Not quite ready for prime-time

And now the birds in Australia are dropping like, uh, flies. What is up with the birds, people?? Michael Crichton, you'd best be taking notes.

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On to answering your questions! I have certain friends who know how easily I blush and have decided to make me squirm in embarrassment while answering their questions. However, I'm not backing down from a triple-dog dare, dammit. Heh. TMI-phobics and the squeamish might want to skip today's answers.

The inquisitive Janet asked: I would like to know when you lost your virginity, along with some sort of story about how it went. DO NOT try to say you can't remember that far back. And don't lie about your age either. See, the problem with people who know you too well is that they foresee all your excuses. All right, here goes--and keep in mind that in 1975, attitudes about sex were pretty lax. It wasn't quite the free-love 1960s but close. Also, incurable and fatal STDs hadn't reared their ugly heads yet.

I was 15 and had been dating my 19-year-old boyfriend for a few months. We'd been slowly inching (um . . . unfortunate choice of verb there?) toward doing "it," and he had recently given me his class ring, which I of course wrapped with the de rigeur strand of yarn to make it fit my ring finger. He'd been scouting around for a more romantic location than the backseat of his car, and one spring evening, we drove to the campus of the college he was attending, which was surrounded by woods. He parked and asked if I wanted to go for a walk through the woods. We walked for a while until we came to a spot where he'd earlier stashed a sleeping bag along with a bottle of Lancer's Rose. Back then, that wine was the height of sophistication--well, for middle-class kids in the Midwest, at least.

He spread out the sleeping bag, and we sat and talked and drank wine for a while. When the time came, I was lying on the warm flannel lining of the sleeping bag, looking up at the stars, and feeling relaxed and very loved. I realize now, after hearing several stories of painful or embarrassing first times, how lucky I was that he had a fair amount of experience and was patient and gentle. To this day, camping makes me feel romantic.

Whew. OK, that question was a snap compared to Sasha's question: What is your preferred sexual lubricant and why? Actually, a timely question because I just switched brands. Shortly before Christmas, I was browsing through the on-sale products on Drugstore.com looking for stocking stuffers for Daniel and Kevin: lip balm, shaving cream, and so on. I noticed a product called Liquid Silk, which sounded interesting (and was on sale, the real clincher), so I impulsively clicked Add to Cart. I'm now a big fan. It feels very natural, and there's no sticky residue at all, my main complaint with most lubricants.

I feel like an episode of Sex Talk with Sue Johansson. Tomorrow's topic: Positions for the Frail and Infirm! (I am SO kidding.)

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I need a lie-down now to recover from all this frank birds-and-bees talk, so I'll answer more questions in the next entry. If you have a new or follow-up question, post away in the comments. I have a boring weekend ahead of me, so this will give me something to write about. Oh, and Neargem pointed out that I didn't have any pictures of Picard on my Flickr page. I think I posted a picture of him in an entry a few weeks ago, but I did leave the poor thing out of Flickr. He's camera-shy, so I don't have many photos of him, but I added a couple (link over there in the sidebar).