I've Moved the Blog!

Just in case you've stumbled across this inactive blog, I thought I'd post the forwarding link. I've moved The Break-Up Diet blog to http://thebreakupdiet.wordpress.com

And here's some personal U-HAUL moving trivia: from Sept. to Dec. 1986 (in my job-hopping youth), I worked as a Move Coordination Specialist at U-haul on Spruce Street in Riverside.

Picture a small office shack choked by a dense cloud cigarette smoke. Joe, a scarecrow of a boss with a few teeth missing and a bad attitude fully intact. Incessantly ringing phones with callers waffling about what size truck to rent or how many boxes they needed. And on the breaks, me kissing a member of the JAFO Party Guys, a hottie named Scott Ziegler, behind a row of trucks in the lot. It was a short-lived job, but I've always found a way to entertain myself, no matter where I've worked. That hasn't changed.

To catch up with all the new stories, stop by the Wordpress blog.

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Is Sex Leaving the City?

This is one celebrity relationship that I thought would last. Sarah Jessica (Square Pegs) Parker and Matthew (Bueller?) Broderick.

I know they've moved beyond those roles, but I do love overdosing on the nostalgia of the early days.

Ok, so beyond the fact that I've been told several times that I look like SJP. (Makes me curious as to where I'd fall on the continuum of that Maxim Bag-Your-Face List...)

But, since I'm not famous enough yet to know, it also makes me wonder if it's difficult to balance the public perception of who you are with your true self. And how does that affect your spouse?

What is it really like in the Parker/Broderick household? Is she witty, neurotic, and decked in quirky designer outfits? Or behind the scenes, is SJP like me: all ponytail, flannel pjs, barefoot, and boring?

I think when my hubby first saw me--in a thong, 8-inch platform stilettos, and shaking my ass to "Perfect Gentleman" by Wyclef Jean--he might have thought he was getting a perpetual stripper as a wife. Um... Surprise. Now, I'm all about elastic waistbands and occasional showers. Lucky man. I have no idea why he loves me as much as he does...

But what's up with Matthew? At 46, is he hitting the mid-life skids? Is it Corvette, chest hair, and gold medallion time? First of all, what self-respecting man can tolerate being called "Matty Cakes" by a drunk and ditzy red-headed youth counselor who passes out in her panties on a bed in someone else's apartment? Claaaaassy. Matty Cakes, you sure know how to pick 'em. That mindless infidelity sets a great example for your son, little James Wilkie. Sad Matt. Very sad. And totally disrespectful to your wife.

Gavel slammin' time: I sentence you to 50 upside-the-head whacks with a rolled up National Enquirer.

Maybe I should send Sarah a copy of my memoir, The Break-Up Diet. There's a great recipe for her on page 134. Ingredients: 1 self-absorbed prick and...

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Get Your Power Back!

Today's post is dedicated to my new favorite Power Ranger: Francisco. The European break-up guru for men.

(Remember... I said Thursdays would be all about ripping stuff from other other places if I couldn't find someone to guest blog or interview?)

Well, since I committed to that lofty goal of a daily blogging schedule just yesterday, I didn't have time to recruit anyone. And frankly, I think this just might be more fun anyway...

Now, back to my...um...guest. When I stumbled upon Francisco's site, I found that he had created ebooks, mp3s, and multiple vidcasts of his program: "How to Get Your Power Back After She Breaks Up." I wanted to give him a shout-out and mad props for being so enterprising! And what better way to do that than to blog about him?

I think the thing that really sold me on Francisco's system was his accent--how perfect is that? Love advice from a guy who doesn't want other men to be stuck in "leembo" after a relationship break-up. His advice is very sage: "You have battle plahn...Your life ezz under attack."

What made me realize that he really is providing a valuable service to the broken-hearted men out there is this testimonial: "It was the slap in the face and kick to the balls that helped me see where I was."

Ouch. I guess reality does more than bite. There's nothing quite like a solid bitch-slap and a game of testicle hacky sack to get your emotions back on the right track.

I find it curious though. Does that mean when a man experiences a break-up, it hurts his face and his genitals? Hmmmm... Pride and penis pain. A veritable alliteration of romantic injury.

Of course, I would be remiss in my entertainment duties if I didn't post this video...


The only part of the whole thing that gives me serious pause is when Francisco says, "What you must do is trust me."

My Daddy always told me never to trust a man who says: "Trust me." And definitely not if he winks when he says it.

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Back in the Cyber Sex Swing of Things

Ok, so spank me with a wet USB cable. I've been AWOL for far too long.

My one loyal reader (a fellow writer) sent me an email in May and among the many things she said included this call to action: "I really enjoy your blog. You should update it more."

So, here I am. Trying to be a good girl. Trying to do the right thing. Trying to be the blogger I have the potential to be.

It just takes discipline (of which I have very little, but desperately need to develop). Why else would it already be the end of July and I'm just getting around to putting up a new post?

Ya see, it's like this, I've tried for years to keep a journal. And I guess I'm doing pretty well because I actually still have it. My journal is a rather interesting read if I do say so myself. All 6 pages of it. It starts in the '90s with me bitching about some guy whose name I somehow forgot to mention. And then, ten years or so pass and I have the next entry in which I'm crowing about some new love who is surely "the one"--but for my lack of foresight, it doesn't happen to be the man I'm married to right now. Yeah, well, Dionne Warwick wasn't one of my psychic friends, so you never know how those amateur predictions will turn out.

But, now, I have a plan. And if I tell you about it, then I'm committed to following through, right? So, here's the deal: just to keep it interesting, I'm going to endeavor to post daily (except weekends) on a variety of topics that will follow theme days. Yeah, I know, of course I have to make this as difficult as possible for myself--if I didn't, I wouldn't be me.

So, here's the line up:
Mondays: Book Commentary/News Day where I blab about what's going on with the business plan and marketing side of this insane publishing adventure on which I've embarked.
Tuesdays: Break-Up Survival Tips Day. Useful nuggets of information like how to make an ex-boyfriend voodoo doll and what brand of bologna leaves the best oil rings in the paint when you put it all over his car. (Extra psycho points if you spell "die asshole" using baloney letters.)
Wednesdays: Relationship Ponderings. <--an academic way of saying I'm going to talk about all the lame crap that goes on in relationships between men and women. (Think Carrie Bradshaw in Payless Shoes.)
Thursdays: Guest bloggers/Interviews, or I'll just rip off random shit from someone else's blog and post it on mine.
Fridays: My take on celebrity break-ups. Look out Perez Hilton and TMZ, I'm going to be the Dr. Phil of celebrity break-ups (minus the toilet seat cover hair ring around the head thing).
Saturdays and Sundays: I'll most likely be in a coma from the brain aneurysm I'll have if I actually make it through an entire week where I blog consistently.

And can I just say that you have no idea how hard it was for me to post this in the middle of the week. My OCDself is tweakin' because I feel like I should be posting this on a Monday. But, I actually got out of bed to do it at 2am because I knew if I went to sleep without posting my new and improved idea, I would get sidetracked in the morning and just put it off again.

What's that shiny thing over there?

Oh yeah, and go buy my book, The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir. Give a copy to your mother. Your neighbor--the one who gave you a fruitcake brick for Christmas last year. Give one to your co-worker--the slutty one who's sleeping with the boss and the FedEx guy--she'll be able to identify with my story. Persuade your entire book group to read it and if you're within 100 miles of The OC, I'll visit for a Q&A. If you are out in BFE, I'll do a telechat.

And if you don't do any of the above, at least come back to the blog now and then, so I'm not just sitting here type/talking to myself.

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For Love or Money?

Can you find happily-ever-after if you sell out? It's a moral dilemma. So, when I was approached with the Sugar Daddy offer--twice, I really wasn't sure what to do.

I mean, how great would it be to have someone take care of me? No financial concerns. No worries. I could focus on my writing and maybe take a vacation. I could just see myself sitting on a beach in the Caribbean with my laptop, an umbrella drink, and a half-naked man servant fanning me with a palm leaf while back home a maid cleans my obscenely large house. Pinch me.

But somehow, I missed Gold Digging 101. I've always been the kind of girl who, in a room full of rich guys and one poor guy, falls in love with the poor guy every time. Maybe because the poor guy has the same hunger to succeed, to become something more, he believes in having a dream and chasing it like his life depends on it. I can relate to that.

I declined the two Sugar Daddy offers. I just couldn't do it. I wanted it all: love and happiness. If I have that, the money will come.

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Hello, Ms. Robinson!

I've been a cougar since high school. As a senior, I dated Ricky McGuire, the cutest freshman on campus.

Not much has changed since then. There is just something about the baby-faced guys that I can't resist. All I have to say is that it's a good thing I never became a high school English teacher. Hello, 11 o' clock news and an orange jumpsuit.

So, I was at work--doing the thong-clad ass, 8-inch platform stripper shoes, lapdance thing to make the rent. And then I saw him. Blond with blue eyes (my weaknesses) and he was tall--reeeeally tall. Six foot seven. Naturally, my post break-up brain is thinking--hmmm...built to scale? Hotel room. Horizontal rodeo.

As I was shamelessly flirting (it's a tough job, but someone has to do it), this uber hot Florida State University football player asks me how old I am.

"I'm 35," I say.

"Wow. You don't look that old," he says, then stammers, "Um...I mean, not like that's old or anything." Then he says, "Can you keep a secret?"

First of all, what kind of question is that? I'm a woman, a woman writer, a woman writer who blogs, so what do you think?

Then he pulls his driver's license out of his wallet and hands it to me. I see, DOB: 1985.

He was BORN the year I graduated from high school! I tried to do the math on my fingers (not a math major). "That makes you..."

"Eighteen," he says.

That's when I heard the ratchet of the handcuffs, the gavel slamming down, felt the scarlet letter P stamped on my forehead, declaring me a pedophile and a menace to the virtue of extremely tall pubescent boys.

If anyone knows of a Cougar rehab, let me know.

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Which Object Does Not Belong?

There was a line of mini vans and SUVs in the parking lot, and I pulled up in my convertible Celica with the top down, music blasting, and my spiky-haired teen and his skateboard riding shotgun.

It was our first day at the homeschool group/park day/play date/Chinese water torture. Call it a social experiment. I wanted to see what it was all about. I think it took the other homeschool mothers exactly .03 of a second to determine that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. What teaching method was I using? Charlotte Mason? Waldorf? Montessori? Unschooling?

I'm not sure. What do you call it when you hand your kid a stack of books and threaten great bodily injury if he doesn't study them? That's my teaching method.

And, of course, once my son was off socializing with the other kids, I was the main attraction for the Show and Tell hour. The McCarthy Hearings--a stroll through the park. The Spanish Inquisition--a cake walk. Try being grilled by two picnic tables full of OC homeschool moms.

I really wanted to fit in, so I decided to tell them all about me--I'd been a single mom for 13 years and wasn't sure of the whereabouts of my son's father. I worked as a topless dancer and had recently learned to cook meth in the bathtub of my double-wide trailer. To supplement my income, I started hosting same-sex orgies every Sunday after attending services at Saddleback Church. I was still obsessed about being dumped by the man of my dreams. And I'd always wanted to be a writer.

Ok...so I didn't really say that. Well, not all of it anyway. But it certainly would've made the day more interesting if I had.

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5 Hours in Purgatory

It feels like being suspended somewhere between heaven and hell when you see your ex for the first time after The Break-Up.

Think Twilight Zone meets Love Connection. Scary and pathetic all rolled into one train wreck of an episode.

It started with Kevin calling to say he was coming over to pick up his "stuff."

So, what did I do?

A. Take one of his golf clubs and smash his "stuff" into tiny unidentifiable pieces? B. Begin loading jacketed hollow-point rounds into my Beretta? C. Brush my hair for the first time in a week? Put on a dab of understated makeup (including flavored lipgloss and waterproof mascara)? Change clothes five times trying to look good, but not look like I was trying too hard? Or D. All of the above?

In hindsight, I probably should have picked option D. But I was still busy harboring the ridiculous fantasy that once he saw me again, he would change his mind and decide not to leave me. So, I chose option C. (Translation = see definition of "pathetic" to follow.)

Of course, after our mutual spilling of tears, in the true General Hospital style of relationship melodrama, I insisted he tell me why I wasn't "The One" and then I threw myself at him offering to let him bone-me-like-a-friend-with-benefits. <---Practical application of the word: Pathetic. So, what happened next? Did I end up on the kitchen counter with my ankles pinned behind my head and honey poured across my minuscule bosom, ala something out of 9 1/2 Weeks? Um...nooooo. He had to be the nice guy and decline that Willy Wonka Golden Ticket Bangin' Opportunity.

But he did offer to pay for his half of the rent for 7 months until the lease expired...

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Pin the Eyebrow on the Old Lady

I don't speak Spanish, but I think the translation for this picture is: These are your various facial expressions after BOTOX: happy, sad, excited, depressed, etc.

It's funny in any language. And oh so true.

I admit--I tried Botox. I mean, let's face it, it's a competitive world out there in the dating scene. A girl's got to do what she can to stay in the game. Once a woman nears the mid-thirties mark, the guys of the same age are trying to recapture their lost youth by trolling for cheerleaders at the local high school. Taunt flesh has a certain appeal for men who navigate through life with the divining rod of their wiener as a guide.

With that in mind, having a doctor inject a deadly bacterium into my face to paralyze it and smooth out the wrinkles sounded like a really great idea at the time. Heck, I wasn't getting any younger, so why not get a little help, right?

So, I went to Dr. Something-berg-or-feld in Newport Beach--a nice Jewish dermatologist in the Plastic Capital of Southern California. Of course, I fit in so well in that posh waiting room, dressed in my sweats, flip flops, and ponytail.

I end up in the exam room and Dr. 92658 is mapping out his strategic attack on the linear results of my years of extreeemely animated facial expressions. Out comes the little bottle of Botox and the needle. Did I mention that I'm TERRIFIED of needles? Like hyperventilate, drop kick your nuts across the room, and fight for my life kind of terrified. Well, that day, I faced one of my greatest fears--being single for the rest of my natural life. It can do amazing things when you weigh those two fears together. Hmmm...a few pokes in the face with a sharp, pointy object, or many long, lonely years of wool sweaters, smelly cats, and Harlequin romance novels...

I chose the needle.

Can I just tell you, when you get Botox injected in between your eyebrows, it makes a squeaky sound like sticking a fork into a sauteed onion, and the sound echoes in your head. Major heebie jeebies. When it was all over, I had little red dots around the outside of my eyes, between my eyebrows, and across my forehead. I paid a couple hundred bucks to be a human pincushion and provide condo accommodations on my face for live bacteria. And I'd have to go back and do it all over again in 2-3 months when it wore off. What a bargain.

Ya see, I'm the kind of person who likes a good experiment--see how things turn out...record the progress...report my findings. So, here's how it went: "Holy crap, my face is stuck!" That about sums it up. My eyebrows were stuck in the upright and locked position like an airline tray table. I looked like someone surprised the hell out of me. I already had a naturally high arch to my eyebrows, but after the Botox--the doctor may as well have stapled my eyebrows to the middle of my forehead. They didn't move. Well, not really, but my facial muscles were still so strong that they were able to bend my eyebrows in the middle into a very Star Trekkian/Spock-like shape. Which was quite attractive, I assure you. So, after all that, I had two available expressions for 3 entire months: I'm surprised! and I'm a f***ing Vulcan.

FWIW, I recommend passing on the Botox.

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WWJD? = What Would Jung Do?

An appointment with a hypnotherapist = 1 hour of your life that you'll never get back.

Paying a professional to listen to you rant about your ex-boyfriend = $150 an hour.

Eating 1 pint of ice cream + watching Ryan Gosling in The Notebook = Priceless.

Ok, yes, I tried the therapist route--once. It came complete with soothing flute music, scented candles, an overstuffed recliner, and guided meditation. It was the eco-friendly version of a break-up exorcism. And I think I would've fared better if I would've stayed home and borrowed Linda Blair's cross.

Now, I'm not knocking the Twinkie defense psychobabble and the proliferation of "mood stabilizers" that are being dispensed like Prozac Pez from a neighborhood ice cream truck. I guess they have their place. And I only tried therapy-lite which doesn't require a prescription. But I'm just saying...it didn't work for me.

Consuming vast amounts of Smucker's Hot Fudge topping directly out of the jar, and then lying face down, crying into the carpet until I was completely feathered with Antron fuzz was more my style.

And who's to judge anyway? We do what works for us to come out the other side--happy and healthy, right?

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The Secret Number on the Cell Phone Bill

Ok, so I admit, I liked Nancy Drew mysteries when I was growing up. She was so smart. There wasn't a clue that slipped by her unnoticed. She was tenacious and always figured out "whodunit" at the end.

Of course, when I found a woman's phone number plastered all over my ex-boyfriend's cell phone bill (from during the time when we were still together), it's not hard to speculate "whodunher."

Naturally, according to him, I was Sherlock Holmesing the phone bill and making something out of nothing. Umm...possibly. Possibly not. I guess I'll never truly know.

I suppose I could've called her. I'm sure the conversation would have gone something like this: Hi, I'm Kevin's completely devastated, psycho ex-girlfriend. Um...by any chance, did you have anything to do with him dumping me, you f***ing bitch?

Did I call her and say that? Mmm, no. I don't think that conversation would have gone very well. And frankly, I don't want to know. It will have to remain A Secret in The Old Attic because I'd rather not have that image haunting my mind.

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There's No Place Like Home...

Kevin dumped me a week before Halloween.

Did I mention that Halloween is my favorite holiday? I mean, how can you go wrong with a holiday that revolves around dressing up in cute clothes and eating chocolate?

That Halloween I didn't dress up. I spent the evening sitting on the carpet in flannel pjs watching The Wizard of Oz with my two dogs while my tweenage son pillaged the neighborhood with a plastic machine gun and a plaid pillowcase. I ate 17 mini Snickers and wished a house would fall on me.

In hindsight, I should have clicked my heels together and proclaimed, "Next!" Then donned a naughty nurse outfit. (Doesn't every woman have one of those?) And I should have gone to a fabulous costume party with my friends. I should have found a handsome vampire and made out with him in the coat closet--just because I could.

But I didn't.

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I Can't Believe He Broke Up with Me...

I'm not sure there is anything worse than the loss of a great love.

The sun is setting...your arms are wrapped around the waist of your Prince Charming...you both gallop together on the back of a white horse toward happily-ever-after... Then WHAM! You get flipped off the back and end up on your ass in the dirt with a bruised spirit and and a broken fingernail. And yes, it sucks to get dumped.

But the true judge of a guy's character is to look at HOW he breaks up with you. I got dumped over the phone. Okay...so maybe he's not the confrontational type, but waking me up in the morning to break up with me over the phone from the place where he works--when we LIVED together! I'd say that's a bit more than non-confrontational.

I suppose it could be worse... He could've text paged me, or sent me an email, or shoved a letter up the ass of a carrier pigeon...

I guess the result would be the same. I'd still be left sitting in the middle of my bed, surrounded by snow drifts of tear-soaked Kleenex, eating a jar of hot fudge topping for breakfast.

That's how it all starts on page one of my memoir, "The Break-Up Diet." Stay tuned for the rest of the story...

And I'm curious, tell me, dear readers, what tops YOUR list of the worst way you've ever been dumped?

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