Psst…this post is about S-E-X, oh, and a pretty sweet giveaway

A few weeks ago, I was approached by HarperCollins to do a book review of Thanks for Coming: One Young Woman’s Quest for an Orgasm by Mara Altman. My immediate reaction was, um, YES because a) I’m obsessed with memoirs and b) who doesn’t love to read/write/talk about or have sex? Not this girl!

My lovely review copy came just in time for me to pack it with me on the plane to Mexico. I started it right away while lying poolside on day one, and HELLO, I couldn’t put it down! I kinda wanted my BF to go off on solo snorkeling trips all the time, just so I could be left alone with the book. Now, if you know me, you know that I read a lot of books and a review like that should come highly coveted. [I'm not just giving a rave review for shits and giggles or suck-up points.]

At age 26 Altman realizes that she’s never had an orgasm and goes on an emotional, physical and sometimes spiritual quest for one. Immediately you’ll probably have the reaction that my boyfriend did when I told him about the book, “Not even with a vibrator?”

No. Not even that. And for the first 100 pages I was like, “Girl! Just go out and buy a freakin vibrator!” as she carefully, with the detail of a true journalist, logs all of her past sexual relationships, growing up with a sexually open “naked family,” and her emotional attachments, or nonattachments, that have prevented her from orgasming. Pretty soon, everyone in her story was telling her to just.go.out, and buy a VIBRATOR too, but for Altman, it was more of a personal journey and exploration. Altman’s quest turned from simply searching for orgasm, to searching for the sexual being in her that would let go of all inhibitions, insecurities and just LOVE being a woman, even with all the grody details that womanhood sometimes entails.

Altman is insightful, witty (even the mere chapter titles crack me up) and delightfully honest. And what keeps the book rolling, page after page, is her secret door into the crazy underworld of sex. I don’t even know where she obtained half the contacts she did, but as she searches for her orgasmic self and the MEANING OF ORGASM, she spends time with sex workers and scientists, goes to sex shows and conventions, takes off on trips with a sex colony, interviews women that have been deemed the original, ALL-KNOWING sources of the female orgasm, and regularly experiments with her “sacred whore.”

You’ll want to read this book, if for nothing else than to kick up your sex vibe a bit – if you read about sex, you’re thinking about sex, and it pretty much makes you want to have sex all the time. I think I wanted to have sex 462 times a day while I read this book. That might be TMI, but nothing like the TMI you’ll read in Thanks for Coming…

So, the book went on sale today, but I have five lovely copies to give away to you, blog readers! Isn’t that exciting? All you have to do is enter the contest by telling me in the comments how many people you’ve slept with!

Joke.

Just leave any comment, no special response necessary, and you’ll be entered. If your comment doesn’t link to a site, be sure to leave your email or send it to me privately at whatjesaid@gmail.com. If you have a Twitter account, and Tweet about the contest, I’ll give you a double entry. The giveaway closes on Friday, and I will choose five winners at random and mail out your copy of the book this weekend!

(P.S. The first person to leave a comment automatically wins a book just because your Twitter or RSS skills rock).

Currently Feeling: Groggy. I couldn’t stop watching Trading Spouses last night. Those people are craaazy!
Currently Anticipating: Checking out some more sweet condos/apartments tonight. I’m anxious to make a decision this week!
Currently Needing: To get back into The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I opted for lighter reading during vacation, and now I’m not into it.

Departmental Fattening

I’m trying really, really hard to watch my carb and sugar intake. Blah, blah, blah. Story of my life. But really, I don’t want to look like a rolly polly stuffed sausage in my Halloween costume or my super slutty Heido-Ho, German Beer Maid costume that I’m sporting at Leavenworth’s Oktoberfest this year. So, this of course requires a little “back on track” thinking.

Like maybe I should stop eating Mac ‘n’ Cheese or Eggs Benedict for every meal on the weekends, drinking a case of beer on Fridays and Saturdays, helping myself to the candy bowl DIRECTLY behind my desk, three times a day. Or stop dreaming about Dick’s cheeseburgers and strawberry shakes. Or maybe teriyaki, or two soft tacos from Taco Bell. Or Spaghetti Vesuvius from the Old Spaghetti Factory. Or a big plate of cheesy enchiladas, chips and salsa, and a margarita from Jalisco’s.

Oh really, the list goes on.

They say the average person makes 200 food-related decisions a day.

So, here’s what would help me decide the good instead of the bad:

Stop bringing effing cookies and candy and treats and licorice and chocolate bars and Jelly Bellys, and fruit tortes and birthday cake and baby shower cake and marshmallow Peeps and blueberry pound cake and Oreo cream cakes and…

Not gonna lie. I just got up, mid-sentence, to go grab some Australian strawberry licorice that is sitting on the coffee stand before I finished the list.

… and Dove chocolate candies and brownies and butterscotch oatmeal cookies and mini Kit Kats and Twix.

(That was literally a list of everything that’s been available in my office in the last two weeks.)

My ass is going to grow to three times the size it is if you don’t stop. You damn coworkers.

Eight-hundred extra sugar-induced calories and eight hours sitting in a chair in front of a computer do not a sexy single 20-something make.

Currently Feeling: Pleasantly happy this week. Maybe I’m on mood elevators.
Currently Anticipating: Fremont Oktoberfest this weekend! My FAVORITE beer festival.
Currently Wondering: If I have the capacity to writer for ANOTHER blog. The topic that’s been presented to me? Dating. Go figure.

Neighborhood Battle

Ahh. Summer. It’s that time of year, finally, where windows in your house are constantly open, the fan is drug out of the hall closet, and it’s necessary to sleep in only what’s necessary.

For me, this newfound, bedroom-window-wide-open state of sleeping has led to another summertime gem:

Neighbor Sex.

Ewww.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but my bedroom window faces out to the street, and my neighbor’s bedroom window faces toward my window on the side of our building, (the two walls form a 90-degree corner). Basically, this puts our two windows mere feet from each other. Even Stella is a little disturbed by it, and took up meowing and staring from my windowsill to theirs every time they talk or make noise.

I first discovered this new Neighbor Sex when I came down from our rooftop patio late last week after having the “I’m just not that into you” conversation. I was lying in bed, trying to figure out how I felt—sad or complacent—when I heard the moans. Ok. That’s always a little weird. I mean, we all have loud sex, but who wants to hear others doing it? It’s just creepy and gross. It’s bad enough when you overhear your friends or roommates, but it’s even grosser when you overhear people you don’t even know. And let me tell you how fun it is to hear passionate lovemaking when you’ve just been dumped.
Jerks.

But last night was seriously over the top. It was way more details than I EVER needed. For instance, I heard their conversation before they got nasty. I heard him tell her she looked pretty (did she put on some skimpy lingerie?!), then I heard the moans…both female AND male. But, for the male it was more grunts than moans. And I heard bodies slapping. I mean, really, slapping, breathing, grunting, stopping and changing positions, moaning and then the finale.

I felt really, really violated. I was in my own bed…where else was I supposed to go? And I was reading and didn’t have a movie to watch, so drowning out the sounds with the television was out of the question. And no way was I going to shut the window! I would have melted to death by morning.

This, my friends, is a conundrum.

I’m sure it’s going to continue. And I’m not going to sleep elsewhere or shut the effing window. So, I’ve decided that I’m just going to have to beat them to it. I’m going to have to have the loudest, grossest, most detailed sex ever…hopefully when they’re listening. And we can have a f*ck-off.

That’s right. I’m challenging my neighbors to f*ck-off.

Currently Feeling: Sad and bored without Amanda or a boy toy.
Currently Anticipating: Drinks on the Links starts tomorrow!
Currently Reading: Twilight: a 14-year-olds book about love and vampires. (Weird.)

Gas Station Lovin’

I’ve officially regressed back into my man-retarded ways. I was getting good there…picking them up left and right, dating, smooching, flirting, laughing and loving. Then I think the last one just exhausted me, and ever since, I’ve been a little A-sexual. I need to snap the hell out of it though. Monday, I ruined a perfectly good chance that just about came and slapped me in the face…

The summer Amanda and I lived together; we were always running about, meeting new people and partying with neighbors or randoms that we picked up at Golden Gardens. One particular random sticks out to me because I Amanda and I have a photo taken with him and he has a bright red t-shirt on with a fishhook on the front and some clever saying about hookers. I ran into the said random approximately six months ago while grocery shopping at Safeway on lower Queen Anne. The two of us caught eyes a couple times until he finally came up to me in the meat department and said, “If this grocery store is a meat market, you must be the prime rib…”

Just joking. He didn’t say that. But he did ask me if I went to Western, and we had a small chat about hanging out a couple summers back. I small-talked with him for a bit, then we parted ways, and I really didn’t think anything of it.

Monday, I was coming home from work and stopped to get gas at the Chevron station on way south 99. I pulled into a stall, and the guy pumping gas at the stall in front of me was the same random guy. Except this time, he looked a whole lot cuter than I remember thinking he was. I smiled at him while seductively throwing away the garbage from my car. (Come on! I’m just trying to make this gas station pick-up story sound more sexy time.) “Did you go to Western?” He asked again. I’m glad I did, otherwise I think he’d run out of pick-up lines. I chatted with him for a bit, but was honestly in a hurry to get home, make dinner and go to belly dancing. Flirting with someone was the last thing on my mind. I had just come from sitting in front of a computer screen for eight and one-half hours. Obviously, human interaction was not on my list of things to accomplish that day. He asked me if I lived with a roommate or a boyfriend, and I replied, “I live with a Sarah.” He full on laughed at me, “You live with A Sarah?!”

God. I’m such as idiot. He kept talking, telling me that my car was cute and it suited me. He was clearly flirting with me. But, I could barely form words out of my mouth. I eventually walked away mid sentence and said, “Have a good night!” He looked a little crestfallen and walked into the mini mart to pay for his gas.

I got into my car and kicked myself all the way home. Why did I act so retarded. Why didn’t I get his number, why didn’t I casually say, “We should hang out some time,” like I always do?! Shit. He was the cutest, most normal boy I’ve interacted with in a long time.

I even tried to stalk him on MySpace when I got home. But, to no avail. Damn! I was SO prepared to tell people when they asked, “Oh. We met at a gas station.”

Next time I run into him, I’m throwing myself at him completely. Better start practicing…

Currently Feeling: Antsy to get off work and drive home in the sunshine.
Currently Anticipating: Gossiping with the ladies over dinner tonight.
Currently Hating: That I spent a big chunk of the only money I had at Trader Joe’s last night. That place is SO addicting!

British Exercise

Yesterday was my dreaded monthly training session at the gym where a trainer measures me and compares my progress to last month’s. Normally, I am pumped for this because then I can actually get a little retribution for the hard work and determination I’ve invested in this “losing weight” thing. (Hard work and determination that does not extend to giving up alcohol or other unhealthy vices.), Anyway, I was dreading yesterday’s because I have slacked off for two weeks or so prior and after my trip to San Diego. To my surprise, however, after yesterday’s session I learned that I reached the measurement goals that were set up for me when I first started at the gym, and I lost five pounds! How does that work?

After running a few options through my head…no, I haven’t starved myself…no, I haven’t been drinking less…etc. etc, I’ve come to a conclusion. I’m utterly convinced it’s sex. I’ve been diligently trying to lose weight for two months now, and the two weeks I take off from the gym, I have sex four or so times a week and suddenly I lose five pounds. I love it. On the other hand, my love for British men and accents might run a little too deep. The trainer who worked with me yesterday was British, and I swear they’re a nation of sweet-talkers. He convinced me somehow, and I’m still trying to figure out how, to sign a commitment form to pay for personal training sessions in a couple weeks, and he is going to be contacting me. Personal training is something that I am extremely interested in, however, it is incredibly expensive and I’ve been trying to pay off debts, bills and rent in a timely manner. (I’m finally learning how to be responsible and somewhat self-sufficient at age 24). So, now I’ve committed to paying him $230 for three training sessions. Whoops. Oh well, I suppose it’s better than $230 on another pair of jeans or shoes. At least this way I’m doing something better for my health. AND from this point forth I will be able to compare the benefits of sex with a British man and work-outs with a British man. Updates to come…