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

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

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

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

OK,OK, I exaggerate.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xo
BB

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

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

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

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

I was in a word, one hot customer.

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

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

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

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

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

*Newsflash* *Newflash*

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

Check out the shortlist here.

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

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

I am so hot humbled.

Thank you, dear judges.

xo
Rebecca

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But of course.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But of course.

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

xo
BB

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

NEXT STOP: AMBIGUITYLAND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xo
R

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enjoy!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xo
Rebecca

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

xo,
BB

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ho hum. Another year. This one ushered in with a whimper. I mean, I was at a party with my mom's friends and they were getting jiggy well into the wee hours while all I wanted to do was go to bed at 10 p.m. *prison-hard* bed in the *freezing cold* room that my mother reserves for honored guest such as me. I drank too much, got morose, woke up depressed, then flew back to Seattle (in a storm naturally), although what the point was, really, since I've dated every damn guy in this town?

It's time for me to move somewhere. Somewhere my so-called "soulmate" is. Bend, Oregon? The isle of Corsica? The Vacaville Correctional Facility?

Most likely he is already MARRIED.

But who cares? Not me. I'm over the whole boyfriend thing, really. I wouldn't even really knew what one was anymore if it mounted me and -- oh, never mind. Do you know how long it's been since I've been in love? A GAZILLION YEARS. Since 2000-fucking-03, and oh, was that a nightmare (except for those brief moments that it was a dream).

So, you see, I am over the Love thing. Tres. Over. It. I just want someone to finance my next novel and my world travels. If he were a good kisser, that would be OK.

But anyway, I'd like to bid a fond farewell to 2006. It was the year in which I published my first book and went on a book tour.

I dated a lot of cute (if pain-in-the-ass) boys and had a lot of good s*x.

I went to Patagonia and saw some of the most amazing scenery in the world. With a stranger from the Internet, no less, with whom I formed a fast friendship as we tented together in the rain and the wind, among the glaciers.

And those are just a few of the highlights.