Free wine, cheese, haiku and single girls tonight at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn

Firstly, Happy National Whipped Cream Day! Yes, it's today.

Join me tonight at 7 at 126 Franklin Street (G train) at WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn with Anna David and Beth Griffenhagen. Free wine and cheese and skin care products!







I just got Beth's book Haiku for the Single Girl and it's hysterical! I have SO many favorites, among them:

On my kitchen floor
We fucked loudly, more than once.
Take that, married friends!

I like trysts with guys
From other countries. It's like
Stamping your passport!

Dear Future Husband,
Hope you like a.m. blow jobs
And pizza. Call me!

"So What If Monica Lewinsky Is Single? An Open Letter to the Daily Mail"

I wrote "So What If Monica Lewinsky Is Single? An Open Letter to the Daily Mail" at Huffington Post. And yes, people like Perez Hilton and others picked it up, but it's a tabloid story, and a dumb one at that.

Dear The Daily Mail,

I understand that you need to sell newspapers, but I read your article on Monica Lewinsky twice and, after coming away with no new information about her each time, am puzzled over why you would print this. Is her single status really news?

While you thoroughly rehashed the fact that Bill Clinton basically had an affair with her then threw her under the bus, we already knew that. You quote her extensively from 2004... seven years ago. The only new quotes come from a "friend" of hers in the National Enquirer.

Read the whole thing

"Single Lady Admits: It's Me" - my response to the Village Voice cover story at The Hairpin

I wrote my first piece for The Hairpin: "Single Lady Admits: It's Me." The below will make a little more sense once you read it. Yay smart decisions! And yay The Hairpin - I have another essay in the works for them. I'm all about essays lately. Well, mixing them in with the short (and long) stories.



I am not the most thoughtful of decision-makers, or perhaps I should say, once I make a decision, or get the inkling that I’m going to make one, like getting a tattoo, I kindof just know. Considering that my January 1st and February 1st somehow involved unraveling myself from a more complicated dating situation than I’d have liked, it just seemed natural to take a break until my birthday. No drama, no confusion, no sadness. Well, there might be sadness, but not over romance or sex or dating. I feel so free, and I didn’t expect that. I thought I’d be lonely, and sometimes I am, but I’m finding that all this stuff is coming out of me, I’m having more time to work and write and think and nest. I am less focused on “what can I do to make ___ decide to like me?” I spent so much time doing that, or wondering what I did wrong to drive whoever away.

Finally, I feel like I don’t care, and all that would’ve been nice, but didn’t happen. I’m all about the Serenity Prayer and figuring out what I can change about my life, and going for it. This is one small step that I think is going to at the very least cut out hours spent in therapy obsessing over people who couldn’t care less about me, and at the most…well, who knows? It’s given me a focus: 36. Which is scary enough for me, but I’m looking forward to making the most of 35. I’ve already squandered enough of it and certainly had enough sex to last me the rest of the year. Maybe I’ll fail in some of my goals, and maybe it won’t go exactly as expected, but for now I feel like I just got all this energy back that was going outward and turned it back onto myself.

Why I'm Happy To Be Single

10 Reasons I'm Happy To Be Single is what my new Dating Drama column for The Frisky is about. And yes, one of them is cause I get to indulge in a little retail therapy.

Remember those gorgeous Objets d'Envy necklaces I told you about? Well, I had been on their site Saturday during the great garlic mac and cheese/peppermint cupcake/gossip session/sleepover that kept me up til 5 a.m. but didn't buy anything, and today I was rewarded by a coupon (holiday20) and free upgrade in shipping! I really can't wait to be all sparkly with them.

I hope that means my necklace will arrive in time to wear with my new dress on Thursday at In The Flesh. If you've been to In The Flesh and liked it, please tell your friends - the winter months are ones when we especially need people.

And I'm still desperate to find someone to tape it, pay is $100 to make 5 videos of 5 readers that basically look like this - two of them I need by Monday morning, the rest can wait til after Christmas - email rachelravenous at gmail.com with some clips if you can do it, Thursday, 8-10 pm, Happy Ending Lounge, 302 Broome Street. Thanks!

We're also booking all sorts of things - you can win our Cupcakes Take the Cake video contest to come to the set of The Martha Stewart Show on January 14th, I'll be doing several Bay Area events, including readings for Best Sex Writing 2008 January 30th at Good Vibrations Berkeley and February 2nd at Booksmith, and I'm teaching erotic writing on February 12th at the 92nd Street Y Tribeca!

Thankfully after Thursday's reading though I get some much-needed downtime. I hope to even go on some dates, but who knows? I also have, oh, a good mountain of books waiting to be read.

So this is what we made from Emily Farris's awesome cookbook ">Casserole Crazy (based on her blog Casserole Crazy):



All I can say is, we were supposed to have some left over for breakfast and between when I went to sleep and woke up, it all got eaten!