Tantor Media. - What I was doing while you were breeding: a memoir

Copyright 2014 by Kristin Newman

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Three Rivers Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Three Rivers Press and the Tugboat design are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

ISBN 978-0-804-13760-7

eBook ISBN 978-0-8041-3761-4

Cover design by Jessie Sayward Bright

Cover photography by Martin Westlake/Galley Stock

v3.1

WHAT I WAS DOING WHILE YOU WERE BREEDING

If Mark Twain was a woman and he had actually done things in the countries he traveled to, he would have been a lot more pleasant. He also would have written this book instead of The Innocents Abroad. This book is so good that, of the many I have blurbed, this is the only one I read.

Joel Stein, columnist for Time, author of
Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity

I have had the pleasure of joining Kristin on some amazing adventures and can say without question that she is as good a writer as she is a traveler. Which is to say, slightly better when shes had a few glasses of wine.

Nick Kroll

I love my husband and kids, truly I dobut reading What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding makes me want to buy a one-way ticket around the world, or rather two ticketsone for me and one for herso we could party till dawn, flirt with hairy European men, and break several international laws. Kristin puts the lust in wanderlust and makes adventuring and even mis-adventuring sexy, fun, and, at times, even inspirational.

Jill Soloway, writer/director

Since we cant all sit next to Kristin Newman at a dinner party, its a good thing she wrote What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding so we can all enjoy her funny and unexpected tales. Unlike the rest of us, Kristin took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference. Her sparkling wit and adventurous spirit will seduce you just as it did that guy in Argentina and in Russia and in Jordan and so on.

Nell Scovell, coauthor of Lean In

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding is sly disguised as sexy. It reminded me of George Eliot mixed with a woodshop-safety film. A complete delight.

Stephen Tobolowsky, actor, author of The Dangerous Animals Club

I wanted to read this book but my wife stole it off my night-stand, laughed at it for three nights straight, and lent it to her friends.

Rodney Rothman, author of Early Bird:
A Memoir of Premature Retirement

Kristins book is such an uproarious, sidesplitting, jaw-dropping-while-miraculously-somehow-also-self-reflecting page-turner, it makes me feel like I traded in my own wife and children for a time machine and a spot in her globe-trotting duffel bag.

Rob Kutner, writer for Conan, author of Apocalypse How
and The Future According to Me

Riotously funny, brutally honest, and hopelessly romantic Newmans global romps and brave takedown of the dated, divisive dichotomy between happy breeders and desperate singles is one of the most refreshing things Ive read in a long time and proof that everyone has her own path to happily ever after.

Attica Locke, nationally bestselling author of The Cutting Season

All things in moderation,

including moderation.

O SCAR W ILDE

Contents

1: Drugs Make You a Better Person
PARIS and AMSTERDAM, 2000

2: If I Dont Sleep with This Russian Bartender, the Terrorists Win
RUSSIA, 2002

3: Two Ferris Buellers Dont Make a Right
LONDON and PARIS, 20042005

4: Love the Juan Youre With
ARGENTINA, 2005

5: You Cant Go en Casa Again
ARGENTINA, 2006

6: Brazilians Skip Second and Steal Third
BRAZIL, 2007

7: Dominican Surgeons Are Not Half Bad
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, 20072008

8: Frodo Is the Hottest Guy in New Zealand
NEW ZEALAND, 2008

9: Thirty-Five Is Too Old to Be Sleeping in a Bathroom
AUSTRALIA, 2009

10: Even Bjrk Is Having Babies
ICELAND, 2009

11: The Land of Milk and Funny
ISRAEL and JORDAN, 2010

12: Juan More Time, with Feeling
ARGENTINA, 2011

13: Love Like Youre About to Get Deported
LOS ANGELES, 2011

Ill Have the House Special

I am not a slut in the United States of America. I have rarely had a fewer-than-four-night stand in the Land of the Free. I dont kiss married men or guys I work with, I dont text people pictures of my genitalia, I dont go home with boys I meet in bars before they have at least purchased me a couple of meals, Ive never shown my boobs for beads. I do not sleep with more than one person at a time, and, sometimes, no more than one per year. In America.

But I really love to travel.

Now, having sex with foreigners is not the only whorish thing I do: I also write sitcoms. For the last fourteen years Ive written for shows like That 70s Show, How I Met Your Mother, Chuck, The Neighbors, and shows youve never heard of that nonetheless afford me two over-the-top lucky things: the money to buy plane tickets and the time off to travel. What this means about my life is that I spend about nine months a year in a room full of, mostly, poorly dressed men, telling dick jokes and overeating and, sometimes, sitting on the floor with Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, and a chimpanzee (before all three found the age difference insurmountable). In the writers room, we talk a million miles a minute, tearing each other apart for sport and, often, out of love. Sometimes someone makes me cry, and I pretend Im doing a bit where I run out of the room to cry even though what Im really doing is running out of the room to cry. If Im lucky enough to be fully employed, I get about nine months of this and then a three-month hiatusunpaid time off from this weird non-corporate grind.

Most days, the writers room feels like Im at the most entertaining dinner party in the world. Other times, it feels like Im at the meanest, longest one. I keep both versions in perspective with my real lifes workrunning away from home to someplace wonderful. And then, sometimes, having sex there.