Free Life As I Blow It by Sarah Colonna Page B

Fuzzy’s. It never even occurred to me that he would look my way, especially then—I had a particularly awful haircut. I have thick, curly hair so cutting it off above my ears was a terrible mistake. My friend dubbed it “The Ma’am,” because it looked just like Ma’am’s haircut from the TV show
Webster
. Google it—not pretty. At some point Max asked me out and I accepted, but I was still confused. All I wanted to do was find and tell Andy. Now I would have a hot guy and Andy would have Caryn and her flatulence problem, along with the latest fabrication I’d told him about her: a history of gout.
    Max and I went on our date. He turned out to be pretty dumb. He was really, really sweet, but then again most dumb people are. He didn’t get my sense of humor at all, which was a real bummer considering at the time it was my best asset. During my date with Max I made several cracks that fell flat and he stared at me like I had just given him a math quiz. It was so frustrating. That was the first time I’d experienced how disappointing it can be when the only good quality a hot guy has is that he’s hot. That had always seemed like it would be a great thing. I even started to resent his ponytail, which thus far had been one of my favorite features. I began to tune him out and stare at it. I wonderedwhy he had such a luxurious mane when my hair was too short and was growing up toward the sun like a mushroom. I finally decided that since this was going nowhere we should just get back to his apartment and have sex. That seemed like the least I could do for the other girls and gay men who hung out with me at Fuzzy’s and wanted to know all about his penis. It was pretty great, but I still didn’t go out with him again. I did hold a lot of pride knowing that I was the only theater girl who could land this guy, though. The next morning I’d woken up in a frat house positive that no other girl from my “Acting Shakespeare” class ever had.
    Shortly after that, I dated a guy named Tom, who was on the swim team. He was a diver. He had an ass like a grapefruit.
Screw it
, I thought.
Maybe this haircut is really working for me
. I couldn’t wait to have sex with Tom so that I could tell Andy about it. That’s never a great sign. He and Caryn were still dating, although I was pretty sure that the new information I had just given him about her genital warts was starting to get to him. He really wanted to talk to her about it, but I assured him that she had them frozen off so he wasn’t susceptible to them.
    â€œIt’s best not to bring it up. It’ll just embarrass her.”
    The first time I slept with Tom he told me he didn’t have a condom but that he did have shampoo.
    â€œMost of the ingredients in shampoo are the same that are in spermicide,” he explained.
    I just wanted to have sex with him. Andy and I had plans the next day and I needed the story. So I accepted his explanation and we went at it. I kept thinking about my friend Kristy from high school and how she really did believe that baths helped to prevent pregnancies. Somewhere, somehow, the school system was failing us. Tom wasn’t adumb guy, though. He was just using the same strategy to get me to have sex with him as I was using to get Andy and Caryn to stop having sex: lying. For that reason, I couldn’t blame him. I’m just grateful that the only thing I got out of that night was a well-conditioned vagina.
    Tom was cute and fun, passionate and smart, and he thought I was funny. It felt like maybe he was the kind of guy I needed. Perhaps he could get me over Andy. I appreciated that he had focus, even though I felt that diving was an unreliable choice for a college major.
    The next day at lunch Andy asked me how things were going with the diver.
    â€œAmazing,” I exaggerated. “We had sex last night. He’s really got some moves. I guess all that