Well, my constituency has spoken: a majority of you in the past few days voted for me to try out My New Pink Button ($29.95, free shipping), the temporary genital dye as reported about on Jezebel and elsewhere. Well, guess what? Just in time for a wild and crazy Friday night, it is delivered discreetly to my house.

For those of you not yet familiar with the product, My New Pink Button is there for us ladies who feel that their junk needs some pinkening up due to age, hormones, or ethnicity. I have not really thought about the color of my ladyparts, well, ever, and I have probably not done the Our Bodies, Ourselves hand mirror thing since before I had children. I feel that anyone who has an opinion about the color of my junkdrawer can take their disco sticks elsewhere, but I was curious about this product for the sake of SCIENCE.

The kit contains 20 of the cheapest eye shadow applicators you will ever see, the kind where the foam is kind of wonkily glued on to the plastic stem. Also included is a small vial of pink powder, helpfully labeled “Marilyn.” I chose this shade because I felt like my vagina could most identify with her: pill-popping, confused, and crammed into small garments. Someone else would have to be a Bettie or an “Audry” (sic?). My favorite part of the kit was the weeniest, most adorbs shot glass I have ever seen. Perhaps this was a hint that I should drink to steel myself for what was to come.

Next up: the instructions.

“Occasionally a woman is self-conscious of her Labia since childhood.”

The instructions say to sprinkle a little of what looks like Barbie blow into the shot glass, wet the applicator, and pick the powder up with the wet applicator.

An overpowering sweet smell rose out of the vial as I sprinkled the powder. The ingredients say it is made from about every fruit that has been trendy for the past ten years, and includes cinnamon. There is also an ominous warning in the instructions that “for some, a slight ‘irritating’ feeling may occur upon application and last for about a minute.” An irritating feeling? Like the cosmetics industry telling me I should be self-conscious about yet another body part? Oh, wait, a different kind of irritating.

Myrrh is misspelled. Should I be concerned?? So is chamomile. Never mind, on with the rejuvenating of my drab baby cannon. I picked up some of the powder, which immediately bloomed with color. Oh dear. What was this, Lik-a-Vagina?

I put the product on and let it sit as the instructions advised. Things were okay for a few seconds, and then…THE BURNING! I have certainly felt worse, but it was very noticeable. The instructions assure me that this burning is “due to the ingredients reacting to your bodies own PH balance which is normal and will go away upon rinsing off the colorant.”

Rinse it off I did, and did I notice a difference? I did not. I will confess to you I took before and after pictures for my own scrutiny. Well hello there my vulva. Long time, no see. Sorry about the burning sensation.

Since I am Irish and turn pretty white in the winter, I decided to do a patch test on my arm, where it did not burn, and I could view it up close to see the staining effect.

During the staining:

After the rinsing:

See that barely-perceptible color change? Yeah. I had a hunch after the way it smelled and how it looked when wet, so I licked my arm before I rinsed it, and it tasted just like unsweetened Kool-Aid.

In summary, I would file this with magic creams that purport to take twenty years off: don’t bother. And don’t think so hard about your vulva, either. Just enjoy it, FFS.

ETA: Hello new visitors. I will be in and out throughout the day releasing new moderated comments. Once you comment once, you’re golden. Thanks for your patience and for the feedback already.

ETA again: Hooray, the Consumerist picked me up!

1/18: Helloooo Jezebelles! I am pleased to become part of my thrice daily reading. Someone mentioned “Betty Beauty,” the pubic hair dye in the comments there. I‘ve reviewed that as well.

Hello, I am starting a group blog for 2010. It will be a focused project on the subject of cooking a particular cuisine. I will be posting (for certain) weekly the results of my experiments, with pictures added. I may post more often. If you have an interest in cooking and photographing your cooking, writing, and (loosely speaking) Victorian England, this might be for you. You will not be paid, but hey, you cannot get fired, either. You can post weekly (or more) but I hope you will check in monthly at least. Humor’s great, and so is serious historical wankery. Let’s learn something together while we entertain the masses.

Drop me a line for more details if you are interested. I am OOT this weekend, but I will get back to you next week. sj@ this domain. Thanks!

Sup suuuup SUP?

I am so psyched, because in this life I never run out of opportunities to dance for you like the dancing monkey I am. I have official poop about the Can I Sit with You? reading that is more than just me shooting my mouth off, a la the other day.

It is April 25 at 8 p.m. at Annex Theatre. Tickets are $5 or $12 (your choice how much you care to donate) and there are only 99 seats! Come and see me and I will totally sign your book. Or come and plug your ears during my part and have me NOT sign your book. Just come! Tell your fronds.

Official Poop about Line up
Buy Tickets through Brown Paper Tickets

And then after buy me a drink because I’m pretty when I’m drunk. Wait, that’s not right. YOU’RE pretty when I’m drunk.

Also today I blobbed about International Women’s Day over at Blogher.

Hey! What did you get up to this afternoon? I had a doctor put in an IUD. I always wondered about what getting an IUD is like, so I thought I’d write about it.

First they made me pee in a cup, of course. You can’t do jack without peeing in a cup.

“Okay,” the nurse said, checking my blood pressure. “We did that to see if you are pregnant.”

“My blood pressure?” Hmm, are you guys Doing it Rong?

“No, the peeing.”

“WELL AM I?” Jeez, don’t leave a person on tenterhooks here.

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s not done yet.”

“DANG!”

“Do you think you are?” she asked.

Sure I do. Does that make me spazzy that I assume I’m pregnant every month until proven innocent or whatever? I thought every fertile woman thought like this. No? Not so much?

Well, I wasn’t. The nurse said that they couldn’t put it in if I was.

Then they took me into a room that had big evil lights, that somehow reminded me of ED 3000.

There were mysterious bottles (iodine?) thrown under the sink.

Then I was asked to strip from the waist down, and the doctor scurried back and forth. She brought in another doctor, who was attending. I always love that look, the naked from the waist down look. At least she gave me a big cover, so I could have a fetching skirt.

I was asked to put my feet in the stirrups. The doctor said, “I won’t make you use the leg rests, because it reminds some women too much of childbirth.” Well, stirrups remind me of all the horrible experiences I’ve had at the gyno. Where is my consolation prize? Can I get some angels to come and gently hold my knees for me?

Interesting, to me, that some women cannot even put their legs in the leg rests after. Also I was like WTFBBQ women are still laboring on their backs??? She asked me how I did it, and I told her squatting and on my knees, because that’s how we peasants roll, and she said, “Oh yeah, I did it like that for someone once. You have to reverse everything in your head.”

Then the rootling started. MMMPH JESUS GOD. Uterus does not like to be rootled around in. Is not junkdrawer.

She pushed a plastic straw thingie up there to “get a measurement” of my uterus. I stared at the ceiling, labor breathing instantly kicking in, as my uterus spasmed. Apparently it is curved, so they really had to crank it around. I couldn’t get a picture, but I imagine it was something like this.

Then it was in, and I was done. It took maybe ten minutes. These were not short minutes, but if it lasts five years it will be worth it. And now I have a cool foreign object in my body. As a consolation prize, Liz sent me a song.

What they don’t tell you is that you may possibly bleed like fuck.

After I was done, I asked her if she would write me a prescription for Viagra. She said she’d check with the pharmacists, and it turns out that it is not approved for women for another 1-2 years, if at all. HELL to the NAW. When it comes out for women, it will probably be recolored PINK and named GENTLE BREEZE instead of “Behold My Rock Hard Clit” ASSHOLES. My words, you must mark them.

Chatz

me: I took a Viagra last night.
Kaijsa: You DID NOT.
me: Oh yers I did.
It was AWESOME
Kaijsa: You are CRAZY
me: Now I cannot rest until I get more.
Kaijsa: Your clit will grow into a tiny penis like Chyna’s.
me: NOOO that is an urban legend.
Kaijsa: BEWARE
me: LOL I am cackling
Kaijsa: No, you’ll just have blurred vision and heart problems.
me: Oh foo.

DOPE

via feministe

Ice-T’s wife at an auto show or some such.

Mrs. T, is that you? Coco T? Eh, someone told me once she had a last name. Would you really need one if you looked like this? (NO.)

Something is missing, though. Something like…five minutes of protochopping.

Ah. The desert, serene and with pyramids and crap pasted in. EVOCATIVE, NO?

Something is missing from the desert, however, which I know because of my arid learnings. Or should I say something is only partly there.

AHA!

That’s better. Now all the camels and their little toes can be friends.

Oh well. At least butt cleavage is out of fashion again.

Awesome. She’s a repeat offender. Well, call me repeatedly AMAZED.

O hay guyz, I have been meaning to tell you that I have a story in this book now. It’s for a good, charitable cause, so don’t worry about the filthy lucre going into my misappropriating mitts to be spent on thigh-high Jessica Simpson boots. Buy for xmas, or I will leave toothmarks in your butter.

FURTHERMOAR, I have been looking for a way to raise some quick dosh for a…how can I say this? ….legal fund (that was hard to type), and I was thinking about collecting unpublished short stories via lulu.

Anyone worked with lulu? Feedbacks? Would you give me money for words and feel like that was a fair trade? Real short stories…not just blob entries, I swear.

And so ends my moment of patheticness for this morning.

Love,

Totie Fields

Cocktails, with commentary or denouncing to follow.

My blog store. Between you and me, I like the way it sounds. I like working it into conversation.

“Christmas is coming. Have you seen my blog store? Let me send you the link.”

It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Am I selling blogs now, you ask, coyly? No. Are you new? I am selling blog merchandise. Or “blerch” as we say in the “biz.” Did you see what I did just then? You can use that casually, but if I find that word with your handle attached to it on the Urban Dictionary or worked into something on Metafilter, I am sending my readers after you. For reals. I don’t want to DoS attack your server, but I will.

ANYWAY. Nothing provides the kind of geek cred that you wish to attain like wearing the merchandise from some website that practically no one’s ever heard of. It will give you cachet at work, though frankly I don’t know why you’d need it, surrounded by WoWers as you are. They wouldn’t know REAL geek cred if a level 55 Druid came up to them and cast a cool buff on them, would they? I didn’t think so. You can feel smug wearing my blerch when you know they are just going to go home and fap to lizard women. On second thought, I guess I wouldn’t want them reading my musings anyway. Pearls before SWINE.

I suppose you would like to know what sets my blog store apart from other blog stores. Other blog stores throw some image file at a tee-shirt company that goes through a currency-fencing middleman service. Not here, at my blog, “What Fresh Blog is This?” You can be assured that my blerch is made by local artisans in my tri-state area who are paid a fair wage to screenprint my witticisms and my menstrual-experience art onto quality organic cotton tees. Well, to be fair, one shirt reads “Blogging is happy agony,” which is a twist on everyone’s favorite hottie be-piped dead French philosopher, but my readers are so clever I don’t have to pedantically attribute anything.

Further, as subscribers of my videoblogging experiments can attest to, I am a voluptuous woman, and frankly, the large “ladyfit” tee shirts sold by other companies are better suited as leg warmers on someone with mammerjammers like mine. And I know I’m not alone. So on the order form after the choices “organic” and “free range” you may also input your exact bust/waist/hip measurements, because I wish to exclude no one from the opportunity to wear my blerch with pride. No one should feel too scrawy or too voluptuous!

Finally, let’s talk about payment. It’s an uncomfortable subject, but the artisans need to eat, too. We must also be thankful for my wonderful nanny who makes all this possible. How else could I update WFBiT? six times a day? Face it, you think you could get by, but around three o’clock you would start wondering what I had for lunch and how the carpet-cleaning company responded to my angry yet professional-sounding letter to their corporate headquarters. Not everyone can make the soap opera of their lives fascinating, but I have the blog touch. The blouch.

So, please, as you are visiting my blog, check out my new blog store linked off my sidebar, entitled, “What Fresh Blurch Is This?” Says it all, and locks down that new word as my intellectual property (read my Creative Commons license if you don’t believe me). Isn’t it time to show the world your obscure and eclectically-geeky tastes? Remember, there are only a little over 40 shopping days till Christmas!