So I thought about it, and I realized that seriously, seriously, I’ve eaten macaroni and cheese almost every single day for the past two weeks.

I tell people it’s because I’m on a legitimate journalistic quest to find the country’s best, which is maybe a little bit true, but I’m also pretty sure that that’s just a way to mask the fact that I’m not eating enough fruits or vegetables or anything else that isn’t entirely covered in cheese sauce and fat and yes I know I probably already have scurvy and am on my way to a life of horrible malnutrition but I’m just not sure that I care in the slightest because mac and cheese > every other food so shut the fuck up.

The best I’ve had recently (mac & cheese, that is) was late on Halloween night, reheated from a place called Bussaco and just perfect- a crisp top, loaded with ziti and bacon and cheese underneath.

I ate it at about 2:30am, thinking that if I would have had it only an hour earlier, it wouldn’t have counted. Because 1am-2am doesn’t count on the day you turn the clocks back, or at least that’s how we used to do it in college.

Every year, my friends and I would get together for a Daylight Savings Time party. Or, more accurately, an excuse-to-be-ridiculous-because-whatever-you-do-for-this-one-hour-totally-doesn’t-count-and-won’t-ever-be-talked-about-again-because-time-change-means-we-make-up-our-own-rules-and-we’re-in-college-so-it’s-morally-acceptable-because-we’re-fake-adults-and-the-clock-gets-set-back-and-you-get-a-redo party!

Things never got as crazy as they could have, a stolen kiss here, a dance on the bar for free shots there, but for the most part I think we were just drunk on the fantasy of an immediate second chance. The oh so coveted “hehe, just kidding!” that gave you the freedom to try something you wouldn’t normally do by eliminating the fear of regret.

But what’s so bad about regret, anyway? I’m fond of saying things like “I live a life of no regrets!” But really? That’s not true. I could fill a journal with the things I wish I would have said and done differently, the things I’d like to kick myself in the mouth for not trying when they were close enough to reach out and grab.

So I don’t think it’s about not having regrets, because that’s as impossible as being fearless. I think it’s about not letting the feeling of regret control your life, not letting yourself walk smack into a pole because your head is turned behind you, staring at the things that could have been.

Because we only get one life, and we can only make one choice at a time, live one reality at a time, follow one path at a time, and even if we’re making great choices and are more or less in love with our current reality, our life will always be surrounded by paths not taken. And we better start feeling okay with that, because the bigger our dreams and the better our lives, the shinier the opportunities we’re turning down will be. Which, really, is a pretty stellar thing, don’t you think?

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In college, I dated a guy who didn’t use a top sheet on his bed. He was all fitted sheets and comforters and I remember thinking that that was pretty weird, and that maybe I shouldn’t date him. Turns out, I fell in love with the no-top-sheet thing just as quickly as I fell in love with the guy, and it’s one of the things that stuck with me after the relationship faded into the distance.

I always find it lovely when I realize something about myself and can look back and pinpoint exactly where it came from. So much of who I am springs from the people that surround me; the more I share with someone else, the more time, the more private moments, the more our jagged edges blur together.

A few weeks pass and I catch myself using a phrase that’s straight out of his mouth.

A few months go by and if we’re good, I mean really good for each other, I notice that my opinions have shifted as a result of challenging late night conversations and electric debates had over dinner, one hand on my wine glass, the other gesturing wildly in the air.

A few years transition the now to the then and I step back, seeing how our day to day completely overlaps. I’ve stopped using top sheets, he eats goat cheese pizza. I have favorite shows on ESPN, he doesn’t put my purple sweater in the dryer. Things you learn from doing, from breathing each other, from making room in your life to be rubbed off on in all the right places.

So there’s those things, the ones you pick up from each other along the quiet backroads of your life, and then there are the other things, the ones that often go overlooked until someone spins you toward a mirror and shows you who you are.

Like the fact that I bite my bottom lip when I’m about to blush, or how I always have the air conditioning on when I’m driving. How often I roll my eyes, and touch my necklace, and eat tomato soup. The way my New York accent comes out when I’m fired up. The fact that even if I won’t admit it, I want you to take the time to draw my lines with your fingertips while we’re in bed.

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A big part of what I’m doing by being a nomad is city shopping. As I slowly move across the country, I realize that I’m searching for my perfect fit, my next home, my real geographic love affair.

In 24 years, New York City is the only place that’s ever really gotten under my skin. In no small way, it’s the epicenter of the world. The air is different here, there’s something full about it, something that makes you believe that the very next moment could be the best or worst of your life.

But with that comes the fact that it’s extremes. It’s Monday and it’s deliciously crisp and pure autumn and you’re in Central Park, drinking apple cider, wearing your favorite brown suede boots, high off the energy of millions of other people- but then it’s Tuesday and it’s pouring and the subway never comes and you’re surrounded by strangers who stare through each other with dull eyes, who move with the pulse of the city, crashing into each other without ever touching, and you’re alone in a profound way.

As a person who constantly struggles to find the middle ground, NYC is a rough place for me. I believe the famous line, the idea that “if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere,” and I know that I could. Make it here, I mean. But I’d have to shut down to do so. I’d have to somehow learn to move my emotions deeper, to not let them scream quite so close to the surface, and I’m not willing to do that.

So I’m moving on later this week, heading to DC and Phoenix and San Francisco, and I’m doing so happily. I saw the people I came here to see, ate the things I came here to eat, and learned that ultimately, figuring out what you don’t want is just as important as finding what you do.

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So, at the start of this whole let’s-travel-the-world-and-live-out-of-a-tiny-suitcase thing, I didn’t really give a lot of thought to what would actually go IN the damn suitcase. I figured I’d just throw some shit in there and it would be fine.

As the date of my indefinite nomadism approached, I started to think that maybe I should give it a little more thought. So I did, I thought about it. And as soon as I realized all the things I wouldn’t have room for, I started freaking the fuck out.

Mid-freak out, I called a friend of mine, an awesome chick who has done quite a lot of backpacking herself, and started yelling. And she was all trying to give me real suggestions, because she’s nice and helpful and normal, but I just kept screaming things like “BUT WHICH BRAS SHOULD I BRING?” and “HOW MANY TAMPONS ARE TOO MANY?” and “DO I OR DO I NOT BRING A VIBRATOR?”

My friend (or at least she used to be my friend- more on that in a second) paused thoughtfully and was all, “I’d say no. I mean, what if you wind up in some weirdly embarrassing airport security situation? Wouldn’t you rather just have room for another pair of pants?”

Looking back, this should have been the precise moment at which I stopped taking her seriously, or at least questioned the size of her vagina, because really? if her experience with vibrators is that they’re the SAME SIZE AS A ROLLED UP PAIR OF JEANS, maybe that’s something she should see someone about. But I didn’t question it. I accepted her advice as some sort of travel gospel and I took off on my trip, sans sex toys.

And now, 41 days into my adventure of sleeping on other people’s couches, I’ve come to the conclusion that my friend is a big slutty slut who slutted her way through all past backpacking adventures and therefore had no need for sex toys. Or she’s totally asexual. Or she’s boring and just uses her fingers all the time. Or she has done some very naughty things with other people’s shower heads. Or she has no problem being out at a bar in a new city and being all, “So… do you want to come back to my… couch?”

Either way, I’m pretty sure I can’t be her friend anymore for the sheer reason that she gives horrible advice. So my new plan is to post all important masturbation related questions on Twitter. Because maybe then I’ll get some REAL answers. And Babeland will ask me to write a column about my nomadic vagina and sex on the road. And everything will be right in the world.

PS- If you have agreed to let me sleep on your couch sometime in the next few months, please entirely ignore this post. Or tell me about your hot cousin.
PPS- I’m kidding!
PPPS- Mostly…

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A weird thing has happened since I started blogging (and Twittering, and Facebooking, and all the other networks-ing). I’ve forgotten how to deal with things quietly and on my own.

It used to be, something would happen and I would think about it for a while. I’d process it and decide what to do about it. And then I’d let other people in.

Now though? Now it’s like I can’t get really excited about the good things, can’t start to deal with the bad things, until someone else knows about them. Something happens and my first instinct is to pull out my phone. To text, to tweet, to let everyone know that “UM, HEY! THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME.”

And sometimes it’s wonderful. Sometimes the support and the ability to lean on hundreds of people, get advice, share stories, reach out- sometimes that’s everything. But other times, I realize that I’ve forgotten how to be my own best friend. I’ve become less able to talk myself off the ledge. More connected, and yet, more lonely.

There’s this constantly updated stream of instant communication going on out there. All the time. And I often think about how much of it is just noise. I update my Facebook status about the delicious turkey sandwich I had for lunch and I realize that, uh, NO ONE GIVES A FLYING HORSE VAGINA ABOUT MY LUNCH and that I should maybe just shut the fuck up already.

And then I wonder if social media and the explosion of life online has made us feel that we’re more important than we really are. Are we giving up too much of our privacy? How much is too much? Where is the good/bad line when it comes to transparency? What are the consequences of posting things we can’t ever take back?

I often hear people talk about their “real lives” in comparison to their “blog lives.” It isn’t so with me. Because of the type of blog I have, because I write about my sex and my mood swings and my mother and my quarter life crisis in a way that is very much linked to my “real life,” the line has blurred.

And yet I still feel the need to set boundaries, however superfluous they might be, because if you don’t set personal boundaries and emotional limits, how will you know where you end and others begin?

Which is why I don’t blog about the men in my life. I’ve chosen dating and love as my forbidden topic, at least while the stories and the feelings are still current, because I have to have something that’s just mine.

So be on the lookout, because the first blog post I write about a man will probably be followed up by a second blog post entitled, “so, um, I eloped yesterday,” and the blurry line between my real life and my blog life will be totally erased. And then, well, and then you’ll really be in for a wild, over-sharing ride.

{ 40 comments }

how to break the mental health taboo

by nicoleantoinette on October 19, 2009

In the genre of “things you don’t talk about at dinner parties,” mental health issues rank higher than politics, sex, and religion.

But why? Why do we shy away from discussing the difficult things? Particularly when the difficult things, the things that make us the most real, are usually also the things that make us the most similar. There’s commonality in crisis. The rawness of our struggles can bring us together.

It only takes one person to start a conversation, even a tough one, and I’m starting this one right now. The life cycle of my mental health has been something like this:

Turn 15. Attend your grandmother’s funeral. Watch your mother spiral into depression over the ensuing months. Feel helpless. Ask questions. Get answers of silence. Depression isn’t something to be discussed. Live your mother’s day to day struggle. One medication to another. And then another. And another. Notice that your family is falling apart.

Graduate high school. Leave for college. Get sucked into the whirlwind of pressure and intoxicating freedom. Listen in shock to the news that 3 students committed suicide during the first week of classes. Question how anyone could take their own life. Feel sorry for them, people you don’t even know, but feel superior at the same time. Pat yourself on the back for having your shit together.

Spend the next 6 months living it up. Love that you’re having the time of your life. Feel a sudden shift in mood. Start to notice that your days are either sparklingly perfect or horrifyingly sad. Analyze external factors. Tell yourself that it’s college, that everyone must feel like this. Chalk it up to the combination of too much drinking and too little sleep. Too much stress and too little of everything else. Ignore the warning signs for as long as possible.

Start Junior year feeling pretty pleased with yourself, proud that you’re going to graduate a year early from such a great school. Continue to ignore the mood swings. Get rocked by a horrible breakup. Fall apart. Put yourself back together. Berate yourself for having so many bad days, even after you’ve gotten over the heartache.

Make an appointment at the NYU Wellness Center. Start using your 12 free counseling sessions, the ones the school started offering after the string of suicides. Sit across the room from a psychologist named Kathy. Feel supremely awkward. Keep telling yourself, over and over, that you’re fine and that you should be able to handle your feelings on your own. Lie to everyone about being in therapy.

Use up all 12 sessions. Refuse to pay for more. Wonder angrily why your insurance doesn’t cover mental health treatment. Feel embarrassed about needing help in the first place. Think that if your insurance company doesn’t consider this a real problem, you should be able to just sack up and get over it already. Cry. Hide in your room. Cry. Skip class. Lie to everyone about what you’re going through. Sleep as much as possible. Wonder if the world and the people in your life would be better off without you. Start to understand suicide. Drink a lot of vodka.

Switch from vodka to tequila. Go through a simultaneously coincidental shift in mood. Start to pick up momentum. Feel euphoric all the time. Sleep less, talk more. Think less, do more. Live impulsively. Love how raw and powerful your sexuality is. Get off on drawing people into your dramatic tornado. Drink more tequila. Hook up with people you shouldn’t hook up with. Spend money you shouldn’t spend. Do one thing after another that you aren’t coherent enough to know you’ll later regret.

Go from euphoric to irritable. Lose your shit over the smallest things. Get a referral to the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Start seeing a doctor you call Hillary, due to her physical resemblance to Hillary Clinton. Talk to her. Talk more. And more. Get diagnosed with Cyclothymia, a mild form of bipolar disorder. Make an appointment to see a psychiatrist. Talk to her too. Fill your first prescription for Lamictal, a mood stabilizer. Hate the way it makes you feel. Hate hearing that even though you hate the way it makes you feel, it’s necessary. Fight your doctors. Fight everyone.

Take the medication for about 6 months. Feel dull the entire time. Continue to see both doctors. Talk. Feel dull. Repeat.

Stop taking your medication. Feel your impulsiveness spiral out of control. Watch as New Year’s Eve 2007 quickly turns into one of the worst nights of your life. Cry for days. Decide you can’t handle living in NYC anymore. Pack everything you own and move to California to get away from it all.

Spend hours laying in the middle of the floor, crying, when you realize the truth to that old saying that “no matter where you go, there you are.” Feel the mood swings picking up speed and aggression. Spend days in bed. Days where it seems like nothing will ever be okay again. Feel better. Tell yourself you’re going to be fine. Look in the mirror and reassure yourself that you have it all under control.

Go through a summer of extreme emotion. Experience real insomnia for the first time. Spend your days as high as a kite on sleeplessness and caffeine. Spend your nights pacing around in the dark, making list after mental list of everything you need to do to be as incredible as possible.

Spend the fall and winter completely breaking down. Make an appointment to see a new therapist in December of 2008. Pick her randomly off a list of people covered by your current insurance. Quickly realize that nothing is random because this woman saves your life. She asks the questions that need to be asked, and when you don’t answer right away, when you’re scared of yourself, she asks again. And she waits. She’s kind and nonjudgmental. She doesn’t put you back on medication, but tells you not to rule it out as a future course of treatment, if necessary.

You spend 8 months under her care. Halfway through that time, you’re forced to switch to a different kind of insurance that doesn’t cover mental health treatment. She sees you anyway, at an incredibly reduced rate. You’re more grateful than you have ever been.

She helps you in a way you never thought possible. She’s there for you when you lose a close friend to suicide. She works with you as you make the decision to go the nomad route, to travel and pursue your best life. She tells you to be careful, warns that a lack of routine could easily shift you back into crushing mood swings. She makes you promise to call if you need anything. You promise. You hug her goodbye.

You pack up and leave California, set out on the path of a professional nomad. You feel pretty damn stable. Then, late one October night during your travels, you learn that a former camper of yours has committed suicide, that she suffered from deep depression and that she hung herself the night before. You hear this, you understand it, and yet you can’t believe it. You cry throughout the entire night and wonder what could have been done differently to change the outcome.

You realize, finally, that mental illness isn’t something to be ashamed of. You admit that you have a mood disorder, and that luckily, because of the right help, you have it under control. You decide that you’re not going to be quiet about it anymore, that you aren’t going to pretend you have all your little ducks in a row, because you don’t. Because your honesty and openness, no matter how difficult, might inspire more honesty and more openness and that from it, we can work together to build a world where we’re not afraid to reach out for help, to be there for each other, to look each other in the eye and say, “I’m not okay,” and, hopefully, to save each others’ lives.

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So. Things have been happening over the past few weeks. Here are some of them, in a notably incoherent order:

1. I woke up on Friday with a deep cut in my pinky finger, no idea where my shirt was, and the worst hangover of all time. Well, except for that time with the 60 ounce fishbowl. And that time with the Heaven & Hell party. And that time when I thought it was the greatest idea ever to eat fried chicken with a stranger on the bathroom floor of a dive bar.

2. I decided that I want to work at a ski resort this winter. Preferably in Tahoe. I started applying for random customer service and sales positions, most of which come with some seriously sweet ski-related job perks. I haven’t skied since I was 11 years old. This should be disastrously fascinating. Stay tuned.

3. A post of mine was featured over at Indie Ink. Which makes me feel pretty fucking awesome. If you haven’t checked out their site yet, you should. You should also submit your writing (previously published stuff is fine) and then you’ll get featured too and we can start some kind of “look how awesome we are” club and get jackets and tattoos and do a big group striptease to show it all off. Or, you know, something more normal and socially appropriate. Seriously though. Indie Ink. Do it.

4. My mother called me today to discuss her current feelings on the weather in Arizona, and after an inordinate amount of temperature related conversation, she nonchalantly mentioned that she fell in the shower yesterday and thinks she might have a broken rib. I yelled at her for being on the phone with me instead of the doctor. She told me that it’s Sunday and that she has to go to church. I’m all, “God will probably understand you ditching out on account of potentially having a broken rib.” She’s like, “it might be two broken ribs, actually,” and then proceeds to tell me that she’s not really sure, because she doesn’t know how many ribs she has or how to tell when they’re broken, but that when she sneezes, it feels like she’s being stabbed with a machete, which is awfully inconvenient because in addition to the rib situation, she has a bit of a cold and can’t stop sneezing. I yelled some more about her needing to see a doctor. She repeated the facts about Sunday and church and the doctor’s office being closed. We continued to have that same conversation for the better part of an hour, until she finally promised to go first thing on Monday. I told her that if she doesn’t, I’m going to poke her in the ribs. She reminded me that, as is the norm in our conversations, I’m the only one who finds myself amusing. I grunted. She hung up.

photo5. The lovely Carissa from Name That Frame (a company that creates seriously cool custom photo frames) is giving one of my readers a free frame of their choice, valued at $49.95! To enter: simply leave a comment telling me what you’d like to see me blog (or video blog) about in the coming months. Enter anytime before Saturday, October 17. If you’d like another chance to win (and who wouldn’t? these frames are so damn fun), just leave a second comment telling me which word(s) you’ll pick for your frame if you win. Because, well, I’m curious and nosy. The end.

{Update: Contest winner is Nora from Walking through the Rain!}

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You know what I hate? That question where someone’s all, “If you could have lunch with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be and why?” I fucking hate that. Because my life is crazy enough as it is without being forced to answer questions that are insanely stressful and yet completely insignificant.

But people ask. And I get sucked in. Because I’m hyper-aware of myself and I CAN’T STAND not knowing how I feel about something. Even something stupid like which person out of all the people who have ever lived I’d like to have lunch with. Yeah, even that.

Actually, especially shit like that. Because it’s a test, you know? Like, “Ooo, are you creative and smart enough to come up with an answer that isn’t as generic as ‘Jesus’ or ‘my dead grandmother’? No? Haha, sucka.”

Although, in reality, I’d quite like to have lunch with Jesus. And my dead grandmother. Both of my dead grandmothers. Maybe all four of us at the same time. “Grandma Ruth, this is Grandma Antoinette. Grandmothers, this is Jesus. And I’m Nicole. And we’re having unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks at the Olive Garden.”

Because of course I’d take Jesus to the Olive Garden. Or maybe a Las Vegas Buffet. Except for the fact that buffets make me incredibly anxious because how in fucks sake am I going to fit ALL THAT DELICIOUS FOOD INTO MY BODY WITHOUT THROWING UP??

So maybe no buffet. Maybe Chinese food. “Here Jesus, have a dumpling.” Except I don’t think my grandmothers liked Chinese food. But it’s pretty safe to assume they’ll eat whatever Jesus is eating, no? And also? I’m thinking that I should invite Kate Beckinsale to lunch too. For the sole purpose of her being hot and British and someone I would quite like to make out with. Which reminds me, I’m also inviting King Henry VIII. Not for the making out, necessarily (although would I really turn that down?), but because I’d love to ask him if, after beheading his wives, he later regretted no longer being able to sleep with them. Like, what if Anne Boleyn gave better head than Jane Seymour?

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There’s something so old-fashioned about long train trips. Sipping hot chocolate, head resting against the window, watching the landscape change from lakes to farms to trees with sunset-colored leaves, silently, as your mind explores itself in a way that’s only possible when you’re in motion.

It took me 21 hours to get from Chicago to NYC last weekend. 21 hours. And the kind of thinking you can get done in 21 hours of silence is sort of incredible. Time slows down on a trip like that, you don’t have anywhere to go or anywhere to be. It’s no longer about the hours and the minutes. There’s the time before you fell asleep, and the time after. The time before you had the blueberry muffins, and the time after. The time a Swedish backpacker sat next to you, and the time after. You’re just traveling across the country, fading in and out of consciousness, wondering what’s going on in the darkness outside your window, imagining all the people whose everyday lives you’re passing by on the fuzzy edges of your adventure.

Somewhere in the middle of the trip, I started thinking about my life and the passage of time. I let the structure of months and years slip away. I focused on the big moments, the ones that leave you different on the other side.

There was the time before I lived in England, and the time after. There was the time before my parents filed for bankruptcy, and the time after. The time before I got into NYU, and the time after. The time before my mother walked out on my father, and the time after. The time before I was in debt, and the time after. The time before they got back together, and the time after. The time before I knew the power of my sexuality, and the time after. The time before I started blogging, and the time after. The time before I fell desperately in love, and the time after. The time I kept too many secrets, and the time after. The time before my heartbreak, and the time after.

The time before I made that bad decision (and that one, and that one), and the time after. Before I stood up for myself, and after. Before I quit my job to travel, and after. Before she died, and after. Before I made the list, and after.

Before I realized that time moves just as quickly whether you’re living the kind of life you want to live or not, and now.

The big moments. The sign posts on my life path that I can look at over my shoulder, knowing that I wouldn’t be where I am if I had made a right back there instead of a left.

The train ride though, the motion- the lakes and leaves and hot chocolate- it all made me realize that while the big moments are how I keep time in my life, it’s the little moments that make all the difference.

Feeling the first perfectly crisp breeze of the season. Making buttercream frosting and letting my niece lick the spoon. Laughing when he catches me chewing on the wire of my headphones, blushing when he shakes his head and tells me I’m adorable.

{ 46 comments }

lube, dynamite, and what not to do during sex

by nicoleantoinette on September 29, 2009

Okay. Here goes.

I understand that with sex, as with much of anything else, people have different opinions about what’s awesome and not so awesome. For example, I know some people out there are like, “Pee on me!” whereas I’m all, “If you pee anywhere NEAR me, I’m absolutely going to punch you out.” But I mean, to each their own. Or something.

My list of things that I’d rather not experience in bed isn’t all that long. I’m very “try anything once!” as long as “anything” isn’t something massively weird and uncomfortable. Like peeing. So, when he wanted to try KY Yours + Mine lube, I was all, “Bring it.”

Because I’d seen the commercials. The ones where the couple is in bed and it’s all exploding geysers and wonderfulness and it makes you think that maybe, just maybe, KY Yours + Mine is the secret to the best sex you’ve never had.

The concept behind this particular lube, in case you aren’t familiar, is that there’s one bottle for him and one bottle for her and when they’re used together, they interact in such a way that does the geyser thing. Except for me, it was more like this:

Apply lube. Feel strange tingling. Raise eyebrows. Start having sex. Feel strange tingling escalate into fiery burning hell of dynamite being ignited over and over again in my vagina. Freak out. Push him off me. Hard. Literally RUN into the shower. Wash and wash and wash until the burning stops. Think that maybe, physically pushing someone off of you during sex isn’t the hottest thing. Get out of the shower. Check your vagina for permanent damage. Or burn marks. Or dynamite residue. Get dressed. Stomp around angrily. Yell about chastity belts and celibacy vows. Go to bed alone.

Upon telling one of my girlfriends this story, she’s all, “Why don’t you give it another try?” and I’m like, “If somebody shot you in the leg with a cannon, and you didn’t enjoy it, would you give THAT another try?” And she goes, “That’s so not the same thing.” And I’m all, “Of course it’s not the same thing, I care about my vagina WAY MORE than I care about my fucking LEG.”

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