? Post it here or send it to breakupbabe@msn.com ASAP 'cause there's this TV producer from a big-time TV show looking to put together a show about "funny dating stories." Yes, I know, dating is not really funny. It is tragic and pathetic, which is why I had to make all my stories up and put 'em in a novel, but hey - we can dig up some funny dating stories for the sake of being on TV right? Send me your good ones and I will forward on to Mr. Producer Man.]

Now for your regularly scheduled self-centeredtainment...

I have always possessed a talent for having daydreamy fun and not getting much of anything practical done.

As a child, when I was supposed to be loading the dishwasher, I took all-too-frequent breaks to pirouette around the living room as a pretend ballerina. Or I would engage in a spoken-word melodrama, with all parts played by me, talking out loud in a variety of accents as I shoved dishes into the wrong parts of the dishwasher.

To this day, I am a miserable failure at loading the dishwasher, probably because I am too busy thinking about boys, or what my next novel is going to be about (boys, probably). Ask anyone who has ever been a guest at my house and pulled a piece of "clean" tableware out of the cabinet, only to find it crusted with food relics or smeared with an unidentifiable substance. (Blame it on boys!)

My impractical and fun-loving nature is perhaps the reason I have not “settled down.” Why would I when there are so many cute boys out there to be had, so many dramas yet to be played out? Why, I wake up every morning and still wonder, “What exciting thing might happen to me today?” Oh, one day I’ll be so old and decrepit that no drama will befall me anymore and then I’ll rue the day that I never settled down and had resentful children to care for me. But that day is not coming for at least three years.

My impractical and fun-loving nature is also the reason I was able to produce a novel while working full-time. Believe me, a lot of chores were left undone during the writing of that novel. Groceries were not bought; bathrooms were not cleaned; new sheets were not purchased; husbands were not found.

I am in love with possibility and always have been, so much more than with mundane reality. I’ve managed to find a job and become a homeowner but I’ll be damned if I could tell you – two years post-purchase – what my interest rate is or how much I’ve paid off or even what the life of my loan is. (Five years? Seven years? Certainly not 30, I know that much.) I can tell you that I have one square of bright, Candyland blue painted on my bedroom wall. It has been there for a month, waiting for me to sample other colors. To make a decision and settle down with something just a little more practical.

But of course I haven’t had time to make my decision. I’ve been far too busy chasing boys, writing my next book, running around outdoors where my unpainted walls can't close me in, and loading the dishwasher very, very poorly.

2006-08-23T10:26:00.000-07:00

Reminder: before I start this self-indulgent post: I am reading tomorrow night at Queen Anne Books at 6:30 p.m.!

This has been a summer full of fun and flirtation with a current of sadness underneath. It’s been a summer of worry and tension headaches and trying to settle into the identity of published author. What does that mean? How do I promote my book and write another one at the same time? Hold down a demanding full time job?

Many new things have started, which are exciting, but transition is hard. Even when the new things are better, you long for the old, comforting things.

I am thrilled my book is out in the world but this birth has brought with it a whole slew of worry and insecurity. Let’s not even talk about the jealousy that comes with being a writer (Anne Lamott says it all so much better than me anyway) and the way you hyperventilate with each of your writer friends’ successes. (Soon they are going to be fabulously succesful bestellers sipping margaritas on their own private island while you waste away in a dark office like Bartleby the scrivener, returned unto the obscurity from which you barely emerged after writing your first -- and only -- book.).

I miss, just a tiny bit, the days when all I did was work and write and hope – when I wasn’t a published author and didn’t worry constantly about how my book was doing, and when would I write a next one, what is my Amazon ranking, how is so-and-so’s book doing compared to mine (though of course thank you LORD or whoever for letting me get published, don't think for one moment I take it for granted, NO!) I miss, a bit, the lazy days at Club Geeksoft, where my schedule was flexible and my mornings relaxed. My new job is so much better for me – so much more interesting, and dynamic, and glamorous, and fun – but still. I have to hustle and my writing suffers for it.

I miss, too, my ex boyfriend. His intelligence and his power and grace. The way he wrapped himself around me in his tiny bed on cold nights. The way his smile cracked the world wide open. Yet I always struggled for what to say to him (and I am not a person who likes to struggle for words). I could never quite be myself with him, and so I knew, eventually it would end though I tried to believe otherwise because it was so sexy and happy and fun (that last doomed month aside).

I am a person who seeks out change and variety but I'm thrashing through it right now. I could use an anchor. For now, my friends and family and my friend's kids anchor me. Barely. And so does my writing (my next book is 15,000 horrible words in the making.)

I think I can hold on till things calm down in my head. But just in case, check for fragments of my brain lying around tomorrow. They might be worth a lot of money someday -- if my book does well, that is.

2006-08-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

So my head has been off in the stratosphere, worrying, spinning, trying desperately to balance everything that is going on – workbooknewbookboysshouldIpaythousandsofdollarsforapublicistetcetc-meanwhile a mean old tension headache has wrapped itself around my head and won’t go away. Either that or a brain tumor.

At least I’m writing every day. I appear to be writing a novel that takes place at a camp. So many of my most vivid memories come from camp, be it the hippy dippy camp I went as a youngster, where I felt “cool” for the first time in my life or the camp where I worked as a drama counselor, furiously writing a plays every two weeks for the campers to perform, and falling much too madly in love with another counselor.

I have constant fantasies of escape these days. My Patagonia trip, now five long months ago, has receded into the distance. I can no longer call up the feelings of peace and relaxation that I got from slogging up snowy passes and staring at giant glaciers. There I didn’t define myself by the usual things. My identity fell away – I didn’t have to brag about my hot boyfriend or my book; I couldn’t make myself up or blow-dry my hair; no one knew who I was and no one cared, so really, I was just me – unadorned and unencumbered by all the things I usually tried to define myself by.

So I’m dreaming of escape again. Moving to a cottage in the Cotswolds where I’ll write children’s books and tend my roses. Becoming full-blown travel writer like my friend Amanda, who is always off on another trip – to Norway, Alaska, South Africa. Getting a writing residency somewhere cool, with my own little cabin to write in. At the very least, going to a beach somewhere where I can lie in the sand and my headache will go away. All these things are possible, at least, which makes me happy. If there’s one thing I’ve always thrived on, it’s possibility.

Right now I can only escape in my head, for about an hour a day, to this fictional camp full of confused but lovable characters whose souls are soothed by sleeping in the trees and seeing the stars, by singing songs around the campfire, by falling in love and sneaking off to treehouses. For now, it will have to do. That and the mountains.

2006-08-16T09:02:00.000-07:00

Hello Darlings.

For those of you that live in the following cities:

Chicago,

Vancouver

New York City

Washington DC

Los Angeles

Do you have favorite independent bookstores that you think might be a good place for yours truly to come speak? (And thanks for the offers to let me come stay, you do know I’m going to take you up on them, don’t you? )

In other news, I have no life anymore. My “social life” consists of drinking myself into a red wine stupor and watching movies on what was formerly the Little Red Couch O’ Love, then getting into bed at 10 p.m. so I can get up “early,” write, go to work all day, actually work, (sometimes write again after work), drink myself into red wine stupor, go to bed at 10 p.m. etc.

Consequently I have written thousands of words written lately – thousands of horrible words – but that’s not what matters because they are all horrible when they first come out. The trick is sticking with it until they become less horrible.

OK OK I guess I’m managing to fit in few things here and there – bike rides, backpacking trips, dinners in swank restaurants, television appearances, etc. etc. But it's not easy!

Oh – speaking of appearances, take note! I have the following readings coming up:

Thursday, August 24, 6:30 p.m.
Reception & Booksigning (with mocktails!)
Queen Anne Books
1811 Queen Anne Avenue, North
Seattle, WA

Friday, September 8, 7:30 p.m.
Village Books
1200 11th Street
Bellingham, WA

For your further entertainment, check out this interview with me on Conversations with Famous Writers.

OK I am sick of myself for now and I am sure you are too.

xo
BB

2006-08-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I go a few days without checking my mailbox because, yawn, what is in there except boring junk mail and bills?

Well yesterday I received a beautiful pair of earrings in the mail and all I had to do to get them was write a novel!

Yes, I have to thank the talented Ruth Avra, who wrote me a while ago and offered to give me a piece of handcrafted jewelry just because she liked my book so much.

Now that kind of reader love I can really get behind! Jewelry - whoohoo! If there are any designers out there who would like to start loaning me dresses for the red carpet - please, I have room in my closet (since everything is in a ball on the floor). Or, you know, anyone who wants to give me any kind of gift.

In other news, I am extremely tense and neurotic at the moment - not for any one reason, but because everything in my life is in transition, and I have not been on a tropical vacation in far too long. Snorkeling is is one of my top five favorite activities, up there with reading, writing, eating, and kissing. I've been doing plenty of the other four - but no snorkeling! Anyone like to donate a tropical vacation?

xo
BB

2006-08-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

I have come to the unsettling realization that my new crop of coworkers are much more stylish than my coworkers at Club Geeksoft. Not that this is hard to manage - the favored attire at C.G. was a fleece vest bearing a Geeksoft logo over an extra-large t-shirt bearing a Geeksoft logo, with perhaps a baseball cap with a Geeksoft logo to top it all off.

No wonder that for four years I felt like a fashion queen without even trying!

Now, however, when I show up to work with unwashed hair and my stained shirts (at least they don't bear Geeksoft logos!) and sensible sandals, I'm forced to realize I no longer reign supreme.

Oh sure, I can bring it when it matters, 'cause after all, I am Breakup Babe! But on weekday mornings, I now sacrifice my looks for Art. I sacrifice good hair for an extra 20 minutes of writing. I sacrifice a nice outfit for an extra 20 minutes of writing. I'm sacrificing (what's left of) my youth for an extra 20 minutes of writing!

Ahem.

Tonight, at least, I am going to a swank wedding wearing a very sexy dress. Of course I don't have the right jewelry for it, but at least, in my early-summer spending frenzy during which I spent a million dollars on a single suit that I wear for every single television appearance, I purchase some shoes that go with the dress. No doubt the dress is stained somewhere and I will discover that as soon as I go to put it on.

Once I become rich and famous, I will hire a stylist. For now, I remain stained and wrinkled, and oh so superficial -

Yours,
BB

2006-08-08T08:19:00.000-07:00

I am trying to become a morning person. So far it is not really working out but it is early in the campaign. I have determined that the only way for me to 1)promote this book 2)write a new one and 3)keep my current job is for me to go to bed at some ridiculously early hour and arise with the sun.

Note that I did not include "have a social life" on that list. I no longer work at Club Geeksoft, where I could party all night, rise late, write, roll in whenever, and get paid an astronomical salary. I now work harder, get paid less, and won't have time to write unless I take draconian measures! Not that I'm complaining mind you, I'm just SAYING.

In more positive news, I am hiring a new publicist and plan to go on a star-spangled U.S. tour in my glittery pink tour bus! OK I don't have the tour bus yet and I don't know how much of the U.S. I'll hit, but it will be a few of the big metro areas. And if you offer me a place to stay, I might even come to your town! I'm also gonna get on Oprah! Or Dr. Phil! Or Northwest Afternoon! Oh wait - I AM on Northwest Afternoon or I will be!

I already taped the show; it airs August 24. I sunk to new levels of degradation with this appearance by providing them with a photo of me and Loser (as requested)- each one of us standing on either side of the equator. I instructed them not to show his face because Lord knows he will sue me at the slightest provocation - and so they blacked out his face! Cheese. O. Rama. But I know you would sell your soul in a second for celebrity too, don't say you wouldn't. Or at least your ex-boyfriend's soul.

Thank you all once again for your comments, notes, and praise for the book. If I have not responded to your e-mail, your request for a free book (there are still a very few left!) or a *signed bookplate* (plenty of those too!) rest assured I will get to it.

And now, can we please have a moment of silence to mourn the passing of my favorite hat - a present from GalPal #2. I do believe it is finally lost and gone forever. It's a miracle that I was able to keep it this long (3 years!) without losing it. Here is a picture of my hat (and me) in front of some big old glacier in Patagonia, which is famous, but I forget the name.

(F*ck. The Blogger photo software is not working. I will insert the photo later. Picture me in a charming pink, striped cap here.)

RIP hat.

I have not gotten to kiss the construction worker much in the last few days, except in my head, that is. In my head, his lips are soft and his abs are hard -- just like in real life. Sometimes you don't need a lot of imagination.

Speaking of imagination (and I know this blog entry just goes on and on), I realize that by being a writer I am simply continuing to do my favorite childhood activity, which is pretend. When I don't get to write (pretend) for at least a couple hours a day, the world seems so drab. I remember saying to my mom once, "Isn't it boring to be an adult - you don't get to pretend!"

Well, lucky me, I turned out to be a writer. It's just now I'm gonna have to start getting up at the crack of dawn to get my two hours of pretend in. Poor me!

xo
BB

2006-08-04T09:04:00.001-07:00

So I slaved over this article for months, made it nearly letter-perfect, and sent it off to the New York times for publication in their Modern Love section. I mean, of course they were going to publish it – I gave my life to that article, I finished it despite all odds! With an intervening trip to South America and a change of jobs and the publication of my novel and a breakup, and the fact that I had to write more drafts than I’ve ever written of anything before - and besides – I’m a famous author now! They will all leap out of their chairs when they see it and dance around for joy! Finally, finally, the author of BreakupBabe has sent us an article! Break out the champagne - our useless rag is SAVED!

Now it’s been nearly two whole weeks and I haven’t heard a word.

HMMPH. I am a writer, I’m used to rejection. Two weeks isn’t that long. Maybe there’s still hope. But they were supposed to get back to me IMMEDIATELY because damn it, that’s the first thing I’ve really managed to write since I finished my freaking novel and I told everyone I knew how I was writing an article for Modern Love, and oh – the heartbreak!

Time to send that f*cker somewhere else. Meanwhile I am one cranky bitch this morning due to a variety of things including lack of sleep and the conviction that I am a complete loser nobody who will never write another worthwhile thing again (and you know it wasn’t like my first book was To Kill A Mockingbird or anything! I still have something to prove!)Thank God for Brooke buying me some coffee this morning after I forgot my wallet because things would have been Very Bad without it.

Life is not all bad. Oh no, it’s f*cking dandy most of the time, just not when I’ve had less than eight hours of sleep. I got to make out with a super cute boy last night and yes, maybe he’s a construction worker, maybe not, but I’m under strict orders from my doctors not to blog about my love life anymore so that’s all you’re gonna get. He’s a really good kisser. OK, there’s a little more for you. And, um, he’s got one of the best smiles I’ve ever seen, and that is it for now because I have to go be a corporate wage slave.

YOURS TRULY,
REBECCA J. AGIEWICH

2006-08-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

2006-07-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

OK I want you all to know I am not one bit upset that today Stephanie Klein's book, "Straight Up and Dirty" is #337 on Amazon, while mine is #94,000-something or other.

Not at ALL, do you hear me? Nor that she got some huge book deal plus a TV show and is now writing full time and is fabulously successful and happily married. I mean WHATEVER STEPHANIE KLEIN! WAS YOUR BOOK HAULED UP TO THE TOP OF MOUNT RAINIER BY A LOYAL FAN? I THINK NOT!!

All that matters to me is that you, my small but select crowd of readers, love the book, which you seem to do. Take this comment, which was posted on my last entry.

"Your book arrived from AMAZON yesterday. Once I started it, I could NOT put it down. THANK YOU, BB! Having recently lived through a quite similar Great Unpleasantness (my live-in boyfriend cheated and lied about, even to this day), your book has given me strength to carry on. I dealt my revenge metaphorically through your actions. The lonliness and boredom were transported as I held your book in my hands. But, now what am I to do? Read it again? Maybe I will. I have already recommended your book to many of my gal pals, but I will not share my copy. I cannot part with it. Thank you for giving me hope."
- On the Mend

This about made me want to weep. When people say things like that to you, it makes everything worth it. All the hours spent slaving over your keyboard, wallowing in self-doubt; the years spent as a temp receptionist dreaming of being a writer; the thousands of dollars spent on a publicist (who probably had nothing to do with On the Mend buying your book from Amazon); and just the all-around angst of trying to be a writer with a full-time job struggling to carve out the time to write.

Anyway. I know I've been going on and on about my readers like a broken record but I'll say again: this kind of response dazzles and overwhelms me in the best possible way. So thank you everyone, for letting me know how you feel about the book!

In other news, summer rushes along. I'm even tempted to tell you that it's now OK for you to ask me how my summer is going, and that if you did, you probably would probably not be subject to acts of violence; however, if I did that, I would undoubtedly jinx everything. So let's just keep the old rules in place for now.

xo
BB

2006-07-25T08:22:00.000-07:00

Because I seem to be creatively bankrupt these days, instead of writing my own damn post, I’m going to offer you a hilarious take from Southern Comfort on the most DIFFICULT question I have to answer these days.

She writes,

...Another sticky wicket of a question is “How is your book doing?”

When my first novel came out I was bombarded with this question. And being an utter newbie I relied on Amazon for my answers and assumed my book was tanking like the Titanic. (Not by a mile, honey chile.)

I’d get all flustered and defensive as if they’d asked me “How’s the book doing… you pathetic wannabe?”

“ I don’t know how it’s doing. I won’t know until I get my royalty statements. QUIT HASSLING ME!”

Now if I’d made it to the bestseller list with my first novel I would have walked around wearing a sandwich board that said, “ Ask me how my book is doing.”

But there really is no good answer to this question. What can you say? I moved five hundred units last week? My mom and all my cousins bought multiple copies? I’m selling as many copies as the author of Seventy-five Recipes for Homemade Cheese.

After a while I finally understood that people were just being polite; they weren’t out to interrogate me. Now when asked this question, I just give a wink and say, “Not too shabby. Let’s put it this way. If I see a penny in the gutter, sometimes I won’t bother to fish it out.”

I am still in the defensive stage. I don’t KNOW how my damn book is doing. No one has told me and that is probably because it’s doing TERRIBLY and I am about to become persona-non-grata in the publishing world! I usually default to, “Well, lots of people are emailing me and telling me they like the book. I’m sure it’s about to become a word-of-mouth-favorite.”

I do have to say, that in lieu of any hard numbers, which are probably just depressing, that the reader response is the best thing that's been happening to me. It's kind of like the old days when I started this blog and all sorts of people wrote to say how much they loved it. The best part of being a writer is feeling like you've reached people. It's the most unexpected part too, 'cause you spend so much time toiling by yourself, you almost forget people are actually (if you're lucky) going to read what you write.

Oh! Here is an exciting tidbit. I have bookplates that I can sign for you. So, just in case I don't do that international tour, and you want a signed copy of BreakupBabe, e-mail me your address (breakupbabe@msn.com) and I will send you a signed bookplate. (Be patient because I am mailing-impaired.)

P.S. There are also still free books available for those who put up a banner ad or a blurb linking to my book on Amazon!

Love,
BB

2006-07-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

Despite the frantic pace of the California leg of my book tour, and the cold which oh-so-conviently gripped me right before I came down here, I am enjoying my 15 minutes of fame. My reading at the venerable Black Oak Books last night was quite the good time, especially because 30 or so people showed up - the biggest turnout since my book launch party!

I also was extremely fond of the blurb that Black Oak Books put for my book on their Events page. I'll quote my favorite part here.

"By recasting her story as fiction, Rebecca Agiewich has created a fascinating admixture of autobiographical sincerity leavened with self-conscious, almost camp irony, a cri du coeur that peers over its own shoulder with a note of smiling post-modern glee, an honest novel of heartbreak and disappointment that is also the story of its own strange transformation from confession to literary confection."

I don't know what it means exactly, but it sure sounds good!

Besides the friendly staff, the great turnout, and the blurb that makes my book sound really fancy, I was also quite excited when - hanging around nervously before my event - I saw Frances McDormand walking out of the store. There is nothing more I love than a good celebrity sighting! I rushed back in and asked if she had bought my book (which she would then give to the Coen Brothers to turn into a darkly humorous cri de coeur looking over its shoulder or something) but no such luck.

I also appreciate this comment from Cristin, which you can see in the Comments section of the last entry, but which I thought I'd post for you here. Cristin notes a couple of the more "colorful" characters who were at the reading.

Just thought I would drop you a line to say you did a great reading in Berkeley tonight ( was was the girl who briefly mentioned to you I never comment on your blog - first time for everything eh?). My friend and I both thought you were very well spoken (but of course!), which is hard with a homeless person walking back in forth in front of you in the middle of your talk. Oh, and the guy who didn't know about blogging? He stores his chewing gum behind his ear as we in the audience were priveleged to witness.Great talk though!

Then at the crack of dawn, I hauled myself to San Francisco to be on CBS's "Weekend Early Edition," where I yukked it up with the anchors surprisingly well - considering it was 8 a.m., I was sick, and had had only fours hours of sleep, AND they didn't give me the questions beforehand. Usually for these 4-minute live TV dealies they at give you the list of questions a few minutes beforehand if you ask for them, but despite asking repeatedly this time, I did not get them. I thought about throwing a tantrum then thought better of it. In the end, I my level of witty banter was good. Ah yes, Xanax, thou art holy.

Signing off from the sunny South Bay,
love,
BB

2006-07-11T17:12:00.000-07:00

Did you know that only 12 people came to hear Dan Brown read from the Da Vinci Code when he appeared at Third Place Books in Bothell, WA? Well, neither did I until the guy running my reading there last night told me. And guess what? I had 14 people! So THERE.

In other news, my pal Christy wrote in with the following funny anecdote:

“I climbed Mt Rainier this weekend and thought it would be funny to have my picture taken while reading your book on the summit. I packed your book and hauled it up to Ingraham Flats and decided at the last minute (1am yesterday morning) to leave it in my tent and not carry it up to the summit. To my utter amazement, I ran into a guy named Jim on the summit who had your book with him!!! On the summit!! I ran over to him and asked him if he knew you...told him I, too, had brought a copy of your book with me, but didn't haul it up to the summit. Long story short, I had my photo taken at the summit with a copy of your book, that actually belonged to a guy named Jim. I thought you might like to know that Breakup Babe has reached the summit of Rainier!!!”

A little background for those of you who haven’t read the book (and pray tell, why haven’t you?), there is a pivotal scene that takes place on Mt. Rainier, which is why (I guess) all my fans appear to be hauling it up there. Thanks guys! It’s so flattering to know you will hump that extra weight up the mountain to get your Breakup Babe fix. For those of you taking the book exotic places, for God’s sake, send me a picture and I’ll post it on the blog!

Um, in other, other, news, there is a bunch but I forget.

Oh YEAH. I’m going to California this week. If I don’t die in a plane crash before I get there please tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW IN CALIFORNIA to please come see me read, because I gotta keep up the Dan Brown-beating STREAK.

Cali Schedule
Friday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.
Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck
Berkeley, CA

Sunday, July 16, 3 p.m.
Books, Inc.
301 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA

Monday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.
Books, Inc.
2251 Chestnut St.
San Francisco, CA 94123

xo
BB

2006-07-07T08:44:00.000-07:00

Upcoming Readings

Hello Dear Everyone,
Just want to make sure you know about my upcoming readings. I have two more in Seattle this summer and *three* in the Bay Area! Oh please come! Please bring all your friends. Please buy my book. I am contemplating doing a little midwest/east coast leg of the tour later this summer although I am rather afraid of what might happen to me in the heat. If you are from one of the following cities 1)Chicago 2)New York 3)Boston 4)DC, drop me a line and let me know if there's a good bookstore near you and if you think you could help me get oh, at least five people to a reading.

Monday, July 10, 7 p.m.
Third Place Books
17171 Bothell Way NE
Lake Forest Park, WA

Friday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.
Black Oak Books
1491 Shattuck
Berkeley, CA

Sunday, July 16, 3 p.m.
Books, Inc.
301 Castro Street
Mountain View, CA

Monday, July 17, 7:30 p.m.
Books, Inc.
2251 Chestnut St.
San Francisco, CA 94123

Thursday, August 17, 6:30 p.m.
Reception & Booksigning
Queen Anne Books
1811 Queen Anne Avenue, North
Seattle

2006-07-06T20:00:00.000-07:00

So. We are ripping through the first third of July and the weather here is gray, gray, gray! That is all good.

Reader love continues to pour (ok, trickle) in via e-mail and I've posted some of your comments on my author web site. This week I also got a fabulous placement in the Seattle Weekly as the Read of the Week. I like the review, even if it isn't 100% glowing. Hey, I know my book isn't perfect, OK? But this writer made some good points about the novel that even I hadn't thought of. And now EVERYONE IN SEATTLE IS GOING TO BUY MY BOOK!

In "love" news, which is what all you vultures care about, well...

I hesitate to tell you anything, because damn it, I thought I'd left that all behind me. But f*ck if I'm not torn between just going back to my old ways because I was all good for six months when I was dating that, um, guy, and look where it got me?

I know that unless I dismantle this blog competely, I will always be tempted to tell all. And telling all is just not healthy. Too bad it's so f*cking fun.

Why just last week I denied you all a good bit of fun when the Cute Construction Worker (CCW) posted a witty comment upon reading my breathy little post about him (who knew he was reading it?). Oh, maybe some of you saw it. I put it up his comment for a few hours then freaked out and took it down remembering that grim day last November when "Anonymous" commented on the blog for all to see (before I learned how to moderate my comments) that the guy I was dating was still f*cking his ex.

This was a much more fun and lighthearted interaction but spectacle is spectacle. Do I really want to make a spectacle of myself? (Yes.)

Anyway, the CCW has proved himself to be quite a witty and charming sort but somewhat on the elusive side so...we're not holding our breath on that one. Perhaps if we're lucky he'll post another well-written comment and this time I'll publish it because it's summer and I have to get through it somehow.

Meanwhile, I need an intern. If you would like to do menial tasks such as clean my car, pay my bills, install blinds, e-mail my ex-boyfriend and tell him he no longer needs to mail me that key because I made a bunch of copies, and also establish a viral online marketing campaign that will rocket my book to bestsellerdom, apply now! No pay but glamous entree into the world of publishing!

love,
bb

2006-06-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

All righty. I am hurling my myself off into the wilderness again this weekend because it is the only place that the demons don’t get me. There is no possible way I could spend a weekend in Seattle right now without falling into a horriferous, self-pitying, sun-dazed funk.

Never mind that I almost DIED last weekend on Mt. Adams in one of the less fun trips in recent history. Why I bothered to climb Mt. Adams again, I do not know, except that I wanted to test out my fledgling ski mountaineering skills and I didn’t have anything better to do (except oh you know, clean my house, write my next novel, relax, and stop running around like a f*cking maniac). It wasn’t that fun last time and it certainly wasn’t that fun this time what with hauling all that gear up there, my “technical difficulties” with my skiis, and our ridiculously late summit hour, which gave us no room for error. Too bad we made so many errors, the biggest of which was following the one remaining party besides us on the mountain the absolute wrong direction into the woods.

Yeah well. Thanks to J’s altimeter and cool head we got out of there at 11 pm, to make it home Monday by 8 a.m., at which point I put on a miniskirt and low cut shirt and went to work because what else are you gonna do?

There was about 45 minutes worth of fun on that trip, including summiting and skiing off the summit but the rest was just plain wrong. It’s a big mountain and all that (12,000-something feet) but it isn’t even that scenic. Now my feet are completely mangled yet I’m going backpacking for four days in the Olympics because, well, see above.I guess the mountains are better than some other drugs out there.

I have a feeling I won’t settle down til fall. Is it here yet?

Xo
BB

2006-06-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Cute Construction Worker In My Building ,

I’m so glad that when I made my totally unnecessary and ridiculous detour through the garage to get out of the building this morning, that you were actually there – hence, making it an extra two minutes well spent!

Not only that, you walked away from your cute little construction worker mini-project to come talk to me even though we really have no more construction-related business to discuss. After all, the construction is almost done. Only four more days!

You’d think I’d be happy that the infernal hammering will be over – but no! This means I don’t have an indefinite amount of time to make morning detours and keep flirting with you! Nor do I have time to “casually” mention that I broke up with that hunky guy you always saw me with and that that other guy you saw leaving with me that morning was just a “friend” – really! (Well, mostly. But that’s a long story!).

I know I missed my little window of opportunity this morning. The flirting was going so well and there was that nice little "whoosh" feeling in the air, but then your boss came along and it was gone. Oh well. I’ve been out of the dating scene for six whole months so I’m not quite as smooth as I used to be.

Anyway, you probably have a girlfriend. We probably have nothing to talk about. You’re probably too young or too stoned or too-something (or else not-something enough) even though you are super adorable and also hip and intellectual-looking with your cute glasses, pierced nose, and blue cap. So obviously we are completely wrong for each other and any activities outside construction-related discussion can only lead to heartbreak. I therefore conclude I must definitely ask you out.

BB

2006-06-23T18:00:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting loads of charming e-mail from a variety of people. Since I don't have time to blog today, I'll instead post some e-mails from friends and readers.

The first is a note I I received from the obviously-quite-intelligent-and-literary Zoe. Here is what Zoe had to say:

Don't cry, Breakup Babe.
...and these are three reasons why:

1. You're adorable! That polka-dot dress you wore in Portland is totally fetching, and your new haircut screams "summer fun."

2. Because of the handy "A" in Agiewich, your book is prominently displayed on the top right new books shelves at the Brooklyn Public Library.

3. Because, as Breakup Babe, you are at your bloggy best when broken up. What better promotional opportunity for your increasing fame as a writer? This is all to say...

PLEASE, PLEASE spill the beans on this dope who broke up with you (for someone else!? Impossible). Post an expose! Tell all!

With great hope,
Zoë

And one from a dear (non-Native-English-speaking) friend (who has clearly been reading the novel and noting my worship of the "holy pink pill" - a.k.a. Celexa, which by the way, I am no longer on, not that there's anything wrong with it.)

Eh, Rebecca, you know - it's painful watching you go on a rollercoaster
from one man to the next, but then again I realized that you actually
like it this way. Nevertheless, it's not easy to watch; it's me who may
need a holy pink pill :-).

That's it from the e-mail bag today!
BB

2006-06-22T14:09:00.000-07:00

My friend J. just came up with an premise for my sequel: “Break ‘em up Babe,” in which Rachel goes around busting up every marriage and/or long-term relationship she can find only to get gunned down by a posse of vigilante wives and die a lonely death mourned by no one except, of course the sex-starved husbands whose lives she so greatly enriched for a short, enchanted time.

Jeez. I’m sounding like the glib Breakup Babe of yore. Yessir, that’s how you know I feel like shit – when I start pretending I am cool and in-charge and don’t give a flying f*ck about men. Ha.

I am certainly not cool and in-charge right now, especially when it comes to men. Why here are just a few things I’ve been doing.

Crying!
Deliberately going out of my way when leaving my condo in the morning to see the cute and flirty construction worker I have a crush on, only to become extremely nervous when I see him and not know what to say!
Hanging out with adorable and completely unreliable men from my past when I am at my most emotionally vulnerable!
Resisting adorable men who might actually be good for me because I am too busy doing all the above!

OH and now that it’s summer, please remember never EVER to ask me how my summer is going or I will have to kill you.

Love,
Rebecca

2006-06-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Damn, I can sure write one sad blog entry, can't I? I write like a mo' fo' when I'm sad. UNFORTUNATELY.

Is this why I constantly seek out hot but inappropriate men? Or, as I've called them here before, HBIBS? Because in the end, all I want is to feel pain and channel it into my Art?

Lord only knows.

At least I was adored for a full six months - an eternity in BB time - or six months minus however long ago it was he fell for someone else. I think it was the exact moment I wrote on my blog that I was "happy." That my love life was going "well." (Believe me, I'll never do THAT again).

Yeah, so the future started to open up for me just a little, and bam - it slammed shut again.

I was just deluded. It happens all the time.

But it was nice to be adored for that amount of time. I get easily carried away by the adoration of sexy men. I lose sight of what's best or what's wise and I live only for that next adoring gesture.

Adoration is one reason I became so addicted to blogging, and one reason I am so loving being an author right now. Because I am getting a lot of LOVE, in capital letters, from my readers. (Oh please keep sending it!) Here are just a few of the comments I've gotten:

"Hi, I just wanted to let you know that I finished reading your book and LOVED it."

"What a GREAT joy to read!"

"hell girl! i loved your book!...it came at a very opportune time in my life. it's helping me figure out what the hell to do with a relationship i am currently in. word!"

"you are a terrific writer and I love your book!"

"it's a beautiful book, and so unlike a lot of those chick-litty books, (which I do love most of them, but some... ewww) yours felt so real to me, with none of the fake shit to try and get a laugh out of the reader. THe laughs I had during BB were pure and glad ones, completely believable of the story. That's the sign of an amazing writer!"

"I read it straight through to the Hemingwayesque last line & enjoyed it very much."

Thank you thank you thank you. My life is one bittersweet mixed up mess right now. But just keep adoring me and I'll be OK.

OH! And did I mention? As a teaser for my oh-so-brief appearance on Fox's "More Good Day Oregon," they kept showing my author photo again and again and AGAIN?

Jesus. A narcissist could get used to this.

Good thing the attention will be short-lived and I'll fade into obscurity soon or else I could get really full of myself. And my comments are turned off so you can't tell me how full of myself I already am - ha ha ha!

xo,
BB

2006-06-19T12:56:00.000-07:00

A quick snapshot from my triumphant reading at a Portland Barnes & Noble where eight whole people showed up! But what an enthusiastic eight they were. Earlier in the day I'd done my triumphant three-minute turn on Fox TVs "More Good Day Oregon," fresh (or rather, not so fresh) from the previous night's triumphant turn at a reading in Kirkland to which six people came!

I'm going to brainstorm with you soon about how to get TONS of people to come to my (soon-to-be) triumphant Bay Area readings. Maybe I could get 10 whole people to show up!

Anyway, no matter who and who doesn't show up, I heart being an author.

2006-06-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

So do you want to hear something really sad?

No of course you don’t, you want me to be "funny" like I was in the "old days" when I wrote about men or whatever.

But today I’m sad so too bad.

Two nights ago my ~~boyfriend~~ ex-boyfriend was at my house. In the middle of the night he gave me the longest, sweetest kiss. It woke me up and surprised me and thrilled me because my ~~boyfriend~~ ex-boyfriend hadn’t kissed me like that in a long time and I’d been dying inside because of it.

And I thought, maybe he hasn’t really gone away. Maybe he is still here in spirit as well as body even though it doesn’t feel like it most of the time. Maybe that affection of his that was so bright and hot and blinding like the sun - will come back.

The next morning, I told him, stupidly, how much I'd liked that middle-of-the-night kiss. I knew I was taking a gamble when I held it out for him like that. I knew he could take it away. And he did. He looked at me, raised his eyebrow, and shot me a suspicous look from those brilliant and beautiful blue eyes. “What?," he said. "I don’t remember that.”

So then my heart broke just a little more. I thought to myself "He was kissing someone else in his dreams." Then I thought, "That is ridiculous."

But it wasn’t so ridiculous as I thought.

And that is my sad story for the day. I can only hope someone is kissing me like that in their dreams.

I am turning my comments off now because I am in a bad mood.

Love,
Rebecca

2006-06-13T08:41:00.000-07:00

OK, so here's a tip. Not to bitch or anything, but when you're writing to congratulate me about my book it's best not to say something along the lines of "I hope you are SO THRILLED with your life right now."

I am thrilled I finally wrote a novel yes, and thrilled that my readers seem to love it, but HELLO OTHERWISE I AM A BASKET CASE.

Sheesh. So you might say something more along the lines of "Gee BB, congrats on the book and I know where you can get some great deal on Xanax and Vodka, cause guess what, we understand how hard it is to publish a novel start a brand new job where you have to get up early drive all night to Portland so you can be on TV for three minutes the next day" etc. etc.

So perhaps I'm whining just a tad. Excusez-moi.

But I always knew that the best time in my life would be *before* the book came out and not after. And it was good. Especially when I ran off to South America and put everything in perspective. Now that I'm back, everything is looming crazily big and out-of-whack like the mixed up pieces of a person in a Picasso painting.

And now, pardonnez moi, but I have to go work for a living, which is a shock after my years at Geeksoft. So that's it for today's little whinefest! I'm so glad to hear you're all enjoying my navel-gazing little novel.

xo
BB

2006-06-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

Well I had the greatest book launch party a girl could ask for last night at Elliott Bay Books, with all my friends in attendance, and the perfect dress, and just the right amount of nerves to be sharp and not stupid, and oh my goodness, the adoring looks from the crowd sure didn’t hurt either!

They laughed appreciatively in all the right places, and in many places I did not expect them to laugh, and overall my lovely audience made me feel like a STAR, which is all I’ve ever aspired to be in life, that a good, caring person, of course.

Everyone should get a night like that in their life.

Meanwhile, I would never wish my MORNING upon anyone, what with the TWO HOURS it took me to get home after driving my mom to the airport, and which, combined with the hangover and lack of sleep, caused me to have breakdown right there on Highway 99 North.

Ok not a breakdown exactly but let me tell you: I cried.

I was, perhaps, a tad overwrought. Being a celebrity is not easy, you know. I have a lot on my plate right now, with the new job, the new book, Johnny Depp calling CONSTANTLY! However, seeing there was no personal assistant and no Xanax in sight, and my only alternative to just driving through it was to get out of the car, wander around pulling my hair and yelling “Hello, I am a published novelist and and I SHOULD NOT BE STUCK IN THIS TRAFFIC,” and then get put into an institution, I grimly perservered. (If a gun had been handy, it would not have been a good thing.)

When I finally did get back to Seattle, a mere shadow of my former self, at least the hungover boyfriend had not yet gotten out of bed and I could momentarily be comforted by crawling into his arms where he laughed (lovingly) at the fact that I had cried because of traffic.

So back to the positive, it was the world’s biggest thrill to talk at Elliott Bay and now I wish I could relive the whole thing and I don’t think anyone videotaped it so it will have to live on in my memory and I’m sure it will til I’m old and in the nursing home – and oh wait – that’s what I was supposed to say when someone asked me what I was working on next:

“BreakupBabe: The Nursing Home Years,” in which BB and her coterie of pals – you know them all, Sexy Boy, GalPal #1, Henry, Jane – all go live in the same nursing home in Tukwila where more hijinx ensues as BB raids the local community college for boyfriends (forgetting that she is 85) and her pals vow to help her hook a man before her Alzheimer’s gets too advanced!

Love,
BB

2006-06-01T18:06:00.000-07:00

Hello all,
My first week as a published author has thus far been stellar - thanks largely to those of you who have been writing to tell me how much you love the book. Also - much love to to Mr. Helpful and Odious Woman for giving me my first reviews on Amazon and five-star reviews at that! May you all follow suit!

Speaking of suits, I had to spend the entire advance for my novel on a new suit as I will be appearing on television both this week and next - ACK. Then of course I couldn't buy a new suit without buying new shoes, and I'm going to have to buy another shirt to go with the suit so I'm not wearing the exact same outfit NEXT time I go on TV, and...well, clearly the book will need to become a besteller merely for me to afford all the clothes I'm going to have to buy for my ~~international~~ west coast book tour!

For those of you in Seattle, you'll be able to see me at my bright and shiny best at 8:15 tomorrow morning on KING 5. Ha ha ha. I barely speak that early in the morning so it will be interesting to see what comes out of my mouth. If anything. At least I will look stylin' in my new outfit, please pray I don't spill coffee on the pink silk shirt first thing in the morning.

Otherwise I will have to take out a second mortgage on my home to purchase further shirts, not to mention having to appear on television topless.

xo
BB

2006-05-30T10:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Published Author Day to Me!

Hello Darlings,
Just a note to say thank you thank you for all the phone calls, e-mails, letters; the limos, the champagne! As for the paparazzi, well, I even like you, but I'm gonna get pretty damn sick of you soon, I can tell you that! But for now, snap away! My hair is washed, my underwear is clean, and I'm looking oh so sparkly on this - my special day!

OK. Really it's just the day after a holiday weekend during which I fled town for the mountains, returned late at night, and am now underslept, overtired, and the only person who's called is my mom.

I'm about to take a bus - not a limo - to work and I will probably have to work until such time as I am old and can't wear miniskirts and uncomfortable boots anymore but instead will be dressed in polyster pastels and beige orthopedic shoes.

Nonetheless, today represents the culmination of my biggest childhood dream. The dream I was no doubt dreaming when I demanded to sleep with a sharpened pencil in my bed as child. Perhaps even the dream that my parents were dreaming when they subjected themself to allegations of child abuse by sharpening that pencil for me and letting me embrace it as I slept.

I am a published author! I don't need champagne or flowers (I mean, if you insist!), I don't need adulation or million-dollar sales - though of course I won't turn them down! - all I need is the knowledge that I did it. And I did it.

Finally.

Now go buy it!

xo
BB

2006-05-27T17:59:00.000-07:00

I heart my readers. The positive reviews are flowing in! Who cares what the New York Times says, when reader Amy says this?

"OK so I was up wayyyy too late reading Breakup babe and I LOVE IT!!! Of course, with my recent Great Unpleastness, I can totally relate."

(Capital letters not put in by me).

In other news, I am strung out and underslept and generally riding a rollercoaster in all sorts of ways but my life is a damn fun (if exhausting) adventure right now.

xo
BB

2006-05-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Good Lord, forgive me for abandoning you. I have started two entries in the last week, only to discard them. Just like I have started a zillion books in the last few months and not finished them.

I am, shall we say, distracted. I am not sure how to approach the upcoming book launch. Just another day? The greatest day of my life? A reason to go back on the little pink pills?

Meanwhile, life plows forward in all sorts of ways, including - a birthday and a brand-spanking-new job in a swank office tower in downtown Seattle. Words cannot express my relief at escaping the clutches of that gentle giant, ye olde mighty Geeksofte. Oh the joy at not having to drive to sterile Redmond every day, but to jump on the bus with the smelly, hallucinating masses! The ecstasy of having a job where I write and think about BOOKS - beautiful, wondrous, hardcover, mass market, trade paperback BOOKS and not PROGRAMMER DOCUMENTATION! Hallelejuah!

My birthday was a brief affair, filled with too much tequila in a short amount of time, lots of boys, (Girls, listen, I know a lot of single guys if you want one! I can't vouch for their 1)sanity 2)emotional availabilty or 3)sexual prowess but they are cute and ready to roll so please e-mail me if you want one!) and a delicious German chocolate cake. The next day I was thoroughly hungover and miserable but isn't life too short not to be hung over and miserable?

It has been a bit of a shock having to get to work at a "normal" hour after years of rolling in to the mothership in the 11 to noon timeframe.It's hard, specifically, to get up and "write" before getting in to work, and even though I might not be actively "writing" right now (although that next novel is in the works I SWEAR), but I still reserve the morning for writing-related activities such as preparing my Academy Awards speech, etc.

Oh wait, that's acting. Did I ever tell you about the time I dreamed I won an award for Best Supporting Actress but was super stressed because I was at the Oscars in only a bathrobe, only then I decided to go onstage anyway beause Elijah Wood was also there in his robe and just as I was about to give my speech my teeth started falling out?

Yeah. Anyway.

Can I just say, on a parting note, that 1)THERE ARE STILL BOOKS AVAILABLE IN THAT DAMN CONTEST BECAUSE REALLY NO ONE EXCEPT A FEW DIEHARDS READ THIS BLOG ANYMORE BECAUSE IT IS SO NOT JUICY SO DAMN IT, JUST SEE THE PREVIOUS TWO POSTS AND THEN POST A LINK AND WIN A BOOK! AND 2)I so dearly appreciate comments like the one dear Jennifer posted yesterday, and also the e-mail I received from Anthony the day before telling me how they love my book.

I tell you, their is nothing more a writer craves than to hear how an individual person loved/related to/got off on your writing. The world can be damned. Personal praise is the best thing ever.

From the front lines of hysteria,
xo,
BB

2006-05-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

I still hear things from this like readers and it makes me happysad:

"I can't wait to read [your book] because I'm going through BreakupBabe withdrawal now that you don't write the witty tales of your love life."

I've been focused a lot on the negative side of the blog because I'm working on this article about how I got addicted to blogging about my love life and got over the addiction. I spend a lot of ink in the current (19-millionth) draft of the article talking about how the blog turned me into such an awful person and how I "stomped all over unsuspecting men."

This is true to some degree, but I couldn't have been all that bad, right? I must have written stuff that was funny and relatable and true or you wouldn't have liked me. It's been easier to make it all black and white - to talk melodramatically about how blogging brought out my most selfish qualities and drove me to rock bottom until I had to stop before I destroyed my life and the life of anyone who might mistakenly get involved with me. The truth, as usual, is more grey than that. So, on to the 20 millionth draft of the article!

In other news, even if I were writing a dating blog right now it would be boring. These days, for the first time in forever, my love life is going well. And I have never been a good writer when I'm happy. I write uninteresting sentences with lots of exclamation points. Through most of the year that I wrote my novel, I was on the lonelysad side. Especially during the summer. There were days last July when I'd drag myself feeling to the coffee shop like the takeout that time forgot, and writing was the only thing that could make me feel halfway better. And the blog, as you recall, was born out of utter heartbreak and despair.

Of course, I'm always a bit on the lonelysad side even when I'm happy. So I think (hope) that's why I'll be able to keep writing even if by some miracle, love manages to lodge itself in my life again.

So what was my point? Oh yeah. I'm happysad now. Happy that I don't have any drama to blog about, happy that I have an amazing boyfriend, sad that I don't keep you all entertained the way I used to, happy that the book is coming out so you can get your fix, sad that we all die and turn to dust and get our hearts broken one way or the other in the end. Happy that's not right this second.

By the way, you can still win free books! See the last two posts for more info!

XO,
BB

2006-05-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

Ho hum, 18 more days until my book comes out.

YOU CAN STILL WIN A FREE COPY.

Either host this nifty banner ad or post a link to my Amazon page with a little blurb about the book.

Preferably you would do this on your sidebar or at the top of your page where it will *stick around* for a while.

SO GO AHEAD. JUST BE ONE OF THE FIRST 50 TO SHAMELESSLY PROMOTE MY BOOK, THEN E-MAIL ME TO TELL ME ABOUT IT AT breakupbabe@msn.com.

Love,
BB

2006-05-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

So! The moment you've all been waiting for - the chance to win free books!

Here's how it works: All you have to do to win a free copy is be one of the first fifty people to host a banner ad for my novel and/or a link to my Amazon page with with a little blurb about the book.

You can get the banner here and it is guaranteed to look super cool on your site.

Once you've put the banner and/or the link up, e-mail me at breakupbabe@msn.com to let me know and I will check out your site toute de suite. Include your name and address so I can forward the information to my publisher and they can send you your *free book* - if you are one of the first fifty, that is.

Ready. Set. Go!

2006-05-03T18:11:00.000-07:00

So. This is the month my book comes out. I am going to go crawl under a rock somewhere. Because just how to do you handle having your biggest dream come true? It's gotta be some major kind of anticlimax, right?

Yeah. So I think I'll just avoid it. Meanwhile, forward all royalty checks to my mother, who bless her little soul, works in non-profits, unlike my sister and me - the high-tech sellouts - and needs the money. Bad reviews you can keep. Good reviews, well...my agent will hold on to those until such time as I feel it safe to emerge from underneath the rock.

This is probably a good time to introduce you to my author web site. It is still not completely ready, but hey, it's good for now! 'Tis there you will find an excerpt from my first chapter.

I'm going to try to blog here and there as much as I can between now and the book launch because under the rock there won't be any Internet access.

Love,
BB

2006-04-30T18:44:00.000-07:00

Back when I was a wee youngster of 22, I worked as a drama counselor at summer camp in Northern California. Mostly I was there trying (and failing) to relive the halcyon days of my own summer camp youth where I spent the best days of my entire adolescence singing touchy-feely songs, riding horses, sleeping on beds strung up in trees, and generally feeling like a superstar - in direct contrast to the utter loserdom that enveloped me when I was at school.

My experiences as a counselor in most ways did not live up to my experiences as a camper, mainly because the people who ran this camp were militaristic frat boy as*holes who knew nary a thing about touch-feely songs about the campfire or making kids feel like a million bucks, though to their credit, they did offer exciting activities such as waterskiing and rock-climbing, which my own humble summer camp never offered. (Not that we needed it, of course, since we were so busy getting in touch with our feelings, but still).

As a counselor there, I first made the mistake of falling in love with a rock climber (who later went on a climbing trip, discovered "god" with a lowercase "g," and dumped me) but never mind about that. I was about to graduate from college, had no f*cking idea what I wanted to do - or rather I wanted to be a writer but had no confidence whatsoever that I could do it - and had hoped this summer would be a respite from my ever-increasing stress. Ha.

I spent that summer in a sleep-deprived, ulcer-ridden, lovestruck haze - constantly fighting with the camp directors and in conflict with many of the counselors who viewed me as some hippieish layabout because I preferred not to wear a bra, and got sick all the time because I was so stressed out and dehyrated in that sunbaked hellhole.I'll never forget how the waterskiing counselor (aka the camp director's thick-necked, dimwitted son, who was f*cking the rich horseback riding counselor and referred to her as "the bitch" when he talked to his friends on the phone) accused me of "not doing any work."

Ha! The reason I was perceived as not doing any work was because I had to spend most of my days INDOORS WRITING. My job as drama counselor was not only to teach drama a few times a day, but to write, produce, and direct an original play every two weeks. Despite the various miseries of that place, that particular task was one of the best that could have befallen me at that time in my life.

That's because found out a few things that I needed to remember for a long time afterwards: I was creative. I was funny. I could finish a piece of writing when I needed to.

Oh I had known those things a long time before, when I was a child producing bright, bold masterpieces of art and literature and dreaming of future as a great artiste. But college and impending adulthood had drained me of all my creative confidence, and now, on the verge of becoming a working adult, all I wanted to do was be a writer but I had not produced much in the way of writing since fourth grade. Nor did I ever produce anything worthwhile again for a long time after that hot heavy summer.

But I rose to the task at hand. I wrote four witty plays in eight weeks that the kids loved, and, per instructions from the camp director, included numerous occasions for them to lip synch to the bands du jour (Aerosmith, Guns and Roses, Madonna). And, besides my broken heart, that is what I took away with me from Snow Mountain Camp: the fact that I could DO it. That I could write. Because for years afterwards I was blocked as a writer. As I entered the world and started a series of horrible jobs, I couldn't write. I started things and couldn't finish them. Over and over. It took years to get to the point where I COULD finish something. Hell, it took til NOW.

The funny thing is I'm terrifed all over again now. I've published a novel and am afraid I'll never be able to write another one. I know better, of course. I know that sometimes you just gotta believe when you don't believe, or, like George Michael says, that you gotta have FAITH. It's easier said than done, of course. Having faith and writing a novel. But I can do them both. And I will.

(Maybe).

2006-04-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

As you know, I don't believe in doing things halfway. When major life changes occur, they must occur all at ONCE. Therefore, in the next month, not only will I become a published novelist, I will leave ye olde mighty Geeksofte!

I know! Now, like the rest of the world, I will actually have to work for a living. I will have to pay copays and deductibles like a commoner. No free membership to a swank health club, in which gleaming rows of machines await and banks of hot tubs beckon. No! I'll have to go sweat it out at the Y like everyone else, where the hot tubs (if they exist) have diseases and you have to wait in line for the machines, which do not have fawning, white-garbed attendants disinfecting them every five minutes.

No more discounts to all sorts of venues around town. And cheap software? Uh-uh. I can also kiss my discounted stock purchase plan goodbye - the one that gave me a true savings account for the first time in my life, and helped me become a respectable, indebted citizen with a niceish car and a nicer condo (currently emerging from its giant condom).

But more on that (and my new job) later. In other news, I seem to have become a mass of nervous tics as the book launch approaches. My legs twitch, my arms twitch, my face twitches. Alcohol consumption has increased. By the time you see me on the podium at Elliott Bay Books I'll have no motor control left but will be so drunk I don't realize it anymore.

Meanwhile, very soon, there is going to be an opportunity to win free books. I know you can barely contain yourself at the thought of this but please, try. I am out of control enough for all of us right now.

2006-04-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Sigh. There is something about a combination of sleep deprivation, gray weather, and utter boredom that just f*cks with me.

Don't get me wrong. I heart gray weather. Sleep deprivation has its time and place too, especially if it's for a good cause. Boredom, however, is one of my worst enemies. Boredom is even a character in my book - a poorly dressed and pimply one, I might add - who is usually accompanied by his jabbering sidekick Anxiety - and together they wreak all kinds of havoc for my poor protagonist.

These two, combination with aforementioned factors, can seriously kick my a*s.

Never mind that I've been complimented at least twice on my outfit today. There I was, wandering around the Geeksoft grounds in my bored anxious gray haze, when some random Geeksofter startled me by saying "Smokin' outfit!"

I was like huh, who me? I mean, I'm wearing the same damn outfit I was yesterday (deduce what you will from that) and I felt a little more smokin' then but for just one brief moment I felt smokin' today too. Then the smoke drifted away.

So besides complaining, what else can I tell you? I'm making progress on that ~~stupid~~ article. If writing yet another draft with a whole new spin that still sucks is progress. I've gained back nearly all the five pounds I lost in Patagonia. OH. Did I mention I wish I were still on vaction when I never got bored or anxious?

Ha ha ha ha. Isn't it funny how vacation always become so idyllic in retrospect? There WERE a few times I was bored on vacation and there were PLENTY of times I was anxious (oh let's see, I worried about having a heart attack while out in the middle of nowhere; I feared blowing off a cliff in the wind; I was certain the plane would crash, etc. etc.), and there many of times I desperately missed people at home. But once you get back it's like oh, my vacation was SO perfect I was SO relaxed I didn't worry about a THING! What a lie. But hey, it was still good. And it would be completely honest to say I didn't worry about as MUCH stuff.

I mean, how could you worry about all the petty crap you usually worry about when you're just hanging out in the mountains, sucking in fresh air, and looking at views like this?

In other news, oh, my first novel is coming out in a month or so. I am so ~~excited~~ terrified. (Can you tell I just learned how to do the strikeout command?). I will be doing bookstore events in Seattle, Portland, and the Bay Area, and will be making the schedule available shortly. So if you live in any of those cities, *lucky you!* I'm contemplating a little east coat jaunt too, but that's speculative at this point.

OK. You've heard far too much from me already. Momentarily, I will stop complaining and do something productive. Yeah, any second now.

2006-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

OK I am totally blocked on this article I want to write.

Blocked is perhaps the wrong word. I've written several drafts of it and they all suck. Not only that, I *outlined* it according to the tried-and-true outline format that got me through Breakup Babe the Novel and it didn't work!

I mean, why is it that now that I'm a soon-to-be-rich-and-famous novelist that I can't even write a f*cking 2000-word article? You'd think the words would simply flow from my pen. That, with the new reservoirs of self-confidence that come from getting a novel published by the world's mightiest publishing house (oh Jesus, stop bragging, would you?) that I could generate a few paragraphs of crystalline prose about a subject near and dear to my heart but NO. YOU WOULD BE WRONG.

I'm trying to write about how I got addicted to blogging about my love life (no thanks to YOU PEOPLE) and then got over it. To write such an article, I need to show the psychological and emotional journey I've been on since I started this damn blog, including my infatuation with being a blogebrity, to the first pricks of my conscience, to the deleterious effect my blog had on my relationships once I wasn't anonymous anymore to the EPHIPHANY that finally made me stop (whatever that was).

Yeah. You'd think I could write this baby in my sleep. Maybe the problem is I'm still an addict. Any time I make any oblique reference to my dating life, everyone flies into a frenzy begging for the details and I go through two days of the DTs. Maybe I'm not far enough away from this subject to analyze it clinically.

Motherf*cker.

But I'm going to write it. I swear I am. Even if I did procrastinate all morning by writing on the blog. Because if there is one thing I have learned in the last couple years is that it takes ten million drafts to get something right and the only way to finish something is to persevere long past the point you think you should be perservering. Yeah, great f*cking career.

In other news, my very talented friend M. has made this luridly hilarious short movie that you should watch. He owes all his future show biz success to me for complicated reasons that I won't go into having to do with our high school production of the Music Man, during which I made a star turn in the small but pivotal role of Amaryllis. (He played a lowly townsperson but has come a long way in his career since then).

Oh yes, and before I sign off, let me tell you that there are big opportunities coming your way in the very near future to win a copy of my book! Seeing as I'm obviously never going to produce another word of publishable prose again, this book might will probably become a valuable collector's item! But just try to contain your excitement and I will have more information soon.

xo
BB

2006-03-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

So I have returned alive from the land of majestic mountains, grand glaciers, and stupendous steaks.

Yes, I, BB, ate more steak in a month than I have in the last five years, but when you are in Argentina, what are you going to do? Eat tofu? I think not.

I am tanner, thinner , and far more relaxed than when I left, although the relaxation is quickly slipping away. I hardly worried about a thing while I was there, except whether I was going to get swept off a cliff ledges by the famed Patagonian wind (I didn't), or whether I would have to sleep in a wet tent night after night when it seemed the rain would never end (it did).

Occasionally I despaired of ever eating anything besides Mountain House (TM) dehydrated dinners or wearing anything besides smelly polypro and hiking boots. At times, even I, Breakup Babe - was forced to wear hiking boots and fleece out to several restaurants, while my hair had not seen a blow dryer in weeks! But the great thing was, I didn't care. Much anyway. Or if I did, I just drank more Malbec and forgot about it.

I wasn't striving for anything. Wasn't trying to get stuff done or impress anyone or make plans. I was simply putting one foot in front of the other while looking around at some of the most stunning mountain scenery on the planet. After being cooped up for so many months in a shrink-wrapped condo and a windowless office, I on being outdoors every single day, even if it was raining, windy, or snowing - which it usually was.

I remembered too, how much I love the very act of traveling. Getting on a bus in some faraway country to head to a town I've never seen, as a new world rolls by outside the window. In Patagonia, the scenery between mountain ranges was endless brown rolling hills, punctuated with the occasional guanaco or condor. A vast, empty place, good for dreaming. Then the mountains would start to make themselves known again - granite spires crowding each other against the sky or glaciers that cracked and heaved in plain sight. If it was raining, the mountains kept themselves hidden, and you could only sense them there around you. Giant, hulking things that became glorious in sunlight.

I did think about the "big picture" while I was gone - or some of it, anyway. I thought a lot about the people I love and was happy when I thought about them. I thought about people I didn't love so much anymore, or people who have made me unhappy, but those thoughts just floated away. I thought about some of the big changes I want to make in my life and some of the little ones too. But mostly I just lived.

Now that back, of course, all the minutiae of daily life has started to press back upon me again.

But hey, I still have my jet lag to remind me of what was.

2006-02-24T14:45:00.000-08:00

Breakup Babe Is On Vacation from February 25 to March 27

So!

I’m departing for Patagonia tomorrow. I am due to arrive at my destination, El Calafate, Argentina, sometime Sunday evening in a Xanax-drenched, sleep-deprived haze.

The last couple weeks have been a frenzy of packing shopping running errands freaking out getting drunk calming down working freaking out again.

Should I arrive safely, which is always a dubious proposition, I will embark on a ten-day trek and then some possible mountaineering adventures, if my innate wussiness does not overcome me.

Though I crave such adventures and seem to need them on a semi-regular basis, leaving is always so painful. I resist. I hold on. I have to be torn away, my fingernails leaving marks as I’m lifted off the ground away from everyone I love and the places I know, and my routines – which however boring they’ve gotten, are at least comforting.

But I know if I don’t go, I’ll droop and wilt. I’m already doing it. It’s been too long since I’ve pushed myself into unknown territory.

So here I go.

I may post from there; I may not.

Should I perish, my book will at least be published so you have that to look forward to. Perhaps Li’l Sis would be willing to sign autographs in my place.

For now, farewell.

2006-02-14T18:15:00.000-08:00

So I go around thinking I'm, like, the hottest thing at Geeksoft today because I'm wearing my tight low-rider "makeout" cords and then happen to notice - late in the day - that not only is a good inch of my underwear showing above the pants, but that aforementioned underwear are on inside out and the tag is sticking up!

So. Sexy.

Yeah, that's me. So, by chance, I have a date tonight but as a recovering dating blogger I can no longer provide details. Hell I shouldn't even be telling you that much. Because once I provide one detail...well, we know where THAT leads. To me pouring out my HEART and SOUL and telling you EVERYTHING and then getting lots of LOVE from all my readers and a BOOK DEAL, and -

Oh, wait, never mind.

ANYWAY.

That is all the non-news that is fit to print for now.

Yours from fashion faux-pas land,
BB

2006-02-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

So I guess I'm just not having it in me to do this dating advice column. At least not right now. Or at least not until someone pays me a bunch of money for it! It was a nice experiment and I'm flattered that y'all thought I had enough wisdom to give you advice, but the bottom line is I just don't got the oomph for it.

And now, since since I'm not writing about your love life or mine, that begs the question what shall become of ye olde BB?

Well for now she's hanging on. A mere shadow of her former self, I know. Oh, those were fun days when I dished to my hearts content without a care for who I might be hurting - which, in the end, was mostly myself. In fact, I'm in the middle of writing an article that I hope you will read in the not-to-distant future in an illustrious publication (or at least a paying one) about how I got addicted to writing about my love life and stayed that way until I realized how dangerous it was.

Like a true addict, I can't even do it just a little bit. I envy those who can.

Anyway, pretty soon I'll be rolling out my offical author web site - yee haw. I'll have a blog there too. Meanwhile, I'm putting in my time for the Man, waiting until 1)the book becomes a bestseller or 2)I find a rich husband or 3)my band hits it big.

More soon,
xo,
BB

2006-01-30T10:02:00.000-08:00

Dear Breakup Babe I'm a man in my mid-20s, and I'm finally figuring out who I am. I've been on lots of dates, but haven't found any sparks, I'm alright with that. When the time is right things will work out. In the interim, I was wondering if you could publish a list of things that men should or shouldn't do to maximize the fun (not necessarily the likelihood of getting laid) on a date.
Sweet Chuck

Dear Sweet Chuck,
I’m so glad you asked! I’m sure plenty of readers will want to weigh in on this one. (Oh, and we girls appreciate the parenthetical insertion of "not necessarily the likelihood of getting laid" – although hey, I’d be happy to answer that one too). If you want to "maximize the fun" - it all comes down to one thing, and that's planning.

Of course, no no amount of date-planning on anyone’s part can substitute for actual sparkiness. If your dynamic is sparky, you're going to have fun no matter what. If not, even the sexiest date is doomed to fail. But all this doesn’t mean that a guy can’t do a few things to spark things up and score a few points (and who knows what else) by planning a kickass date.

It was our friend Virginia Belle who advised men (in her post of January 20) to be the “Man with the Plan.” A girl likes it when a guy puts thought into a date and presents an idea:“What do you think if we go to X restaurant, then walk over to Y club to see Breakup Babe’s band play? ~~That Breakup Babe is so hot!~~” We (OK I) like it occasionally when I don’t even need to contribute to the plan, or better yet, when it’s a surprise. Make a reservation somewhere and don’t tell me where it is. Exciting! Take me on a trip somewhere and don’t tell me where it is! (All right, maybe that's a bit advanced but you get the picture).

Also, a guypal of mine who is oh-so-successful with the ladies makes this contribution about how to plan a date: "A guy needs to think of dates where there can be interaction between him and his date - so noisy bars or movies aren't good cause you can't talk, flirt, etc. So something that has a physical element to it is good, even if it's just walking from painting to painting at a museum or bowling, dancing, or pool."

This is not to say a girl can't plan dates too. She can - and should! But if you really want to make a first impression, plan a thoughtful first date and you're well on your way to happy-ever-after or at least happy-for-a-month-or-two until someone turns out to be 1)psycho 2)still sleeping with their ex-girlfriend /boyfriend 3)otherwise emotionally unavailable, etc.

A few other first-date quick tips
Do try to kiss me on the first date if you like me; Do pay on our first time out (unless I asked you out in which case I'm happy to foot the bill!) Do tell me you want to see me again (if you do). Do call or e-mail me the next day and don't listen to whatever stupid "rule" it is that guys have about waiting three days or a week. Self-confidence is much sexier than playing it "cool."

My outspoken readers no doubt have something to say about this so I'll pass the torch to them. Good luck Sweet Chuck!

2006-01-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

Well the latest news bulletin is that publication of my book got pushed back a month. It will now be available May 30 instead of April 25. But don't despair! This just means you'll have something to read on the beach, 'cause let's face it, "Breakup Babe" is going to be the beach read of 2006!

And damn it, I'm proud of that. Which is not to say my little oeuvre is complete fluff. No, it is not. It is just smart enough that you might not want to imbibe too many margaritas while reading it but not so heavy that anyone is going to be writing a PhD thesis on it anytime soon. (Although you never know about that kind of thing. I wrote many a paper in grad school on more unlikely things; the preponderance of evil twins in soap operas, for example, or the sociological implications of vibrating dildos).

Meanwhile, the broken-hearted letters are pouring in. Most of them follow the lines of: Love HURTS how can I make in not HURT and the answer, of course, is you CAN'T so SUCK IT UP SISTER/BROTHER, but of course I'll try to answer more articulately - and kindly - than that.

xo
BB

2006-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

OK I've finally admitted this to myself and it's time to admit it to you:

There is going to be no dating advice column this week.

I'm sorry! I know I've let you down! My God, I've let myself down. But you know, vacation yadda yadda, work yadda yadda, book yadda yadda, all kinds of other stuff yadda yadda. But next week we'll be back on track! I promise!

In other news, I purchase my tickets for the big "P" today. Yes, I am officially South America bound on February 25.

Whoohoo!

In other other news, ~~I've been hanging out with this really sweet, sexy, smart guy lately.~~

Oh crap, that just slipped out. Ignore it, please.

More soon,
xo
BB

2006-01-25T10:31:00.000-08:00

Apologies for this week's late column. I neglected to mention I would be on vacation until yesterday! Now I am dealing with some book-related madness, but you'll get your dating advice by Thursday!

xo
BB

2006-01-20T17:21:00.000-08:00

My life is going strangely well at the moment. Undoubtedly things will all come crashing down (literally) when I fly to f*cking Patagonia next month, which requires about 20 billion hours in the air and small South American aircraft. I will have to pack so much Xanax I won't have room for anything else.

Sometimes I ask myself why I must choose such a difficult vacation? Why, with my fear of flying, must I choose to fly to the southern tip of the world? Why, when I could go sit my a*s on a beach somewhere, must I choose the most logistically daunting option of traveling a world away to some unknown mountains where (although it’s summer), I will undoubtedly get caught in snow and fierce wind and probably fall off a glacier? Ah yes, can you feel the relaxation?

But I figure this is one of the most spectacular places in the world and
I better get down there before I become 1) enfeebled, 2)boring and married, or 3)too timid to fling myself to the southern reaches of the world.

Ye olde mighty Geeksoft gave me a month off and for that I am eternally grateful. I hope to “recharge the batteries” as they like to say in the travel biz! Especially because soon after I return, I will become a published author and well – all the fans and the paparazzi are gonna want a piece of me. I’ll have no rest whatsoever.

Ha ha ha.

2006-01-17T09:55:00.000-08:00

In this week's advice column, BB pretends to know a thing or two about heartbreak.

Dear Breakup Babe,
I started seeing a guy who was a trusted friend for years about a year and a half after my husband died. Bad timing -- he was in the midst of divorce and of course I was still not over my husband's death.

Anyway, we moved along pretty fast and then his almost-ex accused him of being "as bad as" her and we shut down until after the divorce because he felt so guilty. Now, post-divorce and 3 months later he still feels we were wrong to be together sexually during that time and wants to be casual friends, not dating or seeing each other, and has taken someone else out to dinner a couple of times. He thinks we can't go out without progressing to the sex.

I can't find the words for this pain. What now?
Lost

Dear Lost,
Pain sucks. Not only are you dealing with the pain of being rejected by this confused dude, you are still dealing with grief from your husband’s death. The problem with grief is that it hurts so bad we sometimes do stupid things make it go away, like date alkies and druggies and divorcees and lunatics, which in the end, of course, only makes the pain worse.

So, how to deal with the pain in a healthy manner? I have a question for you: (Tom Cruise will smite me down for this, but f*ck him.) Have you thought of antidepressants? They completely RULE. Now mind you, they don’t make the pain go away – they just turn it from a pounding jackhammer into a distant drone so that so you can get on with the business of making yourself even *better* and *hotter* and *more successful* than ever before! (Sheesh. I should get Celexa to be a corporate sponsor for Breakup Babe’s international book tour!) Of course, antidepressants go hand-in-hand with therapy – which I also highly recommend.

In any case, it also helps to remind yourself that pain is not forever. We, as adults, know that. Even if we forget it sometimes, because we are in such excruciating pain that we feel we can’t bear it, we know that we can bear it and we will bear it, and it will get better – with time. But there is no way around it – pain just has to be gotten through. For the worst moments, when time slows to a stop, and all you can do is think about how bad you hurt, try thinking to yourself: “This is one more second of pain I won’t have to live through later.” “This is one more minute of pain I won’t have to live through later.” Sooner rather than later, time won't weigh on you so brutally - but when it does, this technique is *BB-proven-and-tested!

Meanwhile, also know that grief can be one of life’s greatest catalysts, which is something I learned not so long ago. Right now, of course, you are down in the dumps and not expected to be out there conquering the world. But when the pain becomes more manageable, through drugs or therapy or time, or whatever - it can also become a powerful force for change. Hell, if I hadn’t gotten my damn heart smashed to bits three and a half years ago, I wouldn’t be the almost-rich-and-famous-novelist I am today! Instead I’d be probably be unhappily married and f*cking the gardener (hmm, that part might not be so bad) and wondering when in the world I was ever going to write my novel but feeling too frightened by the disaster of my impending and inevitable divorce to do anything about it.

So, Lost, right now, the answer for you is learning to manage the pain. Soon enough you’ll find out what it can do for you and what doors it will open. One day again you’ll be on top of the world. Oh, it won’t last of course, but nothing does. But that goes for pain too.

Good luck,
BB

2006-01-16T18:49:00.000-08:00

Darlings,
This week's dating advice column will be ONE DAY LATE due to the, um, holiday. Yeah, that's it - the holiday. Tune in tomorrow for more of my brilliant insights into YOUR dating problems!

Love,
BB

2006-01-09T20:03:00.000-08:00

Hello little Breakup Babies. Here are some news items for you:

*The cover of my book is now displayed on Amazon! Doesn't it make you want to preorder that book NOW! I mean, c'mon, there's bound to be a Harry Potter-like mad rush come publication date and you wouldn't want to end up empty-handed would you? What will you read when you go to the beach next summer if not Breakup Babe the novel?!!

*I am not blogging about my love life ever again. Yes I have been saying I'm going to stop for ages, and then not actually doing it. Sure I don't dish as much as I once did but I still manage to get in plenty of references to ye olde love life. I know I'm already disappointing some of you, and I'm sure I will probably disappoint you even more to know that I'm ACTUALLY going to stop this time.

*See here, the problem is, that I, Breakup Babe, am still looking for love. And while I do dearly enjoy writing about it all - as I have done ever since I was thirteen years old and blathered on in my first journal about how cute Mike Robinson looked in his white carpenter pants (not much has changed, obviously)- the time has come for me to get over this addiction.

*Because it is had a negative effect on pretty much every relationship I've been involved in post-blog, and especially post-losing-my-anonymity. (Not that losing my anonymity is a bad thing. I once thought it was loads of fun to write about people without them knowing about it. I still think its loads of fun but I no longer think it's right.)

*And it's hard enough to find a relationship without a big strike against you already. Sure, any guy I date is gonna have to deal with the fact that I wrote a very dishy book that decapitates a few exes (in a nice way, of course). And whatever guy I end up with will be able to handle that, of course. But we don't need the extra liability of a kiss-and-tell blog to weigh down our relationship from the start.

*So what am I gonna write about, you ask?

*That is a good question. There are sooo many things to write about in this world, as my dear friend GalPal #1 has often pointed out to me. And just because I happen to totally kick ass at writing about relationships doesn't mean I can't write about other stuff.

*So we'll just have to see, won't we? I'll keep the dating advice column 'cause it's fun and besides that - well, who knows. Meanwhile, there are plenty of people who will still dish about their love life. God knows I sure love to read that crap. Here's one of my favorites.

*But don't you fear, I'll still be around, dishing about...um...stuff.

*Love always, Breakup Babe

2006-01-09T19:47:00.000-08:00

In this week's dating advice column, we explore the cold, hard world of closure and how you go about getting it.

Dear Breakup Babe,
I need advice. I have been dating someone for 2 months and I fell in love, way too fast. The only reason why is because I slept with him way too soon. I wouldn't care that much if I hadn't.

Anyway, I know I need to end it because this guy is no good for me. We are intimate, and then he disappears for days. I know I need to walk away, but at the same time I feel I need closure. So what is best, to talk it out and get closure? Or just disappear and not return any of his phone calls?

Unfortunately he lives and works nearby so I know I will run into him. Argh. I hate feeling so "unresolved".

Fell In Love Too Fast (FILTF)

Dear FILTF,
Oh my darling, we have all been there. I know very well well both the pain you are feeling, as well as the desire for “closure.”

However, much as you want things to be “resolved,” I think you need to resolve them within yourself rather than trying to involve him in this process. I know that when I’ve craved “closure” in the past, it’s really been a secret desire for me to see (insert name of unavailable guy) one last time and give him a final chance to say “But wait – never mind all the evidence to the contrary – I really DO want you! (Beg, beg, grovel, grovel, self-esteem all restored, birds singing, sun shining, O glorious future!).

You already “know” that you need to end it. So I say end it. NOW. It doesn’t mean you have to disappear in the cruel way he does. It means you could write him a letter and tell him why it’s over. It means you could answer the phone next time he calls you and tell him why it’s over. It means next time you could run into him, you could politely tell him get the f*ck out of your life (preferably while looking extremely hot).

The important thing is not the letter-writing or the phone call, though – it’s that you believe it yourself, right now. Just end it: in your heart and in your head. Do something symbolic – like delete that voicemail message of his you’ve been saving on your phone for months or the sweet e-mails he wrote you when he was feeling h*rny.

This is a unilateral decision and the sooner you make it, the sooner you will find a guy who is better for you. Oh sure he has the right to appeal when you hand down your verdict. In fact, it’s likely he will try to woo you back in some fashion, because after all, he’s gotten a good deal up until now.

But don’t take him back unless he swears up and down that he wants a serious relationship (because that’s what you want, right?), and even then you probably shouldn’t take him back. Unless he begs really hard.

I can hardly believe I'm saying this (me!) but there are lots of wonderful boys out there who will seek out intimacy rather than flee from it. They may be hard to find, but you will find one eventually. First, though you need to back yourself out of this dead end at full speed.

Good luck!
BB