Excerpts from Anita Liberty's Best-Selling Self-Help Manual: How to Heal the Hurt by Hating

Chapter 2: The Art of Public Humiliation

I have made a career out of publicly humiliating my ex-boyfriend. Not everyone can be so fortunate as to simultaneously find retribution and one's life's calling through the same pursuit. I consider myself lucky. But there are ways to vent and be free without becoming a performance poet and using one man's foibles to drive all of your artistic endeavors in the hopes that your reach will become so wide and varied that every time he opens a magazine, reads the paper, watches television or listens to the radio, he sees himself skewered by his ex-girlfriend's razor-sharp wit and pointed perception of his inadequacies. Of course, my way is the best way, but my way is taken. First of all, when people ask you what happened, say you broke up with him. Say that you were really sad for a while, but now you're insanely happy and can't believe that you didn't do it sooner. Say you tried to break up with him months ago, but that he begged you to stay. Why the hell not? Who knows what fable he's twisted out of the truth to make himself look good? Imagine the worst from him and respond accordingly. No one really knows what happens behind a couple's closed doors, and that is your advantage. Your word against his. You can also relay stories to people who know him about how he still calls you every night crying, writes you letters that go on for pages and pages about how desperately he misses you, shows up at your door at all hours of the day and night. Make him look really unfortunate and kind of pathetic. And on your way out the door of his (or your shared) apartment for the last time, make sure to pocket as many unflattering pictures of him as possible for future use. I had one of Mitchell that showed him sitting on the edge of a swimming pool, blowing up a beach ball. He was really out of shape and his stomach was sticking out in such a way that it looked exactly like the beach ball. His hair was wet and stuck up in a kewpie-doll point. It was the most hideous picture of anyone ever taken. When we broke up, I photocopied it and posted it around his neigborhood, with the caption: Stay away from this man. For more information, call Anita Liberty at 212.978.7955. I'm still getting calls. Mostly from Mitchell.