I missed a plane and spent $345.60 but I hope you never do

Read all about my missed flight saga and travel tips I learned from it at Open Salon. Aka, I come out as someone who only now is learning all sorts of tech and travel and iPhone things and I am now a devotee of TripIt. Also, in other news, I'm on Instagram ("rachelkramerbussel"). Expect lots and lots of food porn.

Last month, I was supposed to land in Minneapolis at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday afternoon; instead, I spent five and a half hours waiting for a flight at LaGuardia and eventually arrived at 10:40 p.m. Here's what happened. I checked my flight information a few days before the flight and remembered I had to be at JFK for a 1 p.m. flight. I didn't write down the details or check in online, which I normally do. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't, probably because I was in a hurry and assumed I didn't need to. Instead, I figured I'd check in when I got there. I took the L train to the J or Z (I don't recall which) to Sutphin Boulevard, then paid $5 for the AirTrain to take me to my gate, but before I boarded, I checked to see which gate Spirit Airlines was located at, and discovered that Spirit doesn't fly from JFK. In a panic, since it was 11:32 already, I figured I'd take a cab to LaGuardia. If I was at the wrong airport, at least I had time to fix the problem.

Read the whole essay

"Where Have All The Blowjobs Gone?" I respond to Esquire

Over at Open Salon, I've written "Where Have All The Blowjobs Gone? Why Esquire is Wrong" (I would have added "About The Death of Fellatio" but I didn't have room in my title.) Check it out and if you like it I'd love if you'd click "rate" at the top, comment and pass it on!

Best Sex Writing 2012 praise, sex diary, iPhone essay and photos

A few things to share (though for faster linkage, try my Facebook fan page, and yes I know that sounds pretentious, sorry, or add me Google+).

My new book, the one with the buy one get one free from me offer through this Friday, Best Sex Writing 2012, was named by Creative Loafing Atlanta "one of the top 10 most provocative books out this month."



This week's sex diary (I'm the editor): "The 'Terrible Girlfriend' Making the Most of Holiday Sex" and last week's in case I didn't link to it: "The Marketing Consultant Getting a Blowjob at His Parents' House for Christmas."

I wrote an essay for Open Salon called "My iPhone Photos (all 5,000 of Them), Myself" along with some of those photos, like this one:



And over at Romance Divas I'm the Author of the Month, with an accompanying interview about Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples, which will be published this month and I'm very excited about! Read 16 hot excerpts here.



And last but not least: 11 Cupcakes I Liked in 2011! and Top 10 Cupcakes Take the Cake posts of 2011.


s'mores cupcake


Samoa cupcakes


Andes mint cupcake

My latest at Open Salon: Why I Love Greenpoint, Brooklyn indie bookstore WORD

"Why I Love Greenpoint, Brooklyn indie bookstore WORD! It's not just for the pencils, I promise:

"Adele, Joni Mitchell and Me" - putting the personal in personal essays

I've been writing lots of personal essays lately, more on the way, including one next week I sold to a website I've been a fan of since it launched. Promise more cheerful ones soon, maybe even one about judging cupcake contests. I also booked my trip to Portland, Maine for next month, my birthday present to myself. And I'm doing National Novel Writing Month. I'm not gonna "make a lot of money and quit this crazy scene." I'm here, now, as tough as these last few weeks have been in their way and as challenging as the next few months/years will be. I'm figuring it all out as I go. One day at a time. Indeed.

"Adele, Joni and Me: Or My Two-Song Broken Heart Playlist

I can't seem to go a day without hearing "Someone Like You" by Adele. At a deli, a café, in a store or on my very own iTunes. I've been listening to it for months now as an anthem of a relationship that needed to end but that I didn't want to end. It was at once hazy and undefined, punctuated by periods of intense attention and interaction followed by fallow periods of silence, extreme highs and lows interspersed in ways that fed off each other in what I'll delicately call not the healthiest way.

The Adele song is not an exact transliteration of that relationship, but the spirit behind it is one I've tried to feel all the way through me. She says in the link above that she was miserable and lonely when she wrote it, that it came at a moment when she was "on her knees" and that this song summarizes her entire relationship, and that it's made her who she is at the moment, and that is the part I deeply, deeply relate to. Wherever I am, when it comes on, I have to pause and listen to the whole thing, truly listening in a way I rarely do to even my favorite songs. You think you know what they say, you sing or hum along even if you don't know all the words, or maybe you just listen to the throatiness of Adele's voice, the power and beauty and sadness and love wrapped around every note.

Read the whole thing (and if you like it, please like it on Facebook and/or pass it on - I want to make an impression over at Open Salon, which I also encourage you to check out, SO many amazing essays). And yeah, I'm striving for new topics, not old ones, but sometimes words just want to come out.

Open Salon Editor's Pick: "I Don't Always Use Birth Control"

I decided to start adding some selected essays, a few I'd already posted here and hopefully one-two new ones a week, at Open Salon. Here's the first original one, a commentary on birth control, judgment, xoJane and Cat Marnell and more, and I'd love it if you'd check it out (also anyone can blog/write at Open Salon, and Salon often picks up pieces from there for big Salon and does Open Calls, and there are some fascinating essays there, like "Sunday Night Games: Erotic Scrabble" and "Google-Stalking At Its Best"). I have lots of other pieces, short and long, fiction and non-fiction, in the works too! Think good thoughts, both that I get them done and that editors like them. In the meantime, I'm trying to push myself to actually finish writing, as opposed to having it sit half-done, waiting for me to deem it "perfect."

And if you want to comment, please do so at Open Salon! Thank you.

"My Tiny Hypocrisy: I Don't Always Use Birth Control"