I spend all day in a low-walled cubicle taking shit from people and talking to answering machines in the naive hope that someone will actually be stupid enough to call back so that I can verbally break their kneecaps over their unpaid medical bills and Lane Bryant credit cards. Yesterday, as an added bonus, my headset was busted and I spent eight hours with a fundamentalist Christian radio station chirping in my ear. Between 11:00 and noon, I was treated with an infomercial in favor of virginity until marriage. The woman giving the talk was nice enough to tie science into her argument. It seems blind faith and a strong desire not to get knocked up or The HIV is no longer enough of a reason for people to abstain. Now the Christian right is trying to scare us with neurochemistry. According to our host, semen is God's "superhuman glue." I left my phone in idle for a couple minutes to jot that one down. Spooge is "God's superhuman glue and it's used to make new life." Additionally, one of the chemicals released in the brain when we have sex is diminished with each subsequent partner. According to this woman, the awkward, fumbly sex that I had as a sixteen-year-old with my first girlfriend was the best it was ever going to be. Maybe there's something to this. For example, the most mind-blowing orgasm I've ever had was while my first girlfriend and I were watching The Color Purple. If I'd known then what I know now, maybe I would have fought a little harder to keep her. I am hereby
instating a three partner limit. This Christian brain juice stuff could be for real, and I don't want to risk a life of mediocre sex. Sure this means that by the time I'm forty I'll be limited to dating 15-year-olds and ugly people, but hey, I can't possibly enjoy myself if the girl I'm with isn't.

The Candy Man Can

The votes are in. It’s official. I am the spokeswoman for lesbians everywhere. I was having coffee with a friend today, and out of nowhere he looked at me and, as if he'd been waiting for this moment since the first moment we became friends he said, “Carrie, I need to ask you a question.”

“Is it personal?”

“Yes, and please feel free to tell me that I’m over the line or answer as much or as little or not at all.”

“Okay. Shoot.”

“I love going down on my girlfriend, but I was just wondering, from a woman who loves women’s perspective, is there anything I can do to make it better?”

I have to admit. This question was a relief. I’m used to people feeling like they’ve all of a sudden reached some sort of level of emotional intimacy with me, specifically the level of emotional intimacy that makes them feel like they have the green light to invite me to have sex with them. The reason that I know that these other people feel like they’ve reached that level of emotional intimacy is because they then ask, “Carrie, would you ever consider joining me and my wife/girlfriend/husband/boyfriend in the bedroom? You know, for the sex?” The answer has always, and I think will always be, “no.” I know I’ve strayed a little from the topic at hand, but I just thought I should include some example as to why this particular gentleman's question came as a relief.

I will admit, this question made me a little uncomfortable, not because of the subject matter, but because I didn’t have a ready made answer for him. “It’s all about the amount of pressure you apply,” I said.

“But how much?”

At this point I’m thinking, how the fuck should I know? No two vaginas are alike. Yay for you for having the rest of your life to figure just this one vagina out. I didn’t say that though. Instead I just said, “You’re going to have to rely on her to tell you that.” I felt bad for not being able to help the guy out more. The thing is, for me sex, in all its forms, has always been very intuitive. If you read people well, you can pick up on what’s working and what isn’t. How do I tell a guy that he should pay more attention to the minutia of his girlfriend's sexual responses? The answer is, I don’t. Instead I tell him an embarrassing fact about myself in an effort to make him feel better. “In the two years we were together, Liza never got off. Not once. I couldn’t get her off. She couldn’t get herself off. It fucking sucked. That’s what being on a shit ton of illegal drugs and antidepressants can do to you.”

“Not even with vibrators and shit?”

“Buddy, we could plug a fucking jackhammer into the wall and it wasn’t going to give that girl an orgasm.”

We contemplated this. Rather, I watched him contemplate it, and I tried to come up with something more helpful to the question that, I was mildly offended that he had the audacity to ask. “I don’t know how you straight people get along. Do you ever just use your fingers? Or is that something that grown people don’t do?”

“Well, you know, not often.”

“All I can suggest is, if you know how to get her off with your fingers, try recreating the same sort of thing with your mouth. It’s all about friction.” This seemed to bring this part of the awkward conversation to an end. When I thought we could move onto sports or something, my friend started up again.

“What about the g-spot?”

“Buddy, unless you have a dick shaped like a candy cane, you’re not finding it with what you’ve got below your waist.” Okay, so these weren't my exact words, but you get my point. I wish I had thought of the candy cane thing. I think we both would have laughed about that. I did make a hook shape with my index finger and told him where the illusive spot should be.

“I hear it’s like a come hither motion,” he says. I suppose he’s right.

“Can she find it?” This is the best question I can think to ask. I mean, seriously. Why don’t people understand that, unless they know what works for them, no one else is going to be able to figure it out either?

This whole line of questioning continued until I finally knew that his girlfriend had three vibrators when my friend met her and that she had names for all of them. “Well does she still use them?” He just looked at me. “Why don’t you guys incorporate whatever works, let her do whatever she needs to and just watch and learn?” Christ almighty. I haven’t had sex once during President Bush’s second term, and I’ve got this guy asking me how to get his girlfriend off.

I thought, why don’t you give old Carrie a crack at it? I’ll take notes and get back to you.

I Don't Want to Show You Mine

On my first day of kindergarten, Kelly Simms was the girl who showed up dressed like she was competing in a pageant. She wore a powder blue, frilly dress. At recess, I sat on the swing next to her. I think we must have become friends that day, but I don’t remember why or how that could have happened, because, while she was the girl that showed up dressed like she was competing in a pageant, I was the girl who showed up wearing shorts and a tee shirt, and, let’s face it, those aren’t the types of girls that usually become friends. In fact, I remember in the third grade finally telling Kelly Simms that she was the kind of sort of pretty girl who only wanted to be friends with girls who weren’t as pretty as she was, just so she would always look much better by comparison. I guess that made me kind of an odd third grader. I digress.

So, one day, in girl scouts (Girl Scouts?) Kelly Simms comes up to me and pulls her shirt away from her chest and says, “look.” As in, look down my shirt. What was a girl to do? She told me to look, so I did. To this day, it’s one of my biggest regrets. After I looked, she closed her shirt and said, “now you.” Well, I was already quite modest by then, so I did the only logical thing I could do. I ran away. I don’t remember exactly how Kelly Simms retaliated, but I know she wasn’t happy. I believe she may have gone with the old, I showed you mine, so you have to show me yours, defense.

Well, one day, later on in our kindergarten careers, this group of old ladies with puppets came to our classroom to talk to us about “personal space” and how it was never okay for someone else to invade your “personal space.” At the end of the old ladies’ routine, they took some questions from the class. I don’t remember what sorts of questions my classmates asked. All I remember is that I sat there, ready to throw up, convinced that Kelly Simms was going to raise her hand and tell the little old ladies and their puppets that I had molested her that day in the girl scouts (Girl Scouts?). I don’t remember ever being so nervous before or since. Well, that’s a lie. One time since.

When we were in the first grade, Kelly Simms and I were still friends. One day, without any warning at all, the little old ladies showed back up with their puppets. They gave the same routine. I sat there, once again, ready to throw up. I might have sweat profusely, or I might just be making that part up to help increase the dramatic tension of my story. In either case, I was sure I was going to jail. Thankfully though, Kelly Simms did not rat me out, but this didn’t help the guilt, because now I was thinking, are these little old ladies going to put me through this every year? I don’t remember if it was the same day, or a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months later, but eventually my guilt and fear started to erode the productivity of my everyday life.

Here’s where we get to the climax. One afternoon, after school, I said to my mother, “I have to tell you something.” My mother asked what was wrong. I don’t know how long it took me to spit it out. I just remember the two of us sitting on the floor in the hall, and me sobbing, and my mother probably thinking that I’d killed someone, because that really is how hard I was crying. I think I finally choked out, “one. time. at. girl scouts (Girl Scouts?). I. looked. down. Kelly’s. shirt. and. then. I. wouldn’t. let. her. look. down. mine.” It was the hardest thing I ever had to say to someone, ever.

“Well, why in the hell did she want you to look down her shirt?” My mom has always had a great way of making me feel better by pointing out that everything I feel bad about is someone else’s fault. I love that about her.

In case you were wondering, I’ve never been arrested for molesting Kelly Simms. I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is on that sort of thing. I feel like there isn’t one. I feel like, even when I’m seventy, Kelly Simms might still be able to tell on me, and the cops could still arrest me, and I might have to register as a sex offender.

So that’s my Kelly Simms story. Now for a much shorter Kelly Simms’ mom story. This kid, Nathan Yux, had a birthday party at Hardees when we were in the third grade. During this party, Kelly’s mom not-so-casually leaned in and asked me, “Have you started your period yet?” What kind of a question is that? I think, without my knowledge, I must have been in a race to menstruation with her daughter, and she wanted to make sure I hadn’t won. It was at that moment that I decided that maybe Kelly came from an even stranger family than I did.

Aww. Is Someone Feeling Sorry for Herself?

I've come to this page ten or so times tonight with every intention to write about, I don't know what. It just occurred to me that the title of my blog is "Disconnect." As in a lack of connection; a disparity. Funny seeing as how the reason I write the thing is so that I might feel a connection to something, which brings me back to why I've come to this page ten times tonight. I'm feeling a bit raw. A bit like I'd like to be in the fetal position. A bit like fucking, because, let's face it, isn't that everyone's favorite coping mechanism?

My mother is asleep on my couch. She has an appointment with her neurologist tomorrow. Next to me is a list of things we need to talk to the neurologist about:

1. White outs, because when she wakes up every morning, she can't see for about five minutes
2. Balance, because she's like a walking pinball
3. Cataract surgery, because, if nothing else, at least now she can see what she's stumbling into, unless, of course, it's less than five minutes after she's gotten up
4. Passing out, because apparently she blacked out last night and laid in the middle of the
living room yelling for my sister, who could sleep through a tornado, to come and help her
5. Need to change migraine medicine, because, the one thing we've found in ten years to help
her headaches causes severe breathing problems
6. After a bad migraine, balance issue seems to get worse, because, maybe it isn't just an
expression. What if her head really does explode?
7. Refill Percocet, because if you can't see and you keep falling over, you may as well be high.

"You know, I was thinking, there could be something really wrong with me," my mom said five minutes before she fell asleep. "I was thinking that as I was driving up here."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too," I said. I forgot to say, it's all I think about. Well, that and the fact that I'm graduating in two weeks and I have no money and no job. And how I haven't slept in a month. And, and, and, well, you can see how fucking is better.

The Game

This is not chivalry, nor is it your best pick up line, "you can go ahead of me. It's not like I'm going to wet myself or anything."

Can't Sleep. Guilt Will Eat Me

I miss my grandfather. The man's been dead for over a year. One year one hundred and sixteen days, to be exact. Forgive the large chunks of exposition, but my grandfather's death and the impact it has had on my psyche are things I've written about before, so I'm not going into it here. What I will say is, I had a dream about him last night. In said dream, my grandfather calls me from his death bed. "Where the hell ya been?" he says, "I haven't seen you in a month. I don't think I've got much time left here." Let the record show, I saw my grandfather the day before he died. In his last hours of lucidity. I also saw him the day he died; he was in a coma, but I sat there with him. Stroking his hand. Running my fingers through his hair. Telling him I loved him. What I'm saying is, this dream was not a re-enactment of events that actually transpired. Well, next in my dream, I drive to my grandparents' house, but it's too late. My grandfather is already dead. Next the dream turned into one involving sex with someone who I will not mention. The kind of sex that I really desperately need to believe was something highly symbolic and not at all literal. (No, not with my grandfather, though that seems the obvious conclusion to be made here.)  I woke up feeling dirty and no further along in the grieving process than I was the day after my grandfather died. WHAT THE FUCK!? I'm not one for CAPS LOCK or dramatic use of punctuation, but for Christ's sake. My mother has dreams about my grandfather all the time. They're lovely dreams in which they're simply spending time together. She wakes up thankful for the impromptu visit. Why can't I have a dream like that. One where we're golfing, or playing gin? It's the kind of shit that makes me miss my insomnia.

Nobody is Safe

It isn't that I'm not interested in what's being said in class. It's just that I'm more interested in the 2-inch-wide, black, leather band clasped noticeably too tightly around my instructor's right wrist. While he's talking about a famous criticism of Proust, I'm imagining the cool damp moistness that's undoubtedly collecting beneath the band. I rub my thumb over my wrist and feel sorry for how red and irritated my professors must be by this point in the afternoon, and I start asking myself why he would put himself through that. This line of questioning can't end well, and in fact, it doesn't. To be more specific, it ends with the assumption that my professor is some sort of bondage/s&m fetishist who is almost certainly wearing his wife's underwear beneath his loose-fitting cotton pants. As he turns around to write, "epistemology," on the board, I can't help but notice the not-so-subtle indication of a wedgie, and my suspicions are confirmed.

I took my friend to a psychic once. The psychic took a moment away from my friend's reading to tell me that I'm, "the kind of person who can size people up instantly, and [I'm] not often wrong." While I take the assessment as a compliment, and as a way to boost my already out of control ego, I hope, in the instance of this professor, that the psychic is wrong.