the gossip girl

Red, Write and Fab Schedule

For those of you interested in the “Red, Write and Fab” Book Club, here’s the schedule we’ll be follow for the summer. Be sure to check out fabyuhluhs.com for updates every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday, and I really hope you join! I promise, this is a completely amazing book… and (hopefully) a great movie, too! I tried to keep the schedule pretty manageable, because I know we all get busy during the summer… but basically, it ends up being about 14 pages per day. If you want to read ahead or get a little behind, don’t worry. You can definitely still comment on the website when you get around to it, and we all read at our own pace! Also, the page numbers are for the 2004 First Harvest Edition. If you have a different edition, I still posted the names of the chapters, so you shouldn’t have any problems. If you have any questions or run into a snag, email me at ariel@fabyuhluhs.com and I’m sure we can figure it out. Until then, read on, fab girls!

july 6 (mon): sign up by emailing ariel@fabyuhluhs.com

part one: the man out of time

july 7 (tues): pg vii-21 (prologue, first date one)

july 9 (thurs): pg 22-47 (a first time for everything, first date two)

july 12 (sun): pg 48-78 (lessons in survival)

july 14 (tues): pg 79-107 (after the end)

july 16 (thurs): pg 108-128 (christmas eve one, christmas eve two)

july 19 (sun): pg 129-162 (eat or be eaten)

july 21 (tues): pg 163-218 (christmas eve three)

july 23 (thurs): pg 219-246 (home is anywhere you hang your head, birthday)

july 26 (sun): pg 247-280 (better living through chemistry, turning point, get me to the church on time)

part 2: a drop of blood in a bowl of milk 

july 28 (tues): pg 283-302 (married life)

july 30 (thurs): pg 303-324 (library science fiction)

august 2 (sun): pg 325-364 (a very small shoe, one, two, intermezzo, new years eve one, three, four, five)

august 4 (tues): pg 365-395 (six, baby dreams, seven, alba an introduction)

august 6 (thurs): pg 396-427 (birthday, secret, experiencing technical difficulties, nature morte, birthday)

august 9 (sun): pg 428-469 (secret, the episode of monroe street parking garage, birthday, an unpleasant scene)

august 11 (tues): pg 470-500 (the episode of monroe street parking garage, fragments, feet dreams, what goes around comes around, hours if not days)

part three: a treatise on longing

august 13 (thurs) pg 501-end (new years eve two, untitled, dissolution, dasein, renascence, always again)

august 14 (friday) movie premiere!

Red, Write and Fab Book Club

I have an addiction to reading. No joke. It’s been an affliction of mine since I learned to read at three years old. My parents used to take books away from me, ground me from reading. I flew through Harry Potter books in 24 hours or less (a feat which seriously messed up my eating and sleeping habits). 

I have to say, there is never a bad time to read a book. In the winter, you can curl up by the fire with some hot chocolate. In the spring or fall, you can enjoy a nice cool breeze next to an open window (preferably with a view of the springtime buds or autumn leaves). But, in all honesty, summer is the best time to crack open that novel and bask in the sun or swing in a hammock.

So, this summer, we here at fabyuhluhs.com decided to begin a new chapter and turn over a new page (excuse the puns…). And so, voila! The “Red, Write and Fab” Book Club was born. Girls all over the world can join in the fun. All you have to do is pick up the book at your local library or bookstore, and check fabyuhluhs.com on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays for questions and comments as you read. We’ll set up the schedule and post it on the site so you’ll be able to read along with the group (of course, if you want to read ahead or get behind, it’s no big deal… read at your own pace!)

The book for this summer will be “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger. It’s “the tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who involuntarily travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.” 

One of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2003 and winner of the Exclusive Books Boeke Prize and a British Book Award, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” takes a poetic dive into the worlds of love, loss and free will and is.. well, utterly fabyuhluhs.

Oh! And the best part! On August 14, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” will be on the silver screen! The movie version, starring Rachel McAdams (The Notebook, Mean Girls) and Eric Bana (Troy, The Other Boleyn Girl, Star Trek), looks absolutely delicious and really well done. So, “Red, Write and Fab” will finish the book the day before the movie comes out, then you can grab some girlfriends and catch the movie premiere! Be sure to get your friends at home involved, too! It’ll be a great summer event to do with some fabyuhluhs friends, whether they’re across the street or across the country. 

If you’re interested, send your name and email address to ariel@fabyuhluhs.com so I can keep track of everyone, etc. If you don’t want to send me your info, that’s fine… you can still read along and comment! We’ll have sign ups until Monday, July 6, and then we’ll start discussions the following Tuesday, July 7. Be sure to get the book before then, and email me if you want email updates throughout the summer!

I’m so excited for “Red, Write and Fab,” and I hope you’ll join us in reading “The Time Traveler’s Wife” this summer!

I am mad.

Like really, really pissed off.

So last year, right after graduation, I hung out with this kid named Chris.  We knew each other in high school, but we didn’t really run in the same circles.  But I started hanging out with this group of guys that are really cool, and I’d known some of them forever.  Anyway, Chris and I started dating for… I think it was about two weeks. A nano-second.

And while he was really sweet and all, he was a little much at times.  Times like 8am, when he’d text me awake to say good morning.  Times like the five hundredth text message when it was only dinner time.  I liked him a lot, but I wanted to spend this “last summer of childhood” with my friends and family, too.  So instead of talking to him about it, I just broke up with him. 

But we decided to still be friends.  And we were.  We ended up being really good friends, even after I left town to go to college.  He and the other part of our friendship triangle (Justin) came and visited me in Cincinnati, and we talked all the time.  I really started to depend on him, you know?

And then Chris got a girlfriend. Jamie.  And I was totally okay with it.  They went through a little break up, then got back together. I had nothing to do with this whole situation, and I was happy for him.  Honestly. 

Until he stopped talking to me.  Ever.  And Jamie deleted me from his phone.  And I wasn’t “allowed” to go hang out with a group of people at Chris’s house.  And Jamie started threatening to “punch me and throw me in the bonfire” if I ever showed up.  And (last night), when I went to our mutual friend’s house, Chris and Jamie arrived shortly before me and my two friends, and asked Calvin to not let me in.

Seriously?? Who does that?

Truthfully, it really upsets me for a couple reasons.  I really hate that I lost someone I considered one of my close friends just because his girlfriend is… paranoid? Just weird?  Evil spawn?  I hate that this girl, who has never even met me, has this personal vendetta against me for no reason.  I hate that Chris has apparently ditched all his friends and I hate that their issue with me is now affected me being able to hang out with my friends.

And I hate that I have absolutely no idea what to do about it.

is it sad

rachfab:

that updating my little ‘about me’ tumblr blurb makes me excited?

survey says yes.

SURVEY SAYS HECK NO!! <33

Blech.

Hey gang…

Sorry I’ve been a tad (okay… extremely) inactive lately.  There’s a lot going on right now, and it’s not making me feel like the most social person.

Basically, I made a decision and did something that, in retrospect, was a way bigger deal that I thought it was.  It’s not life-threatening or anything, and I didn’t break any laws… but it’s hit me a little hard, and I just needed some time to bounce back from that.  My mind’s going about a thousand directions all at once.

I want to talk about it in more detail, but this is just one of those things you can’t post about online… you know?

And so it goes.

You date the bad guys.  The ones that fuck with your mind and promise to call you and don’t.  The ones that say they want to hang out and then bail.  They treat you bad and you never really know what’s going on, but there’s just that … need to have them.  It’s worse than a drug.

But then they break your heart, and you swear them off.  It’s a little lonely, but so much healthier.

Then one day, like a beam of sunlight bursting through the grey clouds, comes a Nice Guy.  And he is funny and charming and everything you could want.  Plus, he is so sweet that you say to yourself, “A ha!  Here is someone who won’t fuck me over.  Why didn’t I think of this before?”  Dating nice guys: what a novel idea.

So you trust him.  You believe in him.  And then he breaks your heart anyway.  

And that’s why I’m done with Nice Guys.  I mean, at least with the assholes, you see it coming.  You know they’re going to hurt your feelings, so at least know not to expect anything better.  With the Nice Guys, it comes as a shock and hurts so much more. 

Ow.