Breakup Babe is on vacation until November 3rd!



And don't worry, darlings, this hiatus from writing about my personal life will be short-lived, no doubt. You know I can't keep secrets from you for long!



See you when we have a new president!

Hear ye, hear ye, I can no longer write about my personal life on this olde blogge!



Why not, you ask?



Well, because nothing is happening in my personal life.



OK, that was a pathetic try. We know that as long as you have a red blood cell in your body, you will be in heat, which generates flames and explosions and all those things we loove to read about!



How about this? My personal life is personal – that’s why!



Oh come now, we know how addicted you are to telling it all online. You wouldn’t even exist if we readers weren’t here to validate you! To tell you what to do as we voyeuristically poke our big noses in your business!



Hmm, can’t argue with that. What about this one, then? I can’t write about my personal life anymore because every boyfriend past, present, and future now reads this blog!



There, got you stumped, didn’t I.



Yeah. HA.



Sooo....how 'bout about those Red Sox?

I feel like I’ve been hit with a truck today, yes I do.



Book? Condo? Boyfriends?



They all suck.



Thank God for my boring, high-paid job, where I can get in at noon, close my blinds, cancel my meetings, and do mind-numbing work for the next six hours without having to exercise a brain cell.



Sometimes I long to be one of those people who just sits on the sidelines, never getting bloody.



Then, unfortunately, I get a good night’s sleep and I’m ready to fight again. Where in the world did I get this resilience?



I miss my dad.

Emotional availability is such a funny thing, isn’t it? Sometimes those people who make themselves out to be the most “available” – who throw themselves into your arms with wild abandon – are the ones (Library Boy, for example), who, in the end, don’t really have what it takes.



If I had to choose, I’d rather take someone who commits slowly but surely. Not that this is easy for an impatient and passionate girl such as moi.



I suspected, when I looked into Library Boy’s googly eyes in that long-ago, red-hot month of July, that he was deluding himself when he gazed at me (drooling ever-so-slightly).That he was the victim of his own unrealistic infatuation, and that I, probably would be too. Because what girl can resist all that he offered me?



Well, things are different around here now that the leaves have turned and the air is crunchy and delicious like a Braeburn apple. The universe is smiling on me, if only momentarily.



For one, there is interest in my writing from two major publishing houses. Second, I put an successful offer on a fabulous condo that was accepted: a place of such style and light that it befits a soon-to-be-bestelling-if-still-not-that-rich author.



I walked into that place and I knew. Knew, without a doubt, that I was ready to start hemorrhaging money to live there. So here I go!



Third, well. I’m not quite ready to talk about that one yet. Let’s just say he’s got soft lips and sexy eyes and he is one of my best friends. So I see him with eyes that are loving but lucid, which means I have hope but not illusions.



And finally, I am wearing a feather-boa bedecked sweater that makes me look like Liza Minelli in her heyday, and yes, people, that is a good thing.

Thanks, Gentle Readers, for recommending this book, “He's Just Not That Into You : The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys.”



It’s heartwarming that you want me to understand HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO ME, and rather than fight that verdict, I will just lay down my arms and say, OK, fine. He’s just not that into me.



Though I do think there’s such a thing as timing, and the timing, in this case, was just not right – but when it comes down to it, it just doesn’t matter. It’s over. Oh, he did call me this week to say how much he’d missed me, but he’s not going to come crawling back. Because we weren’t right for each other anyway.



Sure, we ignited the bedroom each and every time. And I don’t regret that I gave up my virtue this time around, because I trusted him, and he never lost that trust, and boy was he f*cking hot – nosehairs and all.



But, for one, he didn’t want kids, and for two, the intellectual connection was just not there. We didn’t spark that way, and to my everlasting detriment, I need that. I’ve tried to live without it before, to go on a strong friendship or a strong physical attraction, but either one of these alone was not enough to sustain me. Nor is an intellectual attraction by itself enough to get the juices flowing.



I think, alas, that I need all three, and me and Library Boy, we had only one.



Now, well, my life’s in limbo. And rather then let myself feel sad, I’ve been rushing around til all hours of the night, socializing with random men until yesterday, when I stopped dead in my tracks and got sick. (And can’t you tell from the lackluster tone of my writing today?)



There is a love interest lurking behind the scenes, but I can’t even write about him, for fear that if I do, he will instantly disappear. So that’s what I will do now too, since I can’t seem to come up with a single clever thing to say.

Sigh. Thank God the rains have come at last. We will now be socked in for the next nine months, but this is for the best.



Because I can write and sleep and cry and furrow back down under those down blankets that were stuffed into the closet while my apartment stifled in the summer. In other words, I can relax again and be my melancholy self, not always under pressure to smile and dance like the sun demands.



Whether or not there will be a male heater somewhere in this winter, I don't know. Library Boy and I mostly called it quits last night, sitting on my Red Couch o' Love (and Loss), where I've made out with so many boys these last two years and broken up with not a few.



I cried and cried and got his t-shirt all wet and couldn't believe how handsome he looked with his scruffy beard and his necklace, and the sad, sad expression on his face as he tried to figure in his brain some way to fit me into his overloaded life, but in the end, he just couldn't. Which is what I expected. What I didn't expect was for this to be as hard for him as it was for me.



And though I did attempt to convince him that loved belonged in a person's life no matter how busy they are, that fact - so true to me - is not to him. He's a man on a mission, and that mission - right now- is about making himself.



I don't hold that against him. Or the fact that he spent two months months successfuly sweeping me off my feet, only to do an about face and realize he'd gotten in over his head. He's a wonderful and soulful person and he brought so much to my life.



So please excuse me if I'm crying all over my keyboard right now, and not only that, in a public place. It's been buses, meetings, cafes, sidewalks all week.



Watering everything with my tears. As if anything needs it with all this rain.

This has been one crazy week.



One minute I’m crying on the bus all the way home because clearly I am an unlovable pariah, and if I were just the least bit lovable, Library Boy would actually love me instead of being so consumed with his rocks and his dirt and gazillion Power Point slides.



The next I’m rocking out in my car, on top of the world, certain that I’m about to become the next Helen Fielding AND find true love all in one month. Later that night, I’m lying wide awake in bed at 2 a.m. then waking up with strangled screams at 4 because of some David Lynch-like nightmare where what you can’t see is the scariest thing of all.



One minute, I’ve found the perfect condo for me, the next I find out there are seven offers on it already, and how could I have been so STUPID as to wait a full TWO days to look at it? Oh, but it only gives me an excuse to keep hanging out with my real estate agent – only the hottest real estate agent in Seattle – and I already see him way more than I see my so-called boyfriend, and we’re about to run off together to New Mexico (whither that will take us, no one knows), so let’s just say this:



Things are definitely on the move here in BB Land.



The book is opening eyes in New York City (while my own eyes hardly close anymore), and though I adore Library Boy, I'm not feeling loved and adored the way I want to. I’m going to mention this little fact to him, and then who knows what will happen. Maybe it will snap his head out of his a*s (and wouldn't that be great?) but my feeling is that I'm the one who has to take it or leave it.



What I do know is this: there is a man out there who will love me, and want to spend time with me, and want to have kids with me so that we can bask in the warmth that only a family can provide. Library Boy, alas, disowned his own parents when he was 14. And though he talks to them now, his own vision of “family” is colored by the trauma of not feeling loved when he was young.



But me - thanks to my own, mostly fabulous family - I just have too much love inside me to not to share it with a couple of noisy, messy, but delightful children, and a no-doubt-occasionally-annoying but mostly loving and funny and kind husband who will go on adventures with me and ground me when I need it and change diapers in the middle of the night.



And with a horoscope like this for October, is it any wonder I’m feeling hopeful, despite the less-than-stellar turn of affairs with Library Boy?



Dear Gemini, it has been over a dozen years since you have had the kind of glittering aspects at play in your chart today. Last month Jupiter, the giver of gifts and luck, moved into your fifth house of love, romance, creativity and children, giving all these areas a huge push forward. Jupiter will work hard for you not only this month, but for a whole year-your golden period will last until October 25, 2005.

Let the golden period begin! Please?

Now if you recall, the latest love object in BB’s life is that sex god known as Library Boy (who, thank God has at last trimmed his nosehair, making him into even more of a sex god). The one who, for the first month and a half, made every effort to sweep BB off her feet – including much bringing of flowers, cooking of gourmet feasts, and writing of romantic e-mails?



Can BB be blamed for thinking that perhaps she has found a guy who is emotionally available? Of course, she knows deep down that he is infatuated with her and that infatuation is soon knocked aside by reality, but nonetheless – Anxiety and Loneliness disappear for a few short weeks as she’s swept into his Cancer spell.



Oh but it happens so much more quickly than she’d hoped! No sooner does that two-month mark roll around, the Library Boy suddenly becomes all business, and we’re talking ALL business.



Because, after all he is starting his own (landscaping) business, and going to school, and working 7 days a week, and well, it’s time to make sure BB knows where she is on this priority list. Which is low. Because, after all, who knows where this relationship might go, and he has to invest in his future. A future, which, he also makes clear, will not involve any little Library Boys, thankyouverymuch. Although he makes a point of telling her - many times - that he "loves being with" her and is "very attracted" to her.



Well. Right about now you’re all saying WTF? Yeah, he sounded great to begin with, but don’t you deserve better than that? We know you deserve better than that! You’re a kickass writer girl with a great day job and a hot bod and a soon-to-be-bestselling book that’s going to get bought ANY DAY NOW by publishers!



Yes, yes, you’re probably right. But as you know, when you’re in them, these things are not always so black and white. Especially when the time comes that you do see your busy busy boyfriend and he puts you back under that romantic spell. Then you’re like a junkie, and all you can live for is the next fix.



And then the rationalizations start. I’m an independent girl, I can handle seeing him only a couple times a week – as long as he makes me feel good, as long as he’s committed (and so far, he still seems to be, though who knows for how long?) maybe it’s my own demons I’m dealing with here (anxiety and loneliness), and maybe this is a good chance to DEAL with them, and maybe this is WORTH it, but the thing is this:



I just don’t know.

I’ve Said It Before and I’ll Say it Again



I love Banana Republic.



Not because they’re reasonably priced. We all know they’re not. Not because they pay their impoverished sweatshop employees well to make their clothes. No, nothing so noble as that.



It’s because, people, I bought a pair of pants there yesterday, which were a size 2. Yes, size 2. That is almost a size 0! Which means I’ve almost disappeared (which is a whole different theoretical alley we won’t explore just yet).



Banana Republic makes big old pants. That’s why women will pay $148 for a pair of jeans! So they can say they’re a size 2! (For the record, I did not pay $148 for my SIZE TWO pants, because they were on sale for $40, but I would have been tempted.)



Now, listen. Let’s get things straight. I am not a size 2. It’s true that over the last two years, due to the Heartbreak Diet, I have been known to be a size 4. At times, a snug size four, but a size four nonetheless. At times, a size 6. But not without the constant fear that I will wake up the next morning and suddenly be, once again – gasp! – a size 8.



See, this is the thing. We’re all taught to dream of being a size 6. But it’s not all that. Once you’re there, you still think you’re fat (not that you were ever really fat before). You fret constantly about the possibility of gaining a pound. Two! Of no longer being able to fit into those $148 pants you just bought!



In any case, I have certainly not shrunk since the last time I bought a pair of Banana Republic pants. If anything, I have gained weight – possibly a whole 2.5 pounds. But their pants have clearly gotten bigger!



For those of you really are that teeny-tiny, I’m not sure what you’ll do. As far as I could tell they were not yet making negative sizes. And if they did, would that make us feel good or bad to be a -2?



In other news, depending on the weather, the amount of sleep I’ve gotten the night before, and what paragraph I’ve just read in “Fear of Flying,” I drift in and out of hope or cynicism about my future with Library Boy, alternating with the (fleeting) sense that life is adventure to be lived now, and by God if I’m not living it, and the future will take care of itself!



If only I could hold on to that one.