But as I get older, goodbyes have become more difficult.  New beginnings still follow endings, but I’m having more trouble leaving behind the good parts of my life; maybe because as I mature, I’m bringing more meaningful activities into my life and loving people more deeply.

This blog has been one of my more meaningful ventures and I have been introduced to some amazing people through it.  But it is time to say goodbye.  At least, for now.

I started Tart and Soul more than two years ago in an effort to market myself as a writer.  My agent was shopping around a novel, branded “women’s commercial fiction,” and I thought a blog focusing on relationships would help build my platform.  The blog soon became much more than that.  Writing these posts helped me sort out challenges in my personal life and in the lives of my friends.  It helped me navigate a sometimes bizarre, often cruel, often inspiring popular culture and gave me an opportunity to express myself and be heard.

Even more importantly, I’ve heard from my readers, a bunch of smart, thoughtful, funny, fantastic folks.  Reading their comments and getting their letters has been as enriching to me as writing these posts.

Unfortunately, my agent was unable to sell my novel to publishers.  The upside to this disappointing news was realizing I now had the opportunity to return to my real love as a writer: literary fiction.  Last year, I applied to grad school and have just begun a Creative Writing MFA program.  I am madly in love with this program because in it, I’m getting back to myself as a creative writer and a critical reader of great literature.

But as you can imagine, grad school doesn’t leave much time for anything else.  As much as I enjoy writing the blog and hearing from my readers, now is the time to buckle down, do my schoolwork and write another novel.  The fact that I haven’t been able to post this goodbye note in four weeks should speak to how busy I am.  Although, I am happy to admit there’s no greater feeling than being busy as hell doing something you love.

You will hear from me again – there will be books, articles, and perhaps even a return to this blog, Tart and Soul.  In the mean time, please keep in touch by following me on Twitter and liking my author’s page on Facebook.  If I start the blog up again, you’ll hear about it there:

Twitter: @lkwarrell – link here

Facebook: LK Warrell Author – link here

I will miss Tart and Soul and all of my readers.  Thank you so much for your support.  It means the world.

Until next time…

[Image from tanigami.tumblr.com]

Largely, my marginally well-known exes are comedians.  When I was in college, I worked at a comedy club and so, like many of my waitressing colleagues, enjoyed the opportunity to be romanced by overly ambitious funnymen.  These days, I see lots of them waxing philosophic on those VH1 countdown shows or starring in their own thirty-minute Comedy Central standup showcases.  One comic I dated was “this close” to hitting it super big in the ‘00s while another became a stadium-sized rock star blazing through the comedy stratosphere.  There was even a moment with an Oscar winner.

Really, I’m not bragging.  Quite the contrary.  When I see these guys on television or in movies, two defeatist thoughts surface in my mind:

Should I have stuck with one of them?  And two, am I a big loser?

I’ve been mostly happy with my romantic life.  I’ve had a marriage, a fairly lengthy string of hearty romances and one or two true loves.  But I wonder if a more ambitious partner might have helped me achieve some of my professional goals.  Maybe he would’ve turned up the dial even more on my own ambition.  The more excruciating question is whether or not I’m a big loser for not having achieved these goals on my own.  Some women would feel fantastic knowing they were once the cat’s meow for men marvelous enough to reach some level of national acclaim.  But when you’re the kind of gal whose identity is pumped up by her own successes, and not those of her other half, it’s challenging to feel anything but envy when an ex’s mug is all over CNN.

But really, I didn’t choose the lawyer or any of these men because we just didn’t connect.  Thus, I should wish these fellas a silent good luck and be on my merry way.

I guess, like every freakin’ lesson in life, this has nothing to do with other people and everything to do with me.  I feel envy because of what’s missing in my world and it’s all up to me to find and fix it.  I know “it” has something to do with carving out my own little place on the cultural landscape.  Presumably, the challenge is not to look up so much to see what everyone else is doing.

So, I’ll stick to my real loves and true connections, and continue working toward my goals in my less than Type-A fashion.  And if I ever need to wonder ‘what if,’ I’ll just turn on the TV.

Today, I figured out why.

I should confess I’m no city mouse by blood.  I grew up in Ohio where a trip to the bank can turn into an hour-long convo about the cashier’s bunions and how fast his kids are growing up.  People are ridiculously friendly in the Midwest and for the first couple decades of my life, I was, too; chatting up strangers, acknowledging when I bumped into people on the sidewalk, smiling.  But at nineteen, I moved to a major city for college and since then have lived in big cities all over the world.  I’m still a kind, generous person.  But I need the sound of cars passing outside my window to sleep at night.  I must see at least ten restaurants and an independent movie theater to consider a neighborhood livable.  I wear heels on camping trips.  Who am I kidding, I don’t go on camping trips.  There are bears out there, you know.  Bugs and dirt.

In other words, I’m a city person.  Fortunately, I’m not a complete jerk city person who finds no reason to live anywhere else.  One day, I’d like to return to a quieter place.  But right now, I need the noise.

So, today I was on the subway headed to the Greyhound station.  This friendly out-of-towner sees my bags and asks where I’m going.  I think, ‘buddy, you’re getting two responses out of me then this conversation is over.’  When he asks why I’m going where I’m going, I lie because the truth would only beg more questions.  Then I open my book and start reading.

On the Greyhound, this lovely woman asks the time and I give her a curt answer to avoid engagement.  She compliments my hair, so I offer a genuine smile then quickly turn back to my book to deflect further questioning.  Then during a stopover, some old Brit starts talking to me because he’s seen the book I’m reading and wants to know what it’s about.  And I’m thinking, ‘dag blast it, why do these people keep talking to me?’

I know why.  Because they’re nice.  And at heart, I’m nice and they probably sense it.  But there’s a reason I don’t want to talk to them, and it’s the same reason city folk don’t always want to talk to people they don’t know.

When you live in a city, nearly every second of every day is filled with relentless interaction, constant dialogue and unremitting intellectual stimuli fueled by friends, family, people in meetings, people in grocery store lines, people on the street.  You are always stuck in traffic or smelling the armpit of some stranger on a crammed subway.  You are always impressing your boss, your date or neighbors, always marketing yourself and networking, always busy and late.  You are always “on.”

Consequently, when you have ten minutes on a subway with a foot of empty personal space around you, when you have twenty seconds until you have to get off the elevator, when you have four hours on a bus alone, you relish them.  Here’s an opportunity to turn off.  Decompress.  Have your thoughts to yourself.  Breathe.  Some dude in a giant cowboy hat asking if there’s a Denny’s in the area can be seen as a bit of an intrusion.

Perhaps this is no comfort to tourists who visit our nation’s cities only to get pushed and shoved on the sidewalk by grumpy natives.  But maybe with understanding, our guests can show some sensitivity, be patient with us…

And get the hell out of the way.

[Image from www.helpimasoutherner.blogspot.com]

I may have gone on without giving the matter much thought, except that there was something even more me-ish about the girl than her plump cheeks. She was pining away over a boy who apparently was giving her the run around. Moreover, she was testing the limits of friendship by giving the pal next to her every minute detail of their last conversation.

Me much?

The boy had told the girl to stop calling him. He didn’t want to talk to anyone right now. He wasn’t replying to any of her texts or returning her calls. Every so often, she’d call late, sometimes after midnight, and was surprised when he wasn’t home.

Fourteen-Year-Old Me was confused. Older Me knew there were only a few causes for such behavior and they all revolved around other girls, lack of interest and overall jerkiness.

“He says he can’t handle a relationship right now,” the girl told her friend. “He’s worried about his mom and he has to get a job.”

The girl lifted her chest and proudly said, “And I was like, ‘you expect me to wait for you?’”

Older Me hoped either the guy fell to her feet in tears or she gave him the grand heave ho.

“’He told me, ‘no.’ So I asked, ‘do you want me to?’”

It took everything in me not to take the girl by the shoulders and shake her senseless. “Get some strength in those knees and stiffen that spine. You cave to this creep and you’ve got years of male crap to put up with. Get out now!”

“Honestly, Mary, I don’t know,” the girl continued. “I was like, ‘I can be your girlfriend and support you through this.’”

No, you can’t, I thought, trying to use mental telepathy to communicate with her. You can’t because he doesn’t want you to. Or someone else is his support. Or he doesn’t have a problem, he’s just making up bull malarkey because he’s afraid to cut the cord.

“I was like, ‘I’ll be waiting for your call.’ He didn’t call me, so I called him.”

You just earned another year of lessons from the Relationship School from Hell.

“He was on the phone with his cousin.”

Yeah, right.

“He kept crying and crying and I was like, ‘I’m right here for you.’”

Man, was this girl tugging at my heart strings. How many times have I begged some big wounded boy to let me love him? In fact, nearly every female I know has blubbered to me about some damaged soul who won’t let her heal his pain. Few things are as confusing to women as men who turn away love and support.

I wasn’t angry at the apple of Fourteen-Year-Old Me’s eye. Sure, guys like him can be selfish and plain mean. But they’re just snot-nosed little boys and it’s up to the women who adore them to cut their losses when the writing’s on the wall.

Unfortunately, it can take decades before a woman learns to stop hanging on to dead end love. I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took me, but will confess to making tons of stupid decisions, dating scads of nincompoops and coming face to face with lots of not so pretty truths about my own inner workings. Most importantly, it took the real love of a couple good men to show me true connection isn’t something you have to beg someone to share with you.

I wanted to tell Fourteen-Year-Old Me to let this cad go and avoid love she has to wrestle to the ground. Spare her the agony of heartbreak or an on/off affair with someone who only kinda likes her. But like every hard lesson, you’ve got to learn it on your own.

All I could do was give her a smile that said, ‘you’ve got a long, hard journey ahead. But you’ll get there.’

She probably didn’t grasp my message. But maybe she will in twenty years, when her own Mini Me sits across from her on a train.

I can’t wait for summer!  Dazzling beams of sunlight will shine across the land as the scent of barbecues, sun block and chlorinated pools waft through the air.  My pasty, winterized complexion will glow like polished copper as I revel in the freedom of halter-tops and linen skirts rather than being confined by bulky sweaters.

Summer is perfect.  Except for one thing: the radio.

Radio stations seem to condense their playlists to a handful of records come summertime.  Once you’ve heard Buster Poindexter’s Hot, Hot, Hot for the fifteenth time in a week, you may start longing for the season of snowballs being hurled at your head.

Thus, I’m offering a partial list of summer’s most grating tunes.  With any luck, the great DJ in the sky will command his minions to spare us these don’ts.

Don’t: Hot in the City, Billy Idol

To a pubescent Midwestern gal, Billy Idol was like the wrong-side-of-the-tracks hunk all the girls avoided in class but secretly liked.  His badass snarl was almost enough to lure me away from the sleeker, more pristine desires stirred by Duran Duran.  White Wedding was creepily sexy while Rebel Yell had me crying, “more, more, more” even though I was too young to have any idea what I wanted more of.  But this Hot in the City baloney?  Sounds like the banal workings of Neil Diamond being played by a Springsteen cover band.  Barf.

Don’t: Kokomo, Beach Boys

I’m no Beach Boys fan.  However, I do find myself wanting to strap on a bikini and sip Sunkist whenever I hear their faux tropical sounds.  But Kokomo blows.  With its slothy, cheesily flirtatious chorus, it’s the musical incarnation of a creepy, pina colada sipping grandpa sliming around a cruise ship hitting on barely legals.  I bet the Beach Boys don’t even like this tune.

Don’t: Summertime, DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince

After the phenomenally goofy yet funky Parents Just Don’t Understand, Will Smith and his buddy had a tough act to follow.  To this day, whenever someone starts a sentence with, “okay, here’s the situation,” I always reply, “your parents went away on a week’s vacation?”  Summertime definitely has a lazy day vibe and didn’t bother me the first sixteen thousand times I heard it.  But the song lacks pizzazz.  When I hear it, I don’t want to sit back and unwind.  I want to hear Parents Just Don’t Understand.  Plus, the song just reminds us of how much it must suck to be DJ Jazzy Jeff watching the Fresh Prince become the megastar that is Will Smith.   

Don’t: Cruel Summer, Bananarama

I must admit to having had Bananarama records in my youth and can tell you Cruel Summer was one of their least interesting hits, especially when you consider they had a tune called Robert DeNiro’s Waiting.  But that song was about a victim of abuse escaping her fate by watching the actor’s films.  Meanwhile, Cruel Summer is about a gal being abandoned for the summer by her best pals and boyfriend.  For cripe’s sake, the word “cruel” is in the title.  Not exactly what I call summertime fun.      

Looking for some truly sunny tunes to beat the heat?

Do: (Love Is Like a) Heat Wave, Martha and the Vandellas

I dare you to listen to this song any time of year and not start waving your hands in the air like the lost member of the Supremes.  Besides, I’d rather suffer a heat wave than cruelty during summer.

Do: Hot Fun in the Summertime – Sly and the Family Stone

Hot Fun in the Summertime is balmy and mellow the way a good summertime song should be.  All you wanna do is drink iced tea, party with pals on the beach then slide out of your flip flops and fall asleep in a hammock.  Man, is there better fun than “hot fun?”

Do: Boys of Summer, Don Henley

This tune gets more airplay than Hot, Hot, Hot during the warm months, but to me it screams summer.  Maybe it’s because of images like, “your brown skin shining in the sun.”  Plenty sluggish summer nights back in Ohio were spent eating hot dogs between slices of Wonder Bread and wading through creeks with friends.  Seems Henley’s rustic tunes always made up the soundtrack.  I doubt those wieners would’ve tasted so good if Kokomo was playing.

What summer tunes are your do’s and don’ts?

See you next week!

[Image from www.epicself.com]

I don’t like someone.  I wouldn’t say this person merely “bothers” me or makes me want to hide whenever I see her on the street.  No, I’m talking low down, teeth grinding, wish-I-could-hurl-a-basketball-at-her-head contempt.  Certainly, I’d feel bad if something terrible happened to the gal.  But if she ripped her favorite blouse or had a bird crap on her head, I’d pay to be around to see it.

Usually, I’m able to shrug off unpleasant behavior.  I believe people only act like jerks when life is handing them lemons.  I can look past the jerkiness and see the wounded soul.  Moreover, I have a fairly peaceful temperament, so there’s no inner rage to rattle by folks who are acting like boobs.

In truth, this person is no beast.  She’s just petty, selfish and breathtakingly thoughtless.  Though disagreeable, these qualities are not enough to flip my emotional switch from patience to disdain.  However, when these qualities result in behavior that significantly reduces my personal happiness quotient, well, heads will roll.

Fortunately, the realization that I have no fondness for this particular person was quickly followed by an important, somewhat life-altering epiphany.  Perhaps I’ve not allowed myself to dislike many people because of my own need to be liked.  If I actively dislike someone, chances are they won’t like me either.

So I guess I have this person to thank for aiding the maturation process.  What better sign of wisdom and self-possession than not giving a rat’s backside whether everyone in the world thinks you’re swell?  Once I decided it was okay to dislike this person, I stopped accommodating her ridiculously selfish needs and stopped making excuses for her grisly behavior.  I silenced my diplomatic, rational self and showed some anger and teeth.  Man, did it feel luscious.

And I didn’t even need a basketball.

[Image from www.blindgossip.com]

Undoubtedly, few events are more disappointing than not getting to meet your Lord as planned.  And imagine Monday morning at the office for these people, particularly those who’ve been smug about their impending visit to Heaven.

“So, Jerry, how’d that whole ‘Second Coming’ work out for you?”  Embarrassing.

In an effort to provide some support, I’d like to suggest a few goals these folks can work toward in the aftermath of their botched Rapture.  Get back on the ol’ horse, I say.  None of these ideas are as exciting as Christ’s return to Earth though they’re much easier to pull off.

Call out some prominent person as the Antichrist.

A basic end of the world scenario which hasn’t been used for eons.  The upside is there’s no need to have well-founded evidence.  You could virtually pick a name out of a hat.  Obviously Sarah Palin would make a fab Antichrist selection, but I assume many of our Rapturous friends dig the former governor.  The best choice would be a thoroughly vile person whose public life is so utterly meaningless that it wouldn’t be a loss if they break under the pressure and disappear.  My vote: Snooki.

One word: Technology.

Fundamentalists have to update their brand.  All this Armageddon hoo-hah tires older people and barely resonates with younger fans.  If everybody and their grandmother are online, then that’s how to reach the public.  Why not suggest there are Satanic messages filtering through the public airwaves?  Maybe call the IPad the Devil’s writing tablet.  In fact, why not just tag Steve Jobs as the Antichrist?  Considering how long I have to wait for messages to upload on my IPhone, he just may be.  

Announce Jesus is already among us. 

Tell the world Christ is already walking the planet and drop clues about where he might be.  Say he was seen crossing the Arabian Desert then a month later, leak a photo of a bearded guy walking across a lake in Cleveland.  Everyone will become intensely fascinated and look forward to each new clue.  It’ll be like Where’s Waldo?  Fun for the whole family!

See, Rapturists?  There’s still hope of making a difference.

You know, when I was in first grade, a friend brought me to a church group where I was instructed to invite Jesus Christ into my heart.  They didn’t have to ask me twice.  The thought of having my own personal savior to accompany me through the travails of existence seemed an awesome way to start life.  I prayed my itty bitty heart out and begged Jesus to come inside.  Nada.

As I got older, my spiritual quest continued as did my curiosity about Jesus.  To me, Christ was a fascinating historical figure, a great spiritual leader and a deeply complex man who accepted doubt as an inevitable consequence of human life.  I find it hard to believe a guy who preached universal love would bring only a handful of meatheads to Heaven and leave the rest of us to rot.

I kinda wish my version of Jesus would’ve dropped in on May 21^st.  We could totally use the help.

[Image of "Praising Prairie Dogs" by Anthony Falbo from www.falboart.com/Light_Dark_Series/lightdark.htm]

I’m not saying everyone has to dream of curing cancer.  But how is a non-athletic appearance in Sports Illustrated a great achievement?  Who imagines wearing sand on their butt cheeks in the pages of a sports magazine the end all be all?

Now, I’m no dummy.  I realize SI cover girls get mad cash, an adrenalin shot to their careers and solid proof the world considers them amazingly beautiful.  Maybe it’s this last piece I don’t understand.  Gorgeous women who view modeling as an end to some greater means, I get.  But I’ve always wondered why any female over the age of thirteen wants to be a model.  Eventually, it seems every woman should outgrow the need for the world to validate her cuteness.

Around age twelve, lots of my friends and I tried to become models.  We’d arrived at that clunky stage where all we wanted was to be popular so we could dive into cliques and avoid having to construct real identities.  For girls, “pretty” was the defining characteristic of those who enjoyed pre-pubescent social success, especially once buzzing hormones led us to boys.  “Pretty” seemed the one thing a woman could be and have everything one could want from life – fame, money, friends, love.  Models were the personification of pretty, and thus, being one was the ultimate validation of one’s beauty.  Being a model was to pretty, what getting into Harvard was to smart.

There were girls already deemed pretty who apparently wanted to put an official stamp on their esteemed status by becoming models.  Then there were those of us deemed fair to middling who hoped modeling careers would somehow raise our stock.

I was the latter.  Who knows what I was thinking when I begged my mother to take me to a modeling agency.  Maybe I hoped a scout would see something no one else saw in me and I could go back to school to tell everyone I was cute so stop ignoring me.  Of course, I was rejected.  But after nursing my ego back to health, I had the wisdom to identify more meaningful, less attention-whoring career goals.  Like acting and writing.

The point is grown ups set goals that validate what’s truly unique and constant about them, right?  Like their talents or creativity.  Grown ups’ goals connect them with other people, with causes and activities that give them a charge and maybe even make a difference in how the world runs.  I mean, if you want to be a model, you just want to be pretty for the rest of your life.  All you have to show for this career choice is travel to the world’s most glamorous metropolises, a wardrobe full of designer clothes, chic parties and rock star husbands.  Actually, that sounds pretty rad.

Anyway, if Bar really needs guidance on finding goals that measure up to the Sports Illustrated cover, I can offer some suggestions.  For one, she could convince Leo to settle down and become mom to some of the best looking, most intense little rugrats this side of Tinseltown.  She could spend a year traveling the world by boat.  Work in a soup kitchen.  Become a mime.  Go back to school and become the hottest gal in the biology department.  Become an activist working to save libraries, say, or lions.  Drive Formula 1 race cars.  Open up a café on a beach in Hawaii.

Bar, my dear, you’re only twenty six.  Sports Illustrated swimsuit issues come out every year, and every modeling agency in every corner of the world is crammed with girls as cute as you.  But now you have something they don’t.  You have a bunch of money, which means, you have loads of freedom.  So, life didn’t peak when you got SI’s cover.  If you play your cards right, it was only the beginning.

[Image of Victoria's Secret model hopeful from www.nydailynews.com]

As a girl growing up in Ohio, being “mixed,” well, sucked.  Seeing as how there was only one other kid of color in my neighborhood of mostly Anglo folk, I was often considered an oddball.

Needless to say, boys never chased me on the playground.  Instead, they chased Rachel McCullen, a gorgeous, doe-eyed blonde from a family of gorgeous, doe-eyed, Virgin Suicides-esque daughters.  I figured I finally had my chance at nabbing a playground kiss when a black boy named Paul Brockton transferred into our school.  He chased Rachel McCullen, too.

When I got to college in Boston, the playing field leveled.  White guys, black guys, Latinos; no one turned his nose in this culturally diverse city.  However, race played a pivotal role in my romantic story.  My first boyfriend, a white dude from the South, broke up with me after he realized he didn’t want black babies.  That was a hoot.  I had trouble finding stable relationships after him, which I chalked up to my own handicap in picking out suitable mates, rather than any racial issue.  Maybe it was the whole “first boyfriend dumps you ‘cause you’re black” thing messing up my mojo.

Finally, I had an enduring romance with a Frenchman who I ultimately married.  He and his family were too liberal to let a thing like race bother them, so it was hardly a factor in our lives.  In the early days of our courtship while living in France, I accompanied my future husband to a community event where we gazed at each other from across the room.  Later, he told me another Frenchman informed him, “that island girl is watching you,” referring to me.  I didn’t want to spoil the guy’s fantasy, so when he asked where I was from, I said, “Cleveland” and let him believe it was some Caribbean paradise he’d never heard of.

I’ve always had fun playing with the ethnic confusion my brown skin and indefinable features create.  I find my face rather ordinary, but some folks just can’t figure out what I am.  Especially in Europe, where I lived after divorcing.  There, I was regularly taken for a gal from the tropics, an African princess or Cuban émigré.  I had Ethiopians ask if I was from their homeland and had a man approach me speaking Arabic.  I successfully convinced German soccer fans I was Brazilian by throwing on a green and yellow T-shirt during the World Cup.  And I had no trouble getting a Spaniard to believe I was in fact Congolese and the half-sister of Lenny Kravitz, who he thought I looked like.

In the States, most people get my background.  However, if I had a nickel for every Latin American person who comes up to me speaking Spanish, I’d never go hungry again.  Recently, I went into my favorite burrito chain with my Argentine boyfriend.  The Latino staff immediately starting speaking to me in Spanish.  My boyfriend was shocked.

“It happens all the time,” I told him.  It had never happened to him even once.

Being biracial has definitely kept my romantic life popping.  But I have a secret.  I wish I could just be in a relationship.  I wish I didn’t have to suffer the “what’s your ethnic background” inquisition every time I meet someone’s family and friends.  Wish I didn’t have to always question whether and how race would affect my life with someone.  Wish I didn’t have to fear race having anything to do with relationships that have failed.  And I haven’t even mentioned the pestering I’ve received from folks who don’t believe in interracial romance.

So, who do I want to end up with?  I could choose one race in order to satisfy traditionalists or appeal to multicultural ideals and say anyone.  But the real answer is much simpler.  I want to end up with someone who loves me.

Yeah, I could get down with that.

[Image from www.photobucket.com]