Let's Talk About Sex Baby

While I normally like to entertain you with recounting the inevitable mishaps that occur as I try to go about leading my normal life, I was inspired yesterday to write a little commentary based on the topic of one of my favorite daytime activities.

When four o'clock rolled around, after running across the street for a fresh bottle of Malbec, I turned on Oprah and was greeted by an overly expressive, batshit-behind-the-eyes, loud-talker in a wig. No, I'm not talking about Oprah herself, but rather her guest of the day, former Evangelical Church Leader, Ted Haggard. In case you're not familiar with Ted Haggard he's the mega-church, right-wing, anti-abortion, gays-will-burn-in-hell preaching pastor who "fell from grace" in 2006 when it came out that he was buying both sex and drugs from another man.

As I watched Oprah trying desperately yet failing to be hard-hitting and non-judgemental, while of course learning something from the Pastor and his wife between lengthy commercial breaks, I started thinking about sex, sexuality and what's normal. His apologies, revelations, self-evolution and Invislign braces just confused me as he preached, and this is not a direct quote, "Deep down inside I DO want to bang dudes, but through therapy and my wife refusing to divorce me, I've made the choice not to." WTF?

Now according to Haggard, his homo-sexual acts were the product of mental illness requiring the help of a therapist. With that, I started to wonder if every barely legal skank posting photos of herself making out with her best friend on MySpace is mentally ill or as Haggard referred to himself, 'a heterosexual with issues.'

It wasn't until Oprah methodically brought the conversation back around to focus on herself that I became completely confused. As Haggard openly admitted to having 'homosexual inclinations' inside of him, Oprah responded by announcing she wonders what that must be like for him because, "as a heterosexual woman," she "does not know what it's like to have homosexual thoughts." Now, I know the majority of my straight male readers out there are not going to openly admit to even ever having the slightest curiousity about being intimate with another guy, so I'm not going to push that issue, but come on Ophs!! You're going to tell me you've never been curious to see what it might be like to play Tune in Tokyo with Gayle? I have to disagree.

I don't know a girl who hasn't made out with her best friend in the second grade, picked lesbian porn over the regular kind or enjoyed a trip to the strip club? Now, either it's just me and all the girls I hang out with are a bunch of Big-Ass-Lesbos or, contrary to Oprah's personal experience. getting the tinglies from a same-sex thought is pretty normal. Whether we chose to admit it or not we are all curious creatures especially when it comes to doing the nasty. There's a good reason it is the one topic we loath discussing openly with our parents no matter how old we get.

The only thing that irks me more than intolerance is ignorance. I'm equally annoyed by people who preach tolerance while they make certain to announce that they could never be affiliated with whatever taboo they are begging you to accept. So after one hour of watching Oprah (which consisted of maybe 20 minutes of actual show and 40 minutes of commercials) I'm left left being told that because my girlfriend "N" and I dry humped (before I even knew what dry humping was) and played kissy-face in the fourth grade I'm going to either a) burn in hell or b) I'll never be as good as Oprah, but luckily she sympathizes.

Discuss.

UnPlain Jane will return with frivolous tales of life as an Unemployed Apartment Wife shortly.

The Wedding's Back On

They say it takes one and a half times the length of a relationship to get over it after a breakup. I say the same holds true for recovering from a trip to Vegas.  It's almost unnecessary for me to recap the details of this latest trip to Sin City, also known as my bachelorette party, since it was basically a carbon copy of the trip I took two years ago including:

• One smashed blackberry;
• One called-off relationship;
• One trip to the Las Vegas mall for a new phone;
• and one changed flight.

I got all of this for the bargain price of 3 gained pounds, 1300 spent-who-knows-where dollars, and 2 and 1/2 days post-trip spent in bed reevaluating my life, myself as a person, and sobbing through the decision of whether I can ever face my fiance's family and friends again.  

So, yes, to answer your question, I had a GREAT F-CKING TIME.  

Somehow, between repeatedly exposing my bra, holding on to walls for support as I attempted to dance and paying a $10 ATM Fee at a strip club, I not only had the time of my life, but I learned some important life lessons too.

1. It is stupid to get mad at your fiance because he is having just as much fun as you are so he didn't pick up his phone.
2. It is even stupider to be as mean as you possibly can to him and call of the wedding once you finally get a hold of him.
3. It is most stupid to continue the argument the next morning because, even though you know you're wrong,  you can't admit it.

Perhaps what's really stupid is popping a Zanny on the plane, double-fisting for the entire five hour flight, drinking anything you can get your hands on for the next 12 hours, followed by no sleep and a 6:30am breakfast of Vodka-Cranberry and Petron XO?  Did I mention I had the time of my life?

Now that I'm done sounding like a first-timer sharing at an AA meeting, let me go over the real highlights.  In one single day I got to attend Stripper 101 and Stripper 201.  Stripper 101 takes place at the V Theater in Planet Hollywood.  The pack a rowdy group of birthday girls and bachelorettes into a room filled with poles, chairs and boas.  Throw in some drinks and a ex-"exotic dancer" to teach some moves and you have yourself a good time.  The clothes came off faster than you can say lap-dance and I am left with some awesome pictures and a giant bruise on my leg from swinging around the pole over and over and over again.  

Disappointed that I would have to put clothes on for dinner, I put on the skimpiest thing I own (to quote one of my best friends, "a napkin and heels") and headed to dinner.  We mowed through our meal at Nobu, ancie to get to Stripper 202.  Yes, 8 women, jumped in stretch limo number 156412 of the weekend and instructed the driver to get us over to the Spearmint Rhino, STAT.  

After convincing the doormen that we were lesbians and pinky swearing we would not talk to any men and take away any attention from the actual strippers, we were escorted to a booth in the corner and got our lap dance on.  I find it necessary to explain that my last lap dance experience took place on Staten Island and ended with me clutching a piece of the stripper's weave that had fallen out.  With that said, I am considering this my first "real" stripper experience and here's what I learned:

• Strippers are smooth.  Ridiculously smooth.  Where do I find that lotion?
• Strippers DO let you touch.  A lot.
• Motor boats (especially those involving surgically enhances breasts) are not so much sexy, but a hell of a lot of fun.

Upon waking up on Sunday morning, painfully longing for home and starting to feel REALLY bad about the fight (more accurately described as unwarranted attack) with "T", I managed to get me and my cohorts off of the Red-Eye and onto a 2:35pm flight back to the East Coast.  Now, many days later I have finally managed to get out of bed, face the world, and recap the highlights of my "last weekend of freedom."  

Nudity, Booze and Fighting aside what I took away most from this weekend is that my future sister-in-law is AWESOME.  So awesome that the quality time I got to spend getting to know her and letting her get to know me was worth both:

• the post-fight, heart-breakingly painful because-I-was-mean-to-"T" guilt and 
• the intense fear that my future brother-in-law will either a) hate me forever or b) mention in his best-man speech that, given enough booze, I am a complete psycho.

I've also realized that I have two choices going forward:

1. I can remind myself to pace myself BEFORE I start drinking (not after 12 drinks when pacing myself means going from Vodka Straight to Vodka Soda) or;
2. I can lose 10 more pounds and get some fake boobs and a tan so I can maintain equilibrium on the Hot-Crazy Scale (the hotter a girl is, the crazier she can be).

All in all the weekend was great.  My friends are amazing, my future husband is beyond amazing (despite all the things I said about him at 4:30am Saturday morning) and I am a very lucky girl.  I'm sure I could have learned all of these lessons without the high-price of Vegas by watching an episode of Oprah and reading Eat, Love, Pray, but this was a lot more fun.  

I'd like to say that this was probably my last trip to Vegas, but I'm probably wrong.  I have some goals for the next trip and those include seeing the light of day and seeing the Las Vegas Sign. Moreover, on the first trip, I broke up with "T"; on the second the second trip, I called off my wedding to "T"; I'm guessing a third trip is necessary so I can threaten divorce.   Sounds reasonable, right?   

Stripper Fabulous

Thanks to the crappy weather and the growing pimple on my chin, I've decided to stay inside today and do some work on my latest novel idea, "How to lose 80 pounds, Quit Smoking, Become Jewish and Write this Book."  As I opened up my outline and started to dig in to Chapter 1, I quickly became distracted by the not-quite-cocoa-butter smell wafting off  my shoulders into my nose and it got me thinking about strippers (a demographic I've long been fascinated with) for a few reasons:

1.  Strippers smell and feel like lotion.  Layer upon layer of multiple scents greased on to make them soft and shiny.

2.  A few years ago I read an article about these creatures of the night (and the lunchtime buffet) and their beauty routines.

The statement this article was out to make was that rich women spend thousands and thousands of dollars to try to look naturally beautiful while strippers spend as little as possible to make themselves look as done up as possible.  Reflecting on this, and given my current state of employment, I guess this is my chance to spend as little as possible and get my stripper on.  It doesn't hurt that I'm headed to Vegas next week and have an appointment with a pole to get me in the mood to get myself into tip top lap dancing shape for under $25.  

Step One - Exfoliate.  With the declining economy and the $30 price tag on my favorite body scrub, I decided now would be the time to dig into my storage closet and whip out that Bath & Body works set I'd been planning on regifting when the right opportunity came along.  One long shower later and I'm softer than a baby's ass.

Step Two - How do I put this delicately? - Hair Removal.  Step foot into your location version of the Bada Bing and the first thing you'll notice about the lovely ladies on the main stage is that there is not an unwanted hair on them.  No more expensive waxes (followed by a pushy Russian laying on the pressure to buy expensive products) for me.  Thank god for the invention of the razor.  Just like your friendly neighborhood lap dancer will tell you, there's no time to "grow it out" between waxes when a smooth surface is your main source of income.  So off I went to Duane Reade, where I spent $4.79 on Aveeno's Positively Smooth Shaving Gel.  

Step Three - Get your Tan on.  As I squatted down to get to the bottom shelf at Duane Reade I took one look at my legs and noticed that I am so pale that I am basically translucent.  Instead of heading off to the tanning booth, I picked up Nivea's Self-Tanning Firming Lotion (two birds with one stone) for the bargain basement price of $8.47 - beats the 25 bones I'd spend courting melanoma in a tanning bed.

Step Four - Nails.  No stripper is complete without a good set of acrylics to scratch down her customer's back.  Now, I have worked too long and too hard to get myself off of a weekly set of tips in Staten Island, to go back to a "full set."  With that said, my nails are looking a little scraggly and I can't rightfully walk around all tan and smooth with nails that scream construction worker.  Thanks to a one dollar bottle of Wet-N-Wild polish, I've got the brightly colored, slick nails of Scores finest.

Step 5 - Dress the part.  Luckily for me, I don't have to venture back into another vintage store for something cheap and skanky.  I only have to venture into my closet.  Two years ago, just after my first trip to Vegas, I purchased for twelve measly dollars, the smallest item of clothing I own and have been dying to wear it ever since.  In the words of T, my fiance, "the only place you can wear that dress is in Vegas or to a Halloween Party."  Well, Halloween has passed, so it's a good think my flight to Sin City takes off next weekend.  Once I slap this short, tight, cut-down-to-there number on, you're going to have to rip it off me.  

All said and done, for the bargain price of $13.39, I am officially Stripper Fabulous. I'm going to take the remaining $11.61, slap it down on Red and hope for the best.  Wish me luck!