24 hours with karl

happy fall equinox, everyone! one of two days each year when every spot on the planet gets the same amount of daylight (12 hours). makes the planet feel a bit smaller to me, and i think we could all use that feeling right now.

so karl (named after karl marx, as it turns out) came over wednesday night at 6. we went to see ghostworld at the ritz 5. 'twas good. worth seeing. well done. not cheesy at all, which it very easily could have been. i was pleased with thora birch in the main role--she's good, and she doesn't look like most stick-thin actresses in hollywood. he picked me up in his 6-month-old silver audi tt (WHOA is that a beautiful car), we saw the film, and ate dinner at sassafras (2nd and chestnut), and went back to my house. i hesitated before inviting him in, but decided to in the end. talking turned to kissing, turned to clothing removal.

karl is uncircumsized. first man i've been with who's not circumsized. i was confused at first, i must admit. though in my defense, it was dark, and it WAS my first contact with foreskin... after hours of kissing and touching and tickling and wresting and more kissing, clothes finally came off. karl is different from the other men i've seen this summer (summer 2001, the borogovesian Summer Of Love) in that he doesn't seem to want to immediately get naked. anyway, he um, pleasured me, then i got to work on him. now, i've given my share of blow jobs, and have usually been successful. but wednesday night--not so much successful. i felt so damn inadequate. after i gave up, we settled into each other, continued with the kissing, and finally fell asleep.

yesterday morning, we woke up about 9, but didn't get out of bed til 1:30. (hello? work day?) karl called in sick. i didn't REALLY have to be anywhere til my office hours at 3. more kissing etc. finally got up and showered (me), then i made him breakfast (eggs and tea; i ate fruit and tea). off we went, first to laura's to drop off my couch cushions (wanted to use her rental cleaner thingy later), then to my office. no students showed up (of COURSE, even though several of them have DEFINITE problems with the material, ALREADY.) so spent the hour+ kissing some more. (yes, i do realize that this date was kiss-heavy) karl was due to go to a flyers game, but had a bit of time, so we got some dinner (hadn't had anything since breakfast). we split about 5:45, nearly 24 hours after he arrived chez moi.

all in all, a good date. i like karl--he's got a low-profile sense of humor, is a good kisser, and has a northern english (sheffield, if you care) accent. however, there were a couple of things... first, even though he was a good kisser, there's only so much kissing a girl can take in a 24-hour period (speaking of period, i've got another thing to mention in a minute). though i genuinely enjoyed the last day, near the end i was ready for him to leave. second... aw shit, i don't remember what the second thing was. i'll update later if i remember.

general impressions of karl: funny, in an understated british sort of way. trained as an engineer, working in IT. in other words, a techy. i was sorta hopin to have a relationship one of these days with a NON-engineer (john is a chemical engineer, you know, and a girl likes a little variety). oh well. he's 24 (25 in december) and seems perhaps a touch immature in some ways. i can't put my finger on how, exactly. he doesn't like vegetables, except peas and carrots (which, interestingly, were the two vegetables that john absolutely WOULD NOT EAT. he said they made him nauseous). he drives a nice car, dresses well, has a good haircut. jury still out on whether he's adventurous or not. based on my observations thus far, at least in the bedroom, he doesn't seem overly so. though i haven't known him very long, so it's all still up in the air. i get the feeling (though i could be mistaken), that he hasn't had very many relationships in the past. [later: 23 october. so i don't know the details of his past love life (nor is it any of my business), but he has said that i'm the most serious relationship he's had. oh, and he *is* nore adventurous than he first appeared. this is good. i think, for example, that he could be convinced (maybe even no convincing needed) to live life (at least for a while) just seeing where the wind took him.]

back to period for half a sec. so, my menstrual cycle has always (except for the couple of years i was on the pill) been a little irregular: varies between 28 and 35 days. so, my last period started on 6 august, and now it's 21 september and still no juice (so to speak). i don't know what's going on. i don't think there's any chance i'm pregnant, sooooo...... hm. the only reason this is bothering me at ALL, is that my friend ingrid starting missing periods in college, and it turned out that she had some sort of health problem that made her infertile. 'course, her problem was inherited, and i don't think i've got anything like that in my family... but, you never know. i suppose that i should show up at the women's health center at some point to get checked out, but i don't know how long to wait before i do so. i'm sure it'll turn out to be nothing.