Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

Three screen names that you’ve had: sarah masumi, unf_slight, and sarahndipity

Three things you like about yourself: My eyes, my hair, and my small waist. If only the small waist wasn’t buffeted by big hips and big boobs.

Three things you don’t like about yourself: see above re: hips, boobs. Also, my propensity to get ingrown hairs. What is UP with that? I’ve worn out loofahs and STILL I get them. Growl.

Three parts of your heritage: Need to tune out every and all noise to totally recharge, from my dad. Crafty arts skillz from my mom. Deep abiding love of matzo balls from my chosen faith.

Three things that scare you: heights, falling, rubber balloons

Three of your everyday essentials: Coffee. Lip balm. Blog reading/writing (this one and my own)

Three things you are wearing right now: flannel pjs, vneck shirt, hoodie that belongs to my mother in law

Three of your favorite songs: Anything that helps Freebird sleep. Right now: Reggae, the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, and country music.

Three things you want in a relationship: Hubby, Hubby, and Hubby. All the rest is commentary.

Two truths and a lie: I once had a mohawk. I think I am marginally psychic about imminent events. I think about additional piercings then I chicken out.

Three things you can’t live without: food, Hubby, books

Three places you want to go on vacation: Japan, the UK & Jersey Islands, and Australia/New Zealand

Three things you just can’t do: Maintain a manicure longer than 4 days, remember numbers, maintain any sense of what time or day it is.

Three kids names: I only have one, and his name is Freebird, at least, online it is.

Three things you want to do before you die: travel to those places I just mentioned, watch Freebird grow up, hang out with Hubby every day

Three celeb crushes: Fyvush Fynkle, Johnny Depp, George Eads

Three of your favorite musicians: Since Freebird is snoozing to them: Bob Marley, Haydn, and Travis Tritt.

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to you: Big Brain, Big laugh, big schlong.

Three of your favorite hobbies: Reading, writing, napping

Three things you really want to do badly right now: Take a nap, make the pie for Thanksgiving, take another nap

Three careers you’re considering/you’ve considered: Writer, Professor, Tupperware saleslady

Three ways that you are stereotypically a boy: I think potty humor is hysterical, including and not limited to Beavis and Butthead. I hate having to maintain girly looks in the hair and skin products department. I want all my clothes to be monochromatic and easy to mix and match.

Three ways that you are stereotypically a girl: I love romance novels. I love to cook. I am rather vain about my hair.

Sarah’s Story

Senior year of high school, I went out with this neighborhood guy whom I’ll call Bonehead. When I got in to college in South Carolina, and he got into a satellite school of the state university on a very small amount of financial aid, this caused quite a rift. He was most vocal about the fact that I’d abandoned him. We ran up a scary phone bill, but by the end of freshman year, something was different. He didn’t want to talk on the phone, or he just wasn’t home when I called.

School ended and I came home. When I went to his house, his mom greeted me with this weird expression on her face, and told me he wasn’t home. He eventually arrived, took me out on the porch, and proceeded to dump me with the reasoning that he was “too tired.”

I ran home crying, and spent the next week crying literally every 20 minutes. Then, one afternoon I was walking the dog when one of his friends came up to me and said how sorry she was that we’d broken up. I sniffled a bit and was trying to think of something to say when she said, “And I can’t believe he got her pregnant.”

Seems Bonehead was cheating on me with some girl from school. He was “tired” because his family and hers had been meeting for hours to discuss “What to Do.” He was going to have to marry her and have a baby.

I don’t cry in front of people as a rule, but I sat down on the grass in front of this girl and next to my dog and just sobbed. I felt so stupid, humiliated, and worthless.

Enter a friend of mine from high school, who got me a job at the camp his parents ran in West Virginia. I went away to camp to work that summer, and spent the bulk of the time getting over Bonehead. By the end of that summer, I was in a marvelously happy relationship with my friend from high school, who eventually became my Hubby and the father of our son, Freebird.

I didn’t see Bonehead again, and to this day, nothing comes up when I Google his name - and that is a sign of someone with no life to speak of.

Candy’s Story

My particular trauma didn’t really lie with the break-up itself, but events that happened shortly after. The memories alternately amuse and sting.

I lived with a guy for a couple of years, and while we were cohabiting, we decided to pool together our grocery money for the sake of convenience, and we agreed to use his account. Things went well at first, but after a while, he decided he didn’t love me any more. Some sturm und drang resulted, but we eventually calmed down and ended things rather amicably. We needed to move out, but he was broke, so I did him a favor and lent him some money to pay for his car insurance so he could concentrate on saving up for moving expenses.

No, my forehead doesn’t have “SUCKER” stamped on it. I’ve looked and looked.

Anyway, the night before I had an appointment to check out a few apartments, this guy--let’s just call him StripperFucker, OK?--sneaked out of the house. It was a Friday, and I was in the living room watching a DVD. I dozed off briefly, and when I woke up, he was gone. I just figured he’d gone to buy some smokes and would be back soon, and didn’t think too much about it, so I went to bed.

When I woke up, it was 1 a.m., and he still wasn’t home. Now I was REALLY worried. We’d broken up, sure, but he was still my friend, and he sometimes did stupid things like drive around drunk. I waited for him, feeling increasingly worried, until he stumbled into the house, reeking of cigarettes and alcohol. I reeled out the usual spiel: where were you, holy crap I was worried, etc.

He then told a series of really puzzling lies. He said:

- He went out drinking with some friends from work, and he hadn’t told me he was going out because his friends had called him at the very last minute. This was odd, because I was right next to the only phone in the house ALL NIGHT, and neither of us had a cellphone, and I didn’t hear it ring.

- He then went on to say that he didn’t tell me because he thought I was out of the house, and that he’d meant to write me a note so I wouldn’t worry about him, but he’d forgotten. However, there’s no way he could’ve left the house without walking right by the living room, and the TV would’ve been clearly audible--and my car was parked right next to his, so where the fuck did he think I went?

I was too tired to decipher all his bullshit and decided it didn’t matter; I figured he just didn’t want to tell me he was going out with the boys for whatever reason and left it at that.

So I woke up early on Saturday morning and did my usual rounds--blog hopped, checked e-mail, etc. It was right after payday, so I logged into our joint account to figure out our last joint grocery budget, and immediately noticed a series of withdrawals amounting to about $220 from an ATM on Columbia Blvd.

Being an enterprising little chippy, I Googled that address, and yup--Exotica International, a Gentlemen’s Club.

At this point, the motherfucker owed me about $550 in car insurance money and had whined about being broke and not having enough money to move out. Apparently, he had plenty of cash for naked strangers. I wasn’t just mad. My whole body clenched in fury.

I immediately went into the bedroom, shook him awake and confronted him with it. He was sheepish and somewhat apologetic but largely unrepentant, and I slammed out of the house screaming mad, gladder than ever that we’d broken up and that I would soon be away from him.

Things settled down, and we moved out without further incident. A couple of weeks after we moved out, StripperFucker sent me a check for a measly $50 to go towards the money he owed me. I was kind of puzzled at the small amount, but he told me it was because he wanted to play it safe the first month in the new place--make sure he had enough money to cover all the bills, etc. I shrugged and said “OK.” Then I got a call a few days later: Please don’t cash the check, he was really low on money, he’d mismanaged a couple of key things, etc.

Now, I’d had access to his account for ages. I knew exactly how much he was making. No matter how badly he’d mismanaged things, he should’ve been able to afford to pay me $50.

Long story short: I found out he’d spent over $450 on strippers that weekend.

I snapped, and told him he’d better have gotten a blowjob for that money. I mean, Jesus, the guy could’ve hired a hooker for that much.

And you know what? A few weeks after that, I found out that’s exactly what he’d bought with that money. So y’all, if you’re in Portland and looking for a blowjob from a stripper, the Sugar Shack on Lombard apparently has personnel who are willing and happy to oblige as long as you are willing to grossly overpay.

Anyway, to compound the drama, I found out he was dating and fucking a stripper. He claimed he was really conscientious about using protection, but I don’t think he knew that rubbers aren’t very effective barriers against HPV and herpes. I contemplated telling him this, but as my friend Anna told me, some kids just learn their lessons better the hard way.