Respiratory Tourette's Syndrome

I think I have hay fever again.

Maybe it's aggravated by the fact that I have received no fewer than 40 mosquito bites since monsoon season started last month. I am a fucking histamine bomb. Not sexy.

When did this all start (again)? Well, in my (very young) youth, I was the stereotypical sniffly, rheumy-eyed kid beset by strange rashes and a chronic sinus infection. "Back to School" time sucked, because

1. I went to Catholic school, which meant we started while still in the throes of August sultriness. Uniform NOT optional.
2. My hay fever would kick in, ensuring that my little Kleenex fort would make positive social interaction with my peers even harder.

This was the case through high school. I made accommodations, but would still doze off my Benedryl cocktail during math class and sport a red , raw nose to parties.

Then I moved off to college. Almost like magic, the scales fell from my eczema-crusted legs and first day of class was not marked by wheeziness. It was amazing! However, I also developed panic attacks that had me whimpering at a Subway Sandwich Shoppe that I was diabetic and just needed some OJ. And I started drinking and smoking pot daily. But whatever...no sniffles, no problem.

Forthe next 8 years, I had convinced myself that my mother had "given" me my allergies. Not in a creepy Munchausen way, but, tiring of all my doctors' hand wringing and placebo treatments she just convinced herself that I was allergic to ragweed, chocolate, peanuts, and aspirin. And that conviction convinced me.

Summer evenings were bug bite free, and autumn nights were not marred by a purse full of Kleenex. Until a couple years ago. What a bitch, I finally detox myself of what would eventually kill me... my autoimmune system goes crazy and makes living uncomfortable. Okay, there's no reason for being melodramatic, it's just a little uncomfortable, but still!

Anywho, I'm stocking up on Claritin for my weekend. Unlike high school, my allergies are NOT stopping me from getting laid if I have anything to with it.

Play Clean!

I'm going to Lake Superior this weekend for a few days of fun and frolic with my lovely boyfriend . I asked my mother to send a set of queen-size sheets for my host's guest bed. I only have twin and full.

The sweet woman that she is, the sheets were in the mail the next day with a set of pj pants, a tube of Carmex, and the pictured "feminine" wipes and note.

I love my Mommy so. Even though I take great amusement in her concern for her 30-something daughter's "feminine" hygiene.

Jenny Good-Vibes

I LOVE going to the sex shoppe. It makes me feel all empowered , self-determined, in charge of my sexual destiny, et cetera. I feel like I should be grinning gaily on the cover of Our Bodies, Ourselves. I was having a shitty day yesterday, so I decided to pop by. Instant mood-enhancement...

My first experience with the sex toy phenomenon was when I was in high school. I saw an Adam and Eve ad in the back of a Details magazine and curiously sent away for my free catalog. WOW! Although I had read about dildos and cockrings I had never actually SEEN them. Inflatable dolls, endless Jeff Styker and Nina Hartley videos, vibrators, and what I'll always remember was Barbara something-or-other's Eager Beaver. "Completely life-like" and molded from the porn actress's ACTUAL PUSSY. I wondered how they did that.

I first visited a sex store in college. And much like my first time having sex it was a warm, fuzzy, great experience. I walked out with a vibrator and couple boxes of condoms and a blazing sense of confidence. "I am woman, hear me fuck. "

When I moved back home...to a CITY of nearly a million people... the only sex stores were those creepy ones that had peep show booths in the back. One was downtown, the rest were off the interstate. Ugh. The shitty lingerie, the horrible bumper stickers, the giant, porno-ized dildoes. I visited 3 and at all had an impossible time finding anything. Maybe because I felt like I was going to get genital warts from handling the merchandise. All the vibes I got broke within a year. And, NO, I DON'T think it was me! I missed my my happy women's store with the incense and real leather and Candida Royalle, encouraging all to get in touch with his/her inner goddess.

So when I moved again, I went straight to the women-owned sex store. I couldn't have been happier: plush carpeting, apple-cheeked women behind the counter, a vast assortment of vibrators with cute names. "Try me!" they invited. I felt like I was most in danger of contracting a hug. I was poor, though, and just bought some lube and stockings. I tried to get my then-boyfriend to come with. Our sex life was a cold drizzle, but I did not yet hate his fat, fucking face. No dice... "too contrived". Fucking idiot.

So I happily shopped away my worries away yesterday. Now I have some fresh, new friends to defile and that happy, sex shoppe feelin'. I am woman, hear me fuck.

Good Vibrations
A Woman's Touch
The Tool Shed
Early to Bed
Toys in Babeland

Decadent Youth

This is me over a decade ago. I love this picture. It perfectly conveys the boozy hauteur I both admired and indeed possessed.

You Can't Run, You Can't Hide

I've been living TV free for nearly 9 months now.

For the most part it's been awesome...considering that TV and pot are how I coped with chastity and rage for 4 years. I feel my attention span growing back. I have become more sensitive to violence. My tolerance for poor grammar has reached new lows. My libido has reached new highs. (The last one may also be the effect of less pot and rage)

But I miss Dr. 90210. This is a show that truly has something to offend everybody and I fucking love it! Each week was a peek into a soul more narcissistic and solipsistic than the week before, the doctors, the patients, the patients' families. Good God!

I like to think I have a "live and let live" approach to most personal matters. Particularly when it comes to plastic surgery. But whatever principles I do still retain are affronted by a mother's weeping with joy for their 16-year-old daughter's new boobs. Or by a Doctor, upon examining his vaginoplasty work, declaring, "Look at that cute little labia!" Or by the recipient of ass implants remarking upon now she has the "confidence" with which to shop "like a regular woman."

As a woman who regularly takes pride in her adorable, symmetrical tits and ass-filling jeans in the designer discount store at least twice a week, this may seem hypocritical. Aside from some acne and dandruff, I don't veer too wildly from a standard 20th Century definition of beauty. Is that what gives me my confidence to not subject myself to infection and anaesthesia? Say the lithium weight never came off, and I was still kicking it size -14 style, would I be cursing every roll or just feel curvy and sexy? I can't answer that.

What I can say is that since I can remember, I have been relegated to the fringe of every group I have been thrust into. Not rich enough, not ghetto enough, too foreign, too American, too intelligent, not smart enough, too lazy, too ambitious, too "out-there", too much a philistine. My tits didn't make me less of an outsider within my own family. My cute, li'l tummy didn't mean I had any real friends in college. My hot ass was no use when I got fired. My straight teeth didn't keep a boyfriend from trying to shove them down my throat.

Pretty much what I want to tell these girls and guys on Doctor 90210 is to turn off the TV, put down the Cosmo or Maxim quiz, tell the mall to "fuck-off" and go to the local thrift shop. (note I did not say library or museum. Yes go shopping) Find an album that looks cool, get some juice glasses that tickle your fancy, try on a 1000 pants, find something crazy that makes you look fantastic. To you.

Other people are a real "you win one, you lose one" situation. So you might as well be happy being yourself. Lest you find your vagina being appraised on basic cable by an assclown with a spray tan and a Messiah complex.