Blogging From Abroad: Version 2.0

It's been a hundred years, much has happened, and at last I think its time for IFFTP to rise from hibernation, shake the snow off, and turn over a new leaf for Spring.

For those of you who are still around after the long hiatus, I've put a lot of thought into the fate of this blog and have decided that in order for it to continue it has to make some serious style and behavioral changes. When IFFTP began, I was a bit of a swinger set lose in the streets of France and made that more or less the topic of the blog. Times have changed though, and it would seem I've been roped into a domestic relationship. No longer is it practical to try and talk under cover about my sex life and not expect personal repercussions. (-And at times long, lame, hiatuses.)

So! Change number 1 is that I want to change the focus of my blog from sexual gossip, (sad I know,) to travel, eating healthy abroad, and the trials and tribulations of international relationship and romance. (They'll be some mild sexual gossip, of course, I can't resist a little from time to time.)

That said, I've just returned from the South of France, Perpignan, from visiting with my boyfriend's parents. (Formally known as TMI, now known as "A". Gasp!)  The train home today returned us to the snowy, cold and gray region of Burgundy that we presently call home. Statistics show that Dijon saw an astounding 12 hours of sunlight in the month of July- Astounding because I'd personally guesstimated it to be much less.

While in the South, we visited Eus, known as one of the most beautiful villages of France. Pretty enchanting. Especially the feline inhabitants. 

Posts to come: 

1: I'm probably getting legally married for passport benefits in a mere few weeks. Serious case of cold feet inevitable. 

2: I'm starting a juice fast wednesday to evacuate 2 years of french toxins

3: I'm randomly visiting my radically anti-establishment middle school professors on an impromptu adventure to Crete in several weeks. 

Yell if You Have To.

My honey has been working in a vineyard in the boonies for the last several weeks with no internet connection and no international cell phone plan. I send him daily love messages anyway, knowing they won't be read, but I'm sorrowfully starting to feel like "my honey" is imaginary.

In other news I have been fitted with my IUD. Yes, as yahoo answers will tell you and the thousands of other girls posting "will it hurt?" it will just about ruin your day. A second nurse actually came in and gave me a stress squeeze ball and her hand to hold, saying, "yell if you have to." For the record, I probably made the people in the waiting room very nervous. 

I've been consistently campy for the past few days, but I will say that going off the pill has lead to an increase in libido, (hard to believe since I was already in the maniac devision) and, TMI here, more intense orgasms. Just throwing it out there as one of the potential pros. -For anyone potentially in the decision making process.

One week and counting to my brother's wedding, which means 1 week and three days before I return to France and survey what damage two months apart has done to my once perfect relationship. I hope it's all repairable. 

Oh! And lastly, cancer news: I get to stay in limbo for the next 9 months. I'm told it's at a stage where my body may kick it on its own with "yoga, a multivitamin," and probably karate lessons. I have to come back next year for a second biopsy to see if it's gone, the same, or worsened. 

Live in the moment!

The $1000 Chip

I'm seemingly going through a dark place. In the day I can't remember what our intimacy was like or if it even existed. Sometimes I get a little flashback in my dreams, and wake up elated, but as I rub the sleep out of my eyes it's overcome by this ache in my stomach. Kind of a fear and misery with no real base, just a persistent and defiant continuity. 

Now, even if he tells me he loves me and wants to keep me, the words can't penetrate me. I wan't them to, terribly; I want to feel that and be confident of it, but the fear and discomfort has built up such an immense and resilient endoskeleton of distrust that my pining, delicate entrailles can't be reached or soothed by words.

On top of this, the IUD is upon me any day now, and the internet has terrified me with stories of uncomfortable sex, spotting, and worst of all, the discovery that my dad's first wife had one, got an infection, and was left sterile in the aftermath.

This anxiety for the new presence in my most delicate and intimate areas plus the fear for my relationship has left me awake and weeping several consecutive nights now.

I know love is a gamble. A leap, a courageous and sometimes risky investment. You've got to take that part of you that you've worked on all your life, the most sensitive, delicate, and passionate chunk of you and place it on the table. The $1000 chip we've spent our lives creating in the hopes that we'll win big. History tells us that the stakes are against us and, in all likelihood, that precious chunk of yourself you've given to someone else is gonna get swept away. 

When so much is on the table, how do we conquer the fear, and enjoy the game?

Nymphotine

In spite of the deprivation that likely awaits me abroad, I'm itchin' to get back to France. Or, more appropriately, back under my French man. The sexual withdrawals are staggering, I may soon loose my ability to walk, and I have seemingly no outlet. Living in my parent's household under my infamous and non masturbation friendly picture windows, even my once sympathetic lover, the Skype chat window, has gone frigid.

I know it couldn't possibly replace real sex, but it has to be better than nothing, right? TMI, whose dreadful faux title no longer means Too Much Info but The Man Intime, has ruled it out as frustrating.. -and I'm ruled as utterly frustrated. 

Do they make a chewing gum for this?

Kicking It: Frogs in the Face and Relationships in the Butt

In the more forested and wet regions of Hawaii there live a number of bufo toads. They like to hang out on my parent's driveway and watch danger wizz by, which rarely happens because they end up flat on a daily basis. Perhaps they're more suicidal than thrill seekers. Anyway, yesterday I didn't think of this being a pedestrian hazard and, tramping merrily along, accidentally kicked one and sent it flying upwards to hit my knee before spinning off into the grass. 

I at first thought it was a weird glob of plant matter so left it be, but then reflecting on the unusual sound and feel, and turned around to find a brown, leathery guy struggling in the grass.I righted him to discover that I had exploded his right eye and hurt or broke his front right leg. Ugh! I felt so guilty I hung around petting the shocked little fellow until it started to rain, where upon I moved him away from the driveway and under a tree so he wouldn't get flattened. 

The guilt runs deep, as last night I dreamt of giant, half dinosaur half frogs thundering through the forest and tearing my family's house to pieces, all of us running and screaming and diving for shelter. 

In closing kicking frogs is the most exciting thing happening in my life right now. For all TMI and I have been through together I can see there's no way we're going to get through this time apart. Affections are waning. It's very painful and I'm tempted to just cut it off rather than watch it sizzle out. The truth is I think hanging on to something hopeless may be more painful than actually losing it. 

Fonder or Forgetful?

No one makes me happy like he does. Or so miserable, arguably. If some younger girl asked you "what is love like?" Would you be the French actress from Coco Before Channel and say "ça fait mal," or the mother from that cheesy Casa Nova movie and say "It's like good weather every day, even when it's not."

How can something eventually develop to this level of value and preciousness in your life with not also brining with it a stinging fear of losing it? The Dali Lama said in some pocket size gift book somewhere: 

On a plane ride I had the pleasure of tasting a particularly delicious and special chocolate. It was the most wonderful and luxurious sweet I had ever tasted, and I will not forget the pleasure of eating it. However, should I never have the opportunity to taste it again, I will remain content; having had the good fortune of tasting it the one time. 

Doctor Seuss actually said the same thing with "don't be sad that it's over, be glad that it happened."

All this wisdom and I still don't see how anyone can go on blithely with so much to lose.

My beloved went back to France two weeks ago after 5 with me and my family here in Hawaii. We could have had better weather and he seemed to have been allergic to my parent's house, but all in all things went well and I relished having him home, in my arms on sandy beaches and in my bed in the cold mountain nights. I'm not going back until October, staying in the islands for my brother's wedding. Two months of wondering how much time and distance a relationship can take. Any advice on staying happy in long distance situations? Is the hen in Robbin Hood right when she says "Absence makes the heart grow fonder!" -or Maid Marian when she says forlornly out the window, "or forgetful!" 

Doin' it Distance

I am in love. I mean, crazily deeply in love. I can be jumping and undulating in the gym's "body-jam" class and still, he's the predominant thing on my mind. But like usual, my opening lines aren't what I actually want to talk about.

Yesterday I was trying to have the ever helpful but very frustrating savior of many long distance relationships, Skype-sex. The challenge in this is that my childhood bed is situated squarely under a picture window which also happens to be at the top of the stairs to my family's porch. So the first vision anyone has, human, alien, serial killer, etc, when coming to the house is my helpless form on the bed.

So there I was. Strewn naked below this dangerous window and in the throws of distance love-making when my parents decide to have a lawn-ornament-themed argument on the deck. TMI and I were both trying to bring it on home, so to speak, and I had to suddenly dash under the blankets as either parent stomped by the window 4 or 5 times and bickered in the yard. I got the impression dad was heading up to the garage so I got up to make sure my bedroom door was closed... but he's coming back down! I hit the dirt and slither under my bed until I hear that he has passed. I assume the position with my computer. Mom bursts in and I snatch the covers over my naked body. (Pink and purple tie-dye dildo left uncovered on the edge of the bed.) "Will you hurry up so I can talk to you?!" She yells.

..I think I've had just about enough of visiting the family. Oh private French apartment.. oh weekends spent naked in noisy passionate sex-a-thons.. Did I know how good I had it? Why did I leave again??

p.s: if you haven't all ready, please remember to Fight for the Phoque, and send a message to the Canadian prime minister.

Acclimating

6am and I'm wide awake, which means that I'm critically jet-lagged. I've been a 10am and beyond sleeper all my life, so this up before the dawn business is nothing to sneeze at.

How bizarre it is to be back in paradise. The re-entry especially. When I paced through Honolulu Airport in my red French ankle boots I don't think I could have looked (or felt) any less like a local. Just the sight of the colorful tropical foliage in the airport courtyards stirred a sharp, nostalgic sensation all throughout me, but it was an uncomfortable, kind of unfriendly one; though it was tugging at memories of my childhood playing around in the Hawaiian underbrush.

Yesterday was my first naked Skype session. Oh glorious technology. TMI and I, despite the better part of the globe between us, had the leisure to lie around naked in bed together for 2 hours this tropical morning and last French night. We even tried Skype sex, but let's face it, the technology isn't quiite where it needs to be for that to be particularly fulfilling. All the same, I walked with a new lightness in my step that's been vacant since I left French soil. God I never knew that I could love so deeply. -And that's saying something because I'm a dramatic wacko.

Addict

February 27th. Four days (but technically five since France is ten hours ahead) since I've cuddled with the man of my life. Roughly 1/9th of the way, and my body is freaking out. I'm desperate for the deep comfort that comes from being pressed up against his warm body; my face in his neck; his smells, his sounds, his breath. The loving sentiments expressed just from his hands on my shoulders or hips as we dose off together. Sometimes I suspect habitual physical intimacy is among the world's most difficult addictions to come down from, and the withdrawals are kicking my ass.

Four weeks! We're only young and hot and this sex crazed for a short period of our lives. I hate to be wasting even these weeks of what could be a sexual/cuddle & nuzzle marathon. And let me tell you, I think there are teenage boys currently thinking about sex less times in a day than I am.

I'm exhibiting all the symptoms of withdrawals: scratching, teeth grinding, irritability, nail biting.. Bottom line, I'm physically addicted to my boyfriend.

And, throughout all of this, I'm getting dad time. Yes, yes, family before all else. But in my case "dad time" means a constant but futile attempt to escape his flatulent blast radius in a too small ski-resort lodging, changing in the bathroom, igniting arguments, and sleepless snore-interrupted nights.

Tough times.