OMG, are you
so totally excited?

People often ask me if I’m excited about my book coming out. I am, though “excited” isn’t the right word. What’s the word for excitement that is also dread that is also a wild-eyed fear that wakes you up at 4am wondering what mistakes you’ve made that you aren’t aware of yet? It’s like excitement sauteed in terror.

Still, these are luxury problems we are grateful to have. Six weeks from the publication of “Blackout” — June 23, by the way — and the first excerpt has hit newsstands. Pick up the May issue of ELLE (Chelsea Clinton on the cover) to find a segment from chapter nine about dating sober — a phrase I once considered an oxymoron:

I had no idea how to get close to a man without alcohol. Booze had given me permission to do and say anything I wanted, but now that I was sober, the only thing I wanted most days was to watch Netflix. It’s not as though every intimacy in my entire life had been warped by drinking. I’d had quiet sex, and giggling sex, and sex so delicate it was like a soap bubble perched on the tip of my finger. I knew such joy could exist between two people, but I had no clue how to get to it anymore. My only directions involved taking a glass of wine to my lips and letting the sweet release show me the way.

Read the rest here.