Hear ye, hear ye, I have decided that Cute Train Boy (CTB) and I are tempermental opposites, and therefore unsuitable for one another. I, after all, am a Gemini, and His Royal Slowness is a Taurus. Lookie here what ivillage's astrology Web site has to say about THAT:



Taurus's sedate, practical approach to life differs greatly from Gemini's more light, intellectual approach...Taurus is simply looking for a dependable, sensual partner, so Gemini's brilliance may be lost on the Bull.



Yes, god dam* it, when am I going to find someone who appreciates my BRILLIANCE, that's what I want to know?



Oh wait, I did once. Loser used to tell me I was brilliant. Loser used to tell me I was beautiful. Loser used to tell me -- SHUT UP!



Right. We weren't compatible anyway. He was a Capricorn, after all.



Capricorn needs security and Gemini needs freedom. Not a good pairing. Gemini is freewheeling and adventuresome and Capricorn is conventional, steady, and conservative . Capricorn likes order and routine, Gemini doesn’t. Gemini makes Capricorn feel too insecure to have any kind of lasting relationship. Capricorn is too sober for Gemini.



Yeah, that's me, freewheelin, fun-lovin' and freakin' brilliant! Not many men can deal with THAT combo, I tell 'ya!



Anyway, I've decided that on our next date (Saturday, in THEORY, if he doesn't go into another "reclusive funk"), I'm going to tell CTB we are unsuitable for one another. Complete opposites. Him sedate, me brilliant, etc. I will cut him a deal, however: Make out with me and I'll consider our suitability a bit more.



Tomorrow, though, I have a date with the Kickass Lawyer Jew (KLJ). Our prospects look a little better, since he's a Saggitarius.



Gemini is an Air Sign and Sagittarius is a Fire Sign. This is quite the active relationship! Air spreads Fire far and wide, helping it increase in power. Gemini and Sagittarius together have just this effect on one another. Theirs is a very fiery, passionate connection.



HA. Finally a man who will appreciate my mercurial side instead of whining about it. We are going kayaking together tomorrow afternoon (in the rain, no doubt), then if all goes well, having s*x. I mean, dinner. After one date, I still don't like him as much as I like CTB, who is UNSUITABLE FOR ME (despite being a very nice person, I must add), but I am hoping KLJ will grow on me. In more ways than one.



(I KNOW I've used that joke before and I apologize. My brillliance begins to wane a bit around 10 p.m.)



Love Always,

Breakup Babe

Spring is moving right along, folks, and before you know it, it’ll be summer.



I have mixed feelings about summer. The long days and balmy weather make me even more restless than I normally am (which is very), and, as warm weather creeps in, I’m also reminded in that anniversary-sort-of-way, of last year’s hellishly hot no-air-conditioning-in-my-car-summer, when I was D-U-M-P-E-D. When my world split in two, my heart broke, and the sun baked it into to a dried-up husk. (Melancholy music starts here, with bad, pre-coffee metaphor).



If I were merrily ensconced in another relationship, as Loseur appears to be, with my doppelganger Loserette, maybe I’d feel better about the change of seasons.



I’d have someone to accompany me on my manic adventures. Someone to picnic with on the shores of Lake Washington as the warm evenings stretch on and the sun refuses to go down. Someone to make me forget I’m growing older and scared of spending the rest of my sunny days alone (Melancholy music swells to climax and then fades. Cut.).



One thing is for sure, though. My next b*yfriend, should I ever have one, is not going to be "Bryan," one of the faceless millions out there in InternetLand, who took the time to write me this sweet e-mail the other day:



Anyway, I found you (sic) comments about some of the dating you were doing to be very honest and insightful. However, I am thankful that I am not dating someone as shallow as you. I hope that is just he way you come off in you (sic) writing and that you can see these guys for who they really are and not just what you can get out of them.



Just for the record "Bryan," I'm really upset that you don't want to date me, but with a little help from my friends, I might just get through this pain. Sniff.



But, and you all know I’ve been worrying about this, "Bryan" points out that at times, or to certain people, I come across as “shallow.” You, my dear, readers, have defended me from such accusations before, and for that I heart you. And I’m not taking the complaints of our "special" friend too seriously.



But I do know that sometimes I come across like a heartless opportunist. Different boys cycle endlessly through the blog. One boy is here for a couple months, and then I drop him with a few parting shots and move on to the next five guys. Or so it seems.



I’ll just say this: it’s a control thing. This blog is where I call the shots, where I rewrite history. In real life, I often feel at the mercy of men. Like I offer them my heart on a pretty Ikea platter and they say no thanks, can I have a Bud instead?



And so, how do I get my revenge? Here. By making myself the heroine, the one in charge, the one who says, See you later, alligator. If I seem shallow to the “Bryans” of the world, that’s just one of the downfalls of my job. And besides, he probably just wants to date me.



In other news, had a rollicking time cooking dinner for Cute Train Boy last night, who is 6’2 with little Abe Lincoln beard. But. This is our fourth date and I have yet to see the money. Chaste little goodnight kisses, that’s all I get.



I made him Fettucine Alfredo, for crying out loud, and I looked hot. Perhaps he is shy. Or perhaps he moves slow. Or perhaps he doesn’t like me. Or perhaps he’s not a man. I DON’T KNOW and I DON’T CARE. One more date and that’s IT. If he doesn’t put out, I am SO out of there. Can’t he hear that clock ticking?



TICK. TICK. TICK!

This week has been dating lite, which is why I just spent two hours of my life that I will never get back watching The Bachelor. Oy. But it made me feel better about myself. At least I'm not out there desperately searching for a husband on prime-time TV. I do it in the privacy of my own home.



Not that I would mind doing it on prime-time TV. In fact, they're having "auditions" for The Bachelor this week at some godforsaken mall in the southern reaches of Seattle, and I'm thinking of going. For the "experience" of course. Just so I could write about it. If I got picked, well, I'll just have to jump off that bridge when I come to it. But I'm not tall enough, blonde enough, or vapid enough, and I don't use the word "like" nearly enough. Besides, the show I really wanted to be on was "Looking for Love: Bachelorettes in Alaska," but that show seems to have died a silent, unmourned death.



Anyway, a few tired updates from the front lines.



Kickass Lawyer Jew

A new hottie on the scene, who is moving quickly up through the ranks. Cute, outdoorsy, smart, tres adventurous, not to mention idealistic and successful. 36 years old, which is good news for yours truly, who is getting fed up with committment-phobic youngsters. Downside: perhaps humor-impaired. Keep your eye on KLJ as we head into our second date, where I hope to discover if he has a sense of humor. And a large c*ck. Oh wait, sorry, that's the third date.



Mr. Millionaire Boy

I just don't know about this one. As Galpal #1 pointed out, it really wasn't gentlemanly of him to put the moves on me when I was captive at his chalet. Then again, how could he help it? Yeah, yeah, I'll go out with him again. I mean, are financial security and condos at Whistler such a bad thing?



Charming Elfin Boy

A set-up from GalPal #4. Cute. Charming. Funny. Assertive (E-mailed the morning after our first date and asked me out for the coming weekend. You gott like that in a guy!) Not sure if I'm attracted to him. Plus, he's leaving the damn country. But. You. Never. Know.



Cute Train Boy

I can't help it. I like this boyish boy best. But my prospects are not looking good. After a flying start, our relationship is moving at the pace of a disabled snail. CTB disappeared this week in the throes of a "reclusive funk," in which he apparently talked to no one, including me. Tauruses. We Geminis have bigger fish (millionaires, lawyers, elves) to fry and can't sit around waiting for you and your funks. Too bad you're so #$*& appealing, CTB.



That's it, folks. All the news thats fit to print.

Ahh, yes. I had forgotten what it was like to have a sugar daddy.



Once upon a time, I had me one of those. His name was Loser and he made lots of money at a gigantic software company in Seattle. He was very generous with his money too.



Let me take you out to a hundred-dollar dinner, darling. Oh, do you want that dress? Let me buy it for you! Let’s go stay somewhere nice, shall we? Three hundred dollars a night? Doesn’t matter. My treat. Sure, of course you can leave your old dented Honda behind and borrow the Audi!”



I didn’t love Loser for his money, but it sure was a nice perk. I had never been with anyone who had that kind of dough to throw around, and it just made life so much more comfortable. Heated car seats, plush hotel rooms, nice dinners, new clothes.



This weekend, I had one of those again. Ex-Microsoft. Millionaire. Altruistic millionaire who runs his own non-profit, but can still afford two condos in Whistler, a house in Seattle, and two nice cars (one, naturally, an SUV).



I met Mr. Millionaire Boy (MMB) for one date (personals) and then he invited me to his condo in Whistler.



I debate. I don’t know this boy. He is a role model for us all, no doubt, but I don’t know if I’m attracted to him. Would I be using him if I said yes? What if we didn’t get along? Would he expect me to put out?



I debate some more. Hmm. Condo in Whistler versus stay at home and work on book that will never be sold. Skiing at one of the top resorts in the world versus jogging in the rain.



Mope about Pierced Political Boy or whoosh down the slopes surrounded by glaciers. Hang out with Cute Train Boy, who will probably never pan out, or skip work and hop on a bus for lands unknown.



I went. I skied. I fell. I put out (a little). Oh, I felt a bit sleazy about that part. I could have stopped the chicanery, but I didn’t. It felt nice to have someone touch me, after all.



“Here, let me give you a massage,” he said.



I could have stopped it right then, but I didn’t. I wasn’t 100% attracted, but I was nonetheless seduced. By the warm touch and the nice condo --100 yards from the lifts, with the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on – the luxury of it all.



Plus, MMB was sweet and solicitous and generous. When I lay sprawled on my stomach, face in the snow, arms straight in front of me, after an ill-fated attempt down an ungroomed black diamond run, MMB – who never let himself get too far ahead -- marched back up the steep slope to help me up, without even laughing at me.



My skiing friends, of course, want me to marry him. They’ve never met him, but that doesn’t matter. “Think of us,” they say! “And the condos in Whistler!”



It would be nice, wouldn’t it? To have a sugar daddy again? If only I was really attracted to this guy. Instead of to Cute Train Boy, who drives a 1970 VW bug, lives in a crappy house with a roommate, and who sometimes doesn’t have enough money to go out.



Well, at least I had one for the weekend. The kisses with which I paid, well, they were a small price. A price, yes. And maybe I shouldn’t have paid. But was it worth it? Hell, yes.

When I started this blog, I let only a few girlfriends read it. Boys were strictly not allowed.



Then my narcissism took over and I expanded my audience. Boys could read it but only boys that I would never possibly get involved with. Boys with whom I had the least bit of a flirtatious relationship with, boys in whom I had even a speck of interest – were still not allowed to read it.



Once, when I had first started it, GalPal #3 let slip the name “Breakup Babe” to her husband,who promptly went and found it. Then he told her, “She should never, ever let any guy she’s interesting in dating read this.” Well no duh.



Of course I still talked about it all the time. To anyone who would listen. My blog this. My blog that. Up until recently, I even told the guys I was actually dating that I had a Web site where I wrote about all our exploits. I just wouldn’t tell them how to find it. For all of them, I think, it was a turn-on.



But I know it’s risky to even mention it. What if one of them were to find it? What a disaster that would be. I’ve had a few nightmares where this or that boy gets online, reads the dirt I’m dishing about him, and starts posting nasty comments.



Well ladies and gentleman, that dream has become a reality. Pierced Political Boy (our Canadadry of last week, I suspect) the one I met, fell for, and, most recently, lost via my blog, is lurking around, angry and upset, waiting for the next mean thing I say to hold up as more proof to himself that I’m a dishonest, game-playing, self-absorbed, insecure mess. Oh, and let’s not forget needy and high-maintenance!



Or maybe he’s come to his senses and stopped reading the blog by now. In any case, this PPB fiasco has just proved what I knew from the beginning: this is no place for any lover, past, future, or present, to be poking around.



This is the place where I laugh about my broken heart to help mend it. This is where I spin stories for your entertainment and mine, where "truth" is sometime twisted for effect. This is the place where I vent about the boys I date to ease the inevitable trauma of dating.



Because if I weren’t laughing; I would be crying. Seriously.



I cry anyway. Pick a guy, any guy, I’ve mentioned in this blog, and if I knew him for more than a month, I probably cried about him. And in fact, if I write something mean about a boy, my meanness is usually in direct proportion to how much I cared for that person.



Loser, for example. Let’s go for a dip in the warm ocean of tears I’ve cried for that guy, shall we?



Except for Loser, though, most guys actually get off pretty easy on this site. I’ve hardly even plumbed the depths of bad male behavior I’ve experienced in the last few months. That’s because, I suppose, my heart hasn’t really gone out to anyone new yet.



Oh, it’s tried. But the right person hasn’t come around, and thanks, in part, to this blog – which allows me to maintain perspective and see the realities of a situation -- I haven’t fallen in love again. Yet.



In any case, when I do, he will most certainly 100% never on pain of death be able to read this blog. And I will never again date anyone I meet through Breakup Babe. I mean, that girl has absolutely no standards. Sheesh.

Well. Last week was one helluva week around here. [BIG ARCHIVE SCRUB OCCURRED HERE - OUCH!]

Anyhoo. The Boy Situation (BS) continues to be dynamic, and one might say exhausting, if I didn’t seem to have an endless supply of energy for dealing with it (energy, I might add, that I should put into balancing my checkbook or hand washing my delicates rather than letting them sit in my laundry hamper for months at a time).

After reading the unfavorable review I gave him in this here blog last week (despite promising not to read it) Pierced Political Boy up and dumped me. Despite my sincere apologies for dissing him online, PPB then hurled enough venomous insults my way via e-mail to deter me from my natural course– which is to smooth things over and try to be friends.

And though I don’t feel good about the situation (how can you feel good about a situation that ends with blood and flying shards of glass?), I do have a new supply of boy mojo that’s been liberated from it’s long-distance prison.

It’s focused mostly on Cute Train Boy (CTB) at the moment, who did call on Saturday, rendering the biopsy BENIGN. However, after our third date, I’m not quite as sure that I want to marry him. CTB is so laid-back he barely as a pulse, which could be a good thing for yours truly, who flutters around like a butterfly on speed, or it could be a yawner. One will see. If marriage is not in the cards, I would at least like to make out with him.

More *dates* *dates* *dates* coming up this week, but must go make coffee now and get first fix of the day. Updates to come soon.

One of the more clever things I ever said was that “Waiting for a guy to call for the first time is like waiting for the results of a biopsy.”



There is that same sense of dread. The restless dreams. Waking up early. Time slows down. Every time the phone rings your blood pressure skyrockets. Then you’re so breathless you can barely talk when it turns out to be your mom or, worse, a telemarketer.



Other writers have said it better than I. Dorothy Parker, for example, in “A Telephone Call:”



This is the last time I'll look at the clock. I will not look at it again. It's ten minutes past seven. He said he would telephone at five o'clock. "I'll call you at five, darling." I think that's where he said "darling." I'm almost sure he said it there. I know he called me "darling" twice, and the other time was when he said good-bye... He couldn't have minded my calling him up. I know you shouldn't keep telephoning them--I know they don't like that. When you do that they know you are thinking about them and wanting them, and that makes them hate you.



Anyway. Things with Cute Train Boy (CTB) are moving along OK after our second date except that, of course, I want to marry him. This usually poses a problem for any guy under 45, and CTB is a mere 30 years old. While this is older by several years than the average male that I’ve dated these last eight months, it is still, alas, young (never mind that my dad had a wife, two kids, two dogs, two cats, two guinea pigs, several hamsters, and mortgage by the time he was 30).



And so, while clearly interested in my fine self, CTB is exhibiting the signs of passivity that go along with being young and in no hurry to get a girlfriend, much less a wife, a mortgage, and a menagerie.



So, not wanting to f*ck things up with my future husband and father of my hamsters, I am, as Prettyplus advised, trying to play it cool. As much as it is possible for a hot-blooded 34-year old woman who has absolutely no talent for playing it cool to play it cool.



The scenario: After our last date, CTB suggests we get together this weekend. Great! Then he says he has to get back to me about exactly when he can get together. Not-so-great but fine. I wait impatiently. CTB e-mails yesterday (Friday) and says he can get together at any time, so if I want to hang out, he can hang out whenever.



This was reassuring and all, but he was lobbing HIS ball back into my court. I proposed and organized our first two dates, thank you. And I had already told him I wanted to hang out this weekend.



So, while my first instinct was to call him and make a plan, I decided, on the advice of GalPal #1, to e-mail him back (e-mail, the bane of my existence) and say, why don’t you call me tomorrow and we can figure it out?



The guy needs to do a little work if he wants to hang out with me, for crying out loud. And if he doesn’t really care about hanging out with me – if he’s happy just to do it when I chase him around but is otherwise not motivated to call me, who needs that? Not moi, because I suddenly have a whole new batch of suitors knocking at the door (more on them soon).



In any case, the biopsy results are supposed to come in today. I’ll let you know how they turn out.

Well. You’re going to have to excuse me. Here at BreakupBabe.com, we’re having a bit of an identity crisis, or, as those peace-loving folk the French might say, a crise d’identité.



This is because a friend of mine told me recently that if he read this blog without knowing me, he would think I was (and I quote), “a sex-crazed, power-mongering, VD-ridden, marketing chick.”



What does this matter, you might be thinking? C’mon, just get on with the latest sexcapades! You haven’t written anything for a freakin’ week, and now you want to waste our time with soul-searching?



I will only spend a moment on this, and that is to say: It matters to me because writing is my thing. It troubles me to hear someone say this, because it means I am not communicating to you in the way I should.



Oh sure, there have been sad moments. Times where we’ve all shed a few tears. But they’ve been few and far between, because most of the time, I deal with my sadness and my insecurity by being a brazen, sarcastic, mouse-wielding goddess.



But that’s not me. Or not all of me, anyway. I mean, I’m a nice person. A sweet person. A loving, cuddly, warm person. A scared person sometimes. A lonely person other times. A vulnerable and tender-hearted person. A good friend, kick-ass sister, and a delightful, only slightly difficult daughter. A person who gives my heart away too easily, and then has to mock those who pulverize it so I don’t cry.



That’s all I wanna say. That and you might be seeing more of me soon as I try to make my writing a little more human(e) without losing my edge.



But enough of that. Now…it’s time for BOYS BOYS BOYS! SEX SEX SEX! Oops, wait. Scratch that second one. (There is none of that, remember? I’ve been re-virginized, hallelujah!) And I’ll be brief, because I’ve taken up so much of your time already:



In Brief

Pierced Political Boy

You know, this one made himself out to be something he wasn’t. For months, he posted comments on this here blog, promoting himself like crazy. Giving good advice but pumping himself up in the process.



So we met. We frolicked. A lot. It was hot. Because arrogance, alas, can be sexy. Plus, he was adoring. In person. But with 1000 miles between us, his true colors have come out. Communicative sometimes, but only when it suits him. Cryptic. Non-committal. Self-absorbed. Blowing me off, but not admitting that he’s doing it. In other words: Not f*cking worthy.



Cute Train Boy

Excuse me while I daydream. Oh – wait – you want to hear about him? As you might recall, GalPal #1 (my agent and manager rolled into one), met him on the train from Portland a couple weeks ago. After using ESP to determine that he was my type, she sent a loud machine-gun round of questions his way (no doubt loud enough for the entire car to hear): Are you single how old are you what do you do are you outdoorsy do you want to meet my friend?”



To make a not-very-long-story short: We met. We had fun. He was sweet and smart and together and calm and funny. We kissed. He kissed me without hesitation and yet with the sweetest, most starry-eyed look I've seen since forever. We said we’ll get together again. We’ll see. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be like the rest. Non-commital and cagey. Maybe, just maybe, he’s as sweet as he seems.



‘Cause Lord knows, I could use me a little sugar.