there's your problem

I generally discuss my drug problem pretty candidly and nonchalantly--I've never felt that, despite the fact that I have it to begin with, it was causing any serious problems. I don't do it nonstop, I don't do it excessively, and I go very long periods of time without doing it without any trouble. So, yeah, to me my drug problem isn't quite as bad, at least in comparison to the things that made doing drugs sound like an attractive option to me. I tend not to talk about it like it's a huge problem because for the most part I don't think it is one.

Having said that.

This is actually seriously starting to worry me.

I've never had a stellar memory. But lately (within the last two years or so) I've noticed it getting worse. I used to just forget appointments and things, not know the date, forget names. Then I started forgetting things that had happened recently--much more recently than I'd ever had trouble remembering before. Not only am I now forgetting things after just a few minutes, I'm also starting to literally forget things while I'm still thinking of them. It's hard to explain what this feels like but basically what happens is I'll be thinking of something--thinking about a movie or TV show--and then think about things related to that movie or TV show, and in a matter of seconds I can no longer remember the movie or TV show I was thinking about. Sometimes I don't even remember that I was thinking about a TV show or movie. I know I was thinking about something but I can't remember what it was and this happens so swiftly and so frequently (many times a day) that I'm starting to become a bit concerned.

Apparently short-term memory loss is a side-effect of opiate use.

Now I'm starting to wonder what I've gotten myself into...

a sign of the times

True story.

Teen pregnancy was something of an epidemic where I used to live in Maryland. It was kind of tragically common for girls as young as thirteen or fourteen to get pregnant and give birth. It wasn't at all unusual to see girls waddling around the halls at my high school with their big pregnant bellies getting in the way. While hardly the majority, it was still common enough to be unremarkable when it happened.

The school curriculum required a 'health class' credit that featured one unit on sex and pregnancy. The only teacher in school who taught that class--whose name I don't remember, so let's just call her Mrs Med--was a married woman in her mid-fifties who, by choice, never had children. She was very well-informed about everything but couldn't speak from experience when it came to pregnancy and childbirth. This isn't generally a problem in any subject--you don't expect someone teaching a history class to have witnessed historical events firsthand, or an English teacher to have written the books. But when I took that class, two girls piped up during the lesson on childbirth and argued with the teacher that their own experiences with pregnancy and childbirth were different than what she was talking about.

Yeah. So many girls kept getting pregnant at that school that a sex ed teacher knew less about it than some of her students.

Holy mindfuck.

how did I do this before??

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to be approved for a Mirena IUD by my doctor. (It is ridiculously hard to get any kind of long-term birth control, especially for women and especially-especially for women under thirty. For reasons that make me rage too violently to want to take the time to explain now.) An  IUD--intrauterine device--is a type of internal contraceptive that lasts several years and doesn't require you to remember to do anything special, like remove or replace a vaginal ring or a sticky patch or take a pill. Which I could never remember to do because I am incredibly absentminded.

The progesterone IUD I have, Mirena, lasts five years. Copper IUDs last ten, but also do things like make your menstrual period worse and heavier and last longer and your cramps are more painful, which is exactly what I was trying to stop from happening. Mirena also comes with the perk of occasionally stopping a woman's period completely. Which mine did. I haven't really had a period--at least not like what I used to--since 2009. I do get a very short and light one that lasts just a few days and is mainly just mild cramps and spotting, but I only get that about once every fifteen months or so. So it really doesn't count and isn't anything I have to worry about.

Except that sometimes I do.

Whenever it happens I feel miserable. It's not anywhere near as bad as my pre-BC menstrual days (I had to go on the pill at sixteen to control my erratic, debilitating periods), so I always feel kind of like a wimp. I used to weather worse than this all the time! Why am I so miserable now??

I have no idea how I put up with this shit before I discovered how wonderful birth control was.

you're not being as covert as you think

I haven't been to--or even read much of anything about--the other Disney parks in the US or in other countries, so I'm not sure whether this is their practice everywhere or in some places or if it's just something they do in Orlando. But anyway. EPCOT represents a big chunk of the park itself and is designed to appeal to older kids and adults. And a big part of that is called the 'World Showcase', which is divided into eleven smaller areas that are all more or less the same, each with a restaurant, a shop, a stage for shows, and a small museum. Each areas represents one of eleven different countries so all the shops and things focus on that particular country.

Disney actually got really into the idea of trying to provide as authentic an experience as possible, so each of the twelve 'Showcases' is staffed by people who are actually from those countries. (Mostly college kids studying abroad or taking part in the Disney program.) It does well to make the whole experience pretty fun, and they're naturally very good at answering pretty much any question anyone might have about their homeland.

All of these people speak English very well, but when talking to one another they often revert back to their native languages. Probably because it's easier and more comfortable, but I know for a fact that some of the time they're not speaking English so they can speak a bit more freely in front of the tourists without getting into trouble for saying something offensive.

Unfortunately, this approach only works if the people in earshot don't understand the language. Which mostly they don't, except sometimes they do. My family were hanging around Italy's souvenir shop and two of the employees were teasing each other good-naturedly in both English and Italian. The man, again only in jest, threw up one arm and smacked the bicep with his other hand. This sounds stupid to most people reading it, but it's actually a very rude gesture in Italy. Sort of like the middle finger in the US.

Being Italian, though... my mom knew. And she scolded him a bit. You could tell he definitely did not expect that to happen.

triggered!

I have an incredibly, abnormally sensitive gag reflex; I've only ever known one other person who had a worse one, and hers was so bad she had a prescription for muscle relaxers to control it and needed to be sedated at the dentist. Mine isn't quite that bad, but it's still pretty bad. It responds to physical prodding, sticking something down your throat, like everyone else's--but it doesn't take a lot, and it's really hard for me to hold it in if it's set off. Those throat swabs at the doctor's office were a nightmare for me since I inevitably fought like hell and then puked immediately on contact. Sometimes on the doctor. It got so bad that my mom used to have to promise me $5 a go if I managed not to puke. I don't do that anymore, but only because I'm better at not throwing up when my body wants to all the time--not because my gag reflex has improved.

Like other people, my reflex is triggered by other things as well--certain smells, the textures of certain things in the mouth, the sight of things like slimy bugs that I find visibly repulsive. It also gets triggered by the tastes of certain things, though this seems to largely have abated as I've gotten older. The thing that gave me the worst trouble trying to stomach when I was a kid?

Tylenol.

Children's cold remedies almost always seem to have the same chemically, furniture-polish-esque cherry flavouring that I could never, ever manage. I just couldn't stand that taste when I was a kid. Taking medicine was another battle for me and my parents--not only did I know it was going to taste awful and I was going to get sick, I knew I'd also be in trouble for it because my parents invariably blamed me whenever something went wrong. They thought I was throwing up on purpose for attention.

There are no words adequate to convey just how violently repulsed I was by cherry cough medicine. To this day, anything that smells remotely like that--including cherry sodas--makes me want to hurl. I hated it so much and was so desperate not to have to go through it ever again that I actually learned how to swallow pills whole like adults when I was eight years old.

Yeah. I've spent 75% of my life taking adult medication because I had such a sensitive gag reflex that the taste of the 'kiddie' stuff made me vomit uncontrollably.

It comes with perks though. It means I almost never bitch at the pharmacy that the pills are too big for me to swallow. And it also means that when I have to take multiple medication or a large dose, I can bang down a fistful of pills in one go without much of a problem. And I can dry-swallow, but I hate doing that because it feels weird.

Also, it's probably pretty fortunate that the boything doesn't like blowjobs. If he wanted me to do it and I tried, it would probably end in me getting immediately and spectacularly sick all over his junk. Which I'm pretty sure would have put him off blowjobs for a while anyway.

...you'll do that??

I have to put this behind a cut because it's all basically a discussion of my sex life.

wow, what a difference

So, I've been watching 'Snog, Marry, Avoid?' again (I love that show) and the difference in appearance between the fucktons of makeup and no makeup/natural makeup is sometimes pretty shocking. This one is one of the more extreme ones, an egotistical little Italian woman called Martha

Fast forward to about 6.57 to when she starts taking off her makeup if you just want to see what I'm talking about. It's a bit painful to watch the whole thing, she really is incredibly self-absorbed and just doesn't seem like a really great personality in general. I wouldn't want to hang out with her--the prettiest people get really ugly, really quickly when it turns out they're rotten people.

This girl is 21 years old but with all that makeup on she looks like she's a lot older--she could easily be in her thirties or forties and trying too hard to look young. Not only is she one of those people who looks nothing like herself with all her makeup on, but she actually looks decades older than she really is. It's a very obvious, measurable change to the point where, were you not aware of it, you'd think it was two different people. She's incredibly pretty and quite shockingly youthful. Her features are so soft and rounded and youthful that she looks like she could be as young as thirteen or fourteen!

She also looks kind of surprisingly like me.

I still wouldn't want to snog or marry her. I'd avoid her. She seems like a real bitch.