Suffering from what would appear- nay feel- to be the mother of all yeast infections, I call my sister the doctor for free advice, as I do for any major, minor or imagined medical condition I experience. She tells me that unfortunately the over-the-counter Monistat I bought is going to take a while to work, if at all, as some candida is resistant to Monistat. Well that’s a shame, I say, because the hellfire in my pants is raging right now! She starts going into some sciencey exposition and I start tuning her out, distracted as I am by the itchy and scratchy show happening in the old pantaloons. But then something she says catches my attention.

“Your vagina is too basic… blah blah science… alkaline… blah blah science… the PH is off.”

“Um, excuse me?” I cut in. “Did you just call my vagina basic?”

It never fails to surprise me when 6 o’clock rolls around and I remember that I should probably start making dinner for my family. “Oh, god, that old chestnut. Is it that time again already?” Every night, like clockwork, the people I live with expect to be fed, even though they’ve probably eaten twice already, that very same day. It’s a bit greedy, really, but we’ve all gotten into the habit of eating 3 meals a day, myself included. So I somehow manage to crank out a balanced meal most nights- notice I didn’t say delicious. But my dinners generally come out decent, even though I’d rather be doing pretty much anything else. Like sitting on the couch scrolling through instagram, for example, which is what I’m doing now, even though dinnertime is clearing its throat and tapping me on the shoulder. I reason that I’m trying to find some inspiration to cook as I spin through my feed. After all, Instagram is the bastion of all things inspirational- correct me if I’m wrong? 

…I don’t always go commando, but when I do I make sure to rip my pants from the taint all the way to the top of the ass crack. I simply had not factored undergarments into my outfit today, not wanting to spoil the snug linen silhouette with a visible panty line. I’d not foreseen an escape plan being hatched between my cunning ass and its soft, complicit linen prison guard. I paid good money for these pants, too! On principle, I'm a thrift store gal, but once in a while when the coffers are full, I invest in a really nice item of clothing. These pants, purchased only the week before, were one such splurge: organic light blue indigo-dyed cloth from an ethically sourced clothing company. I’m super bummed the stitching quality is not commensurate with the price tag. Bum-falling-out-of-pants-level bummed. It’s hanging out now in plain sight for all the store to see: the mansplainy sales clerks, the weathered contractors, the muscled painting pros. All of them with backstage passes to the ass arena...

… The other day amidst the menial maelstrom, the quotidian tedium, I noticed a shaft of sunlight coming through the skylight and hitting my open dishwasher. It was like a spotlight and out of nowhere that humble appliance became a thing of beauty. It had recently been unloaded (by me, of course, but you can hold your applause). Suddenly that empty dishwasher reminded me of my mind in meditation- that is to say, my mind after about the first 30 minutes of sitting and reviewing to-do lists and hashing out habitual hurts. The light hitting the empty racks was the delicious shudder of God-light that moves through my body sometimes when my aches and pains recede and my thoughts tire themselves out…

… My research on go-go turned up nothing relating to how one might procure a place on a platform. Were there auditions? Did you have to know someone who knows someone? I was more enmeshed in the play-date scene than the club scene at that point. Was the pay ok? I had no idea, and I had no one to ask. The elusive night job still far from reach, one summer evening I read my innocent child “The Country Bunny” until her eyes got heavy, then on a whim threw some fishnets, boots and booty shorts into a bag. I kissed my bizarrely supportive husband goodnight and drove an hour to the Castro district of San Francisco to hawk my wares- I mean, scout the clubs. I chose the Castro because I suspected it would be a scoch less objectifying to dance for gay men and women than for entitled straight tech bros with more money than frontal lobe. I drove around the Castro, wandered into a few clubs while it was still early in the night, and politely inquired, “hello, sir, do you have any go-go dancing positions available?”…

… Or maybe l should put it this way. Have you ever spent 3 solid hours vomiting and shitting, followed by 6 hours dry heaving while your body tries to wring out every last drop of DMT-laden Amazonian vine that you imbibed, tobacco juice you poured into your nose, and cactus pulp you ate? And as your body purges these plant medicines, some might say poisons, your brain unearths every shadow of your psyche, leaving no dark corner unexamined and no stone unturned? Then, after petitioning God for mercy and begging to be released from this hell-realm of your mind in this dark and endless night of the soul, you finally fall into a dreamless sleep and awake wrung out, but blessedly and profoundly at peace, and stunningly pain-free? You know that feeling?…

Picture this: you’re blissfully alone on a riverbank, unselfconsciously splayed out on the soft sand. Your skin is being kissed by the sun AND caressed by the warm afternoon breeze. It’s like a couple of rival suitors vying for your attention, and you’re not hating it. Your pores are sucking up vitamin D like a teenager standing at the fridge pounding Sunny Delight straight outta the carton. You’ve been rotating regularly front to back, and you’re like an evenly roasted golden marshmallow just before it gets crispy on the outside and gooey on the inside. You must be Goldilocks, cuz sweetcheeks, you feel just right. For once, your mind is blessedly empty of worldly worry, of tedious to-do lists. You are simply enjoying being alone, in a body, lying on the warm earth which molds to your curves and is as nurturing as a mother’s embrace.

During the pandemic I took up zoom meditation- you know, to cope with the anxiety of a forthcoming global collapse and whatnot. To make peace with the impending loss of human life, etc, etc… Let me be clear, though. By zoom meditation I mean meditating via a guided class on Zoom, not, like, speeding my way through a meditation. Which would admittedly be more my style, as you’re about to find out.

My seatmate is an elegant gent fast approaching centennial status. He is already asleep in the aisle seat when I find my row after boarding the plane to Toronto en route to Toulouse, France. I lean in, gently touch his shoulder and say, Hello, Bonjour Monsieur, I’m in that middle seat next to you, may I pass? But it’s like trying to wake the Sphinx. No sign of life, no rise and fall of the chest. One liver-spotted hand grips a walking stick, the other a passport. His claw-like grip could indicate vigor, but it could equally be rigor mortis already setting in. People are stacking up behind me and I try again, nudging more assertively this time. Eventually his eyes crack open, ever so glacially, to reveal cloudy irises. I hate to bother him. He’s so very… elderly.