It’s not that I want to have sex while wearing a bumble bee costume. That’s not what I was saying.

It’s just that I’m such a kind and thoughtful girlfriend that before adding the costume to the charity donation pile accumulating on my floor, I thought it best to see if insect sex was maybe the one fetish we hadn’t yet discussed. And so I sent him a highly caffeinated email during his work day, inquiring as to whether or not he might be interested in banging a bee.

That’s the thing about working from home, it’s totally normal to spend a lunch break trying on slutty slut costumes from your college days and emailing your boyfriend about it. The other thing about working from home is that, after your lunch break, you can answer emails and have serious phone consultation meetings without ever taking the costume off.

Please keep this in mind next time you’re on the phone with me during the work day. Feel free, as we’re chatting, to just go ahead and assume that I’m wearing a bumble bee costume. Or a princess dress. Or a Snuggie that I’ve tied with a ribbon and turned into a “gown.”

You might have a 401K, but I can have client meetings while wearing a tiara.

And see, here’s the thing. I seriously am jealous of people who have a separate wardrobe of work clothes. And I know, I know, if you’re one of those people you’re probably rolling your eyes right now and thinking, “Sure bitch, try wearing stockings and heels every single day and see how you feel after that,” and I hear you, I really do, but also? At least you have specific clothes that you put on every morning to get you into your professional mindset. It’s the adult version of playing dress up, no? Wearing the clothes to represent who you want to be that day.

Those of us who work from home don’t have this. But gah! Do you know what we should do? We should start some kind of underground society with different theme days. Like, post an online calendar that’s all, “This week is 80s Dance Instructor Week, and next Tuesday is Wild Wild West Day, and the last Friday of the month is Outer Space Day,” and then dress accordingly.

And we could all post photos! And have costume contests! And we could use our outfits as ice breakers during phone meetings with potential clients by being like, “Did you know that per the bylaws of the Association of Cool People Who Work From Home, I’m wearing a Tarzan-style loincloth right now?”

The downside is that they might think you’re sexually harassing them.

The upside is that they might be turned on by it and hire you in hopes of your next meeting falling on “Body Paint & Stilettos Day” and taking place via video chat.

In the past week I’ve done so many Real Adult things that I’m not entirely sure I recognize myself anymore.

First, I bought skincare products. Like actual super high quality spendy face stuff to replace whatever I was using from the drug store that made it so my skin couldn’t decide if it was oily or dry or normal or iguana.

Second, I bought a bed. As in, I’m no longer sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. I have a box spring and a mattress and a pillowtop thing that goes on top of the mattress and sheets and a duvet and a duvet cover and pillows and and and THIS THE BEST DAY!

If you know me, you know how big of deal this is since I’ve spent the past two years sleeping on an air mattress. (I know right?!?)

It wasn’t like I planned it. It wasn’t like I woke up one day and was all, “You know what would be the best of the best? If I spent the next two years sleeping on the fucking floor.” No. This, like most other eyebrow-raising things in my life, just sort of happened.

I first bought the air mattress in June of 2008, when the woman I was renting a room from called to tell me that in fact, she wasn’t allowed to rent the room to begin with and that if I wasn’t out by the next afternoon, her and her children would be evicted.  I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I went with the only thing I could think of at the time: buying an air mattress and sleeping on the floor of my office.

This was back when I ran a children’s summer day camp, and apparently being homeless and sleeping in one’s office isn’t exactly smiled upon when you’re in charge of young children. So I went from my office to a friend’s house, and then from the friend’s house to my own small apartment, but even as I settled into my new place I knew I wouldn’t be staying long enough to invest in furniture, especially since the place was mostly furnished already.

So I slept on the floor and told everyone who asked that it was “fine!” and “fun!” and “sort of like a continual slumber party!” Which, for the record, was a big fat horse vagina lie. Not fine. Not fun. Not anything like a slumber party. I mean, imagine having all of your sex on an air mattress on the floor.

Exactly.

I left that apartment at the same time I left that job, and I took off from Southern California to my parents’ apartment in Arizona, and then from there to floors and couches all over the country during my three months of girl gone nomad-ing last fall. The tail end of the traveling brought me to San Francisco (air mattress in tow), and 8 months later here I am, splitting a one-bedroom apartment with Jamie, living behind two folding screens in the living room, but finally the owner of an actual bought-it-from-IKEA bed.

Finally. Fuck.

And on one hand, I’m all, “Yay! I win! Life’s too short to sleep on the floor!” but on the other hand I’m like, “Gah! Too many Real Adult things at once! Who am I! Whiplash!”

But then I look out my “bedroom” window and see the ball pit on the patio and remind myself that a) I still have a very long way to go before reaching full blown Real-Adult-ness and 2) Tequila solves everything.

Whoever says money can’t buy happiness needs to order an inflatable swimming pool and 500 multi-colored ball pit balls and then get back to me.

Nothing about this is practical. We have a fucking ball pit on our patio. But you know what? Practicality is overrated. You know what else? I think you should go out and do one ridiculous thing this week that gives you the kind of ecstasy-inducing heart boner that my ball pit gives me.

Dye your hair. Eat dessert for breakfast. Paint your ceiling blue. Take totally risqué photos of yourself for absolutely no reason. Buy ten pairs of hot pink underwear. Just do something, anything, that makes you feel exhilarated.

What the hell is the point of life if we’re not routinely making people question our sanity while we swim around in ball pits?

Big high fives to Jeremy, Norcross, and Lauren for coming over and blowing the pool up. Big high fives to James Bond for covertly filming this video clip and for smacking my ass in the middle of it. Big high fives to Jamie for putting up with me even though I secretly ordered 500 balls to our apartment and then pouted like a child when she wouldn’t agree to sell the couch so we could put the ball pit in its place. Big high fives to The Bloggess and her red dress for inspiring this post. And biggest ever high fives to anyone who chooses wild and irrational happiness over all of the other options.

(Also, yes, I know we need more balls. We’re getting more balls. Never enough balls. That’s what she said! That’s what I said! These jokes are too easy! BALLS!)

As part of my ever-growing collection of sex toys, I’m proud to announce that I now own one that looks like a bunny. Well, not an actual bunny. Not like with a cute little bunny face. I wouldn’t touch myself with a cute little bunny face. Or an ugly little bunny face. Or any little bunny face.

Shit, this is off to a horrible start.

A few months ago, Jamie and I went on a tour of the Babeland warehouse for no other reason than the fact that if someone asks if you’d like to tour their warehouse full of sex toys, you say yes.

(That’s piece of advice number one.)

Our favorite part of the tour was the library, or more accurately “The Room Where Every Sex Toy You’ve Ever Imagined Is Displayed To Look At And Play With But No Not Like That You Weirdo It’s A Warehouse Not A Brothel.”

It was in this library (or “TRWESTYEIIDTLAAPWBNNLTYWIAWNAB”) that I first learned about Jimmyjane, a premium sex toy company that I somehow hadn’t heard about in my years of superior vaginaness. I saw their shelf of gorgeous toys and was all, “Ooo” and the Babeland girl was like, “I know right?!” and I was all, “Wait, what the fuck is that?” and she was like, “That’s the Form 2” and I was all, “It looks like bunny ears” and she’s like “It’s one of my favorite toys, would you like one?”

(Piece of advice number two: when a woman who works at a sex toy warehouse asks if you’d like one of her absolute favorite toys, you nod quickly and do a little vagina dance.)

Back at home, I realized why it’s her favorite. The bunny ears sit on either side of everything you want vibrated and the five different modes actually do all feel completely different. Also, it’s waterproof. Also, the ears are flexible. Also, it runs for 7+ hours on a full charge. Also, the manual offers a variety of helpful tips such as, “Do not use on unexplained calf pain” and “Close supervision is necessary when this product is used by, on, or near children, invalids, or disabled persons.”

Which is to say, please comment for a chance to win one of these orgasm ears for yourself, but maybe don’t enter if you routinely masturbate by, on, or near children. Or if you plan to rub your new toy up against your unexplained calf pain.

Although if you have unexplained calf pain that’s bad enough that your last resort is to try to masturbate it, you should probably see a doctor. And if you do the thing with the children and the invalids, you should probably see someone else entirely. And if you want to double your chances for orgasmic goodness while sitting in open-mouthed disbelief at a product you never ever thought would actually exist, you should probably check out this other giveaway for a $2,750 vibrator. Yes, for real. Yes, it’s 24k gold, has 28 diamonds in it, and costs $2,750.

And like, on one hand there are people in the world with no clean water and I can’t believe I’m fantasizing about using a vibrator that costs more than my monthly rent, car payment, utilities, and student loans put together, but on the other hand CAN YOU IMAGINE GETTING OFF TO AN ALMOST THREE THOUSAND DOLLAR VIBRATOR? I seriously can’t think of anything more expensive that I’d like to put in my vagina so if you win and I don’t I’ll obviously pretend to be happy for you, but my clit is going to be pretty fucking angry.

And now an ending filled with adorable bunnies:

{Update: the random integer generator picked comment #51. Happy bunny orgasms to Sarah!}

In some cruel twist of sleepless fate, I’m an insomniac who’s also allergic to almost all sleeping pills. Ambien and the like make me vomit, and so the only pills I can safely take are those over-the-counter sleep aids which, strangely enough, don’t make me sleep as much as they make me totally fucking crazy. Hallucinations, intense and bizarre dreams, hours of laying awake but not really being awake – and yet I take them, because some sleep > no sleep.

Earlier this week, I woke up in the middle of the night hallucinating off the sleep aid, coming in and out of a dream that involved being stuck in a maze and having no feet, when I realized that my jaw was unbelievably sore. Like two-hour-horse-blowjob sore. In my drugged haze, I thought, “I must be grinding my teeth down to the bone, maybe this is part of the maze” and imagined waking up the next morning bloody and toothless. What actually happened was that I woke up the next morning with so much pressure in my upper jaw that I couldn’t chew. A few hours later, I started complaining about pain in my eyes and pain in my cheeks and Jamie was all, “Um, sinus infection?” and I was like, “Oooh, sinus infection” and went to look it up online.

The glory of WebMD and Wikipedia confirmed that my symptoms did indeed equal sinus infection, although the websites also went on to suggest bone cancer and an abscessed tooth and the beginnings of going blind from infection. Which, you know, made me feel so much better and more optimistic about the overall outcome of my future.

Even better than the symptoms section is the home remedies section. According to the internet, I’m supposed to consume an unbelievable amount of garlic juice (apparently garlic is juiceable?), and I should also try irrigating my nasal passage using a syringe and sodium bicarbonate powder. You know, things everyone just has hanging out around the house.

The best though, is the section in which I do absurd things to my forehead:

“Try applying a paste of cinnamon and water on the forehead, applying a paste of ginger and water/milk on the forehead, or applying a paste of basil leaves, cloves, and dried ginger on the forehead.”

Somebody is making this shit up, I swear. Or the internet is being run by zombies who are trying to make my forehead more delicious before they bite into it and suck my brain out.

In other news, I bought yesterday’s Groupon for acupuncture, which I’ve never done and am terrified of but am committed to trying as a last ditch effort to cure my insomnia. And now my sinus infection. And maybe my soon-to-be sticky forehead and missing zombie brain.

I wonder how many ailments can be cured in one acupuncture treatment.

I wonder if they’ll charge me extra for the zombie thing.

This morning I woke up with the kind of hangover that makes me seriously weigh the pain of getting up to walk to the bathroom against the horror of wetting the bed.

I made it to the bathroom, but let’s start at the beginning.

San Francisco is, without question, the strangest city I’ve ever lived in. Which is surprising, because after 10+ years of living in New York I really did think that I had seen it all. The thing about San Francisco though, is that the crazy is brazenly out in the open. It’s proud of itself. It’s that guy who body checks you in the middle of the street and that guy a few blocks down who tells you that you have a beautiful smile, even though your mouth is closed, followed by a declaration of how he’d like to eat your hair.

This city seems to sanction its crazy, hosting street festival after street festival, continuously giving its residents a reason to be drunk outside in the middle of the day. That’s another thing about San Francisco, it’s a city full of lushes. Jamie and I were talking about this the other day, about how we don’t fit into any of the overt San Francisco cliches (gay, pretentious, hipster, gay pretentious hipster, etc.), but we do fit the quieter mold of likes-to-drink-heavily-for-no-reason-at-all-other-than-the-fact-that-it’s-a-Tuesday-and-wine-is-better-than-no-wine.

So, being that yesterday was a Tuesday, we figured we’d partake. We bought our Two Buck Chuck and did the thing where I sit on the barstool and she stands across the counter from me and we talk until there’s nothing left to say and we drink enough wine to want more wine and then we sprawl out on the couch and watch a randomly selected Friends DVD and discuss how unrealistic it is that women on TV seem to always be wearing a man’s dress shirt after sex as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, when really, I can’t think of a single situation in which I’d get out of bed and be all, “That was lovely, can you hand me the shirt you wore to work today?”

Somewhere between the DVD watching and the obsessive wine drinking, we also managed to severely burn a batch of popcorn and then “fix” said popcorn by melting all the butter in the fridge over it so that we could eat it anyway. Which is to say that this morning was rough and that it’s pretty much going to be touch and go for the rest of the day. Especially since I’m about to leave to get a Brazilian wax, something that falls near “vigorous aerobic activity” and “talking to my mother” on a list of the worst possible things to do while suffering from this kind of hangover.

Yes, this is your cue to think kind and gentle thoughts for my soon-to-be-pained vagina. Unless you’re this guy and you get your giggles from taking a bottle filled with your semen to the grocery store and spraying it on unsuspecting women, in which case I’d appreciate if you never ever ever thought about my vagina ever at all.

The internet is a dirty dirty rabbit hole.

One minute you’re living real life, walking home from the grocery store, passing by that telescope and binocular store that’s somehow still in business in a shopping center in the middle of San Francisco even though you’ve never seen a single person come out with a pamphlet, yet alone an actual telescope, and then the next minute you’re home and you’re on your couch eating all of the groceries you bought (or more accurately, drinking all of the wine you bought because sometimes a 25 year old woman just needs to drink her feelings) and you see an email pop up that’s all, “So and so has done such and such annoying thing on Facebook” and you click over, because you’re alone and you’re bored, and you look at the wall post, which leads you to that person’s profile, which leads you to a different person’s profile, where you see that hey, this person’s boyfriend is mutually friends with a friend you know through your blog and huh, isn’t the world such a small and funny place?

And you’re curious, of course, so you click around some more. You click and go on a virtual tour of everything that’s been happening to everyone you’ve ever known since whenever it was that you last knew them and you can’t stop, click after click, until you look up and realize that you’ve spent an inordinate amount of time learning that your ex is finished with law school and that a girl from college lost her job and that your former neighbor is living in another country and that the guy whose arms you cried in on the morning of 9/11 is married, and you think, “When did we all start hurling ourselves down such drastically different paths?”

You click more, stalk more, judge more, falling down the dirty dirty rabbit hole, staring at pictures of Miss California and “liking” the page of another high school classmate who’s now running for City Council in that very same city.

You close the computer, wondering how long it’ll be before this same guy shows up in your news feed announcing that he’s running for President of the United States, followed by a frenzy of comments from that group of girls who, if they’re anything like their slutty high school selves, will not so jokingly ask when they can audition for the role of his Monica Lewinsky.

It started out as two different trips that were to take place side by side. James Bond would fly to his hometown of Denver for 10 days to visit his family and friends, and I would fly to Denver for the last four days of his trip to visit my friends. We’d be in his city, but on our own terms, and we’d be able to fly back to San Francisco together.

That was phase one. But our relationship evolved and all of the sudden we were in phase two, where we’d be in his city and we’d be on our own terms but we’d also allow for overlap – he’d meet my friends, I’d meet his. And then came phase three, where in addition to the meeting of each other’s friends, there would also be the having dinner with his mother.

I reacted calmly. Which is to say that in a dictionary where “reacting calmly” translates to “freaking the fuck out,” I reacted very calmly, thinking rational things like, “What if she shakes my hand and senses that I write about my vagina on the internet?!”

And then there was the picking of the outfit. “It’s going to be too hot for long sleeves!” I yelled to Jamie. She asked why I needed to wear long sleeves. “The wrist tattoos! What if she hates the wrist tattoos!”

Two days before my flight: Reacting. Very. Calmly. Indeed.

But then the phone call came and all of the sudden we were in phase four, the phase where he was getting rushed into emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix and I was spending whatever I had to spend to get to Denver on the next available flight.

In the five hours that passed between that phone call and the one telling me that he was out of surgery and in recovery, I realized two things.

Thing one is that you really don’t know how deeply you’re in the hole of I’m-unlimited-crazy-about-him until you look up and see that ground level is thundering light-years above your head.

Thing two is that the tattoo crisis and the insecurities don’t matter. The wondering what to talk about over dinner doesn’t matter. Showing up at the hospital makeup-free and altitude-sick with tattooed wrist in full display – none of it matters.

What matters is spending more than 80 hours at the hospital and getting the chance to join an overwhelmingly wonderful group of people in taking care of the person you all can’t stop caring about. What matters is that he says yes to my wrist tattoos and yes to me writing about my vagina on the internet and yes to me as I am, even if it’s challenging.

What matters is that I found someone to give that card to, the one I bought in Arizona last August and promised myself I’d save until I meant the words on the front:

“I’m not sure,” she said, “at what point it is advisable to admit to liking you a great deal more than I planned.”

**
Update – James Bond, who’s still in Denver and just got out of the hospital, emailed and asked me to include his insanely lovely response to this post:

Cramped in my bed, graciously accepting another visitor, Nicole and I exchange looks. With a look I feel her unspoken sympathy, and I express thanks adding, I will add details later. At certain points I was done and Nicole filled in. She so sweetly and adeptly took over in ways not easily understood.

One of my best friends asked me, so what is the moral, what is the bigger picture. I actually, being known for a bit of verbosity, responded simply, “…. I could not prepare for what happened. Each day provides for different circumstances. It doesn’t help to worry about yet unknown factors. And it really helps to have a partner [looking to Nicole as my co-conspirator].”

As James Bond, I must maintain a certain amount of independence. Right? Well I would happily trade the golden gun, access to SPECTRE, all the Aston Martins, and other gadgets (even including the jet pack) for Nicole to continue taking me on.
**

::heart explodes::

When I found out that Jamie hadn’t seen the first two seasons of Grey’s Anatomy I was all, “Um, THE FUCK?? Those are the best seasons!” and she was like, “Uhhhh” and I was all, “Sit down right now, we’re watching them.”

And so we did. Four, five, six episodes in a row. We even stopped going out for a while, making our friends (HI DREA) come over and sit on the couch and watch it with us because we were too invested in the process to waste time with things like “outdoors” and “public” and “three dimensional people.”

But do you know what happens when a few women spend hours upon hours watching wildly dramatic television? They get just a little bit too into it, and one of them starts yelling at the characters on the screen and is all, “Don’t worry Meredith! No! Stop crying! You and Derek eventually do get married! On a post-it note. Also, you get pregnant with his baby. But also, you have a miscarriage before you can tell him you’re pregnant. And also, he gets shot and we’re pretty sure it turns out fine but we’re not entirely sure because season 7 hasn’t started yet.”

And then another person on the couch yells, “Don’t worry George, you marry Callie. And then you drunkenly cheat on her with Izzie. And then it doesn’t work out with Izzie because the sex is awful. Also, your dad dies. Also, you die.”

And then another person on the couch chimes in with, “Seriously, relax Izzie. This thing you’re going through? It isn’t nearly as big of a deal as when you get fucking brain cancer and start seeing visions of your dead ex-fiance.”

God, can you imagine if we could do this to ourselves? If I could go back in time and be all, “Don’t worry 17 year old Nicole, you get into NYU. But then you’re in debt for like, ever. Also, that relationship you’re in? It doesn’t work out. Neither does the next one. Or the next one. Also, you drink too much vodka and make a series of unbelievably bad decisions. And then you have to leave in the middle of class one day to take a pregnancy test. And then you almost have a heart attack from drinking 13 cans of sugar free Red Bull in a 22 hour period. Also, despite your bizarre employment history wherein you spend five years as Director of a children’s summer day camp, four years as a nanny, three months on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange, two years at Williams Sonoma, and one year as manager and part owner of a create-your-own-cookie shop, you wind up managing business operations for Shatterboxx Media and writing a totally irreverent and inappropriate blog that gives people way too much information about your vagina.”

Which is to say, life is unpredictable. Stop freaking out. Things are either going to turn out the way you planned, or they’re not. And sometimes the “not” is the best thing that could ever happen.

Somewhere along the way I seem to have become the go-to person for all things related to vagina. The emails and blog comments I get are just, well, vulva-tastic. So, when I found out that Stript Wax Bar here in San Francisco offers a Vajacial service that’s basically a facial for your post-Brazilian waxed vagina, I knew I had to try it. You know, for the sake of my readers.

The lovely people at Stript let me come in for free (proving yet again that my vagina is so much more high maintenance and spoiled than I am), and the entire thing went something like this:

Discuss the procedure with Jamie before leaving the apartment. Debate whether the esthetician is actually going to massage my vagina the way they massage your face during a facial. Evaluate what to do if I accidentally get turned on. Question why in the hell I’m doing this. Falter. Go anyway. Arrive at Stript Wax Bar and wait for my appointment. Look around at how ridiculously adorable the place is. Read over the list of services and wonder about the particulars of a Boyzilian. Question what’s more painful, waxing a man’s sexy parts or a woman’s sexy parts. Struggle to think of a single guy I know who would let hot wax anywhere near his penis.

Meet Katherine, the owner, and get escorted back to the treatment room. Take off my skirt and underwear. Lay on the table. Feel sad that the table is more comfortable than my bed. Contemplate stealing the table. Chat with Katherine and get talked through the $60, 50-minute process: cleanse, exfoliate, ingrown hair removal, calming mask, lightening cream. Continue talking. Learn that for the 24 hours after getting a Brazilian wax, you shouldn’t work out or do anything with hot water, but you should apply Neosporin to minimize bacteria/ingrown hairs. Tell myself to remember these tips because fuck, ingrown hair removal hurts.

Get up and leave. Let my skin calm down. Stand naked in front of the mirror and investigate. Make James Bond investigate. Decide that in spite of the seemingly absurd and unnecessary nature of this treatment, my vagina actually does look the best it has ever looked. Find out that Katherine is offering my San Francisco readers 20% off a Vajacial of their own. Think that blogging comes with some very strange perks…

**

In other (and notably less glamorous) vagina related news, I have recently discovered that inserting a yogurt covered tampon into your hoo-ha can help with certain bacterial imbalances and infections. Yes, I learned this on the internet. Yes, of course I tried it. Yes, Jamie was with me at the grocery store asking my vagina which flavor it would like for feeding time. Yes, you’re only supposed to use the plain kind and she was kidding. Yes, we know we’re sick and weird. Yes, you’d think that removing the yogurt tampon after like 30 or so minutes would be messy, but it’s not. Because your vagina eats the yogurt. Or like, your vagina absorbs the yogurt. Or, I don’t know.

Ladies: You’re welcome.

Gentlemen: Until you’re willing to try out a Menstruation Machine (a suit for men that mimics what having your period is like by releasing blood from a reservoir and using abdominal electrodes to simulate cramps), you don’t get to have an opinion about vagina stuff.

Ladies: Would you seriously want your man to try this ridiculous machine?

Gentlemen: How far would you go to appease your girl?

Everyone: Are there any other bizarre things that my vagina and I should try?