RANDOM BITS

I'm staring at a blank page, wondering what I want to talk about. I've been percolating on the topic of gender versus gender identity, circling it from different angles and perceptions, but I'm not sure my thoughts are ready for posting just yet.

Medically, I've been experiencing pain from the internal scars from last year's surgery, almost a year old at this point. Because of a recent job change I have new medical insurance, which requires I visit my general practitioner to get a referral to my urologist. The soonest they can see me is in January, for a physical. Then I get a referral, which, in the meantime, means all of my testosterone shots - every two weeks - are at my own expense.

"Hello again, Doc."

(I'm genuinely hoping my "physical" isn't the current "let's read your blood test results" variety. That's not a physical, it's the results of a blood test. Listen to my heart, palpate my abdomen, check my knee reflexes, check for hernias, etc. Yeah, I'm old school.)

Despite the pain from the scar tissue, I can report - a year later, can you believe it? - that the surgery was definitely a success from my point of view. The much sharper and intense pain of the calcifying vas deferens  is gone. I'll take the current pulling and pinching any day over that. My left testicle, which - probably in fear - had pulled up tightly against my abdomen post-surgery is relaxing, and hanging more properly down about 3/4 of an inch. As it relaxes I get less pain from the tension in whatever mechanism raises and lowers it. Every once in a while I get spasms, but that's pretty much to be expected.

Self gratification

My sex life remains non-existent, and will be for the foreseeable future. My wife's medical issues continue, along with a newer set of problems that leave her in constant pain. Sex is the last thing on her mind and I respect that. Sex is a small sacrifice when I consider how much otherwise we have going for us.

Of course, that means relatively frequent masturbation. I've discovered that going a few days, like five or six, between really increases my sex drive - it becomes an almost teenage obsession. I'm not sure which I prefer: frequent but less intense orgasms and the ability to focus on things other than sex, or infrequent and more intense but with an increasing focus on getting off. I'm pretty sure I need some sort of (psychological) therapy to figure this out. Again, this is why I blog.

I also get the stray thoughts and rhetorical questions which usually hit me in the middle of the night. The other morning I woke up, wondering if you technically can call it "sleeping naked" if you're covered by a sheet or blanket. Yes, you're nude underneath, but isn't that sort of the same thing as wearing clothes? If I'm wearing a robe and nothing else, I'm still covered up, yes? A towel?

Isn't the defining aspect of being nude dependent upon the external perception, in a way?

Yes, I think these things.

(We have a friend staying with us for a few months, and I'm currently sitting in the family room wearing a robe. She's wandered in a couple of times while she gets ready for work. I'm covered by the robe and a blanket. I'm not naked, but at the same time if she sits down at the proper angle she might catch a glimpse of Lil Rambler.)

And so it goes.

"Oh, hi. Didn't know you were here..."