The Billy Joel song “Honesty” has been playing in my head ever since karaoke a couple weeks ago when I jealously watched some cute Japanese chick sing that song and thought, “Why didn’t I think of that one?!”



Maybe because I haven’t listened to that album since sixth grade, and because you hardly ever hear it sung anymore (just like you hardly ever hear the word, heh heh) but no matter. It will be my song, second only to my rendition of The Rose for it’s sheer emotional force.



In preparation, I’ve been belting it out everywhere I go. In my car. In the shower. “Hoooonesty is HARDLY ever heard, and MOSTLY what I need from YOU-OOH!”



And oh, wouldn’t you know, you get what you ask for. Picture this scene in your head, not once, but twice, playing out exactly the same way each time, except for minor variations the second time when BB is more wary, but alas, not more cautious.



Indie Rock Dad and Breakup Babe go to dinner and have sparky, flirty, fun conversation. Yes, they want to f*ck each other but they clearly like each other too.



IRD and BB retire to BB’s bachelorette pad, complete with red lamps, sweet-smelling candles, and sexy music. As they get it on in the warm summer night, everything is so hot, so exciting, that BB knows: it will never last.



BB is so smart.



Afterwards, IRD goes into analysis mode just like he did last time. Says the exact same things too, only more firmly. Tells her if he keeps having s*x with her, he’s going to fall in love, and he [begin male cliché]doesn’t want a relationship[/end male cliché] now, so therefore they can’t continue this thing that felt too good anyway, and they must just “be friends.”



The guy is honest, you gotta give him that much. A seething mass of contradictions and insecurities and mixed signals. But, nonetheless, honest.



BB herself is not so good at being honest when it involves telling people hurtful things, as is evidenced by the fact that Charming But Goofy Lawyer Boy is sitting innocently at home, with no idea that this "great" girl he just met isn’t interested in him anymore and has been f*cking someone else.



Anyway, since BB is friends with everyone, BB will be friends with IRD and go on this backpacking trip with him and eventually he will fall madly in love with her and throw himself at her feet but by then it will be too late because she will be a bestselling author happily married to Jake Gyllenhaal or Johnny Depp or Benicio del Toro.



Meanwhile, how soothing it is to have South African Boy right across the hall, showering me with attention. It’s enough to get a girl to drag her a*s into work on a sleep-deprived Thursday, I tell you that much.

Ah yes, I have rejoined the land of the living once again.



Only briefly, perhaps. But in those brief moments, I remembered how good, how natural, how human, it felt to—well, you know. To do that thing I hadn't done in way too long.



So long, in fact, that it was not humanly possible for me to not do it anymore and I did it with someone I hardly knew, despite my (quite successful) efforts at improvement in that arena this year.



But my, what a relief to lie down in a bed with a boy (my patented maneuver is to wheel the TV into my bedroom and say, oh-so-casually, “Let’s watch the movie in in here, shall we?”), and have him leap lithely into action, throwing me hither and thither with wild abandon.



Natural? Yes. This is the natural way with boys and girls, which is why you understand my despair last week at the fact that Charming but Goofy Lawyer Boy, when lying in a bed with moi (as he has on several occasions), just LAY THERE LEADENLY.



The man, I’ve concluded, though adorable and sweet (if rather wussy), and the first and only Breakup Babe suitor to embrace the “R” word, has no freakin’ sex drive. Maybe it’s his age (35). Maybe it’s the fact that he’s so emotionally drained by his public defender job, he has nothing left for the bedroom.



But whatever. I can’t handle it. My attraction to the Prospect of the Year has drained away. And can I help it if that sexy, sarcastic Indie Rock Dad stepped in just as my frustration had reached record levels, and reminded me that I am not some kind of h*rny freak, that there are some people out there who are even more passionate and h*rny than ME?



Indie Rock Dad (29), since I am quite attracted to him, is naturally NOT a great prospect. Let's just say this: Divorce = Emotional Luggage. He is, however, a very nice and communicative boy, who, despite freaking out initially (long story), has calmed down and expressed the desire to hang out more. So there is hope, however faint.



Hope is a false god when it comes to men, I know. But I will see how things go with IRD, and hope, if not for marriage, than a little more hot s*x during this not-so-hot summer before I get back to the arduous task of searching for a husband.



Ill-advised? Perhaps. Annoying? Oui. But enough fun to make up for it?. One can only hope.



Even more ill-advised than a fling with IRD is the upcoming United Nations backpacking trip, which I will take with IRD (who is British), his Russian (guy) friend, and South African Boy.



Me and three cute foreign boys on a backpacking trip. Heh heh. Two of who are vying for my attention. Heh heh. I mean, could get very messy.



Not to mention, I still have to break the news to CGLB about his (lack of) sex drive without completely destroying his manhood. Because though you may not realize it, I am a nice person!! Not a callous b*tch who just thows men overboard because they don't know how to kiss!!!



Ahem. As you can see, life is tres complicated at the moment. Not exactly what I want. But could be much, much worse, no? Anyway, according to my horoscope the period from June 16 to July 4 is the best time for romance all year. So I'm just going to enjoy it before it all goes downhill.



Three men + three nights in wilderness = lots of fun for Breakup Babe. Hmm, except for the lack of showers...

Wait. Scratch that. I had no idea what I was in for Saturday night.

OK, so much has been going on this week, that’s we’ll have to introduce my friend the bulleted list:

• Suddenly nice, interesting, mature boys are actually pursuing me. (Instead of me pursuing unavailable, non-commital a*sholes). The sheer volume at the moment is overwhelming even to Breakup Babe.
  
  
  
  
• I decided last night that CGLB just doesn’t do it for me. Though adorable and sweet, he has no sex drive and can’t kiss.
  
  
  
  
• I have not told CGLB this yet. I am procrastinating because it makes me sad.
  
  
  
  
• Tonight I have a date with Indie Rock Dad (IRD) tonight, to whom I am very (oddly) attracted, despite him not being a looker. It is possible we have nothing in common, except a love for the outdoors but tonight I do not care because (see next two bullet points)…
  
  
  
  
• He unlike CGLB, has a flirty way about him, and I bet he knows his way around a bedroom.
  
  
  
  
• I am extremely, frighteningly frisky right now.
  
  
  
  
• Poor IRD has no idea –NONE—what his coming his way tonight.
  
  
  
  
• Meanwhile, South African Boy, who is darling and smart and easy to talk to, but too young, not to mention he works right across the HALL from me (Danger, danger, Will Robinson!) has been showering me with attention and asking me out and seems to understand me better than IRD…BUT. I’ll deal with him next week.
  
  
  
  

Amazing what a little sleep will do for you. Sheesh.



I woke up on Monday just over it. Oh, the fact that Charming but Goofy Lawyer Boy won’t put out is chipping away at my youth and vitality just like everything else. Dimming the glow of my skin, the sparkle of my eyes, the shine of my raven hair.



But whatever. So I thought for a couple weeks there that he was It. Don’t I think that every boy I meet is It, no matter how stoned/unemployed/young/inappropriate they are?



Maybe CGLB is It, maybe he’s not. Without even going to Yoga, I have achieved an admirable detachment from the situation. Yes, I am still dating CGLB, despite the fact that he might have sexual hangups and be a bad kisser (results, from the few kisses I got, were inconclusive). I'm not gonna write him off just like that.



But there are too many other boys coming down the pipeline (if you will) to get all worked up about CGLB. And I’m not chasing these boys either. They’re just appearing.



South African Boy, for example, who works right across the hall. When a cute boy works across the hall from you in this place full of monster nerds, you take notice. With the merest effort on my part, SAB and I ended up going hiking together last weekend, along with, kaching! – another potential suitor (who I’d, in fact, never met) the scrappy, sarcastic Indie Rock Dad. (IRD)



(You might be asking:

• How and why did BB end up going hiking with two potential suitors at one time?
  
  
• Is this not at cross-purposes?
  
  
• How did she wind up hiking with one boy she’d never met and one she’d only only two brief conversations with?

The Geminian ways of BB are complex so I advise you not to concern yourself with details – I certainly don’t).



After aforementioned hike, I came away with an admiration for SAB but a crush on IRD. SAB is the cuter of the two, with his nice tanned bod and muscley arms, but it was IRD – 29 and British, with a 3 ½-year old daughter -- who I felt a connection with.



But the truth is, we all bond and have a fab time, and truly, it is my ideal day – being in the mountains with two cute boys. We all discuss the idea of going backpacking together on July 4th weekend, and it’s here that the plot thickens.



Friday I have a lunch date (in the tres romantic Building 40 cafeteria) with IRD to make plans for aforementioned trip.



Meanwhile, though happy to discover I did not have a crush on SAB (perhaps some of you are aware of the TRAUMA I have been through with WORKPLACE ROMANCES), I did not consider the fact that he, who seems to be quite the Renaissance man, with his swing dancing, musical-instrument-playing, foreign-film-watching ways, might be interested in moi.



But I swear, yesterday SAB was acting like a boy with a crush, chasing me down the hall and sending me babbly e-mails. And, with the sweet smile and sexy jeans he had on yesterday, well, I almost forgot I wasn’t interested in him.



So. We have to ask – will SAB come along on the backpacking trip with me and IRD? If so, what then? And where will CGLB fit i? Will I invite him along on the backpacking trip too, therefore eliminating the others? Or explain to him that I’m going with two other potential suitors?



In this case, maybe the race is to the swift, eh? Just make out with me and I’m yours!



(Kidding. Sort of.)

Nothing like a lack of sleep to make you wander around your apartment weeping into every available tissue while you listen to bittersweet music designed to make you cry even harder, thinking “I –sniff- just-can’t-sniff do it anymore” or “When – sniff – will someone love – loud sniff – me?!” (falls dramatically onto couch here, tears staining the red upholstery ).



When, if like a regular person you’d had, perhaps 10 hours of sleep last night instead of an alcohol-riddled three, you might just think, albeit a bit sadly, “Oh well, another one bites the dust,” or “Well, from all evidence it seems that while Charming but Goofy Lawyer Boy (CGLB) was the most promising of all the boys so far, you’re just not, er, sexually compatible with him (i.e. he won’t f*cking make out with you), so, how about this – give it another chance to see if you can't make as good a physical connection with him as you can an intellectual one (i.e. will he lavish you with hugs and kisses?) and if not – well, pick up the pieces and move on.



Or, if that sleep deprivation had been cause by a marathon makeout session, instead of by lying puzzled next to CGLB on his stupid air mattress, in his apartment to which HE invited you after an evening of fun and drinking, the apartment that he, in fact, spent five hours cleaning that day just so he could invite you over – wondering why he kissed you rather lamely for about five minutes than rolled over and went to sleep – you’d be stumbling around in a happy daze rather than a weepy one.



Instead you spent a sleepless, wrenching night filled with disappointment and rejection alternating with escapist thoughts about the guy you met hiking just that day, thinking how funny and attractive he was, and how you might ask him to lunch or a movie, then feeling so wrong for lying next to sweet, but sexless (??) CGLB, thinking about some other guy you hardly even know (not that you know CGLB so well, as you’re beginning to discover).



And you wish, for the millionth time, that you didn’t have such a penchant for romanticizing people, because in the end, you only wind up like this – brokenhearted and lonely on one side of a bed that might as well be empty.



Later CGLB answers all your questions sweetly and seriously: no, you’re wrong about that, I do want to be close to you, I’m just “conditioned” to move slow; I've been too agressive in the past and pushed people away; I think we really click; you are attractive and smart and funny and nice, and then we walk around and he holds my hand and the day is beautiful and I’m sure we look happy, but despite his words, I feel it inside: something is, probably, wrong.



Damn it damn it damn it.

Well everyone, I have an announcement.



I’m getting married!!!!!!!!!!!



Just kidding. Had you going there for a sec, didn’t I? You really thought I could go from mopey, lovelorn, sex-starved ingénue to complacent, contented fiancée with a big-ass rock on my finger, didn’t you? Well, that’ll be the day. You were probably also worried about the fate of the blog.



What’s going to happen to Breakup Babe when she finds that burnin’ hunk o’ love who is going to sweep her off her feet satisfy her every fantasy? What is she going to write about THEN? Her inner torment about what kind of floral arrangements to have for the wedding? Her search for The Perfect Dress, no matter what the cost? The agony of the guest list?



Yeah well. Someday, maybe. If you’re lucky.



Meanwhile, I can’t lie to you. Thing do, momentarily, at least, seem to be looking up in the romance department. I met a guy that:

• I’m attracted to
  
  
• Makes me laugh
  
  
• I love talking to
  
  
• Is innocent and sweet, yet hip and smart
  
  
• Actually calls me
  
  

These traits have not been found together in a single person since…ever.



Which is not to say that Charming but Goofy Lawyer Boy (CGLB) is perfect. Ohhh no, I’m not falling into that trap. His tragic flaw could be that he’s too much like me.



Restless, hyper, messy, spacey, with even less a sense of direction than me!



We’re alike in good ways too – smart, fun-loving, adventurous, literary – but should we ever be a couple? My God, we’d be lost constantly, our house would be knee deep in unpaid bills, and we’d probably misplace our children in the grocery store and not be able to find them for a few years.



I guess that should give me plenty of material to write about, though. Missing children – that’s dramatic, right? Not as fun, maybe, as late-night carousing with non-commital men, but it’s something.



Meanwhile, rest assured that I’m not getting married and boring anytime soon. After all, this week will be only my third date with CGLB. And maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll get a kiss this time.



xoxo

Breakup Babe

THE YEAR IN REVIEW
Summer has finally arrived here in Seattle. It’s been hot. Sunny. Beautiful.

And the it all reminds me of last summer, when I the world as I knew it cracked open, and I wallowed in darkness even as the sun stayed out until 10 pm and the rest of the world came out to play.

It reminds me of how, just as Seattle became welcoming and warm, the relationship I believed in so blindly exposed itself for what it was – rotten at its core.

As everyone emerged from their winter sleep, dazed and smiling, I moved into an empty basement and wept and wept.

I didn’t hike; I didn’t bicycle; I didn’t do things I love to do so much in summer. Instead I fought to contain my grief.

In my windowless office, I stared at a computer screen and tried to do my new job. But the words danced and blurred in front of my eyes, finally disappearing until I gave in and sobbed.

As the long days shortened and white hot August turned to more gentle September, I began to emerge from my cave of sadness. I went to the mountains, and let the sight of glaciers and wildflowers wash over me.

I stopped crying every day. By the time the trees turned red and gold, I’d started dating again, and sometimes didn’t cry for weeks at a time.

But the betrayal was still there, even when winter came and I wore layers of sweaters to cover it up. It hurt, especially when I had to see him in halls. Or with his new girlfriend, who just happened to be my manager.

For a while there, when snow blanketed the mountains, I thought I’d found someone, and that someone kept me warm and forgetful at night until it turned out I’d just found someone for just a little while.

When the tulips started to bloom, I thought I’d found someone else. And then someone else. And someone else yet again. And though the hurt felt like it was healing, it became clear that I was afraid – very afraid – of being alone.

So, like a butterfly, I was flitting from boy to boy looking for something I was never going to find. At least, not the way I was going about looking for it.

So I rode a rollercoaster all through the rainy spring, which finally dumped me here. Again.

Summer.

Things are the same as they were last summer, yet very different.

It’s still hot as hell in my top-floor apartment. I’m still restless and a little sad. I’m still single. I still have to listen to my neighbors having sex as I lie alone in bed.

But I’m out in this summer. Hiking and biking and climbing. Not crying. And I’m meeting people. The butterfly wings are beating but not quite as desperately as before.

This summer, I’m 35 years old. My life is going how I want it to go. Except I want someone to love.

But it’s coming again, I can feel it. All I have to do now is wait and let it fly in through my open window one of these hot nights, when it will wrap me in its cool, soothing arms.

If not, well, there better be some good freakin' s*x flying through that window. And I mean SOON.

Last night I chatted on the phone with Charming But Goofy Lawyer Boy (CGLB) and laughed for the first time all day. I laughed so hard I had tears streaming down my face and could barely talk.



I did laugh just as hard about a week ago, when we were doing our little backroads tour around Lake Ponchartrain and Sexy Blue-Eyed Boy turned the alligator potholder he’d just bought into a puppet and made it dance to soul music.



But we all know how I heart SBEB for exactly that reason, because he’s so damn funny, and plus, I’ve known him for years.



I’ve only been out with CGLB once and still, I was looking forward to talking to him on the phone. Not in an “I-have-such-a-crush-on-him-I’m-so-nervous-kind-of” way, but more in a “hmm, I wonder what amusing things CGLB will have to say?” kind of way.



And he did not disappoint. It was the best I felt after a long hard day, talking to this boy I hardly knew, and am trying not to have any hopes for (but of course, hopes are springing up like mushrooms on a wet Seattle day).



Meanwhile, now that freakin’ Saturn has left my house for the next twenty-nine years, THANK YOU, I am working harder than ever on my writing, training to climb Mt. Rainier, making a monumental effort to become, ahem, “organized,” and, of course, still juggling a variety of would-be amours.



Just last week, for example, I noted, with great delight, that directly across the hall from me works a hunky blonde South African with a charming accent and nice legs. He stopped by my office to chat about the fact that my coworkers had festooned my office with Mardi Gras decorations while I was in New Orleans.



I waited impatiently for him to come chat with me again, or at least look my way, and yesterday he did. After my stoned (I swear I could smell marijuana on his breath) coworker stood in front of my door loudly proclaiming about how, if I went to climb Mt. Rainier, I would “never come back,” South African Boy came over to ask me all about the climb, in the process telling me how he likes to hike and is always looking for people to hike with. AHEM.



OK, you see how boring I get when things are looking up? I swear. The psychiatrist warned me about this. “Country singers write their best songs when they’re depressed, you know,” he told me, before writing up a prescription for more pharmaceuticals to make me less depressed.



Yeah well. I have better things to worry about than my boring prose, like what am I going to wear today? It will be hard to top yesterday’s sex kitten Catholic schoolgirl outfit, which had every developer in sight doing a double-take, so I probably shouldn’t even try.

OK all, there was a rare event in BreakupBabeLand this weekend. Check it out:



I went on a blind date. Right, I know, that happens all the freakin' time. Just keep reading.



He was very cute. Yawn.



But very cute in a my-type kind of way! Dark hair (and lots of it) olive skin, yes sir. And no scraggly soul patch!



He talked about how he was ready for a more "permanent" relationship. Now that sh*t never happens around here.



He was a Libra. Gemini + Libra = Tru Luv 4Ever



He was goofy and unsuave and totally charming. The farthest thing from a player you'll ever see. Didn't make a move, but...



E-mailed me the night after our date and asked me to do something the next weekend. That never happens when I actually like someone. Only when they repulse me.



When I like them, I go chasing them to kingdom come, then they tell me that in fact they're a hermit or they have a girlfriend or a cold and can't get involved.



Hmm. I will be patient this time around. I will be patient, I will BE. PATIENT.