Two good things about this breakup---I've been going out all night with friends and getting the chance to act VERY immature (apparently, guys in bars like to be groped by drunk women. Who knew?). The second is that I've been getting tons more work done. Here is a piece I just wrote for the new issue of 360 newspaper. It's just a bit for one of those "Stuff that bugs me" columns, but I'm quite proud of it.

What Part of Shhhh! Don’t You Understand?

By Andie Ryan

As a freelance writer, I spend a lot of time in public libraries, researching story ideas and browsing newspaper archives on microfiche machines (yes, they still exist). I also frequently have my laptop in tow and, occasionally, I am able to find a quiet corner in the library to hunker down and do some writing.

Notice that I said “occasionally.”

It seems that the libraries of my youth, where silence was expected—and enforced—have gone the way of disco music (and I’m only 33). Over the last twenty years, libraries have become considerably noisier, and I find that the librarians and check-out clerks tend to look the other way. It is apparently now acceptable for young children to run rampant through the stacks, howling to one another and braying at their parents. The adult patrons are oftentimes just as bad, yakking away on cell phones and having loud conversations with one another, oblivious to the reproachful looks coming from those of us who are there to study, read, or even just surf the internet in peace.

This makes me sad, because I really love libraries. For me, as a writer and avid reader, it’s my version of church. Although I’m not a religious person, I see libraries as sacred and deserving of respect, reverence, and—most of all—silence.

So think of this the next time you visit your local library. And please, shut up!

I'm doing a bit better than last week, but no less bitter. For those of you just joining us (actually, my last post was pretty damn vague, so I apologize for that)--my boyfriend Matthew has fucked off into the sunset, (kissed off into the air?), giving me the old classic, time-honored "I'm just not ready" speech before running away like a little bitch. So, I'm back to having cheap meaningless sex--which, as it turns out, was all he was after in the first place. It is more fun than a relationship, I'll give him that. And a hell of a lot easier. But anyway, I didn't just come here to whine about another lost cause....

I went to the Fitzgerald Theatre last night to see the REAL man of my dreams, Michael Chabon (Pulitzer Prize winner, brilliant writer, my all time idol, and an all around HOTTIE!) so that has alleviated my mood considerably. Here is a photo of us together, and I don't mind saying, we make an adorable couple.

NOTHING MATTERS, AND WHAT IF IT DID?

I want to walk up to every happy couple and tell them, "You know this isn't going to work out, right?" Maybe it sounds cynical, maybe it sounds assholish, maybe I'm just a cynical asshole. But seriously, how many couples who are happy together stay that way? (Either happy, or together, or both?) I'd estimate around 1%, and those are the ones who are 85 years old and close to dying, and just happy to have someone there for them.

It never works out. It never ever ever works out. No matter how much you like them, no matter how horny you can make them, no matter how often you have sex, no matter how much effort you put into it, no matter how hard you try to say and do the right things, no matter how witty and urbane and sweet and charming and attentive and fun you try to be---it's useless. In the end, we're all alone. The more I try to fight that sad fact of life, the more it fucks me in the ass.

I'll leave you with a quote that a friend emailed me yesterday in a game effort to lift my spirits. It didn't work, but I don't think anything will at this point. Anyway, it sounds nice.

"It’s my belief that history is a wheel; inconstancy
is my very essence says the wheel. Rise up on my
spokes if you like but don’t complain when your cast
back down into the depths. Good times pass away but
then so do the bad. Mutability is our tragedy, but
it’s also our hope. The worst of times like the best
are always passing away."

--Boethius, author of the Consolation of Philosophy