Ostrich Ink
November 2, 2004

I first noticed the tingle in my ass one afternoon last spring while driving to Thousand Oaks on the 101 on my way to work.

Most people at age 27 would commute halfway to this isolated Mormon breeding-ground for a solid position at a worthwhile company with great health benefits. I drove to Thousand Oaks because the past two years of my life had taken me on a dreary downward spiral from professional journalist to tutor for rich college students—all in the name of supporting myself while I pursued a career as the next Ani DiFranco.

But alas, two years had passed, I still hadn't kicked my debilitating stage fright, and I now took gigs driving two hours a day, five days a week, to tutor a single client: a Golden Age celebrity's learning-disabled great grandson. I resented my lowly station in life; after all, people respected teachers, not tutors, and for this reason my body sent me a warning call in the shape of a tingle in my ass.

Like most people, I ignored the sensation, expecting it, like most ass tingles, to disappear. By the time my '87 Toyota MR2 hit the fast lane the next day, my ass tingle had evolved into a full-fledged lingering itch. My butt tightly crammed into my car's 15-year-old driver's seat with each pass of the clutch, and my sweaty ass began to moan in my stylishly tight pants, which only served to further irritate my condition. I grew to dread each drive and eventually, the sensation grew until I was scratching my ass like a chimpanzee. I scrubbed it with soap each morning, hoping upon hope that it would cease its complaints.

A month came and went before the denial of my condition floated down the toilet with the scratchy toilet paper that provided no relief. I decided to consult a professional. I called my mother.

"You have a hemorrhoid." She laughed at me, not with me. "And it will never go away."

My stomach dropped. "Are you serious? My ass is going to itch like this forever?"

My mom burst into cruel hysterics. "You gave me one when I was giving birth to you," she added. "Serves you right. Go get yourself some Preparation H."

Devastated, I scoured WebMD and realized the probable accuracy of my mother's diagnosis. Later that day, the phone rang.

"How's the 'roid?" my father asked before bursting into laughter.

"That's not funny!"

"Just wanted to tell you," he said. "I got one from driving out to Minnesota once, and it went away. So there's hope."

It was official: I had fallen victim to an unlisted hazard of my thankless job, but there was no worker's comp for an unbearable ass itch, and no reprieve from the necessity of my daily drive. My mother snatched the phone: "Did you get the Preparation H yet?"

I strolled down Santa Monica Blvd. past the roaring jack-hammers and screeching bulldozers that had plagued my front yard for the past year. I entered the corner pharmacy on Westwood, manned by the middle-aged Iranian fellow with the ring of white hair around his bald head. He smiled fatherly when he saw me and nodded in greeting, the memory of his past interrogation about my multiple Ambien and Xanax prescriptions still grating as if he made the comment yesterday. "Why does girl so young need sleeping pill?" I wondered if he still remembered my explaining that I'd had insomnia since I was eight as I slapped the box of hemorrhoid ointment inconspicuously on the counter next to a pack of gum. I would have given anything at that moment to be buying condoms instead.

As my favorite pharmacist tossed the items into a white paper bag, he asked, "Every t'ing OK?" I smiled, nodded, and snatched the bag from the counter. As I scurried back to my pad, my embarrassment burned, but not nearly as much as my hind end.

I read the instructions and decided to use the attachment, which resembled a tiny blue nozzle with numerous pin-sized holes. I shoved the contraption up my crack and squeezed. The mushy Vaseline-like substance squirmed into my ass like a cool winter breeze. The humiliation at the pharmacy was instantly worth it, or so I thought. Flash forward two months and an entire tube of Preparation H later, and the ass itch still ruled my world.

I had ceased dating, preferring instead to strip naked and lie across my couch on my stomach after work, waiting for a cool draft to blow over my crack like the breath of god. By this time summer had arrived, and I had taken a desk job at Back Stage West inputting casting notices. I no longer suffered the two-hour commute, but instead, my ass burned all day long in an ergonomically correct office chair. Despite frequent trips to the bathroom to let my ass breathe, the 7.5 hours spent in that chair might as well have been spent on a bed of nails. Finally, I made an appointment with my doctor.

He entered the examining room, latex gloves a' smacking, and turned me on my side. Halfway expecting to be asked to pose doggy style on the examination table, I faced the wall in my blue paper apron, relieved and awkward. If he'd looked up my coochie I would have felt more comfortable, but to women, the ass is a forbidden place, hairy (well sometimes) and unclean, and that was where my pain literally resided. His diagnosis took two seconds.

"You don't have a hemorrhoid. You have a fungal infection."

I inquired as to qhy one would receive a fungal infection in one's ass.

"Well, there's always a bit of fungus down there," he smiled, telling me I had a very severe version of jock itch. He wrote me a laundry list of foods not to eat, a prescription for antibiotic ass cream and gave me a strict warning not to scratch. With a "try to keep it dry, moisture will only make it worse," he made his exit. Turns out the greasy Preparation H and excessive scratching had made the infection embed itself much deeper. So deep, in fact, that the antibiotic ass cream accelerated the itching and burning to overwhelming heights as my fungal infection fought for its very survival.

Back at work, I squirmed in my chair like a sea otter, now reduced to wearing no underwear whatsoever (big mistake) and sneaking away on my lunch break to leave messages for my doctor—who was now out of town—begging for a new prescription, one that didn't have the added side effect of "itching and burning" as the package stated. The on-call physician gave me the option of quitting the cream and possibly having to start over with another cream and another 10-day regiment when my doctor returned. No, I'd be a brave little Indian. I'd tough it out. After work that night, I attended Outfest at the Director's Guild of America. While lesbians around me got wet over a horrible French I-left-my-husband-because-I-kissed-a-girl-once flick, I wriggled, crossed and uncrossed my legs, leaned on my side, and silently prayed for the movie to end. During the reception, I finally confessed to my friend about my "condition. She laughed at me, not with me.

By Day 10, my ass still burned, the itch still taunted. With my doctor still on vacation, I flew home for my mother's second mastectomy of the year.

"So, how's your ass?" she inquired in her bathrobe from the couch. I told her my sad tale, and she rose with a groan and returned from her bedroom with a metal tube in her palm."

"My doctor gave me this stuff once for vaginal itching. Maybe it'd help your ass."

I slathered it on, hopeful. The cream actually soothed. Within a week, my ass healed.

It's been three months since my ass itch relented, but every once in awhile on the 101, I still get that tingle and curse my unchosen career, my one client, tight pants, nylon underwear and g-strings…but most of all, this wretched automobile-worshipping suburban sprawl of a city that fed me the illusion that I could one day be as remotely talented as Ani DiFranco.