Kate Madison

Lesson learned: If a guy tells you you__e his second choice, don__ make him your first.

Judge me if you must, but keep in mind how very little pleasure I could have possibly derived from a one-thrust sex session, a quickie in a closet, and a come-free drunken hookup. If anything, you should feel sorry for me.

Because when you__e a 23-year old party girl who has to pee you don__ really think about the possibility that your nerdy bouncer friend might suddenly start acting like a trench-coated pedophile who flashes kids at the park.

Most memoirs about alcoholism, promiscuity, and addiction are deep, sobering tales full of scars that will never heal and include alarming statistics and reflection about recovery.This is not one of those memoirs.

I thought of my sweet little girl and her chubby cheeks, big brown eyes and long brown hair with bangs that constantly needed trimming. She was all that really mattered in this world, and I could not keep moping over some guy who came in and out of my life faster than a season of American Idol.

To me, the words __ood_ and __uilt_ didn__ belong in the same sentence unless, say, you were referring to how you felt about the starving children in Africa.

People always laugh at me when I tell them I__ scared of pencils, because they can__ fathom why anyone would fear a puncture wound or lead poisoning from a pencil, especially now that it__ impossible to get lead poisoning since they don__ actually contain lead. But those fuckers are sharp, and I have nightmares about getting cornered in a room and repeatedly stabbed with one. Somehow knives don__ frighten me, even though they are the more obvious tool for both a real and imagined stabbing.

The next day I received a phone call from Mr. Pride which began, __o, I heard you won Ho of the Year._ Well when you put it like that it didn__ sound like such an accomplishment.

The entire partying lifestyle was superficial in my experience, and most of my friendships were as deep as a shot glass and as short-lived as a pack of cigarettes.

Lesson learned: If you__e already resorting to writing shitty poetry (not the lovey-dovey kind) to get your guys attention within one month of meeting him, he is not the one.

I had a friend who got pregnant at age 14 and wasn__ quite sure who the father was. Her paternity test went a little something like this: __f it comes out black, its Darwin__ and if it comes out white its Ray__._ This is how things were done in the trailer park.

The Lush hadn__ driven in almost a decade - ever since she got in an accident that shook her so badly she refused to get behind the wheel. As you can imagine, someone nicknamed The Lush wouldn__ make a good DD anyway. I__ known her about a year before ever seeing her sober.

Lesson learned: Don__ ever put a guy up on a pedestal. It__ too easy for him to tip over and fall off.

In an attempt to help me move on from my failed marriage, my mom set me up with Jesus Freak. In fact, the stoner hadn__ even finished moving out when she told me not to worry, because she already had someone better lined up for me. I was just lonely and desperate enough to endure a four-month celibate long distance relationship with a guy who read 15 chapters of the Bible and prayed for two hours every day and expected me to follow suit. He wanted to give our hypothetical children Bible names and for us to move to Korea to become missionaries.