It always comes at night, when I'm sleeping, and I usually know it because I'm having some sort of messed up dream about glass being ground up in my uterus. I wake, step out of bed, and a cascade of bright red, crime scene looking blood pours all over my floor, my legs, the laundry that I totally meant to fold, but now have to rewash. And for the next three to five days I'm bound to ruin more than one pair of pants. I get horrible headaches, I'm tired, and I'm a bit of a bitch to everyone around me, especially if they suggest that the reason I'm a bitch is that I'm on my period. Car commercials make me cry. "Oh, look at how fast that car can go. It's so beautiful." sobsobsob

Man. I turn into a total nutjob.

Yes, yes, I know. Having a period reminds me that my body is in healthy, working order. Hooray. Big deal. I'm sure that if I didn't have my period, I would figure out some other system of knowing if my body was in healthy, working order. But I have to have stupid periods, and my way of sticking it to Mother Nature on that one is that I always figure out a way to get laid during my periods.

Sex during my periods isn't any better or worse than sex the rest of the month, but it does require more thought and preparation. It also requires that you let the person you're about to sleep with know that you're bleeding in advance. I've had an over eager lover not understand I was on my period and shove himself inside, cramming the tampon into my cervix. Learned from that one.

So, here are a few of the tips I've picked up along the way.