I once spent a week at a gorgeous villa in the Dominican Republic. We were given our own butler who served us lavish breakfasts by a private swimming pool. I had a golf cart to use at my disposal. The water I floated in was the kind of blue you only see in one of those deluxe Crayola packages, the ones that come with the extra special hues. And all of it might have been perfect had I not arrived with the kind of raging bladder infection that made me constantly aware of the fact that I am, without f*cking question, a woman. The pain was searing and unceasing and it all was made somehow worse when I caught a glimpse of my agony in the rearview mirror of the SUV that was shuttling me from the airport to the place my family was staying, a place they’d already arrived at two days prior. In the reflection I saw physical suffering surrounded by about seven miles of hair that had already succumbed to the ravages … Continue reading →

There’s nothing that can f*ck up a vacation more than a lack of compatibility amongst the people you’re traveling with. You know what I mean. Like, sometimes you want to be at the bar until four in the morning because you’ve been talking to that scruffy guy who looks vaguely homeless but you know he’s not because you caught a glimpse of his Prada boots and you’ve found out he’s seen Springsteen play almost as many times as you have and he’s been touching you lightly on the lower back for the last forty minutes in a way that doesn’t make you want to shimmy out of your skin just so you can wash it in bleach and then the friend you’re with announces that it’s time for you to accompany her back to the hotel. (I’m just spitballing here, not recounting an actual experience with a friend who is now dead to me and one of the hottest men I’ve ever seen in real life. Also, hey Jason!) What I mean is that people … Continue reading →