Listen to me on Pillow Talk Radio

Just finished doing a wild, no-holds-barred interview on Pillow Talk Radio's Freaky Friday Hangout! Talked for over an hour with hosts Tai and Dre (hope I spelled that right) about everything you can imagine and then some: what men and women really want in bed, adult toys, faking orgasms (why not to), domination/submission...and more.

Tune in to Better Sex Radio tomorrow!

Yeah, I'm back, after six months. To quote the movie "Airplane": "But that's not important right now."

What is important is that I'll be on Better Sex Radio tomorrow, Wednesday, January 19, at 11am talking with host Chrystal Bougon about What Women Really Want in Bed and fabulous foreplay. And isn't all foreplay fabulous? We think so.

We've had to reschedule this interview at least twice now due to technical difficulties, but we're hoping that third time will be a charm. I love this blog post she wrote about the "Fabulous Foreplay" chapter of What Women Really Want in Bed:

Foreplay for women is NOT optional. Remember, for women, it's often going to take our brain about 10 - 15 minutes to get in the moment. We just don't CLICK OVER like men seem to be able to. We are not quite as visually stimulated as men are. Just seeing a penis or his nipples does not instantly get us going like flashing a nipple or showing a little butt cleavage can do for a man.

(That's not to say, of course, that we gals don't like a quickie now and then.)

I've been listening to Chrystal's show in the gym--which explains the smile on my face while I'm on the elliptical! I've learned a lot of great stuff, like you should always right a thank-you note after you've taken part in a threesome. (This is great to me: I read Emily Post's etiquette handbook as a child. I was weird.)

Guys, tune in...who knows, you might just learn something!

FSH: When numbers don't matter.

Scanning the latest email newsletter from the American Fertility Association, I came across this article. In it, the author discovers--through an answering machine message left by her doctor--that at 35, she has an FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) level of 14.5. For those of you not up on your hormones, this is high. And the author is devastated.

I was right there with her, but for a different reason. Back in the day, during my infertility "journey," I got similar calls from my doctor. But in my case, the news was "good": my FSH, at 41, hovered around 5. It still took us 11 cycles of IUIs to conceive our son. A few years later, trying to conceive #2, the news was similar: Again, my FSH was around 5-6, sometimes as low as 4. The IVF doctor shook his head. "You have the biological makeup of a 35-year-old." He had never seen anything like it. And yet, it didn't make a difference. Nine IUI cycles, 3 rounds of IVF and 2 more IUI cycles (one resulting in a miscarriage) later, I still hadn't conceived. It didn't matter what my numbers were. There was to be no sibling for my son.

So what's the point? The point is that we really have no control over whether we're able to conceive or not. It's a total crap shoot. People we consider to be unfit parents pump out babies, while the dearest, most caring people we know can't conceive their own biological children. It's not fair. There's no explaining it.

Last week during my small group bible study, we were talking about the movie "V for Vendetta" and spiritual crucibles, about radical turning points that changed the course of our lives. I don't have a "road to Damascus" moment, but infertility was my crucible, and the realization that there are many, many things over which I have no control--a lesson I forget over and over again--was a turning point for me.

I live in an area where people believe without a shadow of a doubt that they can succeed if they're smart enough and they work hard enough. It's a lie. You can have "everything" going for you, including a low FSH and "beautiful" ovaries (see an earlier blog post). And you can still "fail," if the rubric is the number of children to whom you can give birth. So the only way to keep your sanity is to let go. Most of the time, I can.

I'll be on the radio tonight!

I'm going to be a guest on the "Sex with Emily" show on FM 97.3 (Alice@97.3), along with Greg Behrendt, co-author of He's Just Not That Into You. The show runs from 9pm to midnight, but I'll be on at about 10:10-11:20pm.

Got a question you want me or Greg or Emily to answer? Send email to Emily at feedback@sexwithemily.com. Or you can call the show live at 800-400-FM97 (-3697).

For those of you who don't live in the San Francisco Bay Area, Emily posts podcasts after the show, so you won't miss out!

A snapshot from my wasted youth.

If you want to get a glimpse into the experiences that have made me what I am today, head on over to this post on Zhadi's Den. Then come back here and make fun of me.

Zhadi's Den is the work of my childhood friend Dana Fredsti. Dana and I have been friends since junior high and, because I have the memory of a goldfish these days, I can't remember how we met (but she will). Dana and I are hard at work on What Women Really Want in Bed.

And we're both writing for Ravenous Romance (although my guess is that she's the one actually "writing," as lately, all I've been doing is thinking about writing).

By the way, in case you're too busy making fun of me to read the comments on Zhadi's Blog, know that it wasn't "booze" that we were drinking. Heck no. It was Scotch and sweet vermouth, also known as a "Rob Roy." I feel a little queasy just thinking about it.

BlogHer '08: Fivestar interviews me at the Sex & Relationships Birds of a Feather Meet-Up.

One of the sessions I enjoyed most at BlogHer '08 was the Sex & Relationships Birds of a Feather Meet-Up on Friday. (Details later, in a subsequent blog post. Yeah, I'm a tease. Sorry.)

Afterwards, video artist Fivestar interviewed me for a video, "The Quick and Dirty BlogHer '08 Sex Video," for her blog, iamFivestar. We talked about how I got started writing about sex (accidentally), how the Internet has changed sex (more choices for women), and a bunch of other stuff.

Fivestar's friendliness and warmth made it a really fun interview. I'd talk to her about sex any time!

The unfairness doctrine, revisited.

Back in March, I wrote about "The unfairness doctrine." As in, "It's just not fair that [insert name of unfit parent here] gets to have children, and I don't." Of course, we infertile people don't like to admit that we even have this thought, but we do.

The unfairness doctrine raised its ugly head for me again when I found out recently that a family friend is pregnant with her second child. She's a wonderful person and a great mom, so normally, this would be cause for celebration. And I am happy for her. Really. But here's the thing: She got pregnant during a visit from her estranged husband, who lives on the other side of the country.

So my first thought when I heard this news was: It's just not fair. I mean, on our third and last IVF, which was medicated and timed to the minute, we transferred four embryos and a goddamned blastocyst, and I still didn't get pregnant. And I'm married to a guy who's one of the best dads I've ever seen. If anyone "deserves" another baby, it's him.

But then I noticed something else. This time, the unfairness doctrine only lasted for a second. (OK, maybe 5 seconds.) It resolved quickly into an internal shrug of the shoulders and the thought, Oh well, who can explain how the Universe works? I didn't feel that blow to the heart that I used to feel when hearing or reading about someone else's pregnancy. Could it be that I've actually come to terms with my infertility, and with being the parent of a singleton?

A lot of doors have opened for me since we stopped trying to get pregnant. I finished a book, signed a contract for the next one, and had a short story (which the publisher wants me to turn into a novel) accepted to a publication. In my "other" life, I also got a great new job that I'll start Monday. Not everything's perfect (witness my thigh and my sex life), but it's pretty good.

I will always wonder what our second child would have been like. And it's hard not to be aware of one's cycle, or worry about what you eat and drink. But in some ways, I'm moving on.

I was also going to talk in this post about one of the great panels I attended at BlogHer '08: called "When the Road to Motherhood is Anything But Smooth: Infertility, Adoption and Miscarriage Bloggers." But this post is getting long...so hang on to your horses. I'll talk about it, and the fabulous Sex and Relationships meet-up I sat in on, in my next posts.

Just back from BlogHer '08, and now have blogger's block.

So I just finished two days at BlogHer '08. It was wonderful and amazing and I feel like I should blog about it at length.

But I can't.

I have total blogger's block. I'm on complete blogging overload. I met so many great bloggers and heard so many great posts read at the BlogHer Community Keynote and sat in on so many great panels that I'm convinced right at this moment that anything I wrote would SUCK.

I even left the closing cocktail party at Macy's early, after hanging out with a very nice woman named Anna from Austin who blogs about cookies and gets like 4,000 hits a day while I get maybe 2, because I was so overwhelmed and yes, a little burnt out on talking about blogging. (Anna, I'm terribly embarrassed to admit that, because I have the memory of a goldfish, I've already forgotten the name of your blog but will link to it if/when you email me.)

And I wanted to see my husband and son.

So I will write a better post about BlogHer. Just not tonight.

BlogHer '08 in San Francisco

Just signed up for the BlogHer '08 Conference, July 18-20, in San Francisco. I'm pretty psyched. I attended Web 2.0 Expo in April (seems like it was just yesterday), and really enjoyed it, but women were a definite minority.

BlogHer has several breakout sessions devoted to "MommyBlogging": I'm not so sure I'm crazy about the term (I haven't seen many references to "DaddyBlogging"), but I'm very interested in the topics: "Is MommyBlogging Still a Radical Act?", "Public Parenting and Privacy," and "Mirrors: Ours, the Media's, Our Cultures' and Our Kids'."

And there's also a session on infertility: "When the Road To Motherhood Is Anything But Smooth: Infertility, Adoption and Miscarriage Bloggers."

Oh, and there are even birds-of-a-feather sessions on "Sex and Relationships" and for "Entertainment Bloggers." So it looks like I'll have all my bases covered, no pun intended. And you thought I was just indecisive in my choice of blog topics.

If you're going to BlogHer '08, let me know!

Vote for The Mind Reels

I thought I was done with cliques and popularity contests when I graduated from high school. Silly me. I didn't yet know about the Greek system. Or the corporate world. And just when I thought I had those milieus figured out, the Internet came along.

Please help me find a seat at the online version of the cool kids' table by voting for me in the blogger's choice awards:



Caveat: I'm nominated in the Hottest Mommy Blogger award not because I think I'm hot (I know what I look like when I wake up in the morning, and it's not Angelina Jolie), but because:

1. I didn't think I'd have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the Best Parenting Blog, what with Finslippy and all.
2. I write about sex. A lot.
   
3. The cool kids in high school (or college, for that matter) would never in a million years have expected me to become a sex writer.

So here it is, in a nutshell: You can help me overcome years of bowl haircuts, glasses, braces, being the smart girl, having a Farrah Fawcett hairstyle, and being an overweight co-ed with a Dorothy Hamill 'do. And give me something to talk about at the next reunion.

Next up: My nominations for the world's worst parents, and my return to Human Pinchushion status.

Gifts to open in front of your mother-in-law.

Some friends dropped by to celebrate my husband's birthday tonight over pizza, beer and cake. Don't worry. They were actually invited, if an Evite counts as an actual invitation. We live in the 'burbs, so no one just "drops by." There were toddlers running around and everything.

There were also bloggers running around. (Because we bloggers travel in packs, like wolves.) One of said bloggers--who writes the very funny Letters from Estonia and Planet Timbotron--gave my hubby this as a gift:


That's right. Hot pink "color for the hair down there." Who comes up with these things? Several of our friends couldn't even meet our eyes. For party guests, thinking about--or commenting on--your host or hostess' pubic hair color is a big Miss Manners no-no, I'd guess.

And yes, my mother-in-law was there, but she just laughed. She's pretty darn cool.