Traveling together. This opens up all kinds of possibilities for discovery. You're really together when traveling. Proximity and the logistics of this trip means that Certain Things will come up.

We'll be hiking. I have no stamina. At all. This was not true when I was going to yoga every day, but that's lapsed somewhat, and my wind was the first thing to go. I'm going to be the sad little puffing girl who can't keep up.

It's going to be hot. I get sweaty. I always feel like I'm the sweatiest person in the room. When the room is hot, that is. For a brief, shining couple of months, I worked with a guy who was sweatier than me and we bonded in our ickiness. No one likes sweaty. I've been assured that everyone thinks they're the sweatiest person in the room, but I don't think that's true.

There's the bench thing. I love benches. I can't pass a bench strategically aimed at a scenic spot without sitting on it, at least for a few seconds. I mean, if someone took the trouble to aim a bench at something, the least I can do is sit there for a minute and appreciate it.

Thank God he already knows about the peeing thing. I have no problem peeing outside, but I'm going to have to ask him to cover his ears.

Luckily, the whole video game thing, which I have kept impressively under wraps thus far, will not be an issue whilst in another country.

When you start dating, you realize there are a number of things you don't necessarily want the other party to know about — at least, not at first. Habits, tendencies, things you're mildly embarrassed about, things you're not sure will go over well, things that didn't go over well with the last partner. They're small, yes — not really that big a deal in the grand scheme of things — but you're not necessarily eager to share them.

I mean, you can love and trust someone and still not want to them to know you have a really, really hard time peeing when you think anyone can hear.

Since we're in a long distance relationship, when Mike and I see each other we stay in each other's apartments. This means we're together a lot of the time. This means he's figured a lot out already.

And no, I can't pee if I think anyone can hear. Or if I think someone's waiting for the bathroom. Obviously, this had to come out into the open early on. He hasn't stopped rolling his eyes, but he has let me pile pillows on his head before I head to the bathroom.

He's found out how I feel about jammies. In that I like them — a lot. In that I tend to come home from work, put them on, and stay in them the rest of the day. In that I avoid getting dressed as long as possible over the weekend.

He knows the house kind of revolves around the cats.

I've had to admit, recently, that I have a number of friends I only know through the Internet.

He knows I smoke sometimes.

These things have all come to light. None of them, of course, have been a big deal, but all of them were things I was reluctant to share. They are all things that may not have been learned as soon as they were if we hadn't been sharing a space.

In less than a month, we're taking a trip together. There's no hiding when you're traveling. What will come to light then?

I am back from Vienna. It was cold (very cold), beautiful, cobbled, and simultaneously the perfect place to be alone and very, very lonely. I had a fantastic time, most of the time. But, being me, I spent a lot of time trying to work out exactly how I felt each and every minute of the trip, deciding what that meant, deciding where it means I go from here.

The first day was miserable.

The airline lost my bag, gave me a form to fill out, and shrugged. "If it's still in D.C.," the pleasant but unhelpful woman said, "it will be on tomorrow's flight. Then you'll get it sometime after that. But we don't know where it is."

It was 8 a.m. San Francisco time, it was midnight. I was exhausted and without clean underwear. On top of that, it was cold. Really cold. Too-cold-to-be-outside cold. This presents a problem when the point of your trip is to walk around and look at buildings.

Jet lag makes me unhappy and lonely. And I never remember that. I never think, "Wait, you're always kind of miserable your first day anywhere. This passes, and then you're happy. Go get some schnitzel, take a nap, and wait it out." Instead I think, "What am I doing here? Why am I spending money to be unhappy in Europe instead of being comfy at home, on my couch, with my cat and the Internet?" Clearly, before setting out again, I need to tattoo a reminder to myself on my hand or something.

Next post: things perk up. Also: we spend a great deal of time analyzing exactly how we feel. Also: skeletons.

I never had trouble sleeping before my marriage fell apart. If there was one thing I was good at, it was sleeping. I could do it anywhere, in any and all conditions. I could do it all night. I could do it all morning and all afternoon, for that matter.

I never lay in bed awake, thinking, "Ok, if I fall asleep now I'll still get five hours ... if I fall asleep now I'll still get four hours." I never woke up at three a.m. exhausted, but unable to do anything but flop around on the mattress and make mental to-do lists, over and over.

Nightmares, sure — have had those forever. But your basic, run of the mill insomnia — this is relatively new. And it's killing me.

It's been about two years since a sleep-when-I-go-to-bed, sleep-through-the-night night hasn't been something noteworthy. Now I'm at the point where when I manage to sleep a whole six hours in a row, it makes my Facebook status.

It's a whole subculture, this insomnia thing. There's a weird "You can't sleep either?" bond I have with a couple of friends. Nick and I lament over IM and trade homeopathic remedies. My problem with homeopathic answers is that they work miraculously for about a month, and then stop. The wonder and beauty that was Calms Forte has, sadly, come to an end.

Jake was well on his way to a sleeping pill addiction when we split up, which scared the pants off me. There's a history of addiction in my family as well, so I'm not about to start on any kind of "real" medication. I figure, well, I'm ok with being alone again. I'm ok dating again. I'm close to being ok being in a relationship again. So I'm just going to assume that, someday, I will sleep again.

I am lying on a narrow bed, naked from the waist down. Parts of me are bald that have not been bald since I was 12. Lena, a lovely young Bulgarian woman with fantastic hair, has been poking about in my personals for the past half hour, and now I am curled on my side, holding my asscheeks open as we discuss my teaching career.

This is not a situation I expected to find myself in without, say, dinner first.

Waxing is both more and less painful than I had imagined. The bits one would think would be the most sensitive are surprisingly hardy and the waxing is relatively painless. Surprising and awkward — but not painful. The anticipation is worse than the yanking, but I can't seem to stop anticipating.

The other bit, the visible bit, the bit I really didn't want to lose much of — holy fuck, does that hurt.

I have asked for this bit to remain relatively intact, not being a fan of the prepubescent/porn star look, but when Lena asks if I like the shape, I look down to see there's merely a Charlie Chaplin-esque little mustache sitting there.

"It's nice, yes?" she asks.

Other than my silly little pubic mustache, the experience wasn't bad. It's been a day now, and everything's looking good. Startlingly bald, but good.

I don't even feel like I've given in. I read Naomi Dunne's post about women changing their appearance when they get divorced. Lots of them, she says, seem to cut their hair. I'm just hopping on that bandwagon, right? It's perfectly normal.

This weekend we'll see if that thing about the sex is true. I'll be sure to keep you posted.

Today: Alice's friends cajole.

"So, I thought of you today as I was getting waxed," my friend Jen says.

I'm in Chicago this week, visiting my college roommate, Jess. Jess, Jen, and I have been drinking steadily for three days and discussing the issues I have with being single.

"Since we were talking about your grooming questions yesterday, I asked if this place is open tomorrow. It is. I can call and make you an appointment if you want."

"I thought we had already discussed this," I say.

"You need to try it. You just feel better — cleaner. All the time," Jen says.

"Oh, yes," Jess chimes in from the kitchen, where she's mixing drinks. "You feel great."

"You're single now. You look great, you're leaving this divorce behind — do something for yourself."

"I don't know," I say. "I've always said I would never do this."

"You have to trust me," Jen says. "The most important thing is, it feels great. You'll wonder how you did without it. Second most important: the sex is amazing."

"Oh, yes," Jess agrees, bringing in the drinks. "Sex is way better. Best sex ever."

"It's just," I say, "I really like not being that high maintenance about things. I'd feel like I was capitulating."

"At the end of the day," Jen says, "some of those things we give up because we don't want to be high maintenance are actually quite worth having."

A couple of cocktails later, I let her make an appointment.

Next post: Alice allows a complete stranger, despite there being no likelihood of orgasm, free reign over her private bits.

I have never been a girl who takes a lot of time in front of the mirror.

I am troubled by my sister — who takes a good half hour between "let's go" and actually leaving — and by friends who won't camp because they can't plug in their flat irons. I love being the girl who only takes fifteen minutes from shower to door. I love that I neither know nor care about makeup or fashion beyond what makes me happy and comfy.

Now I'm divorcing and having to pay more attention to personal grooming. What I'm finding problematic, for the most part, is the necessity of consistency. Married, if I didn't shave my legs for a while, who cared? Now, though, I'm engaging in this tedious activity constantly.

What if, walking home tomorrow, I run into Jon Stewart and he offers to take me home and ravish me? What if he runs away in horror because of my prickly yeti legs? Being constantly prepared for unexpected ravishing, making sure all my bits are trimmed/exfoliated/lotioned/attractively covered — the effort is exhausting.

Here is the tragic reality — I can no longer be the smugly low-maintenance girl who doesn't own a blow dryer. I can no longer fill my medicine cabinet merely with band-aids and floss. This single business is a whole new ball of wax. Literally.

Waxing — this is where I draw the line. I'm sorry, no. I am not letting some stranger loose on my girly parts if there's no foreplay involved. As slippery as this beauty routine slope is proving to be, I refuse to succumb.

Next post: Alice visits friends who challenge her with peer pressure and promises of great sex.