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Thursday, May 30, 2013

There is a season

Weather patterns trigger memories.

Warm weather rains bring back one of the most singularly odd memories from growing up. I think I was in high school, and it was late. There were no cars on the streets in the neighborhood, and I went out into the middle of the street to dance and feel the warm rain pelt against my skin. My Dad came out onto the front porch (he had brought a towel out for me) and we sat and had a genuine conversation. I don't remember what we talked about, but it was a conversation bereft of criticism or allusions to the problems wrecking our family. This was the only time I can remember sitting down with him and having a conversation like this. An entire conversation where I didn't cringe from a verbal stab, or feel powerless in any way.

Warm summer rains are the most nostalgically heart-wrenching weather now.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

My day with the Diva: days 2 through 5

I went to Frisbee's for the long holiday weekend, so I haven't had a chance to update all of you on the continued adventures (and sometimes misadventures) with the Diva Cup. Not that I can't update my blog from Frisbee's place, but it's just not my usual blogging location. So here I am with a play-by-play of Saturday-Tuesday. (See: days 2 through 5 of my period.) I'll give advance warning, this one's got some good TMI moments about my lady business.

After the ringing success that was Day 1 (Friday), I got up on Saturday to work at Curves. There was a bit more blood in the Cup this morning; I would say maybe two thimbles. Still not anything where it was like...absurd amounts of blood. One thing I did notice this time around, though, was the smell. Not horrible, but definitely, "that's been in my vagina for about 8 hours" type of smell. Also the coppery smell of blood. It beats having that odor lingering around on a pad all day, but first thing in the morning it was a bit of an onslaught of aroma.

I didn't wear a pad on Saturday. This was partly my own hubris where if I've done something sort-of-successfully once, that must mean I can do it even better the next time. So all safety nets are deemed unnecessary, even though they'd still probably be handy to have around. The daytime was not so bad. I rinsed the Cup out and put it back in around 6am - by the time I got to Frisbee's it was around 1pm. Nary a drop of blood to be seen in that interim.

Then I took the Cup out to have sex with Frisbee. This of course makes sense as the Cup is in my vagina. If, instead, I wanted Frisbee's dick in my vagina, the Cup was going to have to come out. After about 8 hours (I had to pester Frisbee awake first, so we didn't have sex as soon as I got there), the Cup was maybe halfway full. This marked the first time I actually poured it out into the toilet instead of just rinsing it out in the sink (although I did still wash it after I emptied it out). Note: period blood is deceptively gooey. Or at least, mine is. It's much thicker than the type of blood that comes out of a fresh cut. So it's wasn't so much a pour as it was a sort of one long ooze from Cup to toilet bowl. Trust me, I'm trying to think of a better way to describe it.

After the sex, I cleaned up. Frisbee and I are fluid bonded, so there's additional stickiness after sex. (Christ are there less cringe-y ways to talk about bodily fluids? No?) I didn't do anything additional beyond the usual - wiping up thighs/labia with toilet paper - and then I put the Cup back in. I wanted to nap, so I put on pajama pants and slept for maybe 2 or 3 hours. When I woke up, there were little streaks of blood all over the inside of my pajama pants. Here's another thing I learned, possibly the second TMI moment of this entry. When using the Cup and actually bleeding (i.e. not on the first very light day), I had to actually rinse out my vagina before putting the Cup back in. As in, get some running water and then get knuckle deep into my own vagina with that water to rinse out the residual blood. I found this to be the case whether or not Frisbee and I had had sex - on Sunday I wore it for about 8 hours during the day and didn't rinse myself out before re-inserting. The next time I peed there was period blood mixed into the stream. Normally with the Cup there isn't any.

Anyway! Enough with the bodily fluids discussion. With more practice, I'm learning more of how the Cup works with my body. It definitely takes a bit more practice than figuring out the sticky side of a pad is supposed to stick to your underwear. I've found I can wear it for about 8 hours before rinsing it out (the past few days 8 hours = about 3/4 of the way full). By the end of the day today at work I was starting to spot on my underwear, and when I took the Cup out it was about 3/4 of the way full, so this seems to be about the limit. It gets easier everyday to insert and remove it. When I have it in, it's completely unnoticeable now. Slight cons include the smell when removing it, being unable to figure out how full it is on any given day, and having to go the extra step to rinse myself out when I rinse the cup out. Pros still include not having to change a pad or tampon 2 or 3 times a day, the lack of odor while wearing it, and the fact that it's reusable.

Friday, May 24, 2013

My day with the Diva: Day 1

As I promised, here's an update as to using the Diva Cup during my actual period. I started late last night, so today marks the official first 24 hours of using the Cup. Here are updates in all their glorious details.

I first put it in around 9pm last night. Insertion and taking it out are still quite tricky, but mostly because I'm never really sure if it's "open" or not once it's in. I fold it into sort of a "U" shape for insertion, but once it's in it has to be back in cone shape. It's difficult to tell if this has happened or not. Again, I think most of this can be attributed to newbie jitters and once I get the hang of using it this will be less intensive of a process.

I still put on underwear and a pad. I was going to bed, and since it was my first time using the Cup in an "official" capacity I didn't want to take any chances if there were leaks. Also had a moment of completely irrational fear that somehow it was going to get lost in my vaginal cavity overnight. Yes, I know that it's impossible to "lose" things up a vagina, but the thought still happened.

In the morning, no spotting or leaks. I was a little surprised how much farther up my vagina the Cup had moved overnight. I'm not talking like it traversed ridiculous distances inside my vagina, but I had originally inserted it where I could easily feel the tip of the cone just outside the vagina (if I pressed on the outside of my labia, I could actually feel the silicone Cup on the inside). By the morning, I had to insert my finger probably an eighth of an inch or so to find the tip of the Cup.

Another totally irrational thought came to me. Maybe even though there wasn't any spotting or leaking, the cup would still be overflowing with menstrual blood. Yes, I've been getting my period now for at least the past 13 years. Yes, I know that the average blood loss over the entire duration of a period is only 30-40 ml. Still, for some reason I was envisioning this teeming, sloshy cup of blood that I was about to take out of myself. The actual amount was...maybe half of a thimble's worth. I do want to note that this was the first day of my period, which always tends to be lighter. I of course will keep you posted as to how things progress throughout the week.

Here's your TMI moment in this blog: I usually poop in the mornings and I chose to take the Cup out before pooping. This comes from the times that I've used ben wa balls and forgotten to take them out before pooping, and accidentally squeezed them out. (There's not a good, succinct way to express the emotion I feel upon hearing ben wa balls hit the bottom of the toilet bowl, but it's not a happy feeling.) I was, perhaps irrationally, afraid that the squeezing from pooping would squeeze out the Cup, and I didn't want that to happen.

Anyway. I took it out and rinsed it off/washed it out. The instructions that came with the Cup told me to dump the blood into the toilet, but I thought if I had to wash it out anyway, I might as well just dump the blood into the sink and do the whole process in one area. Reinserted (again, with lots of fiddling trying to figure out if it was in correctly).

Wore it all day at work. The wearability factor has gotten a lot better over time. I think it helped to be wearing it during an actual work day as well, so there was a lot going on to sort of distract my mind from the tiny silicone cup inside my vagina. I had taken it out and rinsed it around 6 in the morning. By 5pm, there was maybe about another thimble's full of blood in the cup. (I did also wear a pad during the day, just in case.) Although I did again think about having to be extra cautious with removing the cup in case blood spilled everywhere in the bathroom. Maybe the mental anxiety will be something like the insertion/removal that will get better over time as I use it.

All in all, it's still way on the plus side of things.The overwhelmingly obvious positives of using the Cup during menstruation so far include not having to deal with either the positioning, changing, or disposal of a pad or tampon. For those of you who know, you know what I mean.


Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Are you saying I don't know dick?

There's this study floating around the internet recently - I first heard about it on the fabulous Poly Weekly. The long and the short of it (ha!) is that women in Australia were shown computer-generated images of naked men of varying heights, body types, and penis sizes. The sensationalized version of the results is, "OMG women totally love giant dicks."


The actual version of the results of the study are, "yeah, penis size had a marginal effect on gauged attractiveness. But overall, height and body type were more positively correlated to perceived attractiveness."

The main issue I have with the study and the ensuing hoopla


was the fact that the women were shown computer-generated images of totally naked dudes. And then they were asked to quickly rate perceived attractiveness. Which, the chances of something like that happening in real life are pretty slim to none. I think the only time I've ever been in a room surrounded by naked men was at the gang bang. And then nobody was holding a survey up to my face like, "on a scale of 1 to 10 what do you think about so-and-so?" Usually when I meet dudes (even when we're meeting with the expressed purpose of seeing each others' genitals that same evening), we have our clothes on for a bit first. So it's impossible for me to rate "attractiveness" based on his dick size right away. I've been surprised on both ends of the dick-size spectrum before. Guys who I thought would be reasonably well-endowed turn out not to be - guys I would never imagine having monster cocks turn out to have them. In either case it's always fun finding out. And I wouldn't say at that point it factors largely (ha!) into whether or not I find the person attractive.

Monday, May 20, 2013

Mix & Match

This weekend was an interesting foray into, "think about your relationships" land for your author. (I have yet to find a letter that appropriately encompasses the "one woman - three men" style relationship I have going on currently. I think I may have to branch out from Latin style alphabets and see if I can find something elsewhere. If anybody happens to have a handy euphemism available, please do let me know.)

Mostly it was just a case of the, "let's figure out who all these people are and their particular significance to you without muddying it up with bullshit from your earlier experiences."


Which is not to say that I otherwise spend as little time as possible thinking about the relationships I'm in and the people that form those relationships.


There's just particular instances where Now-hubby and Frisbee sort of...intersect. It happens as well with The German, but less frequently, as he's not immediately here as the other two are. And no, I'm not talking about those Chinese finger trap moments. (Which is the one and only time you will ever hear me reference the movie Chasing Amy, because that piece of shit is intolerable.) I'm talking about those everyday type of moments where I have to transfer myself from one to the other. Having the two (or three, as the case may be) together is actually not at all awkward for me. I can't speak for them, only for myself. But I found it surprisingly easy to go from one room to the other and say, "we'd like to have sex, could you put your headphones on?" Much more easy than saying, "I have to leave you now, and I won't see you again until the next time." I don't know why that is.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Power fucking

No, sadly, the title is not in reference to Power Thirst.


The title is more in reference to what I felt like doing upon finally getting home today. First, I stopped at Curves to workout and just happened to be leaving at the same time a prospective member was coming in. The coach "on duty" that night was busy with a current member so I took the prospective member, sales pitched, and signed her up. Then on the way home I stopped at the pharmacy to refill my prescription, and found an Iron Man/Captain America bouncy ball that had been abandoned under the waiting area seats. So that awesome free bouncy ball came home with me! So I was feeling pretty potent and awesome when I finally got home, and power fucking was in order.

Anyway! The main purpose of this entry was to tell you all about this "Can You be Friends With Benefits?" flowchart I found in this month's issue of Glamour. I wanted to talk about it because it was one of those things that caught my eye as I was flipping through the magazine, and I immediately braced myself to hate intensely. However, it actually turned out to be not so bad in its approach to the whole thing, so I wanted to give kudos where kudos is due.

Good things about it:

1. The first question it asks is, "Are you secretly in love with him?" I thought  this was pretty observant, and it was nice that the very first thing they make readers do is take account of their own feelings. One thing that's going to fuck up (no pun intended) the "casual sex" thing pretty quickly is the introduction of lovey-dovey feelings. Not to say that it's possible to have completely emotionless sex. But if you're harboring some sort of relationship or love expectations but aren't expressing those to the person you're having sex with, that's unfair.

2. It stresses communication and self-awareness through the rest of the chart. Two other notable examples of questions in the chart: "If he got a girlfriend next month, would you be jealous?" The possible answers all reference the emotions of the person filling out the chart, which is good. "Yes, I'd be jealous because he got a girlfriend" or "No, I wouldn't feel jealous if he got a girlfriend." It's a very subtle difference, but putting the emotion first puts more ownership of that emotion on the person feeling it. Things are going to happen around you, and the only thing you can control is how you react to those things. Saying, "You got a girlfriend, and that makes me jealous" puts the emphasis on what somebody else has done, and sort of blames them for making you feel a certain way about it. There's a fair amount of stress in the flowchart on the person being aware of their own feelings, and there's also a bit of reference to talking with the other person involved to make sure feelings are on the same page. Communication is good, ya'll.

3. The point near the end where they bring the love thing back into it. So, you get fairly deep into the flowchart. It looks like you and your friends with benefits are good to go. Then the chart asks, "...the sex is good, and you enjoy spending time in each other's company. Why, exactly, aren't you in love?" Initially, this makes me almost rage face. Like....for fuck's sake can't two people just enjoy each other's company and have awesome sex together? But then that's exactly what one of the answer options says. One way the answer goes, "Crap, I am [in love with him]!" The other way it says, "What are you, my mother?" which is sort of sassy and totally awesome because, yes, seriously.

The not-so-good things about it:

1. Ratio of possible outcomes. There are 3 possible outcomes of the flowchart. "Eh, probably not worth it," "No! Of course you can't be FWB" and "Go forth and enjoy!" Of 13 possible arrows flowing to those outcomes, only 2 wind up at "Go forth and enjoy!" Six, or almost half of them, wind up on "No!" I was also slightly disappointed that it was just a straight, "No!" and there's really not any alternatives listed. Although it's implied that the alternatives to FWB involve either dating the guy monogamously or staying friends and breaking off your sexual ideas in reference to said friendship. Almost worse, though, is that five of the arrows wind up at the completely ambiguous "Eh." Very direct things like being extremely jealous or being secretly in love with him wind up in the "No!" Totally vague things like being annoyed when he doesn't answer your texts, if your mutual friends would make fun of you for hooking up, or if the sex is just "fine" as opposed to "amazing" mean the answer is "Eh." All in all, you have about 84% of the arrows that tell you not to do FWB. I count "Eh" as "No," because I feel for all intents and purposes it's the same answer.

2. The totally random things that count as "being in love."  Does he invite you to his work parties "sometimes?" Oh shit, he's secretly in love with you.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

April showers

This weekend I'm heading to a baby shower for a former co-worker. As limp dicked as I get about weddings, for some reason I don't have quite the same reaction to baby showers. I've already expressed my opinions on having children of my own. But baby showers usually involve food, and sometimes even adult beverages! Both things that I greatly appreciate, and generally don't have to jump through as many hoops to get access to at showers as I do when attending weddings.

Thinking about it, I think it's the possible variety of baby that's exciting about showers. It's the unknown.


A wedding, generally, is an event celebrating one specific type of love. I don't care if you're doing a "vintage" theme, or having your stepfather officiate because he got some certificate online, or if you're getting married on the fucking moon. Majority of the time it boils down to two people standing in front of a bunch of other people and me pretending to give a shit about any of it.


At a baby shower, it's okay to talk smack about the prospective baby. It's going to keep its parents up at night, it's going to poop a lot, it's probably going to ruin lots of clothes with spit-up. These are just facts about a baby. This is why baby showers are usually designed for people to get things to deal with all this inevitable work that a baby is going to require. You can also say these things because the baby isn't there to defend itself. At a wedding you can't say anything bad because the people getting married are like...right there and they're all in the moment of being excessively happy with each other. Ugh.

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Mulitples

Went up to the homelands this weekend because my little sister was completing her Master's. I brought along both Now-hubby and Frisbee, which was very awesome. The way things are structured now, I see Now-hubby during the week and Frisbee on the weekends. So getting a chance to see both of them together is on the one hand a bit odd, because it doesn't happen often. But on the other hand awesome, because I care a lot about both of them. So having them together in the same place at the same time = nice. Especially cuddles and such. I even like it when they fucking nerd out about stuff I don't care about. Then I just get time to make immature dick jokes in my head and giggle nonsensically.


Also, I got to see my bestie and get totally drunk on UV Cake while watching Clea DuVall be sexy!


That was pretty awesome. I love you most of all, bestie.