I’m packing. Sometimes I feel like my father back when he’d pack for business trips. He had a routine where he’d arrange the same items in the same order. And there were always a few things he’d never fully unpack. A pad of paper. Aspirin. Travel alarm. I’m realizing now that I do the same – I’m like a business traveler but with different habits and intentions.

There are two small satin bags that I keep in the side pockets: one contains a handful of condoms (Crown, Durex), the other contains a Lelo vibrator. The Lelo’s good, sort of a tricked-out number with some interesting settings. I use it for travel – at home I use my Hitachi (every woman’s got one) or a Pure Wand, which weighs a ton but looks and feels amazing. And I’ve learned that I need, and I do mean need, a vibrator when I travel. The jetlag affects my libido, and sometimes I’m just struck with urgent need to come. My hands are fine for slow, sleepy, intensely frustrating strokes but they’re terrible at bringing me off. I’ve got lazy, lazy wrists.

And I always seem to have a pair of leather gloves in my suitcase, though I’m not sure why. I think I own about fifteen pairs of gloves and they’re starting to mix up on me, like socks, with missing twins.

I pack Tylenol PM and Vivarin, because my sleep cycles are chemically dependent. Some Aleve. Some Ester C. There’s usually a pair of opaque black thigh highs tucked next to the condoms. A small atomizer with the perfume I use. A pair of stockings.

I also keep a couple of those laminated Streetwise maps for most of the big cities. Gum. A notebook and a few pens (Lamy fountain pens, because I’m left-handed and they don’t give me grief). Extra chargers. Converters for Europe and the UK. A couple of flash drives.

And in the carry-on, a fully charged iPod and a good set of headphones. I can leave the rest behind and be fine, but without music, I genuinely suffer.