Illustration by Esme Blegvad.

Illustration by Esme Blegvad.

What’s good, sun medallions? It’s your pal Amy Rose, whom you may or may not know from this Web’s Site, where I have been writing since 2012. As such, “Rookie” is basically what I write on doctors’ forms when I reach the PLACE OF BIRTH line, so I’m real excited to be sharing a piece of my first book, Action: A Book About Sex, with you here. Can you guess what its subject is? If you guessed marine biology, you are only kind of right, as I do mention it in a chapter or two. If you guessed how to give and get consent, whether “sluts” actually exist, gender-identifying as a Britpop song, plus all other matters of getting down: Congratulations to you, too, as these topics are also included. (And, because they are: Some of the below, and this book in general, might not be perfectly suited for Rookies who aren’t yet comfortable with reading about sex, or whose parents/guardians disallow that, so please take that into account before proceeding/blithely cracking this tome open at the dinner table.)

While many of you do not yet have your own domiciles, I thought you might like this bit about how to make your rooms look non-disheveled if a crush is coming by, even if you’re not planning on frenching or boning or anything. A disclaimer: This excerpt acknowledges that people sometimes get together in bodily ways, and that might not be the case for you (yet?). If you are, that’s rad, too! Either way: Please enjoy this home decor lesson as imagined in a fake-game show format, and thanks for letting me hang out in my Rookie homeland with you—because, as you’ll read, I love where I live now…but it can be semi-gross sometimes.

If you’d like to cop Action: A Book About Sex, you can do so at Amazon, Urban Outfitters, or your local bookstore or library, and it’s on Goodreads here!


My home is, on occasion, piled high with refuse. You get it: We exult in our careers (and look great doing it! HAH, I’m wearing two towels as a bikini right now), are busy, and/or are beholden to excessive sloth! All three are true of my situation. But if the bastion of human sexuality just texted you, “I’d love to see you; how about I come over in 30?” great job on landing a dreamboat who uses a semicolon in casual communication, seriously, and HOLY SHIT, you have a graveyard of magazines and broken sunglasses for carpeting. IS THAT A LIVING PIGEON IN THE CORNER, DUDE? Looks like it’s time for another round of…HIDE! THAT! GARBAGE! [studio audience whips itself into a near-to-deafening frenzy]

Hide! That! Garbage
A fake quiz show I just invented to make a cleaning spree seem like less of the frightful punishment we all know it is.

Round One: Trashcatcher! This is like when contestants have to snatch money out of the air as it precipitates inside a little booth, but so much worse. Have two colors of garbage bags on hand to separate actual rubbish from the clutter you just need to stash real quick-like. Pack your various litter/belongings in these, respectively, and hurl them into a closet to deal with at some distant point after you’ve had ten zillion orgazmzzz—your main priority, doye. Verify that the following items are properly concealed: visibly cashed dirty underwear; condom wrappers; Post-its with self-affirming messages written on them in manic penmanship (“YOU ARE A WORTHY CHILD OF THE SUN” = not great to explain, in terms of pillow talk, or also ever, at any other time).

Round Two: Obstacle Recourse! Light a candle and open a window. Stuff all available dresser drawers with whatever nonscuzzy possessions are taking up the most surface area. DO NOT PAUSE TO ORGANIZE. YOU DO NOT HAVE TIME. Throw all remaining stray clothes underneath your bed and excavate them later (this goes for any other floor-eating lumps of stuff you aren’t relegating to plastic-bag purgatory, too). Empty the litter box, if applicable. Make your bed and flip over its top layer if you recently ate, painted, or bled on it. Wipe down surfaces.

Round Three: Bone Zone Bonus Bonanza! Put your books in your bookshelf or stack them in a corner, turning spine-in any volumes that are too cornily 1980s or whatever your version of pulpy Bret Easton Ellis dross is, as well as titles in any way similar to You Are a Worthy Child of the Sun: A Guide to Manifesting Your Inner Zenergy, and also, probably, this book. Make sure you have at least two clean drinking glasses at the ready, then rinse the rest of the dirty dishes and stash them in the oven. FEBREZE. Put on anodyne, affable music, like The Essential Sly and the Family Stone or any De La Soul megamix, so you don’t have to parse the annals of your music library upon the person’s arrival.

Dag: This well-groomed manse was hiding underneath the novelty state keychain collection you spilled two weeks ago, then forgot about, this whole time?

***

What about YOU, darling thing? How are you looking/smelling? My guess is, “Great—yo, what a babe, get over here,” but if you happen to have spent the day playing Game Boy in a fragrant broth of your own sweat heretofore until now, let’s blitz. In order:

  • Take off your clothes and stuff them under the bed or in a closet. As you do this, think about how much fun it’s going to be to disrobe again in the next little while—you know, without all the sessility-based shame.
  • Twitch your nose at your charmpits. Do they smell like they’re about to ferment? If you waver on whether or not they might be terrible, wash those cesspools in the sink, and put on deodorant, for cripes’ sake.
  • Apply perfume or cologne if you’re not already wearing it. Rather than hosing yourself down with fragrance at point-blank range, which unsubtly screams, “I KNEW YOU WERE COMING BY TO INHALE MY EXTERNALITIES FROM CLOSE RANGE IN A FUCK-BASED CAPACITY,” spritz once into the air in front of you from a fully extended arm’s length and walk through the mist in the buff. This gives you more of a “I happen to smell like a seraph who exudes a natural air of jasmine and verbena” type effect. (Side note: What even is verbena? The world may never know.)
  • Strap on some clean underwear that’s free of holes and stains. The newer, the better—every time I denude in front of someone and have to strip off the threadbare Hello Kitty panties that once belonged to my seventh-grade girlfriend and have a bush-revealing hole in the whiskers, I cross my eyes at the heavens, like, How dare you. If you wear bras, make sure this one is intact—dryer-withered underwire is an all-around bummer.
  • Put on an outfit that’s been recently laundered and is easy to take off. No weirdo zippers or buttons, please! Who’s ever trying to make/hear the “joke” that goes, “Ha-ha, I’m out of practice, I guess,” as a maker-out fumbles with inexplicable chest snaps? Not you, not me, not anyone.
  • If your hair is dirty, sprinkle the smallest amount of baby powder in your hands and run them all up throughout that grease trap. If it’s long and a mess, tie it back.
  • Brush your chops, put on makeup if you like it, and curl your lip at the bathroom mirror: You look eminently bangable. ♦