Where The Wild Thoughts Roam

I tend to write things down when I'm feeling introspective or had a monumental paradigm shift. This is definitely one of those moments.  I spent a weekend with someone lovely, a Marine from Florida. Let's call him N. We spent the last few days completely immersed in each other. We slept together, showed, got dressed, and went out together. We weren't apart for too long, at any given point in time.  It wasn't cloying or claustrophobic. There was no invasion of space, even if we were mashed up against each other. It was like this for three days and there wasn't a moment where I felt sick of his company.  This whole weekend, and all the hilarity and aching intimacy it contained, made me realize a few things: 

It is with a glow in my heart that I write this down: the bump is gone! After barely three weeks of treatment with the imiquimod, the bump has completely disappeared and flattened out. The doctor had a look this morning, took note of the blisters, and mentioned that the blisters were a side effect of the medication. I also double-checked that the thing I thought was a mole was actually a mole. He said it was okay, and that everything was all right.  I am extremely lucky that my immune system is so strong. I think the effort of sleeping well, eating properly and getting regular exercise helped a lot. I should also not undermine this progress I've been making by smoking again. Smoking has been linked to cervical cancer, and I need to be sure that I minimise my chances of getting that. My last pap smear came back negative (huzzah!) so I am very grateful for that.  For now, I should just maintain vigilance. I should continue to check down there and continue to use condoms. I shoul...

It has been barely over three weeks of starting imiquimod treatment. I am very VERY happy to report that I am responding extremely well to the treatment. Granted, I was constantly checking to see how things were, and there were days where I thought that nothing had changed. The bump is flat now and is now just a little wound that needs to heal. I actually thought I had contracted herpes initially because I was blistering all over the damn show where skin had cracked after being scraped against my underwear. But it turns out that it was just a side effect of the cream, which apparently shows up as blisters in the third week of treatment. The timeline was also wrong for herpes thank fuck.  Everything is going well, and I am finding a better sense of self-esteem from this whole experience. I wanted to hook up with as many people as I could because I thought I owed myself six years of good sex to make up for the time spent having awful sex. Well, I got my time in and I can honestly say...

 Let's not mince words. I have an STI. I caught HPV. Specifically, the kind that causes warts.  It was rough facing this conclusion, and writing it down and giving it form. I suppose that in the big scale of things, the situation is really not that bad. HPV, as it turns out, is one of the most common STDs out there, and it is primarily caused by skin-to-skin contact. Most people will clear infections on their own, while others will never show or develop symptoms. I just happen to have one of the two strains that cause visible warts.  It gets better. The strain that I have is not linked to the ones that develop into cancer. I also only have two little ones, located on skin and not on mucous surfaces. I am responding well to imiquimod, and I have a vaccine course set up next week and over the next six months.  It was extremely difficult to come to grips with this. I don't think I was surprised, given the almost reckless way I had been sleeping with everyone. I had alwa...

Tanabata, or the Star Festival, is a Japanese traditional holiday held every year on the seventh of July. It is a festival related to wishes and dreams for the future, as well as a hope for better things to come. The actual tradition of it stems from a tale of two lovers who were only allowed to meet each other once a year.  I've always written wishes and hung them on the trees. They weren't really wishes I'd take seriously, just something to write on a piece of paper. This year though, I wasn't able to hang a wish on a tree. I still want to put something to words, since I do believe in the power of putting form to your thoughts.  Like the hardworking princess in the story, I want to find love. I want to meet my husband soon, whether it be through an unforgettable meet cute or by an online date that went surprisingly well. I think my time with A has shown me that I am no longer so vehemently opposed to the idea of a relationship. If you had asked me six months ago how I...

So there are a few things that I feel like I should be ashamed of, but somehow lack the capacity to be ashamed. One of them is the fact that I like sex. I enjoy having it, I enjoy the pursuit of it, and even when it's not great it's still a story I can tell. There are a few good ones. The ones that weren't so good make for a fantastic story though. Like that micropenis. Or when a circus guy told me that I should let him eat me out because he was a Sagittarius and it would be amazing. I do wish I'd started having penetrative sex earlier. I don't know why I was so adamant to hold on for a special someone as the first, considering that I no longer speak to them. But that's going to change. I'm going to (reasonably) play the single girl now, and enjoy it damn it!  Here's a map of the different nationalities I've had sex with/messed around with. Granted, I met a good amount of them when I was living in New Zealand, but I'm slowly meeting more people l...

  This is the in between.  There are about five weeks left before I move to Osaka. This time last year, I remember being in a miserable relationship, thinking of the best possible way to end it. I remember telling myself that I would not see another Christmas at the same company after the one that was coming.  But it is also poignant to think of where I am right now in relation to where I am going. I am still too far off to think of saying goodbye to the people I've met here. But it seems there isn't nearly enough time to get things ready.  It's been a whirlwind to think about how much has happened since I decided to start job hunting. The entire process, from start to finish, took about three months. I knew it would be a good time to start looking because of the hit to recruiting the pandemic has caused. At the same time, it is still rather breathtaking to think about the circumstances that have led me to this job.  There was the interview at the other PLS scho...