The Sex Manual

When I was almost six years old, I thought nerve endings were pieces of paper that stated whatever you thought about at that part of your body at that moment, like a constantly changing fortune cookie. My biggest fear was that I'd have a nervous breakdown and that people would be able to read my nerves. The horror! I nearly pushed myself into a panic with worry. Not only that, but I had managed to convince myself that the water tower behind our house was the meeting place of many a mad surgeon who loved nothing more than performing nerve operations out of sheer curiosity. I was kind of a morbid little thing anyway and had already written some succinct suicide notes for my stuffed animals in crayon no less. Bye-bye bad world! I had a happy childhood, but I was nervous by nature, prone to histrionics. I also had a thing for younger men -- the first boy I kissed was a year younger. It happened after a lot of intense planning and a game of Vampire, the rules of which I'm a little unclear on now, but it seemed like somebody had to catch somebody else and bare fangs. It doesn't seem that romantic now that I write it down, but at the time, somebody pretending they had pointy teeth they could sink into your neck seemed like the best thing ever.

Michelle's Spell of the Day

"When love walks in the room/ Everybody stand up." Pretenders

The Sex Manual

3/4 oz white creme de cacao
3/4 oz orange juice
1 teaspoon of Galliano

Benedictions and Maledictions

First published in Nerve Cowboy:

Kentucky Derby Day at My Aunt’s House

Explaining why he took his girlfriend
back after she slept with his best
friend, my cousin said, I’m like Don Coyote –
I just keep charging windmills. I
tried not to laugh and resisted the urge
to correct him. Taking another sip
of my Mint Julip, I thought, You’re more
like Wylie Coyote, hammered with the same
bullshit schemes every time, but I have
been both Don and Wylie enough times
not to make the distinction. The Mint Julip
tastes sweet for a second, then the bitter
kick of bourbon. Each year our family
argues about how to make them, each
year they taste the same. It’s a tradition,
my mother says, you can’t watch the Derby
without drinking at least one. It doesn’t matter
if the mint leaves are bruised or crushed, I can’t
drink enough of other things to get the tastes
of the drink we all share out of my mouth.