This week has mostly been about having utterly rubbish sleep patterns; working until 4am, lying in bed watching TV until 6am, trying to sleep, giving up at 9am, deciding to 'do things' for the day, making a cup of coffee to drink in bed, waking up seven hours later with coffee cold next to the bed, feeling guilty about doing nothing all day, trying to catch up by working until 4am and repeat. Yesterday, I managed to sleep *all day and all night* which was crap even by my standards - not to mention disconcerting, given I'd thought I'd have a quick doze at 10am and woke up at 8pm wondering where the day had gone - or rather, why it was dark outside when my sleep-fuddled brain was convinced it should be absolutely no later than about 1pm - and going back to sleep.
Anway, as I had so much random insomniac time, I spent a load of time reading. Raced through The World according to Mimi Smartypants which was dead funny and even more fab because it was born out of a blog, which just goes to show that writing about your life online can result in getting published. Actually, it was mostly fab because she talks about sex loads, drinks to excess and witters on about minutiae. Her theory on M&Ms is inspired (and I won't go into it here because then you wouldn't have to buy her book, and you should because it's funny.) However, she also uses the word blather, so words may have to be had.
The thing that's particularly good is that, having really enjoyed the book, I can now go and read updates on her site. So it's like a never-ending book. Luckily, it's random and blathery rather than plot-driven, because otherwise I'd be frantically clicking on the site every day trying to find out what happened to the character who surfaced on page 36 and then didn't do anything else. As it is, I know that they probably got drunk and woke up hungover.
Other than Mimi's book, I've also got half way through The Best Awful by Carrie Fisher - a very funny book about being bi-polar (bi-polar is the new depression, by the way. No-one is just depressed any more, because that just entails wearing black and trying to slash your wrists and lying in bed being smelly and feeling sorry for yourself. Bi-polar, by comparison, is about doing all of those things but then also having bursts of uber-activity and being all hyper and shagging the planet/taking too many drugs/doing other things that are supposed to be all 'cool' and 'wild' but manage to feed back into the depression in a 'higher the highs/lower the lows' kind of way once you fall back down to earth. And before anyone gets on their high-horse and tells me not to slag off people who are mad, I'm speaking from experience here; I've done the bi-polar thing. before it was fashionable and everything. Hence noticing when it overtook 'depression' as the 'madness-du-jour'.) But I digress. Carrie Fisher is actually bi-polar and is thus justified in writing about it. And writing about it very amusingly and accurately too - at least, judging from the first half of the book which is all I've read so far.
Other than reading (am sure I read other stuff too this week, but I can't remember it so it can't have been very good) I finally got round to testing the orgasm machine.
I'd been putting off testing it because I was nervous of drinking the 'electrolyte' drink that you have to have first to open up your nerve endings or some such thing. I was particularly perturbed because, in the accompanying brochure, the drink was bright blue. The only drink that should be bright blue is a raspberry slushy and, given that the orgasm machine didn't come with a mini-slushy-maker, I figured that this wasn't what the drink would taste like.
However, at 5.30am when you've exhausted everything you possibly can (except for replying to emails or tidying the flat which is what you should be doing but, hey, displacement activity is *the* activity to be at nowadays) testing an orgasm machine seems like a good way of spending time.
So, I read through the leaflet that goes with it and managed to terrify myself that I'd end up electrocuting myself and be found, corpse twitching, in a month's time, still attached to the orgasm machine. Which would be a fitting way to go, but nonetheless, not my idea of fun. So, having made very, very, very sure that my skin was dry and the wires were in the right place (not going across the heart because that's a very bad thing) and read all the contra-indications (there's a whole booklet of them) and figured I was probably safe (OK, some of the contra-indications are designed for idiots; 'Do not use while washing hands, showering or bathing'. Given that it's a machine that sends electrical pulses through your body, that *would* seem pretty obvious. But my favourite contra-indication was 'The Slightest Touch is not intended for use on people incapable of expressing their thoughts.' Backing up that it's designed for use by women, I guess...) I got ready to use it.
First, I drank the electrolyte drink - which turned out to be neither blue or nasty tasting. Then I attached the *incredibly* sticky pads to my inner ankles. Finally, I turned on the machine until I could feel a tingling and pulsing in my ankles.
And then I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
OK, there were a couple of clit-twinges but I was pretty sure they were psychosomatic.
I turned up the machine.
The pulses in my inner ankles got more tingly. And, as my inner ankles aren't really up there in 'top erogenous zones', I remained unaroused.
So I waited.
After about ten minutes I started to feel a mild tingling in my thighs.
And that was about it.
After another ten minutes, I gave up and went for a traditional non-electrical-pulse assisted wank and it was far more satisfying. The machine *is* supposed to take up to eight attempts to hit the spot, so I'll give it another couple of goes before writing it off. But at the moment, I'd stick with the Jessica or the Bingo (or even the non-battery-operated Rock Chick) if I want some assistance with my orgasm - or a way of killing time whilst insomniac.
Today, however, I wasn't allowed to be insomniac - or at least, I had to get out of bed whether I'd slept or not; I was doing a lunchtime slot on Joanne Goode's show on London Live, talking about 'nothing much in particular'. I was on with Paul Zenon, comedian and magician, so it ended up being a rather engineered conversation about sex and magic; ie, 'So, we're talking about magic here with Paul Zenon, and, Emily, sometimes sex can be magical - tell us about that.'
But it was fun way of spending a lunchtime, Paul and Jo were both lovely, and doing the show got me out of bed before 7pm, which makes today a rather more productive day than most have been this week.
Luckily, I did have some work to do this week, so I could justify my time sleeping/reading/testing orgasm machines (no, actually, can justify the latter anyway as that's work - did I mention I love my job?) by writing loads in the rare hours that I was awake. Had a big (3,500 words) feature to write for Men's Health, all about fetishes.
Obviously, this required research.
So I spent five days looking up 'watersports', 'bukkake', 'strap-on sex' and other such things online. Clearly, the majority of the sites I found were heavy on psychological detail and didn't contain 'cum-drinking-teen-sluts' or young ladies 'desperate for your piss'. Oh no.
I worry about what's now cached on my computer.
Other than that, had a minor moment of squealliness (OK, one that lasted about a day. OK, three days. OK, I'm still a *bit* squeally.) because my first non-article thing was published this week; the Lovers' Guide Lovemaking Deck - a pack of cards with 52 sex positions on them. I'd pretty much forgotten about it coming out, because I remembered that project as just being 'heavy deadlines and no time' but earlier this week, I got a load of packs through and they look proper and everything. There's a chance that someone might have it on their bookshelf, or next to their bed, or somewhere that isn't disposable. There's an equal chance that you'll be able to get a pack in the remainder bins at one of those 'all books 99p' kind of places but still, it'll be in a bookshop at least.
I got even squeallier because I signed my first autograph this week. I gave my flatmate one of the packs of cards and she said 'will you sign it for me?' Even though it was my flatmate, it was still really cool.
And I realised exactly how pathetic an individual I am.
So, it's Sunday night, my flat's a tip and I have a tonne of emails to reply to.
Clearly it's time to try the orgasm machine again.
Posted by emilyd at February 29, 2004 07:46 PM