Cupcakes and toner and writing goals and belated sex diaries links

Crazy busy these days but you can always keep up with me at Cupcakes Take the Cake, and on Twitter and Tumblr. If Blogger worked on the iPhone...well, who knows? I'm not holding my breath.

I found cupcakes at Sweet (see below and stay tuned to CTTC for a review) this weekend in Cambridge and Boston. And at Lush, where I got the incredible toner you see below; I guess by now I expect, somewhat, to turn around in a store and see cupcakes but it's still a bit surprising, like they are following me or something. I am normally a take-it-or-leave-it toner girl, but my skin is really dry and this feels super refreshing. One of my will-finally-feel-like-a-real-writer goals is to break into the journal Brevity, where all the cool kids are published. It's, perhaps, a slightly petty goal, but fuck it: I'm petty. Full disclosure. I've also decided that in light of last week's awfulness, I'm gonna write whatever the fuck I want, and if you don't like it, I really don't care. That might sound bitchy but it's either that or carry around so many fears way heavier than my bags will ever be. I'm so over that. I'm also planning to submit to Salon's excellent Mortifying Disclosures section, where Lena Chen wrote "I was the Harvard harlot" and Taffy Brodesser-Akner, who I can't believe I haven't been keeping up with (Google News alert was immediately activated after a search of her, who I remember from back in her Mediabistro days, and her excellent essays, who wrote, "Tales of a recovering blabbermouth."

And I owe you a post highlighting the individual sex diaries, but I'd love for you to click on over and check them out (one is coming today, in lieu of yesterday). Some I personally relate to more than others, but they are always an interesting look at someone's sex life in an unfiltered way that stirs up discussion. Working on them has made me realize how rarely many of us get to have those discussions. I'm lucky in that I have them with my close friends and once in a while with strangers, but I too have plenty of things I feel fearful or ashamed of or confused about regarding my sexuality. I'm excited to return to writing fiction after a way-too-long-lazy-loser hiatus. I feel plenty ashamed about that and am hoping this is a productive week; it better be with two books do and submissions flooding in!

The sex diaries run every Monday and I'm the editor and the info is at the bottom of the diary but if you know a New Yorker bold enough to anonymously document their sex life for a week (and get paid for it), have them email me at sexdiaries at nymag.com with their basic story.

Interview with Lena Chen about my anthologies and feminism

I've been busy with multiple writing and editing projects, plus was hit by a whammy of a headache/illness this week, so haven't had much time to blog, but wanted to share this interview Lena Chen did with me about erotic writing and feminism. While I don't characterize my 35 erotica anthologies as "feminist" per se (I don't feel it's my place to one way or another), I do think I bring a feminist bent to the Best Sex Writing anthologies I've edited and...stay tuned next week for the announcement about Best Sex Writing 2012, with a fabulous guest judge and a very firm May 1st deadline.

I'll be very eager to read your nonfiction submissions. And in the meantime, I have an April 1st deadline for calls for my erotic romance, kinky couples and Best Bondage Erotica 2011 anthologies which are all wide open - I read submissions on an ongoing basis and so far have gotten very few submissions, so I highly encourage you to get yours in early and make them stand out! (Note: I consider all submissions received by the deadline, but since I consider stories as I go, the later stories are sent, the fewer spots that are open. I always welcome excellent writers though and have so many great stories in my upcoming books which I will be sharing closer to pub date - this summer/fall Obsessed and Women in Lust will be out!)

From Lemondrop to Tumblr and back to Lemondrop: Excuses for not drinking

What I love about Tumblr is how fast you can see what people react to; it's instaneous. They can just click "like" or reblog or comment and what's interesting is what people respond to.

I posted a short response about not drinking that spawned lots of reaction and...a post on Lemondrop (very cool site owned by AOL), quoting me, Lena Chen, Maria Diaz and Amber L. Rhea. It's not that surprising since I was responding to a post on Lemondrop about a woman who had to feign excuses for not drinking, lest everyone know she was pregnant. I didn't even know about it until, ironically, last night I was out with a friend at Spuyten Duyvil in Williamsburg, and she bought me two sparkling wines (yes, I broke my no more drinking in 2010 rule but it was in the name of girl talk) and she told me that AOL is her homepage and she clicked on a headline about "social drinking" and found my name! Love the small worldness. Thanks, Lemondrop and their interesting commenters. It's a fascinating site.

Here's the entirety of my original post, titled "Maybe instead of commentary on pregnancy this is about how fucked we are around alcohol:"

I despise the "You don't drink?" question when meeting new people. It seems to come with a tinge of "What the fuck is wrong with you?" Maybe I'm projecting, but still, it definitely comes with a tinge of, "You are not like the rest of us." I mean, really - pregnant or not, can we just drink or not drink on any given night and not have it be a bfd?

From Lemondrop:

"I had my 10-year high school reunion when I was only a few months pregnant. It was at a local bar and everyone was drinking, so I ordered a club soda with lime and told people it was a vodka tonic. I also wore a babydoll shirt to cover my growing pooch."
-- Sara, 30, Roanoke, Va.

"When I was eight weeks pregnant, I went to a wedding and drank water out of a Miller Light can all night. I also avoided my best friend Shannon for six weeks because I knew I couldn't hide it from her." -- Ashley, 34, Atlanta

I don't think there's some culture war between drinkers and non-drinkers (nor do I think those two groups are totally discrete, people are often one or the other in their lifetime) but it's interesting how it's perceived and how different locations (one commenter writes from a college campus in the South) affect their treatment.