How to Stay Bitter Through the Happiest Times of Your Life

Book excerpt: “I had a lot of bad dates. But I wrote a lot of good poems.” So maintains Anita Liberty, the caustically funny New York City performance artist who was going along happily healing her hurt by hating and humiliating her detestable ex-boyfriend on stage and in print until the unthinkable happened: she had a good date. And one good date deserves another. And another. And another. And, all of the sudden, Anita Liberty finds herself in a predicament. Getting dumped launched Anita’s career–Will falling in love finish it? Who’s more important: her devoted audience or her newly devoted boyfriend? And on top of everything, Hollywood won’t stop calling and Anita can’t figure out if It wants a serious commitment or just a little bit of no-strings-attached fun. From digging mercilessly into the minutiae of her new relationship to dramatically torching every professional bridge she crosses in L.A., Anita refuses to let a big load of bliss get dumped right in the middle of her career path. “He said that my work was amazing and hilarious and smart and that he can’t wait to see me perform. So I had sex with him.” “My boyfriend asked me to change my look. To something other than contemptuous.” {BARGAIN} Whatever Hollywood ends up paying me for the rights to the story of my life. “It’s easier to go back to fantasizing about perfection . . . than to accept that perfection is just a fantasy.” “Boyfriend thinks I’d rather be right than happy. Boyfriend’s right. But I’m not telling him that.” Through blog entries, film scenes, poems, and to-do lists, Anita Liberty documents the perils and pitfalls of dating, sex, relationships, artistic success, and the kind of true love that sucks the creative life out of you to the point where you just end up staring at a blank computer screen and thinking gooey thoughts about your new boyfriend even though you should be writing.