Behind the Bedroom Door

Sex after cancer

...doesn't have to be a drag. In fact, it can even be hot! Read about it in this poignant essay by a young breast cancer survivor.

Cloud nine, walking on air and all that fun stuff

I don't think I've ever had a better Monday morning. I sleepily arrived at my office this morning, late, to an email from a very nice agent I met at a book party a few weeks ago. He congratulated me on the "great review in PW!" I squawked (if you can squawk via email), WHAT good review in PW? Then I quickly Googled my name and PW and got this. I've been floating and smiling ever since! Now I'm puttering around my apartment and listening to Bob Marley, two of my favorite activities. Call it a party-of-one.

Ciao belli...

Paola

"Poignant...and a great bit of naughty fun"

That's my favorite line from this week's starred review in Publisher's Weekly! I'm over the moon with happiness!

Friends with benefits

This may be incredibly unhip of me, but I've come to think that the whole FWB thing is way overrated; indeed, I might even say it's a way for guys to have sex with a whole bunch of people at one time while pretending you don't particularly care romantically for one above the other. In my (admittedly limited) experience, one party of a particular FWB unit usually harbors secret hopes and romantic feelings about the relationship; another thing that makes the arrangement a dud for me is this: the way my heart, body, and mind work, the physical and emotional usually go together: If I'm liking someone enough to be physically intimate, then you've got to believe that I'm growing fond of them too. If that wasn't happening, I would also be less interested in a physical relationship. In other words, it has to keep deepening to remain compelling, physically and emotionally. But maybe I'm a hopeless romantic. Or idealist.

Of course, I do believe in some kinds of friends with benefits. This week, my amica, Sarah, is visiting from Rome--we met when I lived in Trastevere for two months, while working on BTBD. She is a friend of a friend--now we're friends. So nice when that happens. In any case, she is an FWB: When I come to Rome, she graciously lets me stay in her gorgeous Trastevere apartment; when she comes here, mi casa e lei casa. That works well no matter what the economy is doing. Time to plan the next trip to Rome.

Ciao, belli--Paola

Sensual Pleasures

No--this blog post is not going to be about what you think! I actually want to write about economizing--what we scrimp on, what we refuse to give up. For instance, I've reduced my manicures and pedicures, dry cleaning and all manner of grooming expenses, (eyebrow waxing, GONE!)  by two thirds. I used to eat out five or six times a week (I know--hugely excessive but I live in NYC and one of my favorite activities is to hang out with a good friend over a nice (restaurant-made) meal and glass of red wine. Now I'm eating out three times a week. I waste less of everything in general. I'm buying less at Gourmet Garage. I'm trying to go more days between ATM withdrawals.

But there are still ridiculously overpriced luxuries I haven't given up yet:

1) I buy Mrs. Meyers laundry detergent, in geranium. It makes my clothes, my sheets, my entire apartment smell subtly amazing. I never get tired of breathing it in. It is also obscenely expensive--something like $13 a bottle. I know, I know. But anything having to do with sheets, sleep, bedrooms, scents--I just find that having textures and smells and colors around that I love elevates my mood and improves the quality of my life. I like my sensual pleasures.

2) I still get professional massages. Regularly.

3) I still travel. Or plan to. (I can't live without Rome.)

Ciao--

Paola (my Italian alter ego)

Sexpertise

The kick-off Bedroom Door event will be at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble, on 82nd and Broadway. Right by Zabars and Harry's Shoes. January 15th, at 7 PM. For 20 years, I've shopped in that bookstore, peered in the window at the displays and the posters, and imagined what it would be like to have a book of my own there. Now it's about to happen and I intend to tackle it with sexpertise (if that's not a word, it should be). What that means to me is to tackle the subject with openness and a sense of humor and empathy. Because don't we all feel a little vulnerable when it comes to sex?

Sexual confidence--or lack thereof

Unlike Susan Cheever, who seems to never have had trouble meeting men, I've never been able to meet men easily in bars, restaurants or at parties. I'm not shy. I meet women all the time. Husbands of friends? Sure! I can talk to them without blinking an eye. But when it comes to making eye contact with and smiling at a man I find attractive and haven't been introduced to, I can't do it. But I'm on a mission. On the street, at work, while traveling: I'm practicing smiling at random men. So far, it hasn't been a humiliating experience. It's actually been kind of nice. Too bad I didn't figure this out 20 years ago but better late than never. Gotta revel in my late bloomerness.

Bedroom Music

Whenever I go on dating sites, which I've done intermittently over the last decade, I'm struck by the way sex and music are linked--nerve.com's dating site asks users to list their favorite bedroom music. I don't have a long list--when I think about it, all I can come up with is Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," which is such a cliche I'm almost embarrassed to write it here. And two more. A measly list, but who needs music?

Here's my bedroom playlist, below.

1. Sexual healing, Marvin Gaye

2. Anything by Bob Marley

3. Red Red Wine by UB40

Except when I looked at this list more closely, I realized that I came to love these songs in 1983, during my sophomore year of college, when I spent a semester in London. It's safe to say those were among the happiest months of my life: I met and got infatuated with a British student who went to my college and happened to live next door to our Lancaster Gate rowhouse. He was infatuated right back, and adopted me into his crowd of friends. I was in Europe, I had a boyfriend (even better, one with a British accent,) I was in the process of discovering the great museums and art, I visited Rome for the first time, and my urban soul was awakened on the streets and in the mohawked crowds of 1980s, on-the-dole London. One thing I love about traveling, that I discovered back then, is that being in a new place makes everything more vivid, including the things you love back home. The only thing I missed about my college town was the food--back then, London didn't yet have the food thing going on. Pretty idyllic--no wonder I associate the songs I heard in the background during those six months with joy, freedom, excitement and love.

What are your top 5 bedroom songs?

The thrill of beginnings

There is nothing like the thrill of the beginning of a love relationship. The anticipation of the next meeting. The secret smiles that keep cropping up, unbidden. The long, meandering phone calls. The excitement. The knot in the pit of the stomach. The souped up hormones. Ali Liebegott writes about those experiences in "In the Beginning," which has my all time favorite first line in the collection: "Who doesn't desire the beginning of a love affair, new like a mop, pretty in all its potential?" I mean, really--can you GET more accurate-yet-poetic than that?

And speaking of beginnings...welcome to the inaugural post of the Behind the Bedroom Door web site. Here's where you'll find tantalizing excerpts, links to all the amazing contributors and news about Bedroom Door events, like the kick-off reading at Barnes and Noble on January 15, 2009. You'll also find daily blogs from me, Paula Derrow, your editor, about the book, of course, but also about sex, love and relationships--what it's like to be out there looking for love or trying to make a relationship work. I can't wait to get the conversation going about what real women experience, what we worry or simply wonder about when it comes to our own and other people's sex lives. So please, feel free to come into the bedroom...and leave your insecurities behind! Comment away! And stay tuned for guest bloggers from the amazing contributors!