Coolest Pix EVER!

Thank you to Cheryl, Michael, and Nicole for sending me this... LOVE it!

Chick Lit Reviews Contest - WIN A FREE COPY OF SAVE AS DRAFT!!!!!

A very big THANK YOU to Chick Lit Reviews for throwing a contest to win a free copy of my book, SAVE AS DRAFT!!!!  Click on the link below, and enter to win!!!!!

http://chicklitreviews.com/2011/01/29/american-weekends-giveaway-save-as-draft-by-cavanaugh-lee/

First Blog Interview for SAD!

Check it out! She asked GREAT (and HARD) questions! Thank you to Kim Welchons, an aspiring writer. I have no doubt that I will be reading her first novel in the near future.

http://buildingalife.livejournal.com/57005.html

SAVE AS DRAFT's Very First TV Appearance

Today I went on Savannah's WTOC The News Now Show (hosted by the handsome and charistmatic Sonny Dixon) to promote the Savannah Book Festival and SAVE AS DRAFT. Katherine Oxnard, a board member for the festival, was gracious enough to bring me on the show with her, and I am SO appreciative! Here's the link so check it out!

http://www.wtoc.com/global/category.asp?c=153752&clipId=5505808&topVideoCatNo=15094&autoStart=true

Savannah WTOC The News Now show!!!

ATTENTION ALL SAVANNAH PEEPS:

I'm going to be on WTOC The News Now show on Wednesday, 1/26, at 4 PM to promote SAD!!! Please tune in!

http://www.wtoc.com/Global/story.asp?S=147899

"In A Relationship With..."

The hardest thing I’ve done all year is… no, not write a book… no, not win a complex mortgage fraud jury trial… no, not even climb the Great Wall of China in December… it was changing my relationship status on Facebook from “Single” to “In a Relationship”.

Why?

Well, as many of you know, I got engaged and unengaged on Facebook not so long ago, and it was hands-down the most humiliating experience of my life so far.  A time line of the degrading events as they occurred in real time:

-          As of February 2009, I was “Single” on my FB account

-          In March 2009, I changed my relationship status from “Single” to “In a Relationship” (a “status update” was immediately sent to all of my FB friends along with a little red ♥)

-          In June 2009, “In a Relationship” became “Engaged” (and with it another status update and corresponding ♥)

-          In October 2009, I was not “married” as expected but instead, yep, you got it, back to “Single” (this time, the status update was sent with a corresponding…

Oh my, the drama and WTF is up with that broken friggin’ heart?!  I mean, that’s just downright mean.    

But, it was much worse than simple status updates on the Information portion of my FB profile over a nine month period.  It was much, much worse, because I made these changes for all of my FB world to see.  And, save for the last one (see “October 2009”), I made them on purpose due to the sheer happiness and genuine joy (not to mention blind love) I was feeling during my rapid-rate-of-speed-romance before it crashed and burned to the ground into a pulverized grease spot.  Yes oh yes. 

However, the change in October from “blissful bride-to-be” to “depressed and down-on-her-luck ex-fiancee with a $4000 wedding dress hanging in her closet” was not meant to be published.  Instead, I meant to subtly and oh-so-quietly delete my “engaged” status without anyone noticing – almost as if it had never happened.  There was one major thing I forgot to do though in my attempt to “disappear quietly”:  press the “Remove this from my Facebook feed” button.  Oops, to say the least.  From the moment I renewed my “Single” status, it was broadcast to ALL of my FB friends and all of HIS FB friends (including HIM because I had not de-friended him as of yet, another big mistake). 

My FB missive was immediately followed by a barrage (and, I mean a barrage) of “Oh, no, I’m so sorry!” and “You poor thing!” and “You must feel horrible!” (yeah, duh) and “I had no idea you two were having problems” and “Can I come over with ice cream and a copy of Bridget Jones Diary” (no, you idiot, that has a happy ending) and (last but not least) “Sorry to say I saw this coming!”  Ouch.

Like I said, humiliating, degrading, and mortifying were an understatement.

I vowed never again to post anything on my FB relationship status, not even Single.  No, when I’m someday married with kids, my FB relationship status will say… nothing, nada, blank, as if it doesn’t exist. 

So, you can see why I was horrified when the man I’ve been dating asked me just last week:

“Can you put ‘In a Relationship’ on your FB status, please?”

Panic attack commenced as of… now.  I went white in the face, thought I might vomit, and the room started to spin.  My palms sweated profusely.  There was a heartbeat in my head.  I actually thought I might be having a heart attack.  I am not exaggerating any of this.

“Um, hmm, let me, um, think on it, babe.  You know where I stand on this topic, and you know why.”

His face fell to the floor.  Ugh, I had hurt his feelings.  This was going to be rough, I could tell.  Just as I was about to wallow in over-indulgent self-analysis, he said the most interesting thing:

“You know, I’m really understanding about the fact that a book is about to come out about your love life before I met you.  Even though I wanted to burn Chapter 3 in which you detail exactly how you had sex with your ex-fiance for the first time, I didn’t burn it, and instead I’ve been totally supportive.  I’m even cool about you blogging about love every day.  But, this is where I draw the line.  Don’t you think I deserve to be recognized on Facebook, at the very least?  Your writing is one thing, but I want to be recognized in your real life.”

Wow.  He had a point.  I never thought of it like that.  In fact, I never thought about him, only myself (hmm, maybe this explains my track record in the romance department). 

So, after thinking about it for all of five seconds, I did what he asked – because he asked for so little – and because it was the least I could give (and I should probably give more).  I changed my FB relationship status to, you got it:

“In a Relationship.”

I have no clue what the future holds.  Of course I hope it has a happy ending, but I’ve experienced enough sad ones to know that may not be the case.  I may someday in the near or far future be yet again…

“Single”… And single on Facebook no less.

Or, I could be “Married with Kids” instead. 

Stranger things have happened… like a girl whose heart had been broken into tiny little pieces could walk into a restaurant and see a guy who somehow managed to convince her to move on with her life and take a chance with one single stroke of a key… well, really two keys:

“Delete” followed by “Enter”… followed by “Hello, it’s very nice to meet you.”

Ahhh... My Dear Friend, Karen, Decorated My Office With All Things SAD!!!!!

Do I not have the COOLEST friend EVER??? Her name is Karen, and she is truly special. She is the most generous person I have ever met, and I simply adore her. She stayed late after work yesterday and decorated my office with all things SAVE AS DRAFT. And, now I get to work amongst it for the next few weeks! Hmm, in fact I may even leave this up all year long. THANK YOU KAREN!!!

My First Guest Blog on WTF Is Up With My Love Life?!

I am honored to have done my very first guest blog on WTF Is Up With My Love Life?! Check it out!

http://www.wtfisupwithmylovelife.com/

A Pix of My First Baby...

I Wish My Name Was Zelda

(This was sent to me by a reader, and I had to post as a guest blog. Hysterical. Thank you, Annie!)

Does this ever happen to you?  The phone will ring, I'll notice it's my friend Russell, so I answer, but I only hear distant voices in the background.  I say, "Hello?  Hello!?  Russell, is that you?"  And then, I realize ... it's just another "pocket dial."  I am constantly receiving "pocket dials."  I figure it's because my name starts with "A" and is first on everyone's contact list. 

On New Year's Eve, Dr. B (an eye doctor I met on Match last time I was on it) pocket dialed me.  I think he might have been having sex ... or maybe running.  Let's just say there was some steady, rhythmic noise going on.  I was asleep so it was just a really long voice mail.  (Thank goodness I didn't have to experience THAT one live.)

The "pocket dials" were bad enough, but now I'm getting a new technological misfire, caused by my alphabetical primacy.  So there was this guy, "Jeff" that I'd gotten as far as a phone call with on Plenty of Fish.  He sent me a text a bit ago saying he was seeing someone, to which I gave him a "hooray for you" response and wished him well.  This morning I got the following text from him:

"No u r perfect just the way you are!!  Have a gr8 day lover .."

Followed by:

"Sorry don't know how that happened :-("

Poor guy, must have been totally embarrassed.  I had to let him off the hook, so I responded:

"My name starts with 'A' so it happens a lot.  I get lots of 'pocket dials' too.  No worries!"

Of course, the fact that he put "gr8" into a text and calls his GF "lover" was enough to make me really happy I wasn't dating him anyway, but still ... I wish my name started with a "Z."

-Annie

My First "Baby"

For starters:  no, I’m not pregnant.  Phew!, you’re thinking (especially Mom and Dad, if you’re reading ;-). 

But, I am having a “baby.”

Wait, how is that possible?  To answer that question, I need to go back to how I found out I was having a “baby”…

Last May, one of my closest girlfriends, B, called me in the middle of the day at work (so I knew it was important) and told me that she and her husband were expecting their first child.  Immediately, the fuzziest feeling enveloped my entire body.  It was a feeling I had never experienced before actually.  B was the first in our close-knit group of four girls from law school to get pregnant and that was both scary and exciting.  It was the biggest thing to happen to any of us.  When B got married, sure it was a big deal but it wasn’t a baby.  I mean, a baby is huge.  A baby is daunting.  A baby means we are all… growing up.

Admittedly (and yes this is hard as hell to admit), a few hours after that fuzzy feeling wore off, I experienced an entirely different feeling – this was also a feeling I had never experienced before, and it wasn’t pleasant.  It was anxiety, concern, and, most of all, it felt like I was running a losing race and no matter how hard I practiced there was no way I could win it (without a stroke of luck).  It was – and yes I’ll be cliché about it – the sudden and obvious realization that my clock was ticking and that I better damn well get ON it if I want to have a baby by the time I’m 38.  I had six years to have a baby, yikes.  And… more than anything… what I have always wanted – more than anything – was a baby, just one, I’m not even greedy about it.  Why?  Call it the maternal instinct.  Call it a female thing.  Call it hormones.  Call it “I don’t know why, it’s just something I’ve always wanted!”

More than the pressure of my biological clock, however, what I truly felt at the pit of my stomach(pardon the pun) was oh my gosh, I have six years to get my s—t together:  1) to find “the one” (or to make sure I’m with “the one”), 2) to stabilize my career (which is a constant juggle between writing vs. the law), 3) to get married (cannot be accomplished without #1), 4) to buy a house (but where?  I don’t even know where I’m going to end up living for the rest of my life), and, then finally, 5) to have a baby (yes, preferably, in that order).  Could all of this be done in six years?  I started to sweat buckets at the answer… possibly no. 

Then, it hit me even harder that it could take months or even years to get pregnant, especially in my mid-to-late 30s.  This meant I should really start trying for a bambino in four years so that I could make sure I was sperminated within six years.  Oh, the math, the numbers, the time, help?!

I didn’t stop at numbers though.  After that, I went on-line and read every single article I could find on frozen sperm.  Yes, I did. 

Frozen. 

Sperm. 

Just in case I ended up alone at the age of 36, I needed to have my ducks, er, I mean, my sperm, in a row.  I even found the #1 institute in the country for getting shot up with female hormones and having sperm spray-painted into your ovaries, and I saved, yes saved, their contact info into my Microsoft database and calendared a conference call with them for four years from now. 

Last but not least (oh this is embarrassing but why stop at frozen sperm, right?), I deducted $25,000 from my savings account and put it into a separate interest-bearing account which I called “the sperm bank.”  Per most of the articles I read on-line, it costs $25,000 to have enough sperm to pretty much ensure that you get pregnant.  A mere $25,000.  Dear God, that’s the down payment on a house.  That was the down payment on my house, the house that I might have bought had I not decided it was better spent on frozen sperm so that I could someday have a baby in case life and love don’t work out in the right order.  $25,000 and frozen sperm = Plan B.

As you can probably deduce, I had a total and complete FREAK-OUT.  As it so happens with all of my freak-outs, I ended up calling my best friend, Netty, to talk me off the ledge (too bad I didn’t call her before I created the sperm bank, oh well, at least my future sperm is earning interest).  And, Netty said to me, in her calm and matter-of-fact way:

“You’re already having your baby!  In February!”

Huh?  Oh… I got it… right… my first book… my… baby… sure… right (insert sarcastic tone and roll of the eye).  But, after we hung up and I got to thinking about it, she was right.  Babies don’t necessarily have to be tiny squishy things whose diapers need to be changed every few hours.  Babies can be symbolic.  We can have symbolic babies to tithe the time away as we hope and pray for our real babies someday.  And, these symbolic babies can bring just as much love and joy as real babies do.  Well, not really, that’s a stretch, but, they can, at the very least, fill the void for stretches of time and make us grow better so that when the real babies arrive via stork, freeze wrap, or, alas, a genuine 100% man, we are… ready.

So, with that, I’m due in twenty days… my first baby, SAVE AS DRAFT, arrives on Feb. 1, 2011, and, while it’s not a real baby, it’s something that makes me really, really happy because I’ve worked my ass off on it (yet another sexual pun, oops) and, well, I’m ready for this baby, not a real one just yet, but this one.  Baby steps, right?  It’s all about those baby steps…

It's Complicated

So I don't feel so bad about MY love life (and all of my friends too) being "complicated." Tsk tsk.

"Netiquette" for 2011

I feel compelled to post this as it is just SO darn true. From Stuff Hipsters Hate (as posted on CNN this morning):

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/01/05/netiquette.digital.mistakes/index.html

All of their listed items are in SAVE AS DRAFT (except for item #4... sigh... no wedding for me but I guess that's what the book's about! I do still have that damn $4000 dress though so I suppose I could post that as my FB profile pix. Anywhooo...)

Feel free to relink this article (but not in a drunk text or mean email to a coworker please ;-).

Oh No He D-I-D-N-T! (Oh yes he did...)

My best friend Netty (hmm, do I sense a pattern here? ;-) went on a date with this guy last night.  Ugh, I am slightly to blame.  I’ll start with the ending of this story from the outset:

I will never set her up on a blind date again. 

Although in my defense I really didn’t set her up on the date – the guy’s mother did through me.  I’ve never met the guy; I only know his mums.  I met her at the local Starbucks a few months back, and we kept on running into each other around my 3 PM coffee hour.  When she recently mentioned that she had a son who "lived in Charlotte" and was "45 years old, single, and outdoorsy” I immediately brought up my Netty (especially since things were starting to crash and burn between her and Zoo – see previous blog entry). 

The mother and I started scheming, and a date was planned.  As Netty is always one to “go for it” (and probably motivated by her recent break-up), she gladly accepted the blind date.  The guy seemed totally up for it, too!  I thought this could be a couple-in-the-making as his mother assured me that he was “perfect.”    

Well, I received a call from Netty around 8:30 PM last night.  How odd, I thought.  He was cooking for her so she must be calling me from his bathroom… Nope, the date was OVER.  Why?  Well, other than the fact that he had “stalker eyes” and talked real slow, he said the strangest thing right in the middle of dinner, something that she just couldn’t quite get past.  As his cat strolled by while they were dining, he looked over at it and stated as matter-of-factly as if he were asking her to pass the salt and pepper:

“Oh my cat, yeah, my ex and I got that after a really bad abortion.”

Huh?

Wait WHAT?

Sorry, come again?????

You got it:  “…my ex and I got that after a really bad abortion.”

He said what?

ABORTION.

WTF?  Whether you're pro-life, pro-choice, or pro-whatever, how in the world could that possibly be appropriate table-talk on a first date?  A BLIND date, no less?  I'm totally cool about going a little deeper than "what's your favorite color."  Hell, I'm even willing to discuss "what I want to be when I grow up."  IF there's a major connection, maybe even where I'd like to spend my honeymoon and how many kids I eventually want.  But, his comment?  What was he thinking?  That should've been left for Date #20 after the "let's just be exclusive and date each other" talk.  Yeah, let's just say that Netty “came down with a stomach ache” shortly thereafter. 

Am I a bad friend?  No, she still loves me.  But lesson learned:  perhaps I shouldn’t take a mother’s word that her son is “perfect!” 

(On a side note, I'd just like to state for the record that not all of my posts will be about how crazy ridiculous men can be.  I love men, I do.  I mean, duh, I have the BEST father in the entire world.  So, I promise some pro-guy posts in the future.)