rabbit blog Tuesday, February 01, 2011 YOU NEVER SHUT UP Thoughtful discussion and debate on the memoir developing on Betsy Lerner's website, with lots of recommendations of good first-person essays/memoirs/books. I point out there that NY Times culture section has produced some really entertaining pieces lately (go read Dwight Garner's piece on the 4-Hour Work Week's author if you haven't already) and this memoir-bashing exercise at least has some flair to it. 7:27 AM Sunday, January 30, 2011 THE PROBLEM WITH MEMOIRS "The problem with memoirs is, I got assigned to read 4 of them for this New York Times piece. God, I'm sick of people with dying mothers now. Look, if you're not a world leader with a really good ghostwriter or a kid who huffed spray paint then tried to kill the president or a girl who fell in love with her rapist uncle then joined the circus, I don't want to hear about it. If you had a childhood that was roughly as shitty as mine, for christsakes, don't write about it. Memoirs are declasse. Write a play instead, like I did. I'm a playwright. Doesn't that sound so much better than 'memoirist'? Do what I do. And get off my goddamn lawn!" If you think my book might be unrewarding, read the excerpt and see for yourself. Happy Sunday! P.S. I'm a critic (professional asshole) myself. If anyone deserves an arbitrary beatdown, it's me. No hard feelings toward the reviewer, just in a jaunty mood. 4:05 AM Wednesday, January 12, 2011 STAND AND DELIVER! Reading my book out loud has been much more fun than I thought. Rambling incoherently about yourself into a microphone can be pretty gratifying, as it turns out. Even though I'm drawn to the life of the shut-in, I'm not exactly shy. I was the sort of kid who was struck dumb by my first glimpse of Shirley Temple. I immediately vowed to get big, bouncy curls and sing to adoring strangers the next time I boarded an airplane. As an adult, there aren't that many appropriate ways to let your inner show-off sing in the aisles - although that is one benefit of having little kids. They inspire you to tap dance and sing stupid songs and act like an asshole, at least in the very brief period before the eye-rolling and moaning and yelps of "Mom, stop being such a dork!" begin. Once your kids are old enough to recognize that you're a loser, I guess you have to go back to tossing back margaritas and boring the living hell out of your poor friends. For now, though, I get to read the funny parts of my book to a big group made up mostly of family and friends, and all I have to do is write each one of them a small check in return! (Please send me your W-4s if you haven't already, guys.) The really great thing is that, once your large fraudience has gathered and is seated, then random humans wander in off the street, naturally attracted to any event where an unworthy nobody is about to stand up and speak (as if he or she knows anything!). This presents a nice opportunity to stand and, in the guise of a "question," introduce their own somewhat esoteric views in order to heighten the sophistication of this public discourse. So far, each reading has featured 50% relatives, friends and acquaintances (mostly paid, with income tax withheld), 25% Salon readers, 10% Suck fans, 2% undiagnosed humans seeking counsel, 2% eccentrics seeking a pulpit and 1% nice people hoping to learn more about how to prepare for an impending disaster. At the very end of my reading at The Regulator in Durham, a woman who'd asked a very appropriate question earlier raised her hand and said, "You know, I have to confess, I thought this was going to be very different. I saw this in the paper and I thought you had written a book about getting ready for natural calamities." "You mean where to get gas masks and bunsen burners and stuff like that?" I said. "Yes!" she said. "But you know, with so much laugher, and so many great people here? Maybe that's all you need!" Everyone applauded. "No, you're also going to need a gas mask," I added. NEXT READING: Sat. 1/29 at 2 p.m. at the West Hollywood Library. Mark your calendars! I will sing. 10:05 AM Friday, January 07, 2011 THE HEALING POWER OF MEMOIR So many times in life we feel hesitant to complain bitterly, for fear of alienating old friends and potential lovers alike. We hide our most imaginative lamentations and our most obstinate grumbling under a bushel, so that coworkers and casual acquaintances may never discover the spiteful bastard or the irritable, demanding wench that lurks beneath that amiable, pliant exterior. Likewise, we're often reluctant to pen scathing tomes about our wildly dysfunctional families of origin. Outlining the exact range and variety of objects that our parents hurled at each other's heads when infuriated tends to make most of us ever so slightly uncomfortable, as does detailing our parents' infidelities, bad habits, shortcomings and psychologically scarring missteps. Even when we persevere and manage to describe, in careful prose, each and every offense and crime perpetuated by the two human beings who brought us into this world, even after we manage to publish said prose in a bound manuscript, even once said manuscript is available for sale at finer bookshops and bookstores across this great nation, we still might not know whether or not our parents will manage to be good sports about the whole thing, seeing as how our personal publishing coup likely amounts to the single worst thing that has ever happened to them. Imagine my surprise when my mother not only said she enjoyed the first scathing essay in my new memoir, but she also offered to read and edit further essays which delved into the tragic folds of life among temperamental young parents. Yes, it's true, there are advantages to having been raised by a masochist. But that's not all! Instead of offering edits like "Don't make me look like such an asshole," or "You sound pretty stupid here," my mother offered up specific facts, dates, and the occasional suggestion regarding my overuse of run-on sentences. My mother loves good books. And she just hates bad books. "Ugh, what a waste of time!" she'll say after putting down her latest book group assignment. Or "Christ, how tedious! I could barely keep my eyes open." And yes, she knows the difference. As far as I can tell, she's averaged about a book or two a week for the past 50 years. But she'll never let you know that she's more well-read than you or your snotty Comp Lit friend. What would be the point? The only concern: if I'm going to write about HER life (from my admittedly limited perspective), well then, it had better be a goddamn good book. Otherwise, why bother? Surprisingly, in discussing this or that passage of my book, my mother and I have developed a renewed tolerance for each other's quirks and flaws. She has seen, in print, my mixed feelings about my childhood. And I've expressed my frustration about it -- this time without weeping into my hands or gurgling accusingly through snotty tissues. True, my mother and I have always talked about everything -- good, bad, ugly, heavy, you name it. But now, instead of wandering into territory where my voice takes on a flinty edge and she gets defensive or remote, instead of pushing her to admit to this or that mistake, instead of stuttering, "You know, that's your problem, you never… you never… UNDERSTAND ANYTHING!" like some hormonal teenager, now I'm at peace. I'm not burning with the need to dig up old stories of pain and anguish. I've put it to rest. Sort of. Maybe. Almost. I think. I'm sure she has complaints of her own, but at least she can see that my issues aren't quite as earth-shattering as all of that sobbing might've suggested. I was something of a hothouse flower as a child, without a doubt. I still don't like to stand for too long, or wear scratchy pants. I'm still highly suggestible and easily distracted and not very organized or even all that coherent. Maybe, ultimately, I don't really understand her and she doesn't understand me. That feels beside the point now. We simply look at each other and we say: You're you, I'm me, we're us. None of it feels nearly as unsettling or as volatile as it once did. As some of the more reductive souls among us like to say, It is what it is. So, kids: If you want to improve relations with your Mommy or Daddy? Consider writing a scathing account of your childhood, then publishing it for all the world to skim impatiently! Sure, your mom will still be fielding nosey questions about her troubled marriage for decades to come. But she's retired! What else does she have to do, really? All that matters is that you can both look back on your rocky past together, and you can say, "Well, you were careless, I was oversensitive. You were hotheaded, I was self-pitying and overdramatic. You were selfish, I was even more selfish. We were young and dumb, then. Now, we're old and smart. Old old old and smart smart smart, me and you, you and me." 5:49 PM Monday, December 27, 2010 MY NEW JOB Happy The Holidays! I'm working again this morning, which is strange, because usually I prefer to stay horizontal and stuff my face full of stale sugar cookies until I'm too bloated and angry to move. Eventually (early January?), my mother rolls me down the front steps and into the icy outdoors until I'm forced to move or freeze to death. It's a tough choice, because (as we all know from various short stories about fumbling for matches in the snow) freezing to death often disguises itself as a comforting, restful choice, like crawling into a snow sleeping bag for a long winter's nap. Lifting oneself to one's knees and crawling to the front door to moan and wail for someone to unlock it, though? That's a little bit demeaning, especially when one has been wearing the same crusty soft pants for five days and one smells like moldy bread. This morning I received several letters from concerned readers reassuring me that I'd find paid work soon. Worry not, fair readers! I left my job at Salon for a staff critic position at The Daily, an iPad-only publication described here and elsewhere. I'm writing about movies and TV now, which means that I occasionally shower, put on starchy pants, and drive across town to Beverly Hills to sit in the dark with other professional hermits. Exotic! I have a fun new job. That said, I completely understand why many would assume that I'm unemployable. Like most people, I'm ambivalent about work, and feel strongly that any form of employment amounts to grabbing ankle for The Man. I feel this way not because I'm an idealist, but because I value the idiosyncrasies of my mediocre mind far more than I should, and feel that my mind should wander hither and thither, without concern for deadlines and paychecks and other such trivialities. My anti-capitalist impulses derive from nothing more honorable than idle narcissism. Yes, you'll be able to read my writing in more places than you'd really like, eventually, with or without an iPad. But in the meantime, you can purchase my book (which comes out in just 3 days), thereby paying cash for something that, up until now, you've consumed for free. "Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?" you ask? Because the cow is fucking lazy and it'll die if you don't buy it, that's why. Thank you for your continued support in spite of everything. 9:57 AM Wednesday, December 22, 2010 FLOOD WATERS RISING A few days ago, I discovered bubbles of water collecting in a wall of our brand new house. Yesterday, we bought a tarp to put on that part of the roof until it stops raining. Then I wrote a check for the mortgage. Hurray! In more cheerful news, some great reviews are coming in for my book, but I think my favorite is this one, from "Just Karen," on Amazon: "Ms. Havrilesky is a sharply hilarious writer who turns a clear and ultimately forgiving eye on the war zone of her childhood and the woman who emerged from it. Each chapter functions alone, but relates to the others. The story of her parents' divorce provides background for a description of how an ill-timed loss of virginity eroded not just her self-esteem but her ability to bond with friends. And both of those chapters are better explained by a chapter that discusses the impact of her troubled and charismatic father on her entire life. But each chapter stands alone as a thoughtful, bitterly funny take on life, survival and growth. As she struggles through her own layers of damage and compensation, she delivers paragraphs like these: 'But was my personality as a child--honest, open, full of wonder, prone to weeping at the slightest provocation--somehow more authentic than the pessimistic, spiteful cad I'd become? Was it really fair to claim innocence and purity as my true self, or to throw away years of meticulously constructed defense mechanisms, many of them awesomely complex and imaginatively designed, the psychological equivalent of the internal-combustion engine?' For me, that's just about a perfect paragraph, and it should tell you if Havrilesky's style appeals to you. This is definitely a memoir of overcoming, but it is not a memoir about the attainment of spiritual or emotional perfection. If your taste runs to 'Half Empty' or 'This Boy's Life,' you will be mighty pleased with 'Disaster Preparedness.'" 7:31 AM Tuesday, December 14, 2010 TENDER MERCIES Sweet, sweet Lord on high, the first truly joyful moment of my memoir's (upcoming) publication came this morning, when I examined my book's listing on Amazon, and discovered this gem: Check the boxes next to the tags you consider relevant or enter your own tags in the field below. bad parents(1) bitter(1) growing up(1) memoir(1) salon(1) unhappy(1) unpleasant(1) Agree with these tags? Reading it was like watching my entire life flash before my eyes! Thank you, 2-star-bestowing pre-publication reader, for giving me the gift of laughter on this fine morning. Those who savor bitter, unhappy, unpleasant memoirs about growing up should pull up Amazon.com right now and pre-order my book, which comes out on December 30. But be forewarned: If you're looking for tales of incest and drug abuse and semi-fictional downward spiraling (as many readers have come to expect when they spot the word "memoir" on the cover), then you may be disappointed. But, if the words "feisty," "reflective" and "insolent" ring bells with you, then sally forth and purchase that sharp-toothed, ill-tempered puppy right now! My thanks in advance for your support. Remember, you've never paid a red cent for a word I've written. Why start now? Well... I'm not sure. Because it will be unpleasant, maybe? Who doesn't enjoy the unpleasant, way deep down inside? Why else would we visit the outdoor mall with the gigantic fountain that dances to Celine Dion? Why else would we frequent terrible chain restaurants with advertising on their menus, or watch "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew," if we weren't masochists at heart? If that's not convincing, here's how 5-star reviewer Konrad Baumeister summarizes my book: "Each chapter, arranged quasi-chronologically, could stand alone as a general look at one phase of life: childhood, dealing with intra-family squabbles, the tension and divorce of her parents, trying out for cheerleading, who you pick and who picks you as friends, losing one's virginity, the death of a parent, finding love at last, and just discarding fairy tales and coming to terms with what real life is - everything is here. It's told against a soundtrack of 80s music, high school rivalries, a rotating cast of ever younger girlfriends entertained by her father, etc. Havrilesky's writing style brings all of these inherently tense and anxiety-fraught situations home with honesty, clear vision, a knack for the ironic and the sardonic, and something of a gimlet eye towards life. The funny and the weird, bad jobs, loser boyfriends, vignettes of childhood - she remembers it all, and the reader will recognize his or her own stories in the mix as well. It's good stuff." 6:31 AM Thursday, November 18, 2010 FOR EXAMPLE My husband explaining past tense verbs to our daughter Claire, age 4. Bill: The word isn't "haved," it's "had." As in "I had twelve fingers before the doctor cut two off." Claire: Did the doctor... Why did the doctor...? Other good examples to use when teaching children grammar: Mom: Don't say "sended," say "sent." For example, "My mommy sent me away to live with strangers when I was five because I didn't clean my room well enough." Dad: The word is "thought," not "thinked." "I thought so hard about my upcoming birthday party that my brains spilled out of my ears and onto the pavement." Gramma: It's "woke up" not "waked up." "The monsters in my closet woke me up to tell me that they hoped I would be just as delicious as my parents were." 4:19 PM Thursday, October 21, 2010 SMALL THINGS Dear Rabbit, How can I stop being totally irritated with my (typically amazing, but often nevertheless infuriating) spouse, the father of my almost-six-months-old baby? We love each other, but we drive each other nuts a lot of the time. We're first time parents, we both work full-time, we're far from any relatives, we feel almost completely overwhelmed by our responsibilities... and we take it out on one another. How can we stop? We've only had one date sans baby since baby was born. Our sex life is nonexistent. HELP! Thanks. Post-Partum Regression Dear Post-Partum Regression, You're infuriated because not only is your husband infuriating (oh, I'm sure he is!), but you've spent 6 months in the most bewildering corridors a woman faces during her lifetime. Like a heroin habit or an unnatural addiction to David Hasselhoff vehicles, having an infant is bewitching and devastating, and no one wants to hear one fucking word about it until they've been through it. When I was writing the last chapter of my memoir, in which I was meant to explain what big lessons I had learned over the course of my then-39 years without making the reader vomit all over his/her shoes, I also had a full-time job writing for Salon.com and 6-month-old baby at home. Instead of calm and focus and wisdom to impart, all I could conjure were the darkest, most trying moments of all: crying in the shower because I needed to pump milk, meet a deadline, cancel an appointment and clean the fucking house as soon as possible. Or, rushing to load the needy toddler and the crying baby and my snippy husband and annoyed mother into the car, then screeching at all of them that, even though we were all stressed out, as long as I was the one waking up four fucking times a night, they had all better cut me some serious fucking slack. Anyway, I turned in a draft of the chapter to my editor, who was freshly married but, like most women, slightly apprehensive about having kids. She basically told me that reading it was a nightmare for her. And this is a woman who likes darkness and unraveling sweaters, or she never would've bought my book. I eventually wrote a chapter that was a little fragile but also reasonably hopeful and forgiving, about how we're all a fucking mess, even when we get older and should have our shit together, and essentially that's what makes us interesting and worthwhile. And now I'm sort of glad that I was a wreck when I was writing that chapter, because it gave me access to all of this vulnerability that I typically spackle over with anger or swagger or self-congratulatory madness or self-deprecation. If I were writing that chapter today, I'd probably be a little bit too cloying or too smug about how I've come a long way, baby, and the reader would probably close an otherwise good book thinking, "Fuck you." The book is all about my most humiliating experiences, my biggest heartbreaks and my most hilariously pathetic moments, after all. To end it all on a self-satisfied note would just be a betrayal, it would be distancing and it would prove that I hadn't come a long way at all. Pride is the enemy of good writing. Pride is also the enemy of love. Instead of spackling over your beaten-down state as a new mother, instead of trying to cover up your fragility and worries and longing with anger, you need to lean into the surge of emotions you're feeling. Here is the truth: it does take a fucking village to raise a kid, and instead of a village, you have one fucking intolerable jackass of a husband. This is how we feel when we have a baby clinging to our bodies for most of the day. "Who is that worthless man over there, and why isn't he running around in circles, cleaning up messes and vacuuming things, the way I always am in those few moments when I don't have a tiny person sucking the life out of me?" But that man is not going to do it your way. You can continue to instruct, gently. You can make a schedule. But choose your battles. Explain very carefully the things that you will not compromise on: safety issues, diapering cleanliness. Cast aside listing all of the casual annoyances, the little tweaks to his style you would make that have no ill side-effects and only make him feel browbeaten. Even though you only have affection for the small person, and none left over for him (And how could you? There is a HUMAN BEING ATTACHED TO YOUR BODY for most of the day! This is why whores were invented in the first place.), try to give him some affection here and there. Commit to a babysitter and night out every other week (get the kid used to at least two different babysitters early on, so you don't have just one person you can call when something comes up). But most of all, you have to get rid of the story that you two are against each other, simply because things are hard. You can turn that around completely, but you have to disarm yourselves. You are going through the same thing (almost) and you're both trying (in your own ways) and trying to stack up his effort against yours is just a way for you to torture yourself and be unhappy. As long as you compare – and how could you compare? You're two different people – you're trapped. You're both suffering. You're both bewildered. You're both at your worst. You have that in common. Find that common ground. The best way to do that is to really set aside the "you shoulds" and just let yourself be weak. Cry about how hard it is, but make it clear he doesn't have to fix it, you just want to say it. Let him complain about how tough it is. Just try to place yourselves in the same general emotional place, together. Then, make a few resolutions on how you can be less of an asshole to him, and let him suggest (or you can suggest, gently) a few minor adjustments that might help you. But that's not the big point. The main goal, here, is to say, "We are both having a hard time." And then you look at each other, instead of just grumbling, and you see another human being who is really trying, who is really emotionally overwhelmed, another person who doesn't have a fucking village but needs one. There's nothing wrong with him, or you, but you hate yourselves right now, you're sure that you're doing it all wrong, and that's why you're hating each other. You wish you were much kinder and more patient and were already putting out, he wishes he were the perfect husband and father. But you're both doing just fine, neither one of you is really that bad. You just feel crushed, and you don't fucking understand how anyone does it. Look, neither do I. I don't understand how we can fucking do it. It's so fucking hard. But, the second you accept how hard it is, how different your lives are now, the second you start laughing, together, at how fucking insanely fucked up the past few months have been, that's when things will get better. And as long as you're vulnerable with each other, and honest, things will really turn around. I've said to my husband, "Look, I'm sorry, I hate saying this, but there's this thing you do that bothers me, and I feel like such a piece of shit every time it bugs me, but I have to tell you not because it's your fault but because I keep kicking myself over it, and really, it's my problem not yours, but… can you not do this one little thing? Even though it's admittedly fucking stupid that I even care?" That will sound like an elaborate manipulation to someone who's not married, but in fact, what it is is honest, and considerate.You know, intellectually, that your husband is a good guy and he's not annoying by nature. You know that you're short-tempered and overly critical, as a rule. You put that on the table, and the conversation improves. You're allowed to say that you have a bad response to some of his habits. He's allowed to say that you're picky and sort of a bitch when it boils right down to it. This makes you exactly the same as every married couple that has ever walked the face of the earth, but in admitting it, you're both released from your private purgatory and allowed to acknowledge the truth, together, and laugh at yourselves. Don't let the rage and guilt and panic and despair of being a new mother (all totally normal emotions, by the way) fuck with your marriage. Everything is going to get better. You're really in the heart of the storm right now. I remember that place. It made me stronger, and happier, and it made me into someone I'm proud of – in a good way, not in the gross, smug way that makes people throw books across the room. You'll be stronger and happier and proud of yourself, too, in about 3 months, and 3 months after that, you'll be even stronger and even happier, and look, that's one of the reasons parents recommend parenthood. You start out in hell and then you climb out of the darkness, into the light, and life is full of fun and insanity. If you're totally committed to going through it all with your husband instead of in spite of him, then your strong bond will only add to that happiness, instead of detracting from it. You're almost out of the woods. Try to enjoy the scenery. See how the sunlight filters through the pines? God, it's good to be alive. You're right here, together, right now, and it couldn't be more perfect. Or, as the Bowerbirds put it, "You own the stars, you own the thunder, but you have to share. You are free, you are already free." Rabbit [A signed galley of Disaster Preparedness goes to the 30th person to send Rabbit a letter asking for advice. If your life is perfect and you don't need any advice from rabbits, consider pre-ordering Disaster Preparedness on Amazon.com. Doing this is also a great way to support the rabbit blog, which has been dispensing long-winded but well-intentioned advice to strangers for close to a decade.] 10:58 AM Tuesday, October 19, 2010 SEND RABBIT LETTER, WIN BOOK I need some letters around here to keep me busy while I struggle with "Mad Men" withdrawal. Letters about wishy washy boyfriends are great, sure, but I also have a Don Draper-induced interest in unearthing seemingly trivial problems like: how to battle the peculiar nihilism incited by various aspects of modern life, from visits to the grocery store to obsessively checking your twitter feed; whether or not to have kids and whether or not to send those kids to daycare once you have them; whether or not to buy a house when the market is down; how to battle the feeling that every investment decision you've ever made has been poor to mediocre at best (blaming yourself for the global market meltdown); how to battle the feeling that you should quit your job even though unemployment is high and you don't know what you'll do next and you don't have a big enough safety net and you'll probably end up a crack whore if you do. You know, the spoiled questions that occur to spoiled citizens of the Western world. The 30th person to send me a rabbit letter will receive one free pre-release galley copy of my new book, to be mailed to the location of your choice, signed by the author (who doesn't actually know how to sign books yet but will try not to screw up your copy nonetheless). You will like my book. It's a funny look at the sad and scary stuff we endure as kids, from fighting parents to shitty jobs at Applebee's. Send me your letters today! I can't wait to solve all of your peskiest problems. (Email to rabbit at this url.) 7:16 AM Thursday, September 09, 2010 THE CINDERS HAVE MUCH MORE FUN Claire: (crying) Mommy, I keep running in my glass slippers but I can't make one of them fall off! Me: Oh well. Better spend the night instead. Remember when you used to think that you could twirl around the floor with a dashing Ricky Ricardo look-alike, and all you'd have to do is leave him is one glass pump and maybe a business card or a little crumpled piece of paper with your email address on it, and true love would reign supreme? That was before you realized that it was better to stick around and seal the deal with the gifts God gave you, even if your sparkly dress turned into rags just as things were starting to get really hot. Because what prince doesn't prefer a rag-wearing whore to an elusive, sparkly, sweet-smelling "Rules"-following babe? Plus, spending the night is much more fun! And you know what happens in the morning? You wake up with terrible bedhead and catastrophic halitosis and the prince has already left for his tennis lesson, leaving you to march down several impressive hallways all by yourself, your one glass slipper stomping loudly, echoing through the chambers of the palace, announcing to all of the snooty staff members and butlers and dukes and handmaidens that another of the prince's foul one-night sea donkeys is exiting the premises to live out the balance of her days in shame and wretched, hearth-scrubbing obscurity. But isn't that better than marrying a complete stranger who dresses like the dictator of a small South American country? I think so. The Moral: Sluts dreams really do come true, it just takes about 15 years longer than you think. 10:11 AM Wednesday, September 08, 2010 THE CHEAT GOES ON Hey Rabbit. So, long story short, this past summer my boyfriend was absolutely horrible to me. But I stood by him. And by stood by him I mean I put up with his shit and never stopped loving him. He was basically freaking out and he hated himself and he responded to it by pushing everyone away and tried pushing me away but I either wouldn't let him, or when I did give him space he would always come back missing me. So truth was he was cheating on me for about a month and a half. With a stupid cunt. And deep down I knew it. He claims that it was drug-induced, that he became confused. When it started we were in a long distance relationship but it happened right before I was going to come home for good. And I believe that he didn't mean any of it. That he was lonely and found something in this stupid cunt (What I don't know because she's an idiot and he is so very smart he's just a fool). And well I got fed up and left a book of letters to him on his windshield. The last letter told him that I was ashamed of him and disgusted and it hit him pretty hard. He told the cunt that he couldn't be with her because he didn't want to be with anyone, then came to my apartment and told me everything. And I took him back. Afterwards this cunt and her friend were furious that I took him back, and her friend started harassing me about how I should feel sorry for said cunt because he played her. And it really just drove me mad. And worst of all, said cunt gave my boyfriend herpes. And I probably got it before he even knew he had it. Now. Most of that is all in the past. Said cunt's friend has realized that she was being stupid and has apologized. Said cunt kind of apologized but I still have no respect for her. My boyfriend has done nothing but apologize. Saying that he's in love with me and can't believe that he got so lost. The day I took him back he deleted her number from his phone and has spent almost every second with me since. Things were very rough at first but right now things are awesome. However, I still wonder if I made a mistake. Do you think he will cheat again? He knows if he ever fucks up again he will lose me forever, and he's constantly reminding me about how ashamed he is. Anhe'll talk in his sleep about how I'm the best girlfriend ever. And I trust his words more and more everyday. And I'm doing pretty well in accepting that people make mistakes. But every once in a while, when I'm alone, she's all I can think about. I have such a disgust for her. Just because her reasoning for carrying on an affair with someone she knew had a girlfriend who he told her he was in love with, when her feelings for him were sparked though drugs use, was just total bullshit. That she hadn't felt for someone in a year and was lonely. I just think she's pathetic. And I hate having these thoughts. And we live in a small town. I'm so afraid if I see her I might lose it. I wouldn't do anything crazy. Unlike her I have self control. But I just don't want to even be aware of her existence. The sound of her name makes me furious. I went through so much hell because of her. And I know that my boyfriend is just as guilty, But he has spent everyday since to prove to me that he was sorry. And her apology was a bullshit facebook note, and public post of the entire ordeal which I and my boyfriend didn't want the rest of the world to question us about and afterwards she blocks both of us so we can't remove it but it can still be seen. So how can I get over it easier? And did I do the right thing by taking him back? I truly love him with all my heart. And he tells me the same, followed by apologies. Thanks, Confused And In Love Dear CAIC, I have no verdict on your boyfriend. Will he cheat again? Probably, if he keeps doing drugs with other women. But he's equally likely to cheat again if he spends every second with you. He sounds a little all or nothing, a little out of sight, out of mind, a little prone to dramatic flourishes. He sounds to me – based on very little information, mind you – like the kind of guy who gets engaged a little too young, gets married, tells everyone that he's found the love of his life, and then cheats two years later. He sounds prone to dangerous extremes. He's probably no more trustworthy or untrustworthy than the average guy or girl – I wouldn't be too fixated on that. What I would want to know, though, has less to do with these big, dramatic questions you're asking, and has more to do with your day to day life. When the excitement fades, when drugs and random women are out of the picture, what's that like? How does he do with the mundane realities of a relationship? Can you talk to him, or do you only communicate your feelings in long letters when things get really crazy? More dangerous than a man who cheats (and anyone, man or woman, can cheat when there are drugs involved) is a man who pulls you into his fantastical escapist story about the world. Most of all, I would caution you against getting engaged to or married to him as a means of clearing up your worries – or his – about his fidelity. More than assurances from him or professions of love or input from outside sources like me, you need more experience with him as a partner. You need to see how you two get along over time, in the absence of drama. If he's easily bored, then he's not going to be a good boyfriend or husband. If he needs to be with you every second in order to either stay clean or stay out of other girls' pants, then he's going to be a serious drain on your energy. But he's really a footnote to a bigger problem: You need to work on your self-confidence and your outside interests. You're not very engaged with your career, you don't have a lot of really honest, trusting relationships with girlfriends, you don't know how to spend your free time beyond hanging out with your boyfriend. Without him, you feel lost. With him, you obsess about the woman you refer to as a stupid cunt, who's actually just a woman, like you, who wants love in her life and who was willing to bend the rules to suit her needs. Whether she's a great person or not, calling her a stupid cunt isn't good for you. Every time you call her a stupid cunt, it chips away at your happiness and your sense of self. I know you don't believe that, but you should. Your rage isn't formed by her indiscretions, it's formed by your frustrations with your own life, with the one-dimensional nature of your world. You want him to be in love with you, no matter what. You want to own him completely. That's your top priority, your one goal in life. Be careful what you wish for. Winning this man's love isn't everything. You could win him over and be married and miserable for the rest of your life, just worryng about whether he'll cheat or not. You need bigger, better goals. You need a job you enjoy and friends who you can talk to. You need ways to really be happy with yourself when you're alone. You need to be alone more often, whether you see a movie or listen to music or just relax. You're afraid of being alone, which is why you took your boyfriend back immediately, without even making him wait a few days or a week. You're haunted not by the likelihood that he'll cheating – anyone can cheat – but by your own unwillingness to be alone. As long as you feel totally consumed by a need to possess him, to prove to everyone, especially the other woman, that he's yours and yours completely, you won't have any peace. Your identity can't be so completely linked to this victory or defeat. You have to forget what everyone else in town thinks – and I do recognize how much that can get under your skin in a small town. But while you're worrying about how other people see you, let me say something: You use the word cunt, and it doesn't matter what happened or how badly you were screwed. You're the one who looks stupid, and angry, and sad. As long as you're stuck on this, you're going to keep looking and feeling terrible. You're not going to let it go until you let the boyfriend go. I'm not saying you can't go out with him. But seeing him every second doesn't solve anything. Let him have a few days off. Tell him you need to spend some time getting stronger, on your own. There's no way to judge him or your own health and resilience if you're hiding in your cave together. You both need some breathing room. And you need close girlfriends. Do you have a parent you could never trust? Do you and your mother have trouble talking things out? Can you talk to anyone with total honesty? Can you cry? Don't leave all of this to your boyfriend. If you're going to stop feeling terrible, you have to reach out to other people. You have to build some things on your own that feel worthwhile to you. I know that's no small feat when you're young and you're not sure what you should spend your time doing. But you need some focus in your life that's utterly removed from this guy or any other guy. If you explore your own goals, make some friends, spend some time away from him, and the relationship falls apart? That's a guy who shouldn't be trusted, who only wants someone who's going to disappear into him. That's the very definition of a cheater, in other words. On the other hand, if he's proud of you, if he's excited for you, if he's more dedicated to you than ever, when you're seeing friends and trying out new jobs and doing your own thing? Then maybe what you have with him could work over the long haul. But you're not pursuing these other things just to keep your guy. You're pursuing them because you have your guy now, and you're still not happy. That's why you wrote to me. You're not happy. No "stupid cunt" is making you unhappy. YOU are unhappy. It's not your fault that you're unhappy, you just are. You have to figure out how to find happiness. It's a long search, it's not easy. But if you simply keep doing what you're doing, if you continue behaving as if your happiness is wrapped up in one question (trust him or don't trust him), if you continue spending every second with him, if you continue hating the other woman and not knowing what you'll do when you see her? You'll continue being unhappy. You deserve to be happy. Your enemy is not your enemy: she's a lost, lonely woman, just like you. You are both searching. Try very hard to empathize – it will make you stronger and happier to try. Try very hard to forgive her. She feels ashamed of herself, trust me. If you see her, say nothing, do nothing. Don't try to work out your unhappiness with her. She can't help you. Don't picture seeing her, and saying something harsh. Don't picture kicking her ass. You don't need to prove anything. You don't need to talk about her anymore. You don't need to think about her anymore. Let her go. The more you can wish the best for her, the more great, miraculous, incredible things will happen to you. I know you think I'm full of shit about this. I know it's fucking impossible to think you could do this. You think that your identity depends on hating her, that not hating her makes you soft and lame, makes you a pushover. You couldn't be more wrong about that. You have to dig deep. This is your moment. Dig deep, rise above the shitty mess you've had dumped in your lap, exceed everyone's expectations of you. Look inside and find your best self and crawl out of this fucking mire and start creating your own destiny. You are so much bigger than this. Trust him or don't trust him, love him or don't love him – it hardly matters. What matters is for your to start trusting and loving yourself first. Show yourself some compassion. You didn't ask for this bullshit in your life. Feel how unfair it is, but then get up, and wash your face, and go outside. You have a sparkling future ahead of you. You don't have to let this define you. This is small, this is the worst possible path for you, this is not about you, this is a self-defeating distraction, this is a needless menace. Leave it behind, and face the future with courage. You are bigger than this. But before you move on, turn back and wish this woman you hate all of the happiness in the world. Give that to her, genuinely, and eventually you'll find that all of the happiness in the world is yours. Rabbit 12:06 PM Thursday, September 02, 2010 GOODBYE, POINTY LITTLE MAN Dear Rabbit, I stumbled across your blog while looking for rabbit-related websites. I have two rabbits myself- Pointy and Little Man. I came looking for cute bunny pictures, stayed for the well written and wise advice. Rabbit, how do I release myself from the grip of my anger? From my potent desire to mete out retribution? From my red-visioned rage and the panic attacks? How do I move on, happily? How do I get my groove back? I moved to Montreal in 2004 when my partner was offered a teaching job at a University here. We had been together for almost two years prior to this. There had already been some issues between us, but this move made everything worse, and now we’re practically estranged, and I’m scared and lost. The sex was never great, but decent enough. He was very quiet and had little sense of humor or imagination in bed. He didn’t like me astride him, resisted blowjobs, and when he seemed bored we had to switch to webcam sex. Whatever, but the friendship we had was excellent, and the life and social scenario we were in was rich and fulfilling and for once in a long, long time I was happy. The sex had pretty much dried up even when we were living together still in the US. He blamed his lack of interest on not liking my scrubs and sweatsocks, didn’t like that I didn’t have an advanced degree, my depression was too much for him (my depression is deep, chronic and lifelong. I’ve had a round of ECT once, been hospitalized, I have meds & therapists but it never goes away. I cope, though). We had had a non-monogamous relationship, originally at my behest, with a full disclosure and mutual veto power. Mainly he used this as an excuse to hunt down couples for playing with, and dating young girls. We used to go to sex parties where he’d spend his time with anyone but me. I was too busy trying to work and reconstruct a new professional and social life for myself to be bothered, beyond the parties. When we moved to Canada he had 110 new things he could blame for his lack of interest: stress, immigration, new job, house hunting, getting his book out, etc. Then it became tenure stress, my depression, my trouble finding work, my low income, my lack of self esteem, my life choices (having been in the arts I came with no savings or 401K, ya know?). Mind you, during this time I did all the housework, packing, cooking, laundry, entertaining, endless immigration paperwork, you name it, plus study and work. When the tenure was achieved, he decided that he was through with honesty & flat out started cheating on me and lying to my face. Of course it was with “Ashley," some student he met at a conference (he’s a 41 year old professor and loves those early 20’s students), and it was a doozy of a mess. Eight months of lies, disinvitations, secret trips, a pregnancy, more lies, her chasing him overseas, just ugly. I was packed & ready to move out, but because of immigration and financial reasons I had to remain living with him for a year. I drank heavily and gained a lot of weight, feeling like utter crap that I could never fix what made him reject me. He kept trying to repair the friendship, which eventually happened, but the continual sexual rejection really got me down. Eventually I moved out and have been in my own place for three years now. Despite being separate, we eventually reverted to dinner together every night, and essentially had a perfect, if non-sexual relationship. He began to talk of a country place, getting a house together. He took over my grad school loan (he’s also a fanatical cheapskate, so any fiscal moves he makes are earth-shaking). He even for one millisecond entertained the idea of going to couples therapy together. Then something shifted. I knew he was having random sex with some internet slut. He used to call her “Fuck Me Friday." He used to make fun of her. He used her as bait to find other couples who wanted to swap (hmm, sounds familiar?). Then soon he claims she’s unhappy because he won’t spend even more time with her, she wants a boyfriend, he doesn’t want that, he isn’t in love with her. Next thing you know she has moved into town, he has taken down his OK Cupid personal ad and she’s posting “in a relationship” on Facebook (He was chagrined by this & deleted his wall, but nonetheless) and he’s suddenly spouting her brainwash about how the “relationship” has so much potential, how she’s so understanding, how she’s so cool and low maintenance, how she understands his need to have me in his life. She likes to fuck all night and all morning and gives great blowjobs and is smart! Mind you, this girl is a 24 year old undergraduate at another college downtown. Her friends are still doing kegstands and finishing their BA’s. At her age I was writing grants, performing, touring, choreographing and managing a full time freelance dance career. It’s an insult, frankly. He began to lie to me about when he’d be with The Orifice, and because he’s a constant and inept liar I always catch him out. I’ve twice been at his place expecting him to be there, where he said he’d be, while in reality he was off stuffing The Orifice somewhere. I lost it. Suddenly all the old rage about “The Ashley Incident” and all the other transgressions came pouring forth, and I had blind rage freakouts over this, literally seeing red, screaming and throwing stuff and not exactly remembering what happened. My pulse races, my ears ring, I scream, I can’t sleep afterwards. What has made this so tough is that otherwise we get along enormously. We always crack each other up, have a secret language, inside jokes, share a sense of humor, have excellent conversations & debates, and essentially can spend all our time together. Even the most banal tasks are hilarious together. We fight well, we have good problem solving skills. He tells me he can’t imagine his life without me, I’m the most important person in his life, he feels better with me than with anyone else, I’m the smartest woman he’s ever met, we’ve had the best experiences of his life together, blah blah blah. But then he says (or doesn’t say) “but I can’t sleep with you”. The truth is that he’s delusionally naive about real relationships and deathly afraid of intimacy. He’s recently told me that “sex is only exciting with people you don’t know”. Fascinating. Essentially once the bloom is off the rose, and real life kicks in he gets scared & runs off to have Craigslist & online dating trysts or retreats to his hard drives full of porn. Plus he’s stocked with an arsenal of whacked out self importance, unexpressed expectations of others, and a healthy heap of Midwestern denial. Oh- and he’s a pathological liar. Since even at this point he wouldn’t even commit to the “it’s her or me” ultimatum, I made the choice for him. He doesn’t understand why I don’t want to be friends with him and The Orifice as a “couple”. Why can’t I be happy for them? I’ve cut off any communication except for essential things like banking, paperwork, emergencies. It hurts like hell. I was never attractive in a typical sense, though as a dancer I was in good shape and had buckets of confidence and a great mind. I worked “pretty on the inside” like no one’s business. I always had paramours, male, female. It was never a problem, and I enjoyed a frisky, freaky life. Now at 42 I’m still not typically attractive, serious injuries retired me from dance and much activity for quite a while so I’m about 50 lbs overweight (ugly “apple body” not curvy). Instead of a hot career I now have a semi interesting but way underpaid job I’m lucky as hell to have, given the language issues and the fact that my secondary training is in a field not active here. My self esteem is shot. So now I can’t even work the confidence angle. I can’t recall the last time I got laid. Has to have been six years now. My social circle is almost nonexistent now, as most of my friends are on sabbaticals, are married, have kids, have moved for other jobs. I have to continually try to make new friends. I do yoga, but it’s not exactly social. I’ve cut down my elaborate cooking (my “hobby” to replace dance) & eating & drinking. I’m slowly losing weight. I’m so angry and so hurt. I want to just be happy and do my own thing. It’s hard to keep starting over, especially as a woman at age 42. I love the city, the Canadian healthcare is great, I finally have a steady job, I'll be a dual citizen soon, but I feel like I’ve lost myself after eight years of being with this dude. How could I have been so dumb? Help me, Rabbit. Lagolamour Dear Lagolamour, Let's start by scraping your ex out of your story, once and for all. Let's just review the facts: This is someone who cheated on you, didn't like the way you dressed, didn't like the fact that you had no advanced degree… Is that even possible? What does that even fucking mean? And he couldn't handle your depression. Basically, he was game for the hot, swaggering, drinking dancer, but once you became a human being he was wringing his hands and looking for the door. Pointy Little Man, indeed. And that alone would be understandable, or at the very least typical. But instead of actually exiting, like someone with a conscience, he kept pulling you back in, his human security blanket, even as he was fucking undergrads. First of all, the sort of PhDs who fuck undergads? Christ almighty. I like an attractive whippersnapper as much as the next old perv, but actually having sex with someone who's still in college? Taking your clothes off in the presence of someone who still molds their little baseball cap in a perfect C-shape, and says shit like "See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya?" Unless you're Dane Cook, I don't get it. Fucking undergrads when you're a professor makes you a douche, period. And then he's running back to you, complaining about various women, telling you they're lame, explaining exactly what's lame about them so you'll dislike them, too. This guy is lonelier than you are. He's more of a mess than you are. And he's angrier than you are, too. Please leave The Orifice out of this. Fine, you were a mature professional at her age. She's obviously good at what she does, namely, staying up all night, drinking and giving fantastic blow jobs. Let's not begrudge her that. If she's sleeping with a forty something, who knows what's going on with her. She's got it bad enough, trying to play the low-maintenance cool chick to your douchey ex. That game can't last long. But even if she's the embodiment of all that is beautiful and right in the world, it doesn't matter. She has nothing to do with you. She's just some person in the world. Your feelings about her are inherently self-generated, because you're not in a relationship with her, she owes you nothing, and no matter what The Douche told you about her, you don't know her. The Douche can't be trusted. Do this much, at least: Think of her as The Girl (and not The Hole). She doesn't know you, either, and whatever perceived slights exist there, they're there because of one malevolent force in the world: The Douche. He's needy, manipulative, self-serving and bad. Private languages, shared senses of humor – in this particular case, the private universe you describe is one that's wrought from mutual dependence and fear. You obviously make The Douche feel powerful and worthwhile for some reason, at the price of your own power and self-esteem. It's time to cut off ties completely. What is this talk of banking and emergencies? Leave The Douche out of it. Take out a loan and pay off whatever you owe him or clean up whatever keeps you tied together. Just get him out, he's a leech on your energy and he keeps you in this state of rage over having wasted your time on an essentially screwy, selfish human being for too long. Cutting him out (which you've already started to do) means honoring yourself and setting the stage for the next part of your life. You could almost have sent me just the last paragraph of your letter, because the rest is just backstory about someone who doesn't matter anymore. Your anger at him now is partially anger at yourself for still considering him part of your story, still feeling like you ended up the way you are now because of him. He is this powerful symbol of you selling yourself short. That's why he can't be in the mix at all – you don't need that kind of a symbol around you. So, now it's time for new symbols, and new paths. I suspect that getting in shape is a huge part of your recovery, since you're a former dancer and you obviously care about this aspect of your life. I totally understand about injuries. What is it with 40 anyway? Between vertigo and ankle-turning, I've had a bunch of problems this year, but finally I figured out that if I don't push myself, I'll just be lame for the rest of my life. Some injuries really keep you on your back, but others you just have to find some workaround. Right now I'm wrapping my ankle really well, doing Tae Bo, and then walking my dogs, then icing my ankle afterwards. Something about the Tae Bo has actually made my ankle stronger, and it hurts a lot less and feels less stiff than it did when I was doing next to nothing. My husband has a foot injury that hurts more after he does anything, but he also says that it hurts less overall if he's working out. I don't really understand this stuff, or why it's just part of the fucking conversation when you pass age 38, but I am starting to see how the stakes get really high as you get older and gain weight. If you have injuries and you're too heavy, it's that much harder not to reinjure yourself, it's that much harder to get motivated, etc. It just sounds like you're at a really important juncture with your physical and emotional health, and really, the quality of the rest of your life is going to rely on you making a serious commitment to getting into the best shape you possibly can. Eating less is obviously a big part of that and so is yoga, but it also sounds like you need a little aerobic exercise to push your whole routine to a level where you feel not just that you're making steady progress, but you're changing everything and turning your whole life around. Maybe you could swim or try some low impact Cardio Barre classes, which of course will strike you as annoying, as a dancer, but also might build on your strengths. You could get a DVD and just do a little bit at home every day. It's all pretty dorky and hard to get excited about, but my sense is that this is at the core of what you need in your life: to feel like you're willing to completely throw yourself into a new way of living. Besides, nothing tackles anger and builds confidence like working up a sweat. Again, I don't know the nature of your injuries, I just have a sense that you need to put even more energy into this part of your picture. You have to work really hard to find a good solution here, whether that means seeing a physical therapist or taking on a new kind of workout, I don't know. But you can't just slowly chip away at the pounds. My guess is that you, in particular, have to be more proactive than that if you want to get inspired by the whole process. Because you were once extremely fit, you have a long way to go until you feel really excited and sure that you'll get back to where you were. A lot of this rage you have isn't just about The Douche, of course, it's about you feeling furious at yourself for letting yourself land here. This isn't about being overweight, either, it's about feeling that you're strong and flexible and capable again. For a former dancer, nothing could be more important than that. It's essential. As far as the rest of your life that's died with the departure of The Douche? You probably would've had to face this even if you were still with him. People get old, move away, have kids, and the party isn't the same as it was in your early 30s. There's a point where we all have to ask ourselves, how do I really want to spend my time? So what do you love to do? What's your dream? Sometimes just acknowledging what you really love is a big step, even if you can't exactly redesign your life around it. How do you want to spend your time? My guess is that if you 1) cut off all contact with The Douche permanently, 2) face your injuries head-on, find some solutions or at least ways to work within the limitations they place on you, and get into much better shape, and 3) start looking very carefully at your dreams and ambitions and favorite ways to spend your time, and start to redesign your life in order to honor your passions, you're going to find yourself in a very different place in a few months. People will tell you that anger is something you have to express, or resolve, that you should write an imaginary letter to The Douche, or burn an effigy of him, or try to sort through your feelings for him in therapy. My opinion, based on what you've said, is that he's already dead to you, and the lingering emotions you have around him are feelings that are more closely tied to your confidence level. You're pissed off at yourself, you feel like a reject that got left behind. You're angry and not just sad because you know, deep down inside, that this isn't who you are. You're not just the depressed overweight exgirlfriend (and seeing yourself that way is what makes you hate The Girl). You are a powerful person, and everything that ever made other people love you and follow you around before is still there. You have charisma and ideas and colorful thoughts in your head, and people like you. If they're not acting like it at the moment, it's because you yourself are in conflict about your worth. You can turn your story around, though. You don't necessarily need to move or get another job or find a new guy – these things may happen. But those aren't issues that can be tackled directly, until you start really taking the actions that will give you more respect and affection for yourself right now. For the next year, you have to work really hard to pull yourself out of this rut. Every day is going to feel like a chore for a while, if you're doing this right. You have to push away your discouraged thoughts and just move forward. You have to dare to have big dreams again. You have to dare to believe that you might find someone new who will love you without being an enormous douchebag about it. Plant your head in a dreamy space, and make your injured body go through the motions. Research your dreams. Make some deadlines. Work really, really hard. Make a steady flow of plans with friends. Do some elaborate cooking once a month, throw a little dinner party. This is the year you turn it all around. But you have to commit to it. You have to say to yourself: I am changing everything. I am going to be strong and resilient again. You have to silence the whiny and discouraged and enraged voices. When they get too loud, leave the house for a walk. This is the year you're not going to settle or make excuses or fall into old patterns. You're going to be kind to yourself, but you're going to work hard, every day. It's time to push away the old stories – stop telling them, stop thinking about them – and focus. You don't have to explain anything to anyone. Just focus on what you want, and move forward. This is the year you pulled out of a tailspin. This is the year you started taking care of yourself. This is the year you stopped listening to other people more than you listen to yourself. This is the year you started to get everything you ever wanted. This is the year your dreams started to come true. I feel sure that a few small changes will turn into a whole new life for you. You have so much of what you need already, you're already on the right track. But for you to really feel happy again, for you to have the kinds of friends and life partner and job that you have always wanted, you have to redouble your efforts and be strong and focused. None of your challenges is going to evaporate into thin air, of course. But your whole way of viewing the world is about to brighten up dramatically. You can do it! You really can. You're already on your way. Best of luck, Rabbit 12:59 PM Friday, July 30, 2010 HUSBANDS = LOSERS? Dear Rabbit, You offer such wonderful advice to women who need to break up with the jackasses they’re dating. I am currently dating a man with whom I badly need to break up, but I just can’t seem to do it. He is, like the boyfriends of many past advice-seekers, handsome, delicious, great in bed, and fundamentally unavailable emotionally. He also doesn’t want children and will NEVER want children, and while I’m not quite ready to have them yet myself, it’s an option I may want to ponder in the next few years. I’m 33, happy with my job, and I hardly drink at all (and yes, I’m pretty hot, though I’m definitely not too beautiful to be your friend). I have great friends and hobbies, cute pets, my own place, and a good life generally. Except for the fact that I am in love with a difficult man-child who, although he loves me, doesn’t really want an “every day” kind of relationship. He’s more into a “two to three days a week” arrangement. Sometimes this feels romantic and fun, and sometimes I feel lonely despite my solid crew of ladyfriends and just want the comfort of a lover who is also a close friend, who wants to hear how my project is going and what I think about Jersey Shore or the new Haruki Murakami novel. Here’s where the psychological twistedness begins. When I (calmly, with I-statements) try to express the desire for more time with my guy, he basically says, “Guys who have time to be husbands [and by extension, fathers] have NOTHING else going on in their lives. They’re not creative and they’re dead inside. You’d be bored with a guy like that.” And to a small degree, he might be right, except I really really hope not. My dad was (like my boyfriend, cringe) one of the hip, gypsy ne’erdowell deadbeat dads that were endemic in the seventies (he was “too creative” to have time to be a dad…you see where this is going). I hardly saw him at all from the time I was four until he finally came back to the States when I was in my teens—and by then, it was far too late to have any semblance of a father-daughter relationship. So here I am, acting it all out again. Ugh. Over the past three years, I’ve tried to break up with this guy many times, even going so far as to move to another state with another man, which was as ill-fated as it sounds. I did well professionally, but emotionally I didn’t hold up too well, what with having no friends and having the guy I moved for break up with me about a week after I unpacked. Silly, I know, but I learned a lot and it ended up affording me better opportunities when I came back. Anyway, I also fell back into the arms of the beautiful, stubborn puer aeternus, and here I am. Still sniffling into my soup on a semi-regular basis because he just doesn’t have time for me. I have a kind of vague idea of what a better relationship would look like—I think it would involve sleeping in the same bed occasionally and having someone to play Boggle with. I also know there must be creatively fulfilled men out there who also happen to be husbands and fathers. But the concrete details of these things are foreign to me. I realize there is some kind of deep choice that I need to make—I loved what you wrote about “waking up feeling good” with your person. I need to be strong! I need to put my foot down! I need to put one foot in front of the other and walk away! And I just don’t really know how to do that. I think you are pretty good at some of those things, so I am hoping you might have some pointers. Thanks, Rabbit. Stuck at Square One Dear Stuck at Square One, What do you think of the new Haruki Murakami novel? See how good that feels? Your day could start like that every day, if you married the uncreative loser who has time to be a husband or a father. Back when I was glamoured by a wide range of very well-intentioned man-children, narcissists and oh-so-creative unemployed stoners, I always worried that a stable, interested, present, mature adult would bore the shit out of me. I loved overconfident, blustery, bold men with a swagger in their step – and when I cried over something small and these guys told me that this very nice thing about me, my ability to weep at, say, a dead bird or a really moving TV ad, made me a loser, I believed them. I believed that my emotions were a huge inconvenience, and that only a truly debilitated zero would ever give a shit about them. Sigh. And you know, these guys felt like home. I write about this in my book. Longing for more love felt utterly comfortable to me, in many ways, while having someone pay real attention to me and only me just made me nervous. What kind of a worthless toad would spend a few seconds focusing on me and me alone? But a survival instinct did kick in eventually, about 2 years in. When I'd finally grown a little less blown away by the charms (created partially by pedestal-building by me) of this or that guy, I'd picture myself raising kids with a man-child, cleaning up after a man-child, or just letting myself get older and older and more and more invisible as some man-child lingered ambivalently at the edge of the frame. And finally I'd say FUCK THIS SHIT and cry too much and act like your classic psycho chick. ("Why won't you wake up and see how WONDERFUL I AM?" I'd lament, looking like Captain Caveman in my grungy soft pants.) The thing you need to know is this: The stakes are fucking high. Because having a nice boring, lame loserman who's willing to listen, support me, drive the kids to daycare, walk the dogs, hang out, be a good friend, etc. is the single best thing about my life. I'm not saying I was nothing before, or that marriage is everything. I'm just telling you that if you do feel, at some level, that what you really want is a real partner and not a distracted cat in your life, then it's crucial that you drop this guy immediately. Just start researching now. Line up an apartment if you live together. Line up a week's worth of activities to keep you busy. Pack up your shit. Dump him. Be polite about it – you'll know you're ready if you can manage that. Sure, you'll also cry and lament, but you're really just torturing yourself, both in staying with him and in weeping about it. You already know he's not good for you. You already know you're about to be happier. There's nothing romantic about being ignored, so work really hard on removing the tragic romantic drama from your image of him. TRUST ME, in a year, you will see him very, very clearly and you will think: Christ almighty, that guy. Why? While you loom around, waiting for Handsome to get home, you're letting lots of really great possibilities pass you by. Why would you fucking do that to yourself? Again: It's already over. Now you're just torturing yourself. Just take action. Pack some stuff. Make a few phone calls to friends. Just act, don't lament, don't get dramatic. And sure, you won't like anyone for a while. That's fine. Make friends, focus on living very large for a while. But while you're single, and you're sometimes lonely, just remember: You will find someone who's just as pretty to look at and smart and creative as your boyfriend, only he'll also love talking about shit, and he'll love you. Have faith in yourself, and keep telling yourself that you're not settling for less than someone who's head over heels about you. Be clear on that, and the rest of your life is already guaranteed to be better than it is right now. Some other ideas: Buy a nice outfit. Commit to a vigorous exercise routine. Get your hair cut and colored. All of these things seem to help. Splurge a little for a few weeks. And finally? Everyone is really boring after a while, at some level. The thing that saves so called "boring" men and husbands from being as unbearable as man-children is their genuine engagement with the world. There is really nothing in the world nicer than having a real conversation, a real back and forth, with your husband. There's nothing nicer than seeing him really talk to your kids, and listen to what they say. You look at someone like that and you say to yourself, "Christ, I must be doing something right, to be a part of this picture." I'm not just bragging emptily about my fantastic life here; this is the way that women who have thoughtful, smart, present men in their lives feel. It's good to be an adult. You will love it, believe me. Fuck it, why not start today? Best of luck, Rabbit 9:05 AM Tuesday, July 27, 2010 BITE Mom. Dad. We need to talk. When your toddler bites another toddler, don't rush over and say "Oh! Oh! Oh!" to the bitten child, whose parents are right there saying "Oh! Oh! Oh!" already. Look at YOUR kid. She's smiling. You need to talk to her. Don't pick up your smiling daughter and then walk over to where the bitten kid is crying and say, "Do you see what you did? Do you see?" in a soft voice you might also use when you say "Aren't you big!" or "You ate all your peas!" Don't say, "Do you see? Do you see?" over and over like you're looking at a humming bird or the north star. After that, don't blush and freak out and feel embarrassed and explain yourself as if this is All About You, because no one actually wants to hear it. Don't juice a bunch of reassurances and friendly feelings out of the bitten kid's parents -- even though they know that all toddlers are crazy, enraged monkeys because they have one living in their home with them, too, they won't mean a word they say. In fact, they won't like you no matter what you say next. But this isn't about your experiences, or your new friends, or how cool or not cool you appear to the other hipster parents assembled. This is about telling your kid that she shouldn't bite. You have to do this right after it happens, so she gets it. That's what you do when your kid bites. You get down at eye level and you say, in a harsh tone (sorry, but this is the rare occasion when it's not only warranted but recommended), "That is bad. We never, ever bite. That is very, very bad." But you never stopped and looked your kid in the eye, mom. You never used a harsh tone or even a firm tone. So your kid smiled and babbled to herself as you were freaking out and apologizing to everyone else. Let's review what your kid just learned: Bite a random kid at the hipster coffee playpen and mommy rushes over, picks you up, and coos at your accomplishment along with all of the other parents. I have not read multiple parenting books. I do not pretend to know anything about raising children. I am a far cry from an ideal parent -- that's why my kids are somewhere else while I sit here in a cafe, trying to write some ultimately pointless critique of a pop cultural artifact no one will remember 3 weeks from now, let alone 3 years. I do my best, almost, not quite. But look: Your kid bites? Don't think about your stupid ego. Get down on your goddamn hands and knees and look your kid right in the eye and tell your kid that we do not fucking bite each other, period. I'm not saying it'll ACTUALLY WORK. Christ almighty, of course not! I would never imply such a thing. And I'm DEFINITELY not saying that the parents of biters are bad, or that they cause their kids' biting. No way. They really don't. Kids are lunatics, we all know that. All I'm saying is that if you see your kid bite another kid, and instead of addressing your kid directly, you pick her up and then make a big show of explaining yourself to everyone else like you're running for city council? You're fucking lame. That is all. 3:55 PM Friday, July 23, 2010 BEEP. 9:50 AM OLD, BROKEN THINGS I'm hand-coding my archives, finally, because the automated blogger script isn't working and has been misplacing my ancient history since before man discovered fire. Yes, this blog is that old! In other news, my neighbor seems to have dealt with his faulty, beeping fire alarm by ripping it out of the ceiling and leaving it in his backyard about 20 feet from where I now sit. BEEP. Here's how it all unfolded! BEEP. First, the dog looked very frightened out of the blue, perhaps fearing that carbon monoxide poisoning might kill us all at any minute. BEEP. That's when I noticed the weird, shrill beep. BEEP. I wandered around the house trying to figure out which of our alarms was beeping. BEEP. Luckily, that's when Bill returned home, and, in a ritual as old as time itself, I instructed him to dismantle the suspected alarm. BEEP. I said, "It's that one! Take it down! It's making me fucking crazy!" BEEP. In a dance as old as the very stones on which our humble bungalow was crafted 100 years ago, Bill took the alarm down and removed its batteries to replace them -- but the beeping continued! BEEP. Like so many proud men had done before him, he stomped around the house, swearing and yanking down the other two alarms. BEEP. By now, Bean, the frightened dog, was sitting in my lap, hoping against hope that we weren't about to pass out and die in our compound like cornered fundamentalist separatist types, the really extremist kinds who watch "Top Chef." BEEP. Finally, Bill looked out the window and saw that the offending alarm was our neighbor's. BEEP. Well, now. BEEP. But enough of that. BEEP. I'm on deadline. BEEP. I have to concentrate! BEEP. 9:15 AM Wednesday, July 21, 2010 WISENHEIMER TIME Awwwww Rabbit I'm sorry, I sure didn't mean to hurt your feelers. As a matter of fact, I do have friends of all sizes, not to mention many ages, levels of attractiveness and in various stages of mental health - God knows that last one changes for me monthly. I do take responsibility for what I say or write however, so my sincere apology to you for any insult caused by my first email. But I really think my bigger mistake was assuming you were thicker skinned. And no, I'm not copping out with one of those lousy,"it's-really-your-fault-for-being-insulted" back-handed apologies. My friends and I just happen to enjoy a lot of insult-type banter. We call each other out, give each other loads of shit and laugh it off. It's not our exclusive style of rapport by any means, we also love and support each other and we respect and defend one another. We just don't get too worked up about the "F" word (as in "fat'). Why give society the power to tell us how to feel about our bodies? And yes, we get bitter too and yes, it can, at times, be fun and funny! Your column(s) just make you seem like one of the wisenheimers in our group. My bad for getting too familiar. With most deepest reverence and profound respect, Lisa B. p.s. Did my 2nd email make the boo-boo even a wittle bit better? Dear Lisa B, You're very funny. Do you do stand-up? Are you coming to LA on your next tour? I hope when you get famous you don't forget the little people who put you there. Or the fat, angry people. And I hope you remember every last one of your loving, supportive, respectful, teasing, bantering, thick-skinned, secure, occasionally bitter, fun, funny friends. If you would just write to me every day, I'd never have to generate any ideas for this blog. Please write to me every day. Pleeeease. Rabbit 9:58 AM Monday, July 19, 2010 FAT CHANCE Rabbit, are you getting fat? Because you're sounding more bitter than usual. So, pip-pip, cheerio and all that - in other words, chin up!! (Seriously, you have gobs to be thankful for.) Stay classy, Lisa B. Oops, my stupid internet connection stopped before loading the rest of your latest post so all I read was your whining about the people you think are perfect. Sorry, I just saw the rest of your post and you don't sound bitter at all, also who cares if we get a little fatter? Christ, this country is so hung up on being thin. I'm naturally thin, but I think a little meat on the bones just looks so much better so I'm always trying to pack on a few lb's. Why is it that what feels so soft and supple to touch and caress is not what our eyes are supposed to find attractive? It just makes no fucking sense. I like what you wrote about the bouncy lady with the sign, I hope I see her some day. Stay classy, Lisa B. Dear Lisa B., This country is so hung up on being thin and happy that most people assume that anyone who's pissed off at something is downright bitter. And fat. Because I'm irritable and I'm a woman, people have often asked me if I'm fat. I assume this doesn't happen to men, since presumably a guy can be angry about something without overeating, or he can be unattractive without being furious about it, or maybe we don't give a shit how much a guy eats or how big he is. A woman, though, had better have a nice ass under all that anger. And then there are the single women who write to me like to clarify that they're very attractive, that many, many men agree on this front, so before I go thinking that they're lonely because they're ugly, rest assured they are not. What I've noticed, though, is that women look really good when they aren't distracted by their own reflection. When someone's worth doesn't ride on a reaction, you can see it, and it looks hot. Fat or not, angry or not, beautiful or not, if you're a walking apology, or a question mark, or a splashy billboard, you're not looking good. Several years ago, I knew a group of women who spent a lot of time telling each other how extraordinarily beautiful they were. This went beyond the usual "Hey, you look really nice" or "No, you really don't look old," which is just how women talk to each other. This was "Holy Christ, you are so gorgeous I just can't STAND IT." Somehow, the guys they knew were a part of this, too, throwing in that this or that woman is hot or is or isn't gaining weight. Then one night, one of the women was telling another woman that she was so gorgeous, just soooo gorgeous it was just unreal, it was unbearable, and I threw in, "Yes, I think you might be too beautiful to be my friend." A week later, my boyfriend received a call about how devastating it was for this woman to hear those words, because all her life, people have judged her based on her looks, and gone on and on about her looks, and this comment was just exactly like what she's always heard, and it cut her to the core. But when she tried to discuss it with me that night, I waved her off, laughing! How could I be so callous? I felt a little bad for her, really, because I had no idea her beauty was such an albatross. I didn't realize that she was any different from the other women around her. To me, she looked like the rest of them. Sometimes she looked pretty good. Sometimes she looked ordinary. Sometimes she looked stunning. She had been a model, but half of these women could've modeled, maybe if they were a little taller, maybe if they had more conventional noses or perfectly symmetrical features. They all looked great, but ultimately no greater or less great than most of the women I've known. The model, though, was hung up on the notion that she really was a creature whose beauty was so transcendent and distracting that it kept anyone from taking her seriously, and that hurt her deeply. In other words, she really was too beautiful to be my friend. But then, I'm probably way too fat and bitter to be your friend. Stay classy, Rabbit 12:46 PM Saturday, July 17, 2010 FOR THE PRODUCTIVE MOTHERFUCKERS IN PARADISE Isn't it time we stood up to the plague of productive motherfuckers out there, living happy and successful lives in beautiful places, writing timely thank you notes to their aunts and uncles and mothers and second cousins twice removed for the delightful gift that was sent in the mail and arrived right on time for Florenza's third birthday (which was truly wonderful, thanks for asking, the goldfish pond and pottery wheel and fondue-making class were all a smashing success)? Is it fair for these people to run all over town, their fashionable outfits draped over their abs of steel, chirping happily at each other about the upcoming publication of their second poetry chapbook, which is really going to make the move to the remodeled loft a little hectic, but hey, that's life when you're beautifulish and smartish and hopelessly productive? Is it right that we should sit a stone's throw from these people, who are centered and relaxed, and tolerate the fact that they're smiling sweetly while knitting whimsical scarves and tea cozies for their goddamn friends in their goddamn book clubs? Now, thanks to the internets, which lumpy, unproductive humans like you and me are drawn to like flies to enormous piles of grassy cow manure, we know all about these people and their many, many, many fun hobbies and activities and pet projects, and we are treated to professional-looking shots of their photogenic families, their fit husbands and their delicious children who are always hugging kitty cats or laughing joyfully, children who are always filled with wonder (which we know from the cheerful and awestruck blog posts written about them). Their children never pee in their Tinkerbell undies by accident and then whine about going commando, just for example. But that's because their children don't carry around the enormous burden of having conflicted, ambivalent, distracted, drag-ass self-hating ovens for parents. Their children have parents who make elaborate veggie casseroles for dinner and finish it all with Bananas Foster, and then the sword-swallowers arrive for a pre-bedtime surprise. Or they sleep under the stars at Joshua Tree and no one soils their sleeping bag or has a bad trip from too many high-fructose-corn-syrup-infused juice boxes. But forget the kids, they're a footnote to the real crime: Those seriously productive donkey-fucking assholes, frolicking in paradise, publishing stuff, starting online magazines of their own for fun, leading support groups, going to classes at the new cardio ballet place that gives you an ass like a basketball. Fuck them! Fuck those people! Fuck the serene, positive-thinking professional hipster, with her fucking handmade crafts and her mid-century modern furniture and her good skin! This morning I was feeling like a loser, and I saw a very big woman waving around a Yard Sale sign. She was wearing an outfit that didn't compliment her body, and her boobs were jiggling and bouncing in a wild way, and she was smiling and waving around this piece of cardboard with something scrawled on it, and you could barely read the words. You really had to squint - the writing was in some shitty ballpoint pen and maybe she ran out of room for the address because the last part was really squeezed on there, and then there was this huge space under the words, she didn't even make use of the whole piece of cardboard. The whole thing was very unprofessional, the kind of thing that, if I had done it myself, I would've ripped it up, declaring it unacceptable, and then I would've bitched about how I didn't have anymore goddamn cardboard to start another sign, and then I probably would've blamed my husband for not buying more cardboard at the drugstore. "When I say get some cardboard, that word 'some' means more than one fucking piece." That's really what I would've said, too. But I also wouldn't have put on that outfit, if I were as big as she was. I'm not all that slender at the moment, but if I were her, I would've stared in the mirror and sobbed and then gone back to bed. Maybe I'd put on some kind of a housedress or some elastic pants eventually, but I certainly wouldn't go stand on the stupid curb with a sign, drawing attention to myself. No way. If I were big like her, I'd be at home, sulking. I'd make my husband stand around with the sign, but then I'd blame him when the yard sale got too crowded and hectic. "Where have you been? I can't handle this whole thing on my own! This was YOUR IDEA IN THE FIRST PLACE!" That's really how I would've been about it. But this morning I sat at the intersection at watched the woman bouncing around, and even though I was in a bad mood, she made me smile. She was just a really great person, you could see that. She had swagger. She didn't give a shit that she looked a little bouncy and unwieldy out there, jumping around, she didn't care that her sign sucked, she was jumping around and waving at drivers. And all of the drivers in the cars next to me were smiling and waving at her, and some of them were men, too. They weren't giving her a cheap, "Hey there, little hottie!" wave, they were giving her an appreciative, you-made-my-morning wave. They liked the cut of her jib. And so did I. I need to be more like that woman, I thought. I'm 40 years old now, and I need to stop comparing myself to productive motherfuckers with 3 really good novels and half a dozen knitted tea cozies under their belts. Fixating on other people and their accomplishments and their energy and their ability to get shit done is just like wanting someone else's shiny car. It's like being 40 and paying a surgeon to make your tits look like a 20-year-old's tits. Once you start down that road, nothing will ever be good enough. You can't be a combination of Mary Gaitskill and PJ Harvey and Georgia O'Keefe and Joan Didion and Giselle Bundchen and Meryl Streep. You can't even be one of those people. . Right now, with my writing, I'm ripping up the goddamn sign and starting over. I'm saying "This is all wrong." I'm saying, "You fucked up, this would be fine if you hadn't fucked up." To myself, mostly. Serene, productive professionals are getting on my nerves – maybe because they really are annoying, self-satisfied motherfuckers, or maybe because I just happen to prefer people whose sweaters are unraveling, who are second-guessing themselves, who just spilled coffee all over their pants. But that woman on the curb doesn't give a fuck about what serene, productive professional hipsters do or don't do. She doesn't send thank you notes and she doesn't consider that a personal failing of hers. She has other shit to do. I am going to try to be more like her. 9:17 AM HOW YOU GET UNSTUCK Go read this right now. Better than the finest rabbit stew! It made me cry my eyes out. 7:52 AM Thursday, June 24, 2010 COOKIE I DIG YOUR FRAME Dear Rabbit, I’m 21 years old, a college graduate, a soon to be law school student, and I’ve never been in love. It isn’t extraordinary to be in such a situation and not even that tragic in comparison to losing your mother, as I did last August, but it is an annoyance, a question, a point of confusion. You hear about this type of thing all the time, I’m sure, and I read your previous response letter and it really got me to thinking, but I’m still a tad bit confused. It’s not that I’ve even had the opportunity for such a relationship where I could fall in love. The longest relationship I’ve been in is 3 dates long and that’s worthy of celebration. I’ve matured into the girl my mom hoped I would never become- her. I apologize for not being modest but there is no other way for you to fully understand my situation without it being said- I’m pretty and on most days I feel beautiful and confident in myself. I’m intelligent and passionate. I’m worldly and an enthusiast of many things. Guys make passes at me wherever I go, be it in the coffee shops and bookstores or at the bars and clubs, so I can’t even blame it on limiting my options. It isn’t even that I’ve closed myself off or am too timid. My guy friends think I give too many guys too many chances. And they think I’m at fault for teasing so many guys, but I don’t intend to be a tease. My only intentions are to meet new people, make new friends, and see if anything ever comes of it. For so many years I went to therapy to avoid becoming the narcissist’s child because my mother and therapist worried that as the narcissist’s child, I would end up with a man like my father- an arrogant man who can talk pretty and win everyone over but the people he should love. Basically they were afraid I’d end up with a man that would only hurt me and not provide me with a healthy type of loving. Maybe that’s why I haven’t found anyone? Because in my subconscious I’m avoiding all men? I long to be in a relationship with someone. I long for someone to feel that way about me and need me just as badly. I long to feel that love and in a sick way I long to feel a pain that will be different than losing my mother. I don’t ever want to be the desperate girl. I want to stop being the girl that has a whole lot of one night stand opportunities chasing after her and not one boyfriend potential running after her. What am I to do? A bit of advice would be nice- something to give me a bit of clarity, something to give me a bit of motivation in this quarterly life dilemma I’ve been dealing with. Thanks, With The Accent Dear With The Accent, Jeez. All of my readers are so gorgeous! I wish I had pictures of all of you beautiful young people, to hang on my sad old lady walls. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. No, I'm not that fucking old yet, although technically I am old enough to be your mother, which fucking sucks and is the kind of thing that never occurred to me until I turned 40. Lame. But back to your quarter-life crisis: I understand why you would clarify this. You're an attractive woman. You can fool around with anyone but no one wants a girlfriend. You know that song "Fuck and Run" by Liz Phair? "I want a boyfriend," she sings, while screwing around with this or that guy. Consider yourself lucky, that you're not lonely and slutty. That's far worse. I congratulate you for not being a total slut like the rest of us, men and women alike, were at your age. Look, you're 21 years old. Of course you haven't been in love yet. The only women who've been in love by your age are women who can suspend their disbelief really well. Most guys your age are, maturity-wise, about 11 years old. Most of them still play with action figures when nobody's looking. They spend most of their time jacking off to pictures of Heidi Montag. Falling in love with the average 21-year-old guy is like falling in love with a really sophisticated monkey -- except less exciting. And more demeaning. And less fun. And more insulting. And less educational. And more obnoxious. Well, OK, I did have lots of thoughtful, smart boyfriends when I was your age and younger. I could sniff out the romantics in a crowd. I could locate the one sensitive, slightly neurotic sweetheart in a room crowded with self-serving mutants. Can't you do that, too? Can't you just avoid the guys who remind you of your father, and go for the ones who are exactly the opposite? Or are you allergic to people who really, sincerely like you? Because many of us are, when we're young. I mean, if you really want a boyfriend, you do have to tolerate the feeling that someone is paying attention to you, not ignoring you -- you know, ignoring you the way a narcissist might? I don't know, it's tough to say what's going on with you, based on your letter. My best guess is that you're doing fine, on the whole. You're salling forth with your self-respect in place, and sure, maybe you're keeping yourself safe from getting hurt, but that's how you are. You're a little cautious. My only advice is that you open up your heart to some guys who might not catch your interest at first. Slow down and see who's actually listening closely, paying attention to you. Try to branch out a little bit, get to be friends with a few new guys if you can, expand your horizons, keep an open mind. Watch, listen, and don't panic or tell yourself that you're LATE somehow. You're not late. Forget love for the moment. Just see if you can fall in like. That means spending some time with a few guys, making it clear that you want to be friends. And if people call you a tease, tell them to kiss your fucking ass. Not wanting to fuck someone for no reason doesn't make you a tease. Not being attracted to someone doesn't make you a tease. The word "tease" is someone else's problem -- that's their boner, not yours. You're not fucking with anyone, here. You're just living your life. I think that's one thing that it's really important to be assertive about. Don't let people cast aspersions on your friendliness just because you also happen to be pretty and 21 years old. If they can't handle the fact that you make their pants itch, then they can back the fuck off. You know, I will add that this hints at something. Are you hesitant to tell people what you think, because you think they won't like you if you do? If so, I'm going to strongly encourage you to experiment with this, and risk not being liked. You're not really free until you accept the fact that some people won't like you. You're not free until you stop trying to please everyone. This is a common trap for the pretty daughter of a narcissist, I might add. Please yourself. You don't have to be perfect. I'm sorry about your mother. She would want you to know that you aren't running late. Everything is going to turn out just fine for you. You have a good head on your shoulders. Take a little more pride in who you are, underneath the prettiness, underneath the label of narcissist's daughter or shy girl or tease. Fuck the critics. Assert yourself. Be the person you want to be eventually, down the road, but do it today, right now. Clear out every person who doesn't support you fully. Only keep friends around who are totally loving and trustworthy, and be loving and trustworthy to them. Above all, DO NOT WORRY. Do not fret. Open your heart, move forward, and have faith that the world is your oyster. Just make sure to open your eyes, see what is around you, and let it all in. Good things are headed your way, I feel certain of that -- probably sooner than you imagine. Very best wishes to you, Rabbit 8:12 PM all contents © the rabbit blog 2001-2009

me staff critic at the daily, former staff writer at salon.com, co-creator of filler, author of the memoir disaster preparedness published by riverhead books in jan 2011 my stuff salon filler twitter good stuff I wrote beware personal branding disorders hoarding shows cured my hoarding real brand managers of nyc climates of intolerance in dog we trust faster, pregnant lady! gen x apology recessionary bending expecting the worst an excellent filler more filler press laist interview la weekly interview ojr interview barrelhouse interview some random old stuff fillerama hen & bunny childless whore RSS write to rabbit, damn it! archive! october 2001 november 2001 december 2001 january 2002 february 2002 march 2002 april 2002 may 2002 june 2002 july 2002 august 2002 september 2002 october 2002 november 2002 december 2002 january 2003 february 2003 march 2003 april 2003 may 2003 june 2003 july 2003 august 2003 september 2003 october 2003 november 2003 december 2003 january 2004 february 2004 march 2004 april 2004 may 2004 june 2004 july 2004 august 2004 september 2004 october 2004 november 2004 december 2004 january 2005 february 2005 march 2005 april 2005 may 2005 june 2005 july 2005 august 2005 september 2005 october 2005 november 2005 december 2005 january 2006 february 2006 march 2006 april 2006 may 2006 june 2006 july 2006 august 2006 september 2006 october 2006 november 2006 december 2006 january 2007 february 2007 march 2007 april 2007 may 2007 june 2007 july 2007 august 2007 september 2007 october 2007 november 2007 december 2007 january 2008 february 2008 march 2008 april 2008 may 2008 june 2008 july 2008 august 2008 september 2008 october 2008 november 2008 december 2008 january 2009 february 2009 march 2009 april 2009 may 2009 june 2009 july 2009 august 2009 september 2009 october 2009 november 2009 december 2009 january 2010 february 2010 march 2010 april 2010 may 2010 june 2010 july 2010 color rabbit illustration by terry colon rabbit girl illustration by terry colon with assembly by jay anderson white rabbit illustration by loretta lopez all letters to the rabbit become the property of the rabbit blog