My first nickname was given to me by my much older and very cruel creative older brother Aaron.

Stumpy.

Apparently, because I was short* and and stubbly like a small, uh, stump, he decided that this would be my nickname. And it was for the first 23 years of my life, until his wife chewed him out for it.

My parents called me Rebecca because they seem to think Becky is a terrible name which seems awfully stupid to me, because Becky is the logical shortening of that name, but whatever. They’re hippies and hippies wear Patchouli Oil and THAT doesn’t REALLY doesn’t make sense. (also, spell check hates Rebecca but loves Becky. THIS IS NOT A COINCIDENCE, PEOPLE).

Throughout the years I’ve had other nicknames because really, who doesn’t?

Ben calls me “Mom,” my friends call me “Becks,” “Sherrick” or some variation of the two, and The Daver calls me “Baby” or “Motherfucker.” Both said with equal amounts of love, if you can believe it.

For my first blog, my nickname was Ren, although I usually used my real name because I never could believe that I was important enough that anyone would stalk me and here I absolutely use my real name.

With one addition.

One very IMPORTANT addition.

I am now Your Aunt Becky.

Okay, so I’m obviously not your aunt, because if I were, don’t you think you would have seen me around at some christening or maybe a birthday party somewhere? You’d have certainly gotten some sort of holiday card from me because I’m good like that, and you’d know that I am known for being such a bad cook that no one wants me near the kitchen.

So we’re not related.

But we are.

On the Internet, I am Your Aunt Becky because I am no one’s Aunt Becky in real life.

Admittedly, being The Internet’s Aunt is easier on my Amex because I don’t have to buy you guys frilly hats and booties and spoil you rotten because I don’t know what size you are anyway.

So there we have it.

Nice to meet you, Internet. I am Your Aunt Becky.

*for the record, I am 5 foot 5 inches. I’m hardly a stump.

I’m not a virgin.

No, hold back the gasps of amazement, I know it’s unbelievable. I am 24 years old and I have had sex.

To me, this statement means marvelous little. The lovin’ sessions I have had has always been nice, never earth-shattering, but nice. But to talk about my sexual status is something I’ve always done in the same tone as saying “I like Crest toothpaste, the kind with the sparkles.” It has never meant much of anything to me. It’s not some kind of feat, nor is it some kind of curse on my house. It just sort of is.

Through the years, I have come into contact with people who have not actually had sex. Maybe it was because they didn’t believe in sex before marriage due to their religious beliefs. Or due to a childhood trauma. Maybe the opportunity never presented itself. Or just because. I dunno. Never really mattered much to me either.

I consider it much in the same vein as my statements about having had sex, to be something like, “I like cheese omelets for breakfast” or “purple should be a flavor, dammit!” It’s another nothing statement. I’m full of them.

So what? Big deal. Who cares?

Pashmina informed me that there was this blogging site for virgins over 25 so OF COURSE I had to check it out.

Holy balls, these people are OBSESSED by their virginal status. Totally obsessed. Freakishly obsessed. Like they cannot stop thinking about it ever.

I dunno. If you want to Not Have The Sex, that’s cool, I don’t see The Sex as all that Earth Shattering an event. I’ve never done heroin and I don’t think about how much I wish I could do it all day every day. There are plenty of other things besides The Sex that you can do.

Then again, this is coming from a woman practicing “asstinence.”

Yup.

I’m saving my ass for marriage

It’s hot outside, now, because I live in Chicago where we have 2 seasons: Ass Hot and Ass Cold. And now, to make matters worse, this is my first experience with non-central air. We have several window units in the bedrooms, but the rest of our condo is sticky, muggy, and hot. The window units are pretty pathetic, too, because I think they’re from about 1946 and blow cool air maybe 12% of the time.

I’m just dying to see the electric bill.

I have a sauna in my armpits, they drip and cause my freshly applied deodorant to smell vaguely like cat piss. And my boobs? Well, they’re two life preservers adrift in a sea of salty sweaty juice. My wet hair dries in about 0.45 seconds upon leaving the shower.

But the worst, the ABSOLUTE worst part about living right now, is what the heat turns my vag into. Crotchal hygiene? Out the window. Clean cootch? Gone quicker than you can say “summer curtains” I feel like I’m sitting in pee. If this is what getting old is like, SHOOT ME.

I’m wondering if this is a call for FDS to the rescue but that could be the dehydration talking. I don’t know that I could actually handle buying or using.

Buying ass-pads? No problem. Buying condoms? Again, no biggie. Whatever, it means that I’m getting some ass.

Crotch spray, I don’t know, that just seems kinda, gross. I don’t think I want a lemon-scented vagina because that just seems a little weird to me. Like I’ve just had The Sex with Mr. Clean and he left his calling card as a Thank You for Coming.

Besides, it’s announcing to the entire pharmacy that you have a stinky cooter. Which, yeah, KINDA shameful.

I’d much rather tell the Internet.

When I was 15, I had this soft spot in my heart for boys in bands, specifically, the lead singers. I guess I didn’t really care if they COULD sing, so much as if they DID sing. These boys were “sweet” and “deep,” they could feel pain and express emotion, and do sexxy things like lick the microphone while singing. It was a completely stupid school-grrl fantasy, one in which I frequently indulged and thankfully broke myself of later on.

On the rebound from another boy in a band, I met Ken, who sang in a band called 7 Times Around. The name was super deep, as it meant he had been “through the ringer” with 7 other girls. You know, because at 15 everything is very, very important and relationships happen very quickly.

Well, Your Aunt Becky because dumb ass lucky number 8.

I knew he liked me because he gave me a necklace in the shape of a smiley face with a bullet hole through it’s head. Romantic, eh? That probably should have been my sign to run away, but because I am not only stupid but a masochist too, I stuck around. Not for very long, though, because Ken was a weenie and I knew it. I mainly dated him because, you know, I was trying to get over someone else.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A couple of months later, I’d made my friend Evan pick me up and drive me around in his car, and we were gossiping like a couple of bitches when he’s all, “What happened with you and Ken?”

And I was all, “Dude, I dumped him because he was fucking lame.”

And he was all, “No way.”

I could tell by the way that he said it that he didn’t really believe me.

“Why?” I asked him. “What have you heard?”

“Well,” he said conspiratorially. “You should know that Ken’s been going around telling anyone who will listen that the reason HE dumped YOU is because you wouldn’t put out.”

“Oh?” I said, my eyebrow arched, annoyed. We hadn’t even come close to having The Sex.

“Wait,” he said. “It gets better. You wouldn’t put out, Ken tells us, because you had a yeast infection.”

Internet, I will tell you that I laughed until I cried. Whatever Ken had been smoking, I want some of that.

As the monotony of this past weekend chock full of boring speeches and long lines begins to fade in my mind, and the blisters on my feet from uncomfortable shoes heal, it has finally hit me.

I did it. I fucking graduated from college summa cum laude. No one thought I was going to do it, and I proved them all wrong just like I always do.

And now I cannot I say “I’m a student” when people ask me what I do, I can say “I’m a nurse.” And I am. I start work on July 18.

Well, I have decided to give thanks to those who have helped to see me though these long, long years.

*The Daver: with your undying support and your knack for talking me down from a sheer panic, and your willingness to hold my hair back while I barf from stress, you have been my numero uno* support system. You even pretended to listen while I described in vivid detail the green stuff that I had to scrape off of some other dude’s wang during clinical’s without throwing up.

You deserve a medal or something, man.

*The Benner, my son. You are my first reason for becoming a nurse, and the thing I thank God for most each and every day. You have taught me well to stop and look at the world around me and appreciate the smallest bug and the grandest planet. I can now ALWAYS stop and see the forest for the trees.

*BeJeweled. for the low cost of $4.99, I was able to purchase a version for my phone that I spent many a 3 hour lecture playing. You saved me from pulling out my own eyes with my admittedly long fingernails or gnawing off part of my own arm from the complete and total boredom that was my nursing classes.

*SlimFast. You have saved my diet from many a delicious looking donut. Although you may not taste any better than licking my cat’s butthole, but you have consistently provided me with many vitamins and minerals essential to my body’s well-being.

*Sugar-Free Red Bull. The taste of your brew is essentially no different than drinking Drano, but on many an early, early morning after a late, late night, you have enabled me to get to class or clinical without killing anybody, especially myself. Which, really, was the only one who mattered to me.

*Parliament Lights- the fragrant aroma of your smoke, the wonderful taste in my mouth, the nifty filters that make a sun-shape while being smoked, are just some of the many fantastic components to my addiction. Honestly, you were often the only thing that could get me out of bed when the alarm clock reared it’s ugly head.

*Ortho-Evra- although your adhesive turns grayish black and crusty by the end of the week, and sometimes you itch like herpes, you have successfully prevented me from becoming pregnant with any more children before I am damn ready to do so. Thanks for not letting me get inconveniently knocked up again.

If I neglected to thank you, let me be the first to explain that I did so simply because I hate you. I hate you with all of my heart and soul, and wish that I’d never met you.

Obviously.

*That means “number one” in Spanish. I know that because I have a COLLEGE DEGREE now.

I love men. I really do. I make no bones about it. They aren’t catty unless they’re gay, bitchy unless they have their period, sleazy unless, well, they are, or girly unless there’s a large critter in you’re garage that they don’t want to deal with. I love women. But I love the dudes too.

They tell you what they think about you without mincing words most of the time. And after you tell them what YOU think of THEM, they still love you and call you and tell you when you look like you ate a bowl of Ugly-O’s for breakfast. Most guys don’t look down on you if you didn’t breastfeed your kid for 12 months and they probably don’t really care if you wear the same shirt twice in one week.

Rock on.

That said, I had forgotten how much I hate to LIVE with them. Now sure, let’s be honest, it’s nice to have a *ahem*(slightly) bigger person to be there after a scary movie to “protect” you from the evil girl in the closet. Or to pretend that they’re going to take out the trash and lift heavy stuff except when they totally don’t.

Plus, they’ll hook up anything electronic which means that I don’t have to beg someone smarter than me (which is most of the population) to do it.

When I don’t want to deal with an irritating salesperson I can always beg off, citing that I need to “talk to my husband” and let’s face it, it’s the closest to having my own pair of balls that I’m ever going to get.

That said, I’m never sharing a bathroom with dudes again.

Why?

Because I am fucking tired of living with the casual arcs of pee that artfully decorate not only the toilet seat and the floor, but also the wall and bathtub too. While I’m certain that someone might find that to be high art, I’m afraid I just find it irritating and obnoxious because I am the one stuck cleaning it up.

Also, I am the one stuck cleaning up the pube that I found floating in my diet Coke this morning. The pube that was not my own pube. I know that because my own pubes are not 4 inches long and red. If you are forced to have a pube in your drink, it really is preferable that it be your own. But no, it was not.

I suppose the next time–and I know that there will be a next time–I will merely call it dental floss and move the hell on.

Serenity now.

Living in condos with boys. Hm.

I officially live in a Sausage Factory.

Every couple who has sex without using condoms is familiar with a nasty phenomenon that occurs post-boning. It’s so commonplace that most people can make jokes about it without many quizzical looks or questions unless, of course, you shout it out in a kids museum, in which case it probably takes on a whole new perverted meaning. But THAT is neither here nor there.

That’s right, The Internet, I’m talking about The Dreaded Wet Spot.

This occurs so frequently to me that I have tried to position myself while having sex on The Daver’s side of the bed. This way, when I make my frantic run of shame to the bathroom immediately post-ejaculation, the residual is left for my loving fiance to sleep atop of.

Because I am a very, very nice person.

I’m not really sure what it is that makes the Wet Spot so damn gross to sleep on. I mean, semen itself isn’t exactly awesome, but it’s also not that sick either. It reminds me a lot of pennies and dishwasher detergent, neither of which are all that grody, and plus, if I’m covered in The Spooge, it means I just got laid, which is always full of The Awesome.

But there is something so fundamentally disgusting about the wet spot that kind of astounds me, who is grossed out by so very little. I’m training to be a nurse, for God’s sake, and it’s not poo or anything. I guess it’s cold, and slimy, and sticky and if you fall asleep on it, you’re kinda stuck to that particular stretch of sheet/mattress, trapped on the sheets until your bedmate chooses to pull you off of it.

IF your bed mate is kind enough to pull you off of that, I suppose I should say.

Well, the moral of the story is that last night, I lost the battle with the Wet Spot to totally destroy all Wet Spots. It was truly a sight to behold. And un-luckily, and the reason I’m writing this post, is because it was centered directly on my side of the bed. My back has the strangest crick in it because I spent most of the night arranging myself into positions that didn’t allow too much of my skin contact with the disgusting puddle I nicknamed Lake Spoogekins.

Normally, when I nickname things, even gross things, like Stinky The Skunk, it’s because I love it so very much and I want to keep it forever and ever in a jar under my bed because I am so full of The Love for it.

Not this time, tho. I would punch that Wet Spot in the fucking face if I could.

Asshole.

I met Caroline in junior high when she was assigned to sit next to me in Art Class, my least favorite class of the day because I was about as artsy as a tree-frog on meth. I thought this was fantastic as she was far artsier than I, and I thought the skill might pass through the air via osmosis, and if not, maybe I could copy off her or something. Cheating was wrong and stuff, but so was making me try and pretend to be an artist when I clearly only made paintings that resembled cat pee on plasterboard.

She and I hit it off pretty well and I remember when we were assigned to make and record a commercial for a product we designed (El Famous Hott Burrito) she was the person who helped me get cleaned off when a bucket of water was dumped on me for the commercial. The burrito was hot, you see. Hence the WATER to cool me down. We were obviously budding marketing geniuses.

I ran into her again in high school when we had study hall together and we used to sit in the back row and gossip while everyone else actually studied. A couple of months later, we started riding to school together and we’d hold contests like: Who can smoke the most cigarettes on the way to school? And how can we avoid getting detention for being late AGAIN?

Of course I was thrilled when we had our first period government class together our senior year in high school. I remember that I had a particularly rough morning and Caroline gave me the advice to get up earlier, eat some grapefruit and relax while listening to my Grateful Dead albums. Always the hippie, Caroline was.

She decided that I needed some more Vitamin C in the morning. And it helped: not being much of a morning person, I found they were more tolerable this way. This became my new tradition.

After graduation, we lost touch, as usually happens when people go opposite directions. She was staying around to work and I was headed to Loyola in Chicago.

In the winter of 1999, I got a frantic phone call from my friend Stef. She was in complete hysterics, sobbing to the point of being incoherent. Once she calmed down, she told me the news:

Caroline had been killed earlier in the week.

She’d been in the shower at her mom’s place when her stepfather tried to force the door open, presumably to force himself on her. When she put up a fight, he went into the kitchen and grabbed a knife. He came back and broke the door down.

The coroner stopped counting the stab wounds at 100.

She was 19 years old.

My friend Caroline was laid to rest in a closed casket ceremony.

She’s gone now, and I still can’t believe it.

Every time I hear “China Cat Sunflower” or “Ramble On Rose” or smell the fresh scent of citrus, though, I can feel her around me and I smile. Because she would have wanted me to.

A couple of months ago after a particularly awesome boning session, The Daver and I were laying in bed talking. For the life of me I can’t remember how the comment got brought up because you’d think it would really be kind of important, but it the implications were that Dave disclosed that there were actually ugly vaginas. And that he’d seen them before. I’d never thought of a vagina as ugly before and was immediately on edge.

Scared now, I retorted with, “You mean like the porn roast beef puss?” which was genuinely what I’d thought he meant.

“Nope,” said The Daver. “I hate to break it to you Becky, but some vaginas are just kind of ugly.”

A phobia was born.

Let’s be clear here, Internet. I am not the type of person that likes to get up close and personal with a hand mirror and my crotch. I figured that vaginas, like penises, were all a little different looking, and all a little FUNNY looking, but ugly? Hm, well, if Daver was saying so, it was probably true because even to save his own lily white ass, the man cannot lie.

Well, of course my next thought was if SOME vaginas were funny looking, did that mean that MINE was? I started gnawing on my thumb nail nervously as I remembered how large my newborn son’s head was and how small a vagina is. I quietly processed this in the dark, my eyes as wide as saucers until I quietly piped up with,

“Is having sex with me like throwing a hot dog down a hallway?”

I may have to call in an impartial third party because The Daver couldn’t stop laughing long enough to answer me.

That’s fine.

The next time he brings it up, I’ll tell him that I think penises look like the Alien from Aliens.

I had the worst possible experience this past Sunday when I attempted to show my son that his father is a worthwhile human being by going to Sonny Acres to pick out pumpkins together. What should have been a reasonably (you’re lying through your teeth, Becky, you were dreading this from the moment it was planned) fun time quickly turned into a nightmare.

The Ex, being pissed that I didn’t want to carve pumpkins that day, decided that NO ONE needed pumpkins so we had to leave. Sonny Acres isn’t exactly my thing anyway, so I didn’t protest too much. Besides, I figured Dave and I were taking Ben this Saturday with his future wife, Rose. We’d get some pumpkins then.

Now, to those who know me well, I do whatever I possibly can to get as much stuff as I can when I go out with Nat. Childish, perhaps, but it makes my ickle heart sing as I consider it payback for years of being so goddamn cheap.

So we go to catch lunch together at Olive Garden, per Ben’s request. Lunch quickly becomes a Jerry Springer episode when Nat calls me “the most selfish person in the world,” berates me for being unstable and screams that I’m “ruining my son’s life.”All this, right in front of our son.

Because THAT isn’t gonna fuck up a kid or something. He doesn’t care though, because it’s more important to Nat to be right and to cut me down than it is to take into account the eyeballs of his son watching his every move.

Although the food has just arrived, I made a tactical call. I stood up, kissed Ben goodbye and turned to leave. Nat pulls on my arms to get me to stay and I begin to cry. I quickly said goodbye to my son and walk out of the restaurant sobbing like a little bitch.

After bawling in front of the restaurant like a crazy person I decide that since Ben is upset and I am his mother, I need to go back inside and comfort him. When I went back inside and found Ben hysterical I informed Nat that I was taking my son home, where he belonged.

We paid the bill and EVERYONE IN THE ENTIRE PLACE IS STARING AT US which makes me feel like an even bigger freak than I know I am. Awesome.

I strapped Ben into my car, safely out of earshot and gave Nat a piece of my mind, while he stood there, silently reproachful and apologetic. The anger drained out of him and into me and I drove away angry and sad.

I haven’t spoken to him since.

Tonight my dad called to me from the porch show me the freak show. My porch is the proud recipient of two brand new pumpkins.

Fucking weirdo.