I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for the many emails and messages I receive from my readers. The things you write to me are moving, inspiring, heartbreaking – they are the reason I wrote the book. This is just a quick blog post to let you all know that I read every single one. I am way behind on getting back to everyone, inundated by other work, but please be patient as you will hear from me eventually.

Few things move me the way your fan mail does. I love that you share your lives and pain with me, that you trust me that much without us ever having met.

About a month ago I sold a proposal for a psychology/parenting book on the loose girl issue. I’m excited about this book because there really isn’t anything else like it. There are tons of books with evidence why gorls shouldn’t have sex, tons of books about rape and molestation, tons of books about the grown-up slut. But this will be the first book – like Loose Girl – that addresses the issue of addiction to male attention, how it’s culturally fueled and so hard to avoid. And – in answer to many of your requests – I plan to devote a few chapters to making change in your life.

I plan to use many of my fans’ voices in the book. If you’re interested in being interviewed for the book, please fill out the survey that is linked from the Loose Girl page here on my web site. .

Friday, June 19th 7:30pm

The Writers’ Dojo

Hope to see you there!

Today I got the phenomenally awesome news that Target is taking Loose Girl paperback to sell on its glorious shelves. Yaahoooo!

Oh my, I’ve been neglecting this poor website. Pretty much all my links to TV are outdated, or you can’t access the videos anymore.

Maybe if I stopped spending all my time on Facebook I’d be a more productive person…something to think about.

Meanwhile, getting ready for Loose Girl’s paperback release in June. Stay tuned.

I have an essay in the January issue of Portland Monthly about my sweet son. For those who aren’t from here, Portland Monthly is a high brow mag about our city. Read the essay here: http://www.portlandmonthlymag.com/issues/current-issue/articles/p-towndiary0109/

In the past few months I’ve been back in contact with some surprising folks – of course, I sought many of them out, so maybe not that surprising to me. It all started on a little social network you might know called Facebook. On there I found “Heath,” “Eli,” “Leif” (although I’d already been somewhat in contact with him), “Paul,” and a few others who held less space on the pages of Loose Girl. I also found lots of the girlfriends, but I’ll get to that in a moment.

One of my favorite things to do has been sending messages on Facebook to various men, along with a friend request, that has gone something like this: “Hi. No idea if you even remember me, but I wrote a memoir called I Have Issues with Boys and Sex, and you’re in it!” Then I wait to see what they do. Some have been gracious. They clearly grew up. They can laugh at our shared past, or the fact that I wrote about it, and they seem to understand that – even though it isn’t fair; I fully admit that it isn’t – I wrote a memoir about me and they have a minimal role in that. When I say “some”, though, I only mean two.

Some were furious. Well, one started off as being super interested (in himself in a book) and felt I did a fair assessment of him, but wound up revealing that he was in fact enraged. The ones who are angry say they felt that way because they believed they were unprotected, that I included too many identifying details. I hear that. Really. Like I said, it isn’t fair that the secondary characters in memoirs get used for the purposes of the author. And I agree. I didn’t change enough identifying details for some. I should have. Lesson learned. It won’t happen again. But…there’s some narcissism here too. I mean, the book is about me, not them. What’s more, we’re talking about things that happened 15-20 years ago. My favorite was that one of them said I revealed his drug use… he still uses drugs! Everyone knows! Does he think he’s kidding anyone?

Two did not respond to me at all, but they friended me. Then one of them must have read the book, because a few months later, he removed me from his friend list.

Renewed contact with the women in the book has been almost solely positive. I’m happily good friends with “Rebecca” again, made peace with one of the “Jennifers”, and can now count a number of the unfairly named “blond girls” as supporters of my book. I also made a new friend – a woman who was previously engaged to one of the men I wrote about, and who contacted me on Facebook to say, “Your portrayal of him is exactly right, and he’s exactly the same today, maybe worse.” The only woman in the book who was angry, and for the same reason as those angry men mentioned above, was “Amy,” who wrote me an email that said, rather passively aggressively, I thought, “I do not take issue with your alteration of the facts of our shared past.However, I was surprised to read how much regret you seem to harbor towards our friendship and your obvious hostility towards me.” Then she asked me to change a certain identifying detail in future printings. Right. I’m sure my publisher will get right on that for you.

I’m reading with Rachel Resnick, author of the stunning new memoir about her love addiction, Love Junkie, at Powells on Burnside, November 12th at 7:30pm.

This is also the launch of our new joint website (up Friday) called www.loosegirlsandlovejunkies.com, where we will have guest interviews and blogs and you can join in the discussion about sex, romance, and relationship addictions.

Listen to how my grandmother in her final years was getting more action than I probably ever will again in my interview with the crazy kids at The Unholy Matrimony Show. Click on November 9th and move the bar to right around 74 minutes in.

I thought this was great http://roadretro.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-love-bus-in-chicago.html