Twat Talk

I'm not sure if this is an isolated occurrence--or if it happens to myriads of women across the globe. If so, I think an online support group is in order--women who need vaginal strength unite! Crotch confidence if you will. We can have wrist cuffs and special cyber handshakes...maybe throw in some spandex suits. Eh, EH? Or if no one else visualizes a score of Wonder Women converging, I'll scrap the cuffs; they'd just clunk on my keyboard while typing anyway. I may or may not be wearing a full body spandex leotard whilst at my compture though. No promises.

Perhaps it's just me, but I feel...strange...giving myself a pussy pep talk. Social networking is all up in our digital grills, why not *ahem* elsewhere? Just think, how awesome would it be if I could find a space where others shared triumphant stories (and tips) of getting back in the game after a long sexless stretch. I termed mine a "sabbatical", which lent more ostensible legitimacy if not complete contextual irrelevancy. Because really, who would ask probing questions pertaining to a person's abstinence sabbatical?

But I stood corrected. I forgot the office whore. And by "whore" I mean the "better-and-more-fucked-than-thou" married gal who delights in the band of metal and compressed carbon circling her spindly little finger. She flashes it around like her husband personally stripped the platinum from the earth and forged it with a diamond he single-handedly wrenched from the hand of an African just for her. Seriously? You're going to ask me WHY? Oh I don't know, Stacie, maybe it's because the way to eternal bliss and spiritual awakening isn't found through the vaginal tract, you shallow sex fiend. Or perhaps I was too busy solving world hunger one small nameless village at a time in the southern hemisphere and I was overwhelmed with larger issues outside of my own carnal contentment. Note I said perhaps. Incidentally, that ring your sporting could put food in those bellies for a year. Just sayin'.

So here was the scene in which I found myself: Bathroom, pre-date Friday night. Underwear on, make-up not. I exhaled deeply, looking down with my arms extended and hands holding firmly to the wash basin to prove I meant business.

ME: "Alright pussy. It's time for a serious chat -- woman to, er...well you get the point."

VAGINA: Silence

ME: "I know it's been a while for you -- us. And I want you to do your damnedest to work with me on this. None of that dry spell nonsense. We're not Oakies during the Dust Bowl! And it wouldn't hurt to act like you're enjoying it, ya know? Maybe a few strong clenches or a quiver. Do we see eye-to-eye?" (Yes, I realize at this point I was making odd metaphor choices.)

VAGINA: *belabored sigh* "Fiiiiine"

NOOOO, come on now. We all know vaginas can't talk. But I knew what it was thinking. And here is where a support system would have saved me from this unsettling chat with my nether parts. Because if I enjoyed one-sided conversations with the communication-disabled, I would have stayed with my ex-boyfriend.

Who Likes Their Women Just a Little on the Trashy Side?

This just in: the best pick-up spot in all of Seattle is Borren and Seneca--bar none. And I mean that literally. No bars. Just city sidewalks, in all their litter-covered cracked glory.

I trudged home, gleaming with a freshly applied layer of sweat and city grime, chewing my lip. over the night's tasks at hand, hair sticking to my wet face. Despite the visage I presented, I still managed to round up a date in the time it takes to figure out how to say "No" loud enough to cut through the noise of traffic...I knew I had hit dating gold. Fool's gold, perhaps. But it was shiny and pretty and makes me smile none-the-less.

It was 5:45 on a Tuesday and his name was Donnie (which isn't given as much credit as should get). He drove a truck ; middle-aged and perhaps not running on all four but why split hairs, he came into my life out of nowhere, introducing himself with two sharp honks. I turned my head as he stared me down from the inside of his cab, the words, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" flying by after a glimpse of his face. Freaky? Well I can protest and say I'm against it.

He waved. I stared open-mouthed, confused and a little horrified. And dammit, I'll admit it. Flattered.

I kept walking. He came to a screeching halt and jumped out of the truck, engine running and door hanging open as he bounded towards my frozen figure.

A myriad of questions streamed through my head. Did I drop something? Did I push my pedestrian right too much and cut him off two blocks down? Did I have a tin can tied to my bag that he couldn't wait to recycle and save from looming trash-can doom?

"A girl as beautiful as you should be in Hollywood," he tells me, wringing his hands with what I chose to think of as excitement.

"I. Oh. I. Errrr..." I thanked him.

"You married?" he countered.

"Your truck is running!" I blurted.

"You have beautiful eyes," he retorted.

"Cars are honking," I flirted.

"Yes. Yes, indeed. Well, have a lovely day, beautiful." He took my hand and kissed it, then ran to the truck and out of my life, muttering "What a shame, what a shame."

Yes. Yes, indeed. A man who spends his waking hours dealing with refuse surely knows a gem when he sees it gasping for breath up the sidewalk towards home. I may have canceled my recycle pick-ups and am now wading through piles of paper and soda cans in the dark because I'm afraid to turn my lights on...but that my friends, is the price I'm willing to pay for a compliment.

The Vulgar Things in Life

The word "shit" has a special place carved in my heart. Phrases including but not limited to "Are you shittin' me?", "Gonna eat the shit out of that burger," and "On it like stink on shit" frequently roll off my tongue like..well, shit off a greased pig's back. So varied its uses, so visually descriptive its imagery, how can one not be charmed by the four-letter combo?

My propensity for impropriety startles me sometimes, however. Most notably when I'm forced to reckon with my behavior classification, which verges on crass (my mother nicely calls it "earthy"). I cringed and refused to believe it on initial realization, sputtering Nuh uh, now way. I attend operas and symphonies! I bake scones and drink tea! I couldn't possibly be-- Well now, hold the phone there, Collins. I tell dirty jokes. I like naughty inuendoes. I have an affinity for the hard workin' man with grime on his hands who drinks whiskey with beer backs. And there it was, clear as day--I'm one misdemeanor short of being a societal blight.

This wasn't so much of a news flash as a slow awakening. I sensed this ultimate truth at age seventeen--and the subsequent "beginning of the end" with my first love when he decried my "shit" usage. I could see him physically shrink back with horror when I let it loose in conversation. I'm burning dinner: Oh shit balls! I'm excited: Holy Shit! The Chinese take-out didn't agree with me: Move out of the way--I gotta shit!

Don't let the blonde hair, fair complexion and goofy smile fool you. It's an unintentional false front--gently luring many through the doors of believing I'm possibly a refined creature, maybe of middle-class descent (where I come from we call it "priviledged upbringing"). But a whirling dervish of obscenities is me. The memory of my first love and our vast cravasse in linguistic differences recently reared its head over Orange Beef and Spicy Prawn with Asparagus on a first date with a good looking gent I was kind of keen on. Educated, interesting, and very handsome, out of nowhere he hits me with a softly uttered "What the hay?"

To which I say, "What the fuck?"

What the hay is child's talk. Rubbish. Verbiage for the person to whom the vagaries and vulgarities of life are foreign. Life is not deepened by "the finer things". It's colored and textured with grime, sweat, tears and sex. And maybe a little spilled Jim Beam. Profundity is rarely found within the limits of refinement. As Mark Twain said, "There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined."

I like that Twain guy--he really knew his shit.