So, Peter asks, what would Trixie do about a guy she has no chemistry with?

Trixie would dump his sorry a*s in a heartbeat, of course, because she is all about excitement and chemistry!

Clearly I have the same issue or I would be long married and saddled with 2.5 screaming kids by now. Only, unlike Trixie, I'm all ambivalent about it and stuff. I want the excitement of a gazillion flings and endless possiblity yet I want the security of knowing someone is there for me, and will change my diapers when I get too old to change them myself.

Which desire is controlling me? HMM. I WONDER. Well, I have a little while to get my act together because according to our insightful friend Mr. Helpful, Breakup Babe has "at least ten good years left before she finally sinks into a desperate swamp of unrealized dreams and poisonous desire. "

MEANWHILE. A miracle has occurred at BB World Headquarters. I have a date for New Year's Eve! Never mind who, exactly, because we all know I don't talk about that kind of thing anymore. Let's just say he's got brains and beauty and serious stud appeal all wrapped into one 6'2" package. And he's a nice guy on top of that. Now. Moving on...

SAD NEWS. OK I know some of you have been wondering: whatever happened to Dangerously Delightful Boy? I haven't spoken of this up until now because...well, it's been difficult.

But the fact is, he recently drowned in a mysterious accident in Lake Washington. The cause of his drowning is not really known but officials suspect that DDB, who was out for a bracing morning swim, suddenly sunk due to the weight of all his emotional baggage.

Said Detective John Arnold, of the Seattle Police Department, "DDB really was trying to move on with his life and get to a better place. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a Groundhog Day sort of situation and even the abundant charms of BB weren't enough to lure him out of it. Too bad too, 'cause she really liked that guy despite his multiple red flags." Well, he's out of it now and we hope he's gone to a better place. RIP DDB.

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Happy New Year's my little darlings.

xo
BB

He's a Nice Guy, But...

In today's weekly dating advice column, "Wondering" wonders how long to wait to see if chemistry kicks in.

Hi there - I am one of your long term fans - 29 years old, female. So I finally broke down and tried online dating for the first time. On the site I met this guy who is really great and very compatible with me in many ways. He is smart, successful, very kind, generous, multi-dimensional, well-traveled, and has a good sense of humor! And he really wants to get married and have kids!!!

Problem is, I am not sure I am attracted enough to him. When I first saw him my immediate gut reaction was that, while he was fine, I was not attracted to him, but then he was such a nice and interesting guy that I kept on dating him thinking maybe those feelings would evolve.

I have been out with him about 5 times now. We have kissed which was fine, but not "magical" for me in any way. He is not an unattractive guy, and I suspect that his body may actually be rather nice, but I don't know -- I just don't find myself looking at him and thinking "Oh he is so cute".. I feel really badly abut it and I am disappointed because he is so great; if only I could just get into the physical side of things!!

I mean, the man has already invited me to travel with him to schmooze with Nelson Mandela in Africa and skiing in Colorado, etc. (for real - I am not kidding). How long can I keep trying before I know for sure that I am just never going to 'feel it'? He is a good guy and I want to be fair to him...Should I just try hooking up with him and see how it goes? Or will that just make things worse?
-Wondering

Dear Wondering,
This is a tough one. I have polled a few (male) friends of mine to see what their advice would be, and they have said, without hesitation, "Dump him. Chemistry is too important, blah blah." (Men! Always thinking about s*x!)

I agree that chemistry is important. However, chemistry is not always instantaneous. In three out of the four long-term relationships I've had, I was friends with the guy for a good couple months before I really fell for them - and then when I did fall, I fell hard.

But if I had met them under some high-pressure dating situation - oh, let's say ONLINE DATING for example - where you're on a mission to meet THE guy, and you've got candidates waiting in line I would probably have dismissed them and missed out on a lot of great experiences. (Including getting cheated on and lied to but never mind about that 'cause I got a novel out of it!)

So. That said, how do you handle this situation? What I would probably do (and what I have done in similar situations) is to tell him how you feel, and ask him if you could try being friends to see if chemistry develops.

He might just tell you to f*ck off, because after all, men get sick of the "friends" line (who can blame them?), and there are plenty of other babes on the Internet to choose from. To be honest, when I have tried this backing-off tactic myself (not coincidentally, with people I've met online), it hasn't worked out romantically.

The upside of Internet dating is that there is a cornucopia of men out there just waiting to meet you. The downside is most of them are wrong for you.

So I say don't force it with this buy. Be honest with him and see what happens. It could be he splits. It could be that you become the best of friends and you get to schmooze with Nelson Mandela anyway. It could be that he's the love of your life but the relationship needs room to grow. That's what I'm hoping anyway.

Good luck,
BB

Due to the holiday, this week's long-awaited dating advice column will be posted TOMORROW (Wednesday) instead of, um, yesterday. Thanks for your patience and meanwhile send me your dating questions at breakupbabe@msn.com. Answering them will give me something to do on New Year's Eve as I have NOT BEEN INVITED TO ANY PARTIES!

xo
BB

All right, time to stop pussyfooting around. I gotta get started with a new book. I already have three partially-written books to choose from!

It’s just that once you lose momentum on a project, it’s hard to get it back. Especially when it sucks, as all first drafts inevitably do. So I’ve got two partially written Nanowrimo drafts – this years and last’s – both of which I had to put down because of my little darling novel. Besides those two, there is my unfinished “first book,” but it’s really like Breakup Babe, the Early Years. I’m thinking we don’t really need a prequel to BB.

So, as you can see, I’m full of excuses. But it’s time to just take one of those ideas – or a brand new one – and just bash out a VERY BAD first draft. Because, the truth is, even though I fully expect to become a bestselling author toute de suite, and for Leonardo diCaprio to invite me to live on his own personal island with him to help him get over Gisele - even if I never have to toil in the innards of Geeksoft again – the sad fact is that if I’m not writing, I won’t be happy. Even with Leonardo and all our combined millions.

Now there are things to write other than books, it’s true. I’d also like to become a writer for glossy magazines, jetting off on assignment to Tahiti or the Yukon whenever I feel like it. I’m working on that. But I think I thrive on the sort of sustained creative effort it takes to write a book and I think that by the end of next month, I need to have a VERY BADLY WRITTEN FIRST DRAFT of something. Anything.

I also thrive on love, just like every other damn person on the planet, and – despite some run-of-the-mill “issues” – am actually pretty lovable! Yet love eludes me, time after time. These days I have a new song to sing in the band – a Maria McKee song (recently covered by the Dixie Chicks) – that I get to belt out very melodramatically. It starts out like this and continues in the same self-pitying vein:

There is no good reason I should have to feel so alone
I’m smothered by this emptiness, Lord I wish I was made of stone…

Blah blah blah

Another night surROUNDS me, And it POUNDS me like a wave
God HELP me, am I the only one who’s EVER felt this way!

At which point I fall down on stage and put a knife through my heart. Now I’m no Natalie Maines but she’s all happily married and stuff now. I think I bring a little more feeling to the song, if not quite the same vocal styling.

In still more non-love-news, what do you know but the object of all those slo-mo dreams unexpectedly extends an offer to spend more time with me. Gulp. Though I can still say there is only a 96.8% chance we will never have a lasting relationship, I now rate my chance of throwing myself at him in a fit of love-starved passion as about 39%.

But enough of me and my self-pity. It’s time to check in with Trixie and see what she’s got on deck for this holiday weekend, during which I, Breakup Babe, am ORPHANED and SAD.

BB: Trixie, what’s the latest in love?

Trixie: (Impatiently). What’s love got to do with it? You know I’ve given up on love for a while and am all about s*x.

BB: Really? I wish I could be that way! I mean, I used to sleep around a lot but now I don’t even sleep with someone until I know the relationship is going somewhere, which means, well –

Trixie: Yes, BB, we know what that means. Why don’t you give yourself a little break this holiday season? You know, take a “vacation from implication” and just f*ck some hot guy. (Takes a sip of her Cosmo and looks at BB with clear and sparkling eyes. She looks suspiciously fresh for getting only four hours of sleep last night.). I mean, no wonder you’re so uptight.

BB: Well…like who?

Trixie: Oh, you know, what about that hot stunt pilot you’re about to go on a date with? I mean, the stuff he does is so f*cking dangerous he’ll be dead soon anyway; you don’t really have time to wait around, if you know what I mean.

BB: (Shocked. Then thoughtful.). Hmm. Well – I don’t – I mean -

Trixie: (Drains her drink and stands up. All heads swivel at the sight of her long legs encased in the clingiest corduroy.). Listen chick, I gotta go get a bikini wax. Think about it anyway, OK? You’re looking a little – I dunno – tense.

BB: (Feeling a bit self-conscious in her baggy-at-the-butt jeans, wondering if she too, should get a biking wax.). OK, I’ll think about it. See ya. (Trixie breezes out of the bar without a care in the world, leaving BB behind, even more loaded down with worry than she was before).

But never fear, my darlings, with the help of alcohol, I shall survive this holiday season! May your own holidays be full of presents.

Toodles,
BB

Dearest Readers,
In today's weekly advice column, I answer a question from "Jo," who - like so many of us - seeks to solve the mysteries of the male brain.

Dear Breakup Babe,
My question isn't exactly relationship related. It's more quasi-relationship related. There's a boy I like, but I've never met him in person. This is a blog crush. We've chatted for hours and hours and HOURS and we get along really well.

We get along so well, in fact, that when I needed to decide in which city I would take a review course I need, I decided to take it in his city so that we could meet up. Now I really like this guy, and as I'm incapable of being mysterious, he knows that I really like him. And sometimes he seems to like me too, but on several occasions (after I've said something that is particularly charming to him), he has said something along the lines of, "How is it that I'm not crazy about you?"

My response is typically, "Because you're a bleeping moron??", but what I'm wondering, is why does he ask? What does that mean?? Does it mean that he's honestly confused as to why he doesn't have feelings for me? Or does it mean that he does have feelings but doesn't want to admit it? Is he trying to push me away, or bring me in closer? Be a challenge or take himself out of the picture? WHAT WHAT WHAT???!!!???

By the way, the last time he asked me that, I told him to QUIT because it was super annoying. So he won't be asking anymore, but I really do wonder why he ever asked in the first place.
-Jo

Dear Jo,
In this case, you could either do as I would do or do as I say. If it were me flirting with this bleeping moron, I would probably ignore the major red flags he’s waving right in my starry-eyed face, fall in love and end up flat on my ass a few months later when he’s still saying “Why is it that I’m not crazy about you?”

In fact that phrase gives me the shivers because of its eerie familiarity. As to what it “means” exactly, who knows? Is he confused? Undoubtedly. Is he trying to push you away or bring you a closer? Probably both. But in the end, he’s probably a loser who’s either 1)not over his divorce, 2)still f*cking his ex-wife 3)forgotten to take his lithium 4)all of the above. But I digress.

I will give you the advice that a very wise GalPal of mine always gives me when I attempt to “analyze” something a guy says. Her oh-so-sensible advice is: “Take what he says at face value.” In other words, don’t try to read behind the lines. Men usually aren’t thinking anything more complicated then: “Me must have s*x. But me no want commitment! How get sex with no commitment?”

So, if we take Mr. Blog Crush at face value, we deduce that he likes you but is not into you romantically. Perhaps the poor guy is even upset and confused about this given how well you get along. My heart bleeds for him. But even though it’s very confusing to hear him say he’s not into you (after all, he spends hours chatting with you!), you would be wise to take him literally, cut your losses and run - before you head down the Breakup Babe road to ruin!

That doesn’t mean he can’t prove you (or me) wrong. After all, you guys haven’t even met yet! But I advise you to seriously back off on the flirtation with this guy. If he comes back begging for more; if he makes an effort to come see you; then you know that he’s sincerely interested. (Sad but true fact of human nature: people always want what they can't get). Right now he’s just f*cking with you - probably unintentionally - but still: I say wean yourself from this dead-end virtual relationship if you can, and make yourself available to men in your own zip code!

Good luck.
BB

In next week's advice column, stay tuned for a question from Kawaii, who writes, "How long can I keep trying before I know for sure that I am just never going to feel "It." He is a good guy and I want to be fair to him...Should I just try hooking up with him and see how it goes? Or will that just make things worse?"

Do you ever have recurring dreams about a person with whom you are 96.8% sure you will never have a relationship?

We're not talking s*x dreams here .No, I'm talking dreams full of romantic longing! Feautring the two of you (tortured artistes both) - wearied and weak from love's ruthless battering- reaching out across the void to comfort each other as melancholy music plays and you embrace on a train hurtling through the dark Hungarian countryside?

Yeah. Well I'm having variations on this damn dream all the time. Then I see this person and have the most stilted conversations known to mankind. After which I go and have some sepia-toned dream about how we're all madly in love again.

LOVE. Does such a thing exist? I think I've known it once or twice but it's been so long I forget what it's like! I keep having dreams about it and in my dreams it feels SO. GOOD. Sigh.

Meanwhile, anyone wanna go trek this baby with me in February? Otherwise I'm gonna pay $2000 to some hot young guide to take me 'cause I like to throw my money around like that. Maybe if I pay a little extra he'll pony up some additional services if you know what I mean.

Before I wrap up, I must extend a word thanks to Sexy Blue-Eyed Boy who is constantly out there on the front lines, trying to find dates for me when I'm home sleeping. He solicits the e-mail addresses of numerous rugged young men and even lies about my age for me. What a pal!

Lastly, don't forget to send your most burning dating questions so I can answer them on Mondays.

xo
BB

Well people, I have to say this: it's lonely at the top.

How many times have I heard this in the last year from men? "Oh BB, you're too beautiful/successful/adventurous/ brilliant for me! And while I would love to f*ck your brains out, I'm afraid I cannot commit due to the fact that I am only (35-45) years old and not "ready" for a relationship! "

Sheesh. I tell you, men my in my age group are whacked. Their emotional baggage (not to mention those extra pounds they're packin' on) appears to cause paralysis. Let's check in with Trixie, shall we? Never one to care for such things as "the future" and her "unborn children," I bet she's been having more fun than me!

BB: Trixie - while I have been chasing age-appropriate men around in circles, what have you been up to?

Trixie: (tosses long, blonde locks and takes a sip of her Bloody Mary.) Met a hot twenty-something guy a few weeks ago. Spent last weekend with a brooding, broad-shouldered kayak racer. Oh yeah, and finally asked out that outdoorsy writer guy I've been eyeing at the coffee shop.

BB: Jeez. Twenty-something, eh?

Trixie: Yeah. I highly recommend it. They've got way less baggage than the old dudes. They don't worry about the future and all that sh*t. They just go for it. Plus they're more adventurous and spontaneous and will usually stay up past 9 pm and will do things like dance all night long and fool around with you on swingsets in the fog. (Smiles dreamily into her drink).

BB: (Shocked. Then disapproving.) I dunno, Trixie, one of my pet peeves about guys my age is that they're always looking for younger women! I wouldn't want to be a hypocrite.

Trixie (Bored). Well whatever. I'm not telling you what YOU should do. You asked me what I was up to. Now is this interview over? I think you're late for work and I gotta work on my latest assignment for Glamor Magazine.

BB: Wow, what are you writing for Glamor?

Trixie: Oh it's a piece about the most eligible bachelors at Geeksoft. People can't get enough of that damn company. I don't know why. They're so...1995.

BB: (Morose) How did you get that gig? I want to write an article for Glamor about the most eligible bachelors at Geeksoft! Maybe one of them would marry me!

Trixie (Pityingly) Yeah well. Next time you come up with the idea. (Her glacier-blue eyes rove the place like a predator's, then turn back to me) Later, Babe. Good luck. You need it!

And there you have it. Trixie. Not so nice, is she? But she sure has lots of fun and doesn't mope around like some people we know.

Meanwhile, you've read my writing, you've seen my face. Now all that's left is to meet me in person and hear my voice. Well you can hear me now - on WrimoRadio! At the bottom of the WrimoRadio page, click the "Listen Now" link. When the player appears, you can choose to listen to the whole dang thing, or skip to minute 14:35, where the short interview with yours truly starts. I'm talking - of course - about my soon-to-be-born baby, Breakup Babe the novel!

[Quick note about the comments: if Haloscan appears to "eat" your comment - it's not - even if a blank screen appears after you post it. (Grrr.) I'm now moderating the comments which means I get to read/approve all of them before they get published. This is a "beta" feature of Haloscan - hence the wonkiness. We here at BB World Headquarters appreciate your patience in allowing me to filter out the meanies.]

OK all, today is the day you've all been waiting for. You haven't been able to sleep. You haven't been able to eat. Christmas? Eh, who cares! Global warming? Whatever! You have been living only for moment: the inaugural Breakup Babe dating advice column!

Today we have a question from that sassy southern sweetheart, fellow blogger Virginia Belle. Congrats to Virginia for being the first one to get "official" dating advice from moi, which will no doubt send her spiralling down the road to romantic ruin.

Read on.

Dear Breakup Babe,
I can't wait for your book to come out. I bet it will be awesome. Then I will finally get to hear all of the great stories you and others allude to. I am so excited to get dating advice from you! You're a blog celebrity for pete's sake. [Note to readers: kissing up to me will get you everywhere.]

Anyway, here is my dating dilemma: I go out, I see guys, I try to flirt/make eye contact, etc. But I get nothing. I try to be approachable by smiling a lot, not going out w/a large group of girls, being relaxed and friendly. Now, I am kind of shy sometimes, which my guy friends have told me makes me come off as snobby. But I really am open to being approached, I swear!

So, until I started on Match.com, I had not been asked on a date in a year. Yes, a year. But now, I get asked out A LOT. So apparently, virtual Virginia Belle is really appealing, while the real-life version of myself is not. Grrrr..... What am I doing wrong?? (Oh, and please don't tell me to approach guys. I have done this before and it's just not my style--it makes me insecure in the relationship.) Any tips you can provide would be very helpful.
-Virginia Belle

Dear Virginia,
First of all, V.B., though I am allowed to wallow in self-pity on this blog, my readers are not. So let’s focus on the positive here. In your own words you get asked out “A LOT.” So, please, take a moment to breathe in deeply and appreciate this fact. Say it to yourself ten times under your breath. “I get asked out A LOT. I am a goddess! I get asked out A LOT. I am a goddess!”

Now, with a little perspective, we can take a look at your so-called “problem.” But first, let’s talk about me. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been approached by men in bars or clubs. Like you, I am oh-so-approachable looking, yet shy(ish). But most men, I happen to know, are just as shy as we are! They are scared of rejection just like us! (If only they KNEW how many of us would give up our phone numbers just like THAT, if they asked!) Which is probably why they’re not swarming all over you in person like they are online: Not because you're not a hottie but probably because you ARE, and because virtual rejection is so much easier to take than real-life rejection.

So here’s how I’ve dealt with this “problem.” I don't expect to meet men when I got out to bars. There are so many other ways to meet them! Through friends, at parties, via my blog, on the high-priced gigolo hotline!

But. If you are really hell-bent on meeting men at nightspots, I will proffer up the following meager words of wisdom:

1)Go with one girlfriend to a bar where you can play pool. Undoubtedly you will be two of only a few women playing and it will give you the chance to interact naturally with males. Be sure to spend lots of time bending over the pool table in your tight jeans. A friend of mine met the man of her husband this way, so I know wherefore I speak.

2)Wear much sluttier clothing than you do now.

On a final note, it is true that my sister met her husband in a bar. HOWEVER. He was way too shy and/or drunk to ask for her phone number after flirting with her, and had it not been for the fact that she hunted him down afterwards - knowing only his first name and the company that he worked at – that my darling niece and newphew are alive today!

So there you have it, Virginia Belle. May the Force be with you. And if not the force than a very tight shirt and a push-up bra.

(Perhaps, if we are very lucky, Kissing Slut – the master of fearless flirtation, and Dating Dummy, former shy guy turned lovable ladies man – will chime in with some advice of their own!)

Next Monday in BB's advice column: Jo writes in about an infuriating blog crush: "Is he trying to push me away, or bring me in closer? Be a challenge or take himself out of the picture? WHAT WHAT WHAT???!!!???"

For now, back to regular programming.

Xo,
BB

Today we have a guest blogger, Mr. Helpful, who was generous enough to provide this detailed update as to my whereabouts. (Trixie will check in as soon as she returns from Milan, where she has been partying with the Italian soccer team.)

****

Dateline: Whistler Mountain, Great White North Tuesday, December 6th HNN (Helpful News Network)

Amidst great sighs of relief from the general public, Whistler Mountain skier Breakup Babe was found yesterday, unharmed, after a massive search.

"Hey guys, how's it going?" BB said as she was pulled from a giant snow drift. "Anyone wanna pre-order my book?"

BB was discovered upside down in the snow bank with only the tips of her skis sticking out of the white powder.

"Geesh, we thoot she was a goner fer sure, head down in the snow like that, eh?" said Martin Levesque, a full, red blooded Canadian with French overtones. "But then we saw her wiggle her ski tips in a really cute fashion and we knew she was ok, eh?"

"Ya, and after we got her oot of the snow, she told us to go away and send some really hunky ski gods to save her, eh?" added rescuer Frenchy Le Pew.

"Then she jumped back into the snow drift and began wiggling her ski tips really fast, eh? So we did what she said because, you know, she's American and all of that, eh. We went and got Ben and Hank. They used to be lumberjacks in the Great White North. Now they lift rail cars up by hand for a living. She seemed a lot happier when them two showed up and they dont even know how to ski, eh?"

When asked how she ended up in the snow bank in the first place, BB had one word.

"Paparazzi. I was running from the paparazzi, those bastards. My book isn't even out and they're camping outside my hotel room, bugging me at dinner and chasing me down the sides of great big mountains. I tried to offer them a million dollars Canadian to leave me alone and they threw it back at me, saying that's only like two dollars American so dont make them laugh, eh? So I had to jump into that snow drift in order to escape from them.

Sergeant Pierre Boulanger of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police smiled as he admired BB's cute ski bunny outfit and listened to her tale of woe.

"Yeah, it's a story we hear often up here in the Great White North, eh?,"
he said. "Heck fire, there was one time when famous Canadian actor, Martin Short, actually had to pretend he was a man to escape the photographers. Sure was funny, watching him butch up like that."

Reporters tried to get a final comment from BB but she was too busy being lifted up by Ben and Hank to say anything other than "Get lost, losers, can't you see I'm busy?"

You are now up to date via HNN (Helpful News Network).

Hello from Whistler! Can someone get me out of here please?

Oh wait, this is the premier ski destination in North America! Right. OK! Only two hours til I leave!

Oh just kidding. Sort of. I can't complain, seeing as I got to stay at the Four Seasons on Geeksoft's dime, in an executive suite, no less! I got lots of other free stuff, too - a lift ticket, ski rentals, and some pretty kickass free food.

But the bottom line? I am not much of a downhill skier. For one, I do not have the right clothes. Instead of looking like a sleek ski bunny, I look like a red balloon. Two, I do not like crowds. Or corporate resorts. Three, thanks to parents who also didn't like crowds or corporate resorts, I never really learned to 1)downhill ski very well or 2)like it very much. (Though, with some private coaching from a studly ski god, I'm sure I could tear up the slopes. Mmm. Remember the Jewish Ski God? I would have been a damn fine skier by now had that been more than just a hot little fling).

Anyway, I do love mountains and I do love snow and there is plenty of that round here. So I am not complaining. Really!

In other news, I think it would be fun to have a weekly Breakup Babe advice column. We all know I'm the last person anyone would want advice from, yet people ask me for it all the time anyway! So, I say let's try it. Once a week, on Mondays, I'll answer your dating-related questions. Take my advice and you'll be certain never to find a lasting relationship again! E-mail your questions to breakupbabe@msn.com.

OK, fleeing the crowds and the ski bunnies now.

Greetings, poor neglected Breakup Babies. Because I have been such a bore lately, stuffing my face with turkey, sulking about the fact that I CAN’T BLOG ABOUT ANYTHING INTERESTING ANYMORE, worrying (though not actually doing anything about) about my next book, talking (though not actually doing anything about) my escape to the southern tip of the world, that, starting soon, I’m going to have a guest blogger in here occasionally to liven things up.

That’s right. My more free-spirited, uninhibited, alter ego, Trixie. Now with a name like Trixie, why would you worry about anything? Especially when you’re young(ish), successful(ish), popular(ish), adventurous, fun-loving, and blonde, blonde, blonde? She doesn’t mope around because she’s not tied down by some pot-bellied, middle-aged, overworked, cheating husband – no! Or that her biological alarm clock has been going off for a good two years now– oh no! She just hits the damn snooze and goes back under the covers with that oh-so-cute 20-something Lothario she met at Aspen! (Or was it Vail?)

But since Trixie is sleeping off a big night, you’re stuck with me today. And I have a few updates for you before I myself disappear to Whistler for the weekend.

*I am now quitting my day job because as of last month, I made – brace yourself, people $23 as a professional musician!

*In other music-related trivia, the great tragedy of my youth was redeemed the other day, when I wrote a fan e-mail to the brilliant Devin Davis, who actually answered me! (The great tragedy of my youth, of course, being the time my sister and I penned heartfelt love letters to Mickey Dolenz (me) and Davey Jones (her), only to have them RETURNED to us by the record label because of course the Monkees had long since middle-aged obscurity by then because no one saw fit to inform us poor, innocent little souls (Mom?!!!) that, in 1975 what we were watching was reruns. Anyway, buy Devin's album because it is pretty and happy and poppy and sad and because it would make the perfect soundtrack to BB the movie (coming to as Cineplex near you in 2007!).

Now, I believe it is time for me to go pack. Alas BB (unlike Trixie) has no cute ski bunny clothes to wear! It’s just as well, I suppose, since my alpine ski skills are spotty and best and if I looked too sleek, I would appear even more ridiculous when I went tumbling down the slopes. So I will remain low-profile in my puffy jacket, plastic pants, and brain bucket, and will simply have to shine in my après-ski attire. That is, if I don’t die falling off a ski lift.

Your truly,
BB

All right. I am back from another sojourn to baby, cat, and dog-land. As usual, when visiting my family, I turned into a passive, overfed slug. My light-speed life slows down to such a degree that I become almost completely catatonic, while simultaneously regressing to a state of junior-high-school-esque insecurity. In other words, I am *lots* of fun.

Then, of course, there is the whole flying part of the equation. This, as you know, is extremely treacherous. Especially, when, like today, due to some unspeakable snafu, I was forced to sit in a middle seat! The flight becomes 50% more dangerous when I cannot sit by the window, where I must vigilantly look outside at all times to ensure the flight is not plummeting to the Earth! I thought about informing my seatmate of this so she would trade with me, but she did not look as if she would welcome such a suggestion. In fact, she looked like she might cause a big, fat scene. So I took more Xanax and somehow managed to keep the flight aloft from my middle seat, though I tell you it was MUCH harder.

Meanwhile, that canned airplane air killed any creativity I might have so I will sign off. You might notice the comments are back, though I will now be moderating them. That is, I will only publish you if you're nice to me.

Xo
BB

It is always a great way to start the day being awakened by twenty men stomping across scaffolding right outside your windows destroying your walls with the loudest power tools known to man. It is especially delightful when the demolition party starts at 7 a.m. and you've been up until 3 a.m. the night before (and suriving on minimal sleep before that).

Oh, exhaustion doesn't really kick in until my first caffeine high has faded and I'm in my office spellchecking the most boring documents known to mankind. That's when the world becomes the dimmest shade of gray. When my self-confidences morphs into self-pity. When what appeared to be my rising star reveals itself as just a cheap neon sign at an abandoned motel on some stretch of sad and lonely highway. When my metaphors become ridiculous.

Last night was not my finest hour as a musical performer. Oh my friends all smiled and said I sounded great, but I practically fled the stage during the first set due to a panic attack. Me! Who gets up and sings karaoke at the drop of a hat for complete strangers. Who, as a youngster, played Chopin nocturnes, Beethoven bagatelles, and Mozart sonatas to largeish crowds for years with only one major flub-up (which we shall not discuss at this point in time). Who usually loves nothing more than to get up and regale adoring crowds with my wit and wisdom.

I don't think it was stage fright so much as just plain old panic due to 1)sleep deprivation and 2)stuff. I came in late on my first solo, completely effed up my second one, then screeched more than usual in my first song. My nerves calmed for the second set, luckily, or I would have had to resign the band right then and there, which would not be a good thing given that major label contract we just got offered!

Anyway. Moving on. Isn't it great when you see ex-boyfriends who, seemed, when you dated them to be emotionally unavailable and incapable of settling down, only to find out that immediately after you they found the love of their life who tamed their bad boy ways?

Yeah. Well this has never happened to me, but if it HAD, I would surmise this: whatever it takes to be a bad boy tamer, I don't have it. Making a general and very damaging extrapolation from that, which my therapist would never let me make, I will say this: whatever it takes to get someone to fall in love with me, I don't have it anymore.

Oh I have what it takes to get ten million admirers (and they seem to have multiplied this week) but love? I don't even know what it feels like anymore and I wonder if I ever will.

Says sleep deprivation.

xo
BB

Darlings,

You may have noticed that my comments are down. I’m not exactly sure why. All I got was an error message saying: “System overloaded with bitterness, pettiness, and catiness. Start paying the price of fame, yo. "

Wow! Who knew Haloscan possessed such functionality! No doubt when and if the comments re-open they will do so with the moderation feature enabled. I tell you – I’m not sure I’m cut out for this celebrity thing. While most of my readers are adoring (thank you!), there is a small but vocal contigency of bored, broken-down people who must not only use me as a punching bag but track my every move and the moves of my various beaux. “BB seen snorting coke in the back room of the Dubliner! Modeling contract with Dior cancelled!” “BB’s BoyToy #1 caught in the act with Paris Hilton – BB turns to Vince Vaughan for comfort!”

Good God, people, have you really nothing better to do? Tweeze your eyebrows? Procreate with your relatives? Besides, Vince and I are just friends. FRIENDS. Got that?

In other news, I have completed the slog through my copyedited novel and am about to send all eight million pages of it back. Can we believe it is done? CAN WE BELIEVE I HAVE FINALLY COMPLETED A NOVEL? Much as I complain about feeling blah, and bleh, and blue, I just have to say that about this I feel good. Real good. I feel light as a feather! This book is off my back! My baby is almost out in the world and I am now free to shackle myself with another!

In still further news, I am (sort-of) busy planning my great Patagonian escape. Of course, for me, “planning” usually entails telling everyone I know, “Hey I’m going to Patagonia!” then not reading my guidebook or making any plans until the very last second, but so it goes. In a few months I will lose myself among the windswept peaks and valleys of Torres del Paines National Park – often referred to in hushed tones by veteran world travelers as the “best” place they have ever been.

I am hoping that a magazine editor for say, Outside Magazine will hear that I am “planning” this trip, call me up, and say “BB – we want you to write a feature on your Patagonian adventure! Kind of a Carrie Bradshaw meets hot South American mountaineering guides – type thing!” But alas, even with my oh-so-minor celeb status, if I want any big-time editor to notice me, I am going to have to start cranking out query letters and coming up with actual ideas and for some reason, I am feeling a bit tapped. Not up to the task of cranking out query after query.

I think, however, that I am up to the task of buying shoes. Which I will proceed to do momentarily.

xo ,
BB

Let’s see. It’s Tuesday. I do not have much more to say than that. I wore a dorky outfit today, ate too much cake, had bad hair, got a big needle poked into my arm, and cannot see out my living room window because it is now covered in plastic wrap.

Not only is it covered in plastic wrap, I paid my condo association a whole lot of money for this plastic wrap and not only that, when I bought this place I knew I would have to pay a whole lot of money for plastic wrap that would obscure my view.

But never mind that. Let’s look on the bright side, shall we?

Umm.

Our debut gig went well. I have a novel coming out in a few months. I appear to have no horrible diseases – yet. My home may be shrink wrapped but it has not recently been hit by a hurricane, tsunami, earthquake or terrorist bomb.

I even – gasp! – have an idea for my next novel!

As for the blog, well, I’ll probably just keep it as it is.

But who cares right at the moment. The main thing is I get to go to bed soon and read a book and slough off the semi-lameness of the day in somebody else’s imaginary world.

Yes I know, the GLAMOR!

Darlings, I am abuzz with anxiety these days. Buzz, buzz, buzz! Book, buzz, boys, buzz, work, buzz, band buzz, what's next in my life now buzzzzzzz!

It's ridiculous, really. I should go back on the little pink pills or smoke a bowl or start going to Yoga again. I hardly breathe anymore. Or when I do, it's certainly not deep, cleansing breaths. We're talking short, hyperventilating little puffs!

But enough about me. Let's talk about me. I mean - you. We've all noticed how I don't dish about boys anymore because I'VE BECOME CELIBATE. But I do so like writing about boys that I was toying with the idea of making stuff up. Turning this into a sort of fictional blog where I could write about racy dating adventures to my heart's - and your's - content! Since you can't read about my "real" love life anymore, would you like reading about a made-up one? Just checking.

Someone suggested a while back that I turn the site into a dating advice column. I've toyed with that idea too. Not a bad one. I might yet do it at some point. Because clearly I have so much wisdom to share about healthy relationships and how to find one!

The bottom line is, this blog is the best marketing platform I have for my book. So tell me, aside from posting naughty pictures, what is the best way to get and keep new readers? What can I do to get you all whipped up into a buying frenzy?

In other news, the copyedit slog continues. Today's favorite edit from Miss Copyedititrice.

Sentence: "The phrase 'up-and-down' fails to do justice to my emotional state about as much as the word 'hot" does to Benicio del Toro's physical state."

Comment: "Author, Benicio isn't actually hot, he appears hot or or has an aura of hotness."

OK missy! Fine! From now on I'm not going to say "Dangerously Delightful Boy is hot," I'm going to say "DDB has an aura of hotness! Especially when he takes off his shirt. "

In still other news, I have recently reconnected with a delightful high-school friend of mine who is now a glamorous screenwriter in L.A. She is going to adapt BB the novel for the screen and we are both going to become rich and famous. At which point I can buzz with anxiety about a whole bunch of different stuff. Money, buzz. Swiss bank acccount buzz. Botox, buzz. Paparazzi, buzz buzz.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh poor me, I have been forced to drop my Nanowrimo novel to address the one-ton pile of paper that is the copyedited version my novel, "Breakup Babe." Oh, but if I could only get up a few hours earlier I might be able to do both but we have already established that nine hours of sleep is crucial to my well-being so sleep-deprivation is not an option!

If I ever thought I had copyediting skills (and I am an editor, remember) this copyeditor puts me to shame. I can see just see her now in her cramped Manhattan apartment, hip little glasses perched on the end of her pointy noise, addressing the less-than-brilliant-but-perfectly-functional-sentence: "My voice sounded high and quavery.": "Author: quavery means tremulous; wavery means to wave." Yeah OK fine. Whatever. Or this bit of overwrought prose. "But of course he died anyway, the bastard, without any parting words for me other than a gurgling death rattle." "Author: death rattles are gurgles." Right. Well I knew that - I was just testing you!

(Heh heh, bet you didn't know there were people dying with gurling death rattles in my book, DID YOU?)

Well it's been fun chatting with you for a few brief moments. But now it is time for me to go slither into my technical editor hole - the deep dark place where a little bit more of my bloom fades every day and there is no one to appreciate my shiny hair except tie-dye-clad developers.

Asta la vista.

Well I really should not be writing to you: I should be working on my Nanowrimo novel, but, can I just say – bleh! I’m a failure as a novelist! A one-hit wonder! Or rather, a one-idea wonder.

Let’s all hope my first novel goes bling-bling because it’s all downhill after that. The well will run dry, the pen will run out of ink, (insert other clichéd metaphor here) and I’ll end up a housewife in Bellevue with 3 kids, a minivan, and a serious Xanax addiction.

Oh. Wait a minute. I already have a Xanax addiction. (OK, not really. Just because I carry it with me everywhere I go doesn’t mean I’m addicted!) And a husband sounds awful nice right about now. A hot, sexy, intellectual husband who loves nothing more than to jet off on international adventures together yet doesn't mind supporting me while we’re home so I can keep writing my going-nowhere-novels in style and taking care of the three kids on my lunch break.

Wait – three kids – that’s too many. One kid – yeah, that’s pretty civilized. Easy enough to pack up in the carry-on bag when you jet off to Tahiti or wherever, along with your Valu-Pak of Xanax and your copy of "Breakup Babe" the novel!

In other news, I’ll get back to that Nanowrimo novel any minute now. I just have to say, thank you to Wyn for telling me I’m too cute “to be indoors and being a technical editor.” Hallelujah to that! If anyone has more suitable employment for me, please let me know. Meanwhile, I’ll slowly just wither and die in my windowless office.

I didn’t put my picture up just to get your compliments, by the way, though they are much appreciated! I just thought that now that you know who I am, and can find my damn picture on the Internet anyway, I might as well put up a good photo of me – one that involved a hair stylist, a makeup artist, and an expensive photographer, and the dewy youth that I still possessed back in May.

Plus, did you notice, I finally took down the original blurb that had been there for three and a half years?! The one that described as “broken-hearted?” Ha. Broken-hearted my a*s. I’m hard-hearted now!

Just kidding. My heart is cracked in a few places, that’s for sure. Maybe hardened in a corner here and there. But soft and sweet and ready to love the right person, should he ever come along, which is starting to look more and more dubious as time goes by, but never mind about that.

Back to the crap second novel.

There’s nothing like coming back from a trip where you felt like a kickass goddess to knock you down back where you belong.

First of all, there’s the jet lag, which makes you feel about as glamorous as an earthworm. Then there’s the windowless office, that ensures that your world shrinks back down from a sun-splashed, autumn-dappled east coast adventure, complete with skyscrapers, starstruck fans, and one-martini lunches to a backlog of boring, work-related e-mails.

There’s the first draft of your second novel, up to 5,000 words now, which is possibly the most boring, most trite, most clichéd thing ever written.

So one must live in the past. Ah yes, I remember so long ago, on Wednesday night…when I got to have a beer with the Kissing Slut! Now, whether I become a famous writer or I vanish into obscurity, it really doesn’t matter because all it takes is one person telling you how much they love your writing to make your entire writing career worthwhile. I felt like a celebrity, I tell you! Plus, she was a blast to hang out with. If you ever go to Boston, hook up with the Kissing Slut. She will show you a good time for sure.

Oh yeah, and then there was later Wednesday night when I got to go out for drinks with not one, but two cute Bostonian guys all by myself! Plus Wednesday and Thursday, which I spent wandering around Boston in the fall sunshine with my long-lost friend M, discovering things like the amazing Boston Public Library, charming Hanover Street, and chocolate-chip cannolis. Mmm.

Now, well. I’m certainly glad I survived my flights. That is a minor miracle. But it is pouring down rain outside and gray and cold* and I am now about to go park myself in traffic for God knows how many hours-on-end. Now I’m no longer a celebrity, just a girl who is tired and melancholy.

Welcome home!

*Ok, it's true. I actually like this kind of weather. I just put that there 'cause it sounded good.

Well, my darlings, my one foray into writing about Dangerously Delicious Boy or Dangerously Delightful Boy or Dangerously Dangerous Boy or whatever his name is– has so traumatized me that I think I shall stay away from it for a while. Like a little seedling that one nurtures indoors before putting it outside, this relationship needs to be protected from the elements for the time being– namely the proclamations and pronouncements of my oh-so-opinionated readers!

So let’s forget I ever mentioned him and move on to the news of the day: moi. I am enroute from New York City to Boston in a glorified bus called the LimoLiner, complete with food, movies, and Internet access. Slow Internet access, but whatever. I have spent the last few hours hard at work on what may or may not be my next novel, but whatever it is, it sure sucks! Nonetheless, it is National Novel Writing Month, which is all about writing a sucky novel in a very short amount of time.

I’ll be doing a podcast for “WrimoRadio" later in the month; stay tuned for the details and you’ll get to hear my perky voice reading inspirational words about how to write a sucky first draft and then sell it to a big-time publisher!

Speaking of books. Now, I know you are hardly going to be able to contain yourself at this news. BUT. You can now pre-order my book on Amazon.com. That’s right! I recommend you do it too, because if you do, I will make out with you. I’m going to go pre-order 10,000 copies right now myself.

Anyway, my meetings in New York went well. (All except the part where I had to take an elevator up 52 floors and found I had some previously undiscovered “issues” about elevators and skyscrapers). Everyone at Ballantine was friendly and enthusiastic and made me feel like a Relatively Important Person. I loved the lobby of the Random House Building, which was a shrine to all the books that have been published there, and lined nearly floor-to-ceiling with glassed-in bookshelves. Pretty soon I'll be one of those authors too, I thought to myself, and that, as you can imagine, was one of the best thoughts I could ever have.

In other news, during my limited time in New York, I also lunched with the delightful and beautiful TeaHouse Blossom, saw a couple college friends, checked out the Frick Collection, tried on a $500 hat in Bergdorf-Goodman (it looked really good on me too!), and totally forgot to eat a real New York bagel – doh!

I have a full day and a half left in Boston now so if you feel like telling me your favorite spots to go (including cool coffee shops to write in), hurry up and tell me already!

Love,
BB

So I am in Boston in the bland hotel bar of the Hyatt Regency. To my dismay, they are playing muzak over the sound system and football on the TV and there is nary a hot guy to be seen. What did I expect from the Hyatt? Hmmph. At least I can look out at the Charles River.

Luckily, I am *mostly* too damn tired to care that the rest of the youngish world is out celebrating Halloween, including Dangerously Delightful Boy (as I have at last dubbed him), who is off at a party in Seattle with the five thousand attractive women he apparently works with, including his ex-girlfriend! Whatever. Clearly, I am so secure that it does not bother me one bit.

The real news of the day is I survived my six-hour flight, though we had to circle Logan airport for what seemed like hours before landing because of backed-up traffic or some such thing that I knew was really a THUNDERSTORM or something REALLY DANGEROUS down below.

Apparently it wasn’t, because we landed just fine after about a year and I’m still alive. Luckily the woman in the seat next to me was only about 2 feet tall, which made it easy to slip by her the 10 – and I kid you not – times I went to the bathroom during the flight.

So I’m here for a day to visit friends, then off to New York City, where I have I’ll be lunching up a storm. I get to meet my great editor for the first time, as well as some of the other people at Ballantine who will be involved in the publication of my book. I hope to impress them with my vivacious wit and charm so that they can do a really good job of selling Breakup Babe!

Now well. I guess I’ll go check out the cable in my hotel room, read a book, and go to bed. ‘Cause I’m cool like that.

So no doubt SOMEONE has asked this question before, but is it really fair that only married people have to wear rings that signify their status?

For those of us who have not yet bought into the whole have-sex-with-the-same-person-for-the-rest-of-your-life=bliss phenomenon, there are many fine gradations of relationship status and/or emotional availability that remain completely invisible to us until we make fools of ourselves.

Here, forthwith, are a few other helpful accessories thatI suggest.

Married People - Yeah, keep your gold bands and stupid sparkly diamonds, ok? But do us a favor, WEAR your damn ring if you are married, OK? Unless, of course, you are a cute male rock star, in which case please take it off while you are on stage.

Recently Divorced People - A giant chain and padlock around your neck for which the key has been either temporarily misplaced or forever lost.

On the Rebound People - A string of Mardi Gras beads (which they can use to lasso their unsuspecting victims; however, if we are alerted to their status by the Mardi Gras beads, we won't be so unsuspecting, will we?).

Single but Emotionally Unavailable for Whatever Reason (pick one: I'm just not ready for a serious relationship; I have to get my life together before I can date anyone; I really need to focus on work right now ; I only like girls who aren't interested in me; I'm a manic-depressive, alcoholic, pot-smoking, as*hole) - A plastic tarantula ring from a bubble gum dispenser.

Completely 100% Emotionally Available, Just Like Me, No Issues, None Whatsoever: A choker with a bright red flower on it, wide open and in bloom. (In other words, the necklace I wear every day.)

I'm sure there is much that I'm missing here; please feel free to suggest your own status signifiers!

(Oh and I will be gallivanting about Boston and New York from October 29 through November 2, shaking hands and reveling in my status as soon-to-be-published-author girl so if you don't hear from me, that's why.)

XO
BB

Oh wait, I forgot to include a few words from one of the most beautiful rock ballads ever written:

"Comes a time when you're driftin'
Comes a time when you settle down
Comes a light feelin's liftin
'Lift that baby right up off the ground"
-Neil Young

I am so drifting right now! I'm drifting and lifting and it's scary and exhilarating and sad all at once. Scary because I don't know where I'm going next. Will anyone buy my book? Will I manage to write a next book? (Is something wrong with me that I haven't started my next book?) Will I actually jet off to Patagonia as planned to lose myself in the windswept peaks and valleys of Torres del Paines?

Exhilarating because I could do almost anything I want. I could jet off to Argentina this very moment if I wanted to. Why, thanks to the payout from the recent Geeksoft class-action lawsuit, I am a gazillionaire! (OK, a gazthousandaire). There's nary a thing tethering me to this earth but a mortage and a job.

But that's just a little sad too, isn't it?

Moving on. While we're on the music theme, it IS true that my band' s first real gig is fast approaching. If you're anywhere near this bar on November 12, come on in and join the par-tay! I will be signing autographs and sleeping with cute groupies after the show.

In preparation for that, my carpool buddy and I sang songs all the way into work today. The Beatles. Neil Young. Hank Williams. The Carpenters. Captain and Tenille. Of course, we could never finish a single song or stay on key, but still - it was the most rockin'est way to start the day ever.

Good Lord! I spent all yesterday writing this maudlin piece-of-crap post about my life being in transition, BLAH BLAH, about yellow leaves on a forest floor, BLAH BLAH, about falling in the "rabbithole" of love and how you can never predict what will happen once you fall down it. Wow, how PROFOUND, Breakup Babe!! And that metaphor -- brilliant!

Then Blogger obliterated it when I *finally* tried to post it so I think think the Gods of the Internet are trying to tell me something. Which is, that I should stop trying to write anything, and let some of the great songwriters of our day tell you how I feel instead. So with that, a few choice song lyrics to communicate to you the oh-so-rich and varied tapestry of my overactive INNER LIFE this weekend.

And there's nothing short a' dying
That's half as lonesome as the sound
Of the sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down.
-Johnny Cash

Sundays just f*cking suck sometimes.

Love feels good when it sits right down, puts its feet up on the table and it
Sends a bowl around.
-The Old 97s

Yeah but when was the last time that happened?

You were wrong when you said
Everything's gonna be alright.
-Built to Spill

Hmmph.

With so much drama in the L-B-C
It's kinda hard bein Snoop D-O-double-G
But I, somehow, some way
Keep comin up with funky ass shit like every single day
-The Gourds version of the Snoop Dogg classic.

Yeah bitches.

So. Here I am. Better late than never, oui?

It has been an interesting week. Doors opening, closing, revolving; checks for thousands of dollars arriving in the mail (thank you class action lawsuit!). Sweet dreams, bad dreams, good kisses, yellow leaves on a forest floor.

I don't think I've ever started so many blog entries and not finished them. My brain is foggy today, the reasons for which I won't go into but I can't write a decent sentence to save my life.

There's so much I want to say too. All this loneliness and longing and hope and fear that's welling up in me, looking for place to go on this dark and rainy Sunday night.

Sundays are the days I most need someone or something to ground me. The day I most feel how alone I am, how free and weightless, and not tethered to this earth by much more than a mortgage. I was thrilled, not long ago, to discover Johnny Cash felt the same way:

"On a Sunday morning sidewalk, I'm wishing, Lord, that I was stoned. 'Cause there's something in a Sunday That makes a body feel alone. And there's nothing short a' dying That's half as lonesome as the sound Of the sleeping city sidewalk And Sunday morning coming down."

I am in a state of suspension. My book is done, and I am done - emotionally - with my job. A new book and new job will come along, but for now, I'm drifting.

I've recently met someone who makes me feel good, but there, too I feel suspended. It's been almost two months since we met, so we're at that two-month-turning point. The point where you either retreat to your corners or stay in that ring for a good long time.

I know I could stay in the ring with him for a while. I knew that from the first time I met him, which doesn't happen often with me. On most first dates, I can take 'em or leave 'em. It isn't until later they got their hooks in me. But he did it right away. He is cute and sexy; charming and smart; funny, and fun. The more time I spend around him, the more I fall under his spell. (And I can't even come up with an acronym for him, because I don't want to reduce him to a clever, oh-so-slightly demeaning phrase. So, in a radical departure from Breakup Babe protocol, we will call him, merely, E.).

I am so ready to let myself go there. To let myself tumble down the rabbithole of love. Because, damn, doesn't it feel good? Is there anything that feels better than to fall in love? Oh yeah, it sucks in the end, when everything goes to sh*t, and the more in love you fall, the worse you feel, and you think I am never EVER doing this again, and then you rebound like crazy, for three years maybe, dating the most ineligible, f*cked up people you can find, all the while pretending like you don't know why it didn't work out - for god's sake, you're 100% emotionally available, after all!

Yeah. Well.

Whether me make it past the two-month turning point, I don't know. I know if we do, it will feel much better than it does even now. But I haven't made it past that point in so long that I know not to dream about it too much - or at all.

The sad lesson we all learn at about 19 or 20 when we get our hearts ripped open is that things that feel amazing don't necessarily work out.

But that doesn't mean they don't, either.

Breakup Babe's Miscellaneous Fashion Notes

• It is a great day when your arch-enemy wears very unflattering pants and you look like a s*x goddess.
• On the days you look like a s*x goddess, you will not have a hot date.
• Since you look like a s*x goddess most of the time, this could pose a problem.
• Just kidding.
• I received no less than six compliments on my over-the-knee pink-and-red-striped socks yesterday (that I was wearing with a miniskirt).
• I would post a picture of my socks for you, but unfortunately, in that photo I am not wearing much else.
• No I will not send you that photo.
• If you want to see good photos, look at GalPal #2s Web site. She kindly lends me many cute clothes including the famous "make-out" cords.
• Actually, they are not famous, I'm just saying that.
• It's just that once I wore them to a party before which Sexy-Blue-Eyed Boy predicted I would "definitely make out with someone" because of the pants.
• Lo and behold I did. He was cute too.
• Maybe I should wear those cords more.
• Then again, he was very flaky.
• Maybe I shouldn't wear them any more.
• Oh, whatever.

Boy, what is with me? I keep starting blog entries than not finishing them, meanwhile keeping all you people DESPERATELY AWAITING the next installment of family-friend BB!

So let’s see, what can I tell you that won’t get me in trouble? Not much, that’s for damn sure. I can tell you this: my life is family-friendly at the moment! There ain’t much that’s naughty going on around here unless you count wearing a dress that one needs to be taped into, and falling out of it discreetly a few times due to poor taping job.

Yeah, that’s kind of exciting, isn’t it? Let’s see I’ve been eating healthily and exercising a lot, and sleeping well, and – oh wait, scratch that. I have NOT been sleeping well. I have INSOMNIA lately, which is so unlike me! I usually sleep a solid nine hours a night, which is how I maintain my dewy youth.

Perhaps because I’ve been contemplating some *dramatic* life changes, which I can’t, of course, talk about. (And no, I don’t plan to become a man or a scientologist!) All I can say is I better start sleeping again soon, because I might start to look my age. (Which really isn’t that old? Is it?)

Meanwhile, the dangerous shopping spree appears to have stopped, though I’m no more “fulfilled” than I was before it started – I just ran out of money. Prospects for fulfillment are looking oh-so-marginally better since the (insert acronymn here because I haven't thought of a good one yet) has risen from his deathbed. Yet, due to various circumstances that have nothing to do with actual libidos (at least I don't think they do) we seem to be conducting a Victorian-era romance.

While this is far superior to say, jumping immediately into bed with someone only to realize three weeks later you have not a single word to say to each other (not that I have ever done such a thing, of course!) it is – however – a big tease to a lusty lass such as myself who is – I might add – a tad excitement-deprived right now.

Yes, dear readers, it is true. I am bored. BORED! Though I adore my life here in Seattle, it is time to SHAKE THINGS UP. Soon, of course, I’ll be a bestselling author with loads of groupies but that’s still months away. I gotta make some sh*t happen lest I remain a jaded cynic who just can’t get excited about anything anymore. I realize that being bored is a luxury and that I am supremely lucky for everything I have: health, happiness, book contract with major publishing house, cool condo, great friends, cushy job, good health, comfort, happiness, ease, and even the promise of s*x!

But I have my little plans for getting my joie de vivre back, don’t you worry. I am just not at liberty to discuss them quiet yet. Aren't I MYSTERIOUS?

The leaves are red; the sky is gray; the salmon are swimming and it's definitely fall. This season soothes and energizes me. Yet I'm not as calm as I imagined I'd be way back in summer.

That's because I've made a major realization about my life:

I'm bored.

That's right! It's time to shake things up a little around here. I've been routinebound for just a little too long now. Granted, there have been plenty of dramatic events, melodramatic relationships, and mini-adventures to keep me (mostly) entertained. Not to mention loads of disposable income to keep myself in sexy dresses and overpriced girdles.

There has also been my ongoing love affair with Seattle - that started the minute I arrived 13 years ago in my old '87 Honda Civic (aka the FEMA-cle) and continues to this day. Oh, the lakes and waterways! The mountains! The shady streets and dark coffee, the friendly fleece-clad people!

But even the most passionate love affairs grow stale at times and the two of us need a break. Not a very long one. Yet a break nonetheless - one that will involve me traveling to far-flung corners of the world so that I can come back and appreciate my home even more.

So. Anyone want to rent my condo for a few months? Complete with the Red Couch O' Love,(TM), a view of Elliot Bay, and a bevy of construction workers to wake you at 7:30 a.m. with their power tools?

Moving on. My insane shopping spree appears to have stopped for the moment, though not because I'm feeling any more *fulfilled,* if you know what I mean.

A couple little factoids have jumped into relief recently:

1)Writing grounds me.
2)I am bored.

Let's start with #1. Having handed over my precious little book about two weeks ago, I have been suddenly faced with a void. No reason to get up in the morning. No raison d'etre. No two-hours of daily respite from the emotional rollercoaster that is the rest of my life.

Yes I am excited about getting published and becoming a famous, glamorous, sought-after, adored and bestselling author! But this is one of those situations, where I happen to really understand that it is about the journey. Writing every single day makes me happy. The millions upon millions of dollars I'll no doubt earn - well, it won't hurt. But it's the process of writing that really keeps me together and the thing I have to keep doing no matter what happens with this little book of mine.

OK, so the answer to this one is simple: I need a new project.

Moving on. Boredom. This one is harder to deal with. I have a great life, complete with snazzy condo, good health, close friends, supportive family, soon-to-be-published novel, and upcoming rock n'roll debut, and loads of disposable income.

My love life has a been a bit, um, frustrating lately. Promising yet frustrating due to various factors outside my control. My patience is being tried. And remember - I don't have any patience!

But I'm trying to cultivate some. Impatience has caused me to make many a mistake in the past so I'm trying to channel my frustration into productive pursuits.

Like shopping.

In the last couple weeks, I've bought:

-a sexy orange dress (that got a hole in it on first wearing)
-a pair of brown textured tights (that got two runs in it on first wearing)
-a pair of tall, high-heeled brown boots that are really not that comfortable, but hey they were cheap
-a sexy backless, cleavage-baring dress that ate up half entire bonus. OK, only a quarter of it.
-a pair of "Spanxx" (special, girdle-like underwear for no panty lines and extra control) that ate another tenth of my bonus and goes up my b*tt crack
-a sexy pink nightgown (no damage yet but then again I haven't been getting much action)
-two pairs of sexy underwear on sale, one of which also goes up my b*tt crack but at least it was on sale
-a variety of other overpriced hosiery items, including two pairs of knee socks (hard to damage, thank God, but I'll probably lose them soon).

Today I am wearing my new dress with the hole in it and my new tights that have runs in it and that I couldn't seem to put on so that the "textured" part goes in the right direction - i.e. instead of going straight up and down, it is twisted every which way - along with my old scuffed boots because my new ones are really not comfortable enough for a Sunday schlumpfing around town in the rain.

You know, back to the whole s*x thing (and you weren't even aware we were talking about s*x were you ?), it's almost worse to have the promise of it, then to just have none of it whatsoever, you know what I mean?

ANYWAY. According to my horoscope, I'm an unstoppable force this month:

This month you'll have so many admirers, it will be crazy! If you could bottle your brand of charisma now, you'd be a millionaire! .. Single or attached, you'll soon feel adored and pampered.

Yeah, uh-uh. We'll see about that. At least I'm dressed for it, holes and runs and misbehaving underwear aside.

Oddly, every damn guy in my novel is turning out to have blonde hair. That's because, in real life, at least until recently, every guy I dated had hair black as the night.

So, in my oh-so-autobiographical-novel, I've had to go through and turn all these dark-haired beauties (and beasts) into something else, lest they come back and sue my a*s. Blonde, blonde, blonde! The book is full of dirty-blondes, bleach blondes, blue eyes, and hazel eyes, when in fact, the men of Breakup Babe were really raven-haired and brown-eyed.

Oh who cares?

In other news, I sent the revised draft off to my editor today! So tell me, WHAT THE HELL DO I DO NOW? There will be one more round of revisions after this, then the copyedit, but my editor will be on vacation for ten days and...well, I've been working on this book every single day for the last two years so I am rather at a loss for how to fill my time here, people.

I suppose I could also actually try to learn how to play the piano before my big gig in November. Or work on the next book. Breakup Babe the sequel, in which BB becomes a nun.

Seriously, how does anyone ever navigate this mid-thirties dating game? How in the world do people end up getting married? It seems, quite literally, impossible - based on my own experiences of the last few years - that two people in their thirties get it together to stay together - but then again the idea that I might one day be a published novelist seemed impossible not so long ago.

One down, one to go.

Oh my. I just returned from a visit to my sister's, who has:

• two (brand-new) kids
• a house in the suburbs
• a dog
• a cat
• a husband
• Tivo

So different from my own urban life! A condo awash in city lights but empty of life except for my own and the occasional unsuspecting male that I can lure onto the Red Couch O' Love. Plenty of time on my hands to fill with nothing but me me me. Lots of uninterrupted sleep, cocktails, and nights on the town. And a TV that gets three channels.

Hmm. One is more "exciting," but one has lots more love in it.

Not that I feel jealous. I don't, really. Maybe I'm misguided but I still have hope I'll figure out my way in the world of love and family to end up with the configuration that suits me best.

The surprising thing was, I really liked those babies and I am not a baby person. Throw me in a room with toddlers and I'm happy as a clam. But babies are too small and mushy and bendy and I don't know what to do with them. They also don't know my name and don't clap when they see me like GalPal #2s darling daughter.

But I didn't break either of them and I didn't even mind getting up in the middle of the night to help feed them! Maybe that was because of the Tivo we watched at 2 a.m. or maybe it was because it was nice to take care of someone other than myself for once in my life.

In any case, it put a bunch of new love in my heart, which, I have to say, was getting just a little bit cold from lack of use.

Finally! I will have my rock star debut here in November! Now I must decide to wear. It is a very important decision since I must choose a sexy outfit that will distract from my lack of skill! I could take Mister Hand's suggestion in the last round of comments to "get naked" but, even so, I couldn't exactly start out that way or that takes all the guesswork out of it. Audience members need to be kept in suspense. "Will the keyboard player strip or won't she?!"

In other news, me and my little book are trying to end our codependent relationship. We are quite sick of each other yet can't seem to part. After all, we've been together for more than two years now! We still get up and go to the coffee shop every morning together. We eat dinner together at nice restaurants when there's no one else to eat with, laptop in front of me on the table. We are still the best of friends. But the passion is gone.

It's just so hard to let go! It's been my reason for living for the last three years! Writing this book has seen me through myraid breakups and Scary Medical tests; bouts with despair, euphoria, uncertainty, fear. But I'm going to have to let go, sooner rather than later, and tell me - THEN what will I do with my life (besides work, play music, climb mountains, chase boys, and travel around the world?) I have no f*cking clue. Write some more, I know. But WHAT?

In other other news, I've recently engaged in some rather stellar kissing activity after a little dry spell. Oh. My. Gosh. I love kissing. I think it officially rates #2 on my list of all-time favorite activities, with reading being #1, of course. (Not that I would choose a good book over a delicious kiss, it's just that reading has no deleterious effects while kissing usually leads to trouble.)

Perhaps if the corporate drone/bestelling author/famous rock start gigs don't pan out, I can set up my own kissing booth. Or - even better - a kissing and bookselling booth - you buy my book and I'll give you a kiss. Buy more than one and I'll make out with you. Man, what a deal.

As it is, Dating Dummy has already earned one since Empire Corporation appears to be the winner of that little contest we had a couple weeks ago! Hey DD, when ya comin' to Seattle?

So. Bored. Of. This. Book.

Then again, what will I do without it when it's done?

I've been working on it for so long now. More than two years! But really, enough is enough. It's time for us to part but I just can't let go. Chapters 24-27, for example. They are kicking and screaming and refusing to let go. Someone - please take them away!

In other news, well, I'm still struggling with the fact that I'm *famous* and can't blog about all the details of my life the way I used to. Ha ha ha. Famous. Meaning, I decide to grant interviews to two tiny-tiny online magazines because of my gigantic ego - ooohhh you want to interview me?? Of course! - and now, well, you know the story.

Hmm, I should not have mentioned that word "happiness."

No sooner did I mention it than I have a mini panic attack about Chapters 25-27 of my book which really do not represent my finest writing. Those were the chapters I wrote during the brutal months of April and May. The months of Writers Block. I got them done but was never happy with them. When I handed them off I thought "I'll fix these in the revision stage!"

Well guess what. It's the revision stage. And I don't feel like fixing them. I think I'll just have a few more panic attacks and maybe a whole lotta cocktails. After all, my editor liked them well enough and she should know, right? Right.

But at least it's cold and rainy and I finally got to break out the black boots and sweaters again - yes! No more pressure to get pedicures or be blissfully happy.

Plus my band might finally have a real-life gig. If I have not said this before, my band is the best thing to happen to me in my whole life. (Oh wait. Except for selling my novel!) Sure, we play in a garage most of the time, but it's me and four boys and I get to totally pretend like I'm a rock star.

And rock stars get even more leeway than writers to be pains-in-the a*ses!

One of the reasons I like being a writer is not all the fame, money, and adoring fans it brings me.It's because I have an excuse for a lot of stuff.

Do I indulge in just a little too much red wine sometimes? Yeah well, I'm a writer. Hello.

Does my family consider me self-absorbed? Narcissistic? A pain in the a*s? I hope so. If I wasn't "difficult," I wouldn't be a writer!

Do I ever come across as antisocial? Moody? Depressed? Possessed of a few strange phobias? I'm a writer - cut me some slack!

Meanwhile, in a very unwriterly manner, I seem to be rather lighthearted lately. Almost happy, one might say. But it's such a strange feeling, I hardly recognize it?

Is it possible for a writer to be happy? I'm not so sure about that. Probably just a virus. I'll be over it soon, no doubt.

Oh Good Lord. I'm revising the most, um, racy section in my book and it's really embarrassing me! I can barely even read my own words much less my editor's comments.

Do you know how hard it is to write about s*x? (no pun intended!) Everything I write sounds like a cross between a porno and a Harlequin novel. Lucky for us all, there's a lot more flirting and emotional angst in my novel than actual s*x. Just like real life!

Moving on. I've heard people bitching about how it's September now and to that I say, yippee! Bust out the turtlenecks and the champagne because this summer practically killed me, I swear. All through July and most of August, I wanted to hide under a damn rock. Nonetheless, I managed to finish my book and hang in there without the help of the little pink pills despite all that sunshine demanding I be happy happy happy!

Oh I wish I could be one of those people who cavorts around in a carefree manner all summer in a bikini, dancing and drinking and flirting and not obsessing about life's deep, dark nastiness (the one time I DID go dancing, as you might recall, my shirt fell off!) But alas, I'm much too uptight.

After this summer's dip into depression, I do feel older. And wiser. I don't mind feeling wiser but I sure as hell don't like feeling older. But what are you gonna do? Sh*t happens. And I'm now certain that all this emotional trauma has a lot to do with finishing this book, which is one of the greatest - and scariest - things that has ever happened to me.

Now, as summer wanes and my mood improves, I'm getting out there to enjoy every last bit of it. Maybe, just maybe if a person were to ask my how my summer is going right now, my answer might be something other than "F*ck you."

So last night I met a delightful boy but we all know I don't talk about my dates anymore so I can't provide any details.

(Sigh).

But of course part of me is trembling in fear, because even though I don't dish about boys anymore, the mere presence of a blog named Breakup Babe could (and has!) sen(d)(t) good prospects running for the hills. I, er, didn't happen to mention the blog last night but Mr. Google will tell him all he needs to know.

So if you see a cute and charming boy running as fast as he can towards Mt. Si - well, you know who it is.

Darlings,

For now, we are not going to discuss my FRIEND (friend!) the Man of Steel. I know you've got your panties all in a twist but just calm down OK?

The most important thing is, I survived, thanks to a raging river that was too scary for even the Man of Steel to cross. Or, rather, too scary for this *dog* to cross. If he'd asked me too, I would have forded it, and been swept away to certain death in the process. But lucky for me his dog has been a bit lame of late. Man of Steel worried the dog couldn't handle it. Therefore I did not have to make excuses on my own behaf but instead, agree, sympathetically, "Oh yes, this would be too hard for the dog."

We then hiked an easy trail to a pleasant lake, where we sunbathed and swam in complete Blue Lagoon-like isolation. It was all so much mellower than the original death march he had planned. The dog was rather relieved.

In other news, it could be that I'm emerging from my pre-midlife crisis or it could be that I've merely been distracted from it, but somehow in the last few days I've felt less horrible than I have the previous month. A little bit less like that takeout that time forgot and a little bit more like...me again.

Perhaps its because I'm getting out more. Now that I've finished my book, I can go away for the weekend without fearing that I won't meet my deadline. I can bike and hike and do all those things that make me feel good.

I'm still frightened as hell, don't get me wrong. I'm going through a major life transition in which I'm leaving a part of my life behind. That childhood self that wanted nothing more than to publish a novel. Well, now I've done it. So what's next?

I don't know. I have to finish saying bye-bye to the young, innocent me. And then, God only knows. A change is coming, I feel it in my bones, I just haven't figured it out. Yet.

You know things are grim when you look forward to going to your chiropractor because he's cute and touches you and takes items of your clothing off.

Correction: he took my shoes off. But still. It was more items of clothing than anyone has removed in a while. In my waking life, that is. Too bad he's married. I mean, I know he wants me. How can he not? He even said to me today: "Your hair looks longer and darker than it did before."Now tell me, is it really appropriate for a chiropractor be making such comments to his female patients? God, what a flirt.

He's married. Of course. That is because every one is married. EVERY ONE do you hear me? It's those married ones that like me the best too. In my building is a married French man who I've had coffee with a few times (I didn't know he was married when he first asked me!) and who continues to look at me in the most adoring way even though I long since stopped having coffee with him because what was the point? Just because the French think it's all fine and dandy to have mistresses doesn't mean I want to be one!! Just the other day I had lunch with him though, because a girl needs some adoring gazes once in a while, OK?

In other news, I'm off to Bellingham this weekend where I'm going to be dragged into a trailless wilderness for two nights by a man of steel who is used to hiking miles alone with his dog and probably sleeps on a rock and doesn't need to eat or drink coffee to survive. If I never make it back, the married men of the world will mourn, I'm sure.

I yet live! I have returned from my biking vacation on the Canadian Gulf Islands, tanner and fitter after battling precipitious hills, massive banana slugs, and the many demons that are trying to take control of me now that I have temporarily sworn off the little pink pills and compulsive dating.

I almost ran off with 60-something yacht owner named "Cap'n Pinky" then came to my senses. We'll save that one for "Breakup Babe: The Nursing Home Years!"

Meanwhile, it's back to working on the revisions of my book and holding my breath til summer turns to fall and the light gets golden again.

Not that I don't try to love *every single day* that I am above the ground, mind you, and I wouldn't want to rush time forward, but still. Summer is hard work for me. It's hard to be a sensitive, melancholy artiste when the sun shines down and the pasty Seattleites all crawl out of their holes to revel in that strange thing known as light.

I do seem to be in a mourning period of sorts, having to do with 1)a cumulation of breakups 2)fulfilling my biggest childhood dream and 3)realizing I am now, actually, an adult - and not such a young one at that. I dreamt about my dad three nights in a row - a sure sign that I am sad and grieving.

But still, I'm doing my best. Look at me - going on vacation! Biking around in the sun! Jumping in the lake in my bike clothes! Eating ice cream! It's a tough job but someone's got to do it. And one day soon I'll be through this bittersweet little moment and ready for the next one.

Oh yeah, and one day very soon I'll be a published novelist. If only Dad could see me now.

xo
BB

Now that my archives are unavailable and you can no longer waste long work hours perusing them, I will remind you of something I wrote back in April.

"I have had such a surplus of [male attention] lately that , when it dries up, as it inevitably will, you're going to find me stealing televisions and ipods to pay for more. F*ck, I might even have to sell my greasy Inspiron and then there would we be?"

Oh I'm such a prophet! The problem is I can't sell my damn computer because even though I SAID I'm done with book I'm NOT really because now I have to go back and revise the WHOLE thing starting from Chapter ONE, which I wrote in 20 B.C.

I am going out to steal a television right NOW. Look for it on Craigslist shortly. That is, if I can escape my rehab facility.

p.s. If you don't hear from BB next week, it is because I am in solitary confinement after trying to escape the facility. (Either that or on vacation.)

Speaking of birthdays, today is Breakup Babe's third birthday. Happy birthday, BB!

Who knew when you were born, in A. & J.'s sweltering upstairs bedroom, where they so kindly let me stay during the Great Unpleasantness, that you would have such an impact on my life!

Who could have guessed that you would provide such catharsis? That you would help me find readers around the world? And last not but not least that you would help me get a book deal with a major publishing house? I am so proud of you!

You've even tried to find mommy a boyfriend, though in the end you drive them away. But we won't dwell on that right now.

In other news, a special thanks goes to photographer extroardinaire GalPal #2 (without whose bossiness this blog might never have started) for drinking champagne with me last night and soon-be-famous novelist Odious Woman, for informing me that the correct answer to that most inane of questions, "How's your summer going?," is "F*ck you!" Oh, and to mom for being the one person I can still have a weeping fit around being without being embarrassed.

There have been three births in my family this week:

1)my first niece
2)my first nephew
3)my first book

My goodness but I'm tired. And weepy. But I still have my figure! If only I got to take three months paid leave from work now. Damn!

More soon.
BB

Good Lord, put BB in a car alone for a total of five hours, on only five hours of sleep, and too much country music to listen to and you've got a major pity party going on!

Have I mentioned that I am in serious funk? A mere four months ago, I was Miss-I-am-Everything-I-Have-Ever-Wanted-to-Be-in-My-Life (novelist, rock star, all-around hot babe)and now I am Miss-Lonelyhearts. Moping about all the time around everything.

Of course, I'm also in withdrawal from my serious boy addiction.

So yes, I am a few days behind on my book deadline, but what writer worth their salt gets a book in on time? Sheesh. And yes, I was out getting drunk the night before my deadline, but again - I ask you - what good writer wouldn't be?

Meanwhile, I need your suggestions. So I think you're all aware that I work at a megalithic software company in the Seattle area, oui? (And there is only one megalithic software company in the Seattle area.)

I have fictionalized aforementioned company in my novel, but have yet to come up with its fictional name. It can be humorous but should also be fairly realistic. You are a creative bunch so let me know if you have any sizzling ideas.

The winner gets my undying love (and a cocktail if I ever happen to hop on over to where you live).

Egads. You know what I feel like these days? Like the leftover Thai food you forgot about while you went on vacation for three weeks and left in your refrigerator to rot.

Yeah, that's me. Is summer over yet?

Meanwhile, despite feeling like a mess of rotted, moldy, disgusting leftovers, I manage to limp towards the finish line with my book. Just now I had to change seats in the coffee shop where I'm working, because a an obese, lonely-looking, depressed-looking, 40-something female writer keeps sitting directly in my sight ever time I come here as if to say: "Hey, look, it gets worse! Try writing your damn book while you have to look at me and see how depressed I am!"

I hope I'm at least covering it up better by wearing skimpy clothing and looking like a hottie even though I feel like the take-out that time forgot.

P.S. In other news, there has been a slight change in plans and the blog is not going away quite yet.

xo
BB

Here's what I feel like.

I feel like I broke up with someone three years ago and it was horrible. Really bad.

So instead of letting that wound heal, I grabbed for someone - anyone - who would make it feel better. Once, twice, ten times, fifteen times...

Each time, things felt better for a little while. The wound started to heal over time, but things always ended with whoever-it-was (pick an acronym, any acronym) and the band-aid was ripped off too soon. Again and again.

Now that it's been ripped off for the umpteenth time, and I'm all raw and oozing and panicky, I know I've got to make a change. Sigh.

Meanwhile my novel is nearly completed,

Darlings,
I was busy composing my farewell post today when the orders came from People Who Matter.

Do Not Retire Breakup Babe. Yet.

Apparently, the news of my death has been greatly exaggerated. Our lovelorn purple darling is still on the road to retirement, but I guess it's not happening today. Lucky us! (And just remember, when I *do* go away, I will not abandon you but take you with me somewhere new. Somewhere better! Somewhere the men are hot and intellectual and adventurous and want to settle down!)

Meanwhile, my writing powers seem to be in full force. But my charisma is at an all-time low. My friends have been doing their best to fix me up with anyone single, but here are just a couple of excuses I've gotten lately:

• I'm too busy having a meaningless fling with a 23-year old
• I'm not allowed to date at this point in my 12-step program
• I can't get a pass out of the home for the weekend

Etc etc.

But whatever. Someday I will find someone who says, "You are the smartest, funniest, most beautiful, adventurous, amazing person in the world and I cannot believe no one has snapped you up before this!" (here I must, however, offer a word of thanks to BB's Greatest Fan for telling me this on a regular, though not frighteningly stalkerish, basis).

So what does that mean exactly? That I get to break up a few more times? Well, one might imagine so, but since it looks unlikely I'll ever find anyone to date again, perhaps not.

Of course, I could always go online. I always do go online! But I do it out of boredom and fear and loneliness. Like, oh my God I haven't had a date in two weeks, bam, refresh ad, find boys to date, date them for two months, breakup. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Well this time, I'm just going to gut out this period of post-breakup relationship despair without rushing to the Internet for a quick fix that doesn't fix anything. It's just one little thing I can do to try to break my destructive patterns.

Meanwhile, I'll be working on that farewell post. It'll be a real tear-jerker.

Wait! I spoke too soon! I do have a prospect! My friend F., who shall heretofore be known as The Boss, is setting me up with a "mountain-climbing, world-travelling [name of country deleted to protect the innocent]-an" who will be in town for a while starting Monday.

Sounds like great husband material, doesn't he?

Right.

Just like any day now I'm going to stop writing this blog.

A prospect. That's all I want. A PROSPECT!

You know, just so I have hope - however remote - that I am not going to die old and alone!

It's been a full five minutes since I've had one and I'm getting *very* impatient.

So nice of you all to write and BEG me not to leave. BB likes begging!

But seriously, I'm in a pickle. Ever since I lost my anonymity, this blog just hasn't been the same. For one, I can't dish as nastily as I used to, which is probably a good thing. And even when I don't dish, I still dish. Witness the Celebrity. I swore up and down I wouldn't write about him and I still did. Just in a half-a*ssed sort of way.

So now, all my future husbands can log on read and about my fast times with the Celeb (lite on details as they may be), and get themselves all tied up in a knot. At least now that I've hidden my archives, you can only get about one boyfriend deep, but it's enough to make a lot of men think twice.

The problem is, I'm seriously addicted to writing about my love life. Hell, I've been doing it since I was thirteen years old, it's just that up until three years ago, I was doing it in a journal, which now seems impossibly staid and boring. I mean, what would I do without the Greek chorus (that is, you?) to comment on every little thing?

(For the record, I did not have a love life at age thirteen. My entries went something like this: "Oh my God, Mike Robinson looked sooo cute in those white carpenter pants he wore. It would be toto cool if he asked me to dance at the dance on Friday night!)

I also seem to be addicted to having a crazy love life as much as I'm addicted to writing about it. I could chalk some of it up to bad luck and bad choices, but I think there's some secret part of me that is deathly afraid to settle down. I now associate "settling down" with betrayal. Also, for the first time in my life I have a stable job and a mortgage and a book to write so that kind of limits me in the adventures I can have - so voila - I find my adventures in the dating realm!

Since this blog seems to be a key part of my addiction - date, write, date, write - I figure that silencing BB for a while might help. But she really does not want to be silenced!

I figure all dating blogs are meant to self-destruct, though. Dating is supposed to help you find love, and once you find love, you don't need a dating blog anymore, right? In the meantime, you play a dangerous game when you write about people without them knowing it. Or you try, unsucessfully, like me, to be open about your dating blog and still keep it lots of fun. But what guy (or girl) is gonna say sure - go ahead and write about all the stuff that's f*cking lame about me!

So my plan of the moment is to start another blog, where I don't write about dating. But I just write about stuff. I'm gonna start it someplace brand new and once I've got it established, I'll tell you about it. This is not the final Breakup Babe entry, but I'm getting close. I swear it.

Must. Stop. The. Addiction.