phoenix fun and STD's

hey everyone! been a while so here's my life since last blog!

first of all, i thought i'd post this funny picture. this is from the first crazy weekend in phoenix, when we went to the second bar to play darts. Here's my teammate trying to distract the other team!

things are still going well for me. I've spent the past two more weekends in phoenix since my last blog, staying with bartender and bf both times. two weekends ago we went out a lot. one day i spent the whole day with BF so i got to know him better while bartender playing in his flag football league. I also got to meet some more of their friends and get to know the ones i'd already met a little better! We went to a hispanic gay bar that weekend too which was a ton of fun. Bartender really likes dancing and doesn't care what other people think, at the end of the night his shirt was drenched with sweat! made me feel better about myself after a night of dancing hahahaha. One morning we woke up and bartender said "what the hell happened to your nipple. I looked down and saw this: 

not really sure how i got it, but i have a couple guesses? i mean there can't be that many ways to get a bruise like this on your nipple! hahaha. We had some good brunch at a little place too which was nice. Here's us at brunch

(great picture of me right)

then after a night of drinks at the house i came back to prescott on monday.

the week in prescott was a little stressful. not knowing anyone here, i have a lot of time to myself to sit and think about things. I think this is sometimes a good thing but sometimes my crazy mind gets the best of itself and i start to worry about things. Well in two days time i had convinced myself that i was HIV+. My reasons are as follows-

One of the first times i ever had sex with a guy, i didn't use a condom (stupid i know, don't get me started on it. i will never do it again). About a week after this happened, i got the flu. If you didn't know, that's basically the only symptom you get when you contract HIV, flu-like symptoms about a week after you contract it. Well anyway i was of course super worried about it then. But i had also not come out to anyone yet and was very very ashamed and wasn't able to bring myself to talk about it to anyone, which of course made it worse. Anyways over 6 months later, i got my test done to make sure i was clean and praise the lord i was. The fear of actually being positive never has plagued me again, until a week ago, and for some reason i convinced myself that i was positive and that the test just had messed up or something. I had a couple horrible nights where i just laid in bed thinking of how my life was over, how i wouldn't be able to end up with who i wanted among many other things that super depressed me. Well i went and got tested the next day, and hooray negative! Thinking back i don't know why i went so crazy, but i did, but it's all over now and i'm fine. after i got my results back it was like a boulder was lifted off me and i've been able to be myself again and think clearly. 

so after that scare i worked some more, have been working on a newsletter to send out after the election and also working on a couple grant proposals, one for our beading co-op and one for education. basically the beading co-op is a group of women in the narok area who have joined together and are trying to sell their beadwork to tourists. currently most of the beadwork that is bought is made by men of other tribes who can afford small stands in prime locations. tourists often don't know this and will buy them, thinking they are getting the authentic stuff but in reality, they aren't. anyway it's a great group of women and they just need some help getting things off the ground, so hopefully we get the grant!

this weekend, as i said i went to phoenix again. had another great time. friday night we stayed in, invited a few people over, and had some drinks. then on saturday this weekend i went and watched bartender play flag football. he plays in a mixed (gay and straight) league so it was pretty fun to watch. There are the straight guys who are genuinely nice people and open to getting harassed by all the gays about grabbing their front flag when they try to tackle them. Then there are the gays who are over-compensating trying to be overly athletic and sports-like. And then there are the queens running around throwing the ball with both hands and doing their bast to catch the balls coming at them. I actually had a lot of fun and even got a little sun which is something i needed! too bad it's more of a farmers tan though haha.

Saturday night we went to a bear event i guess you could call it, someone said it was gonna be fun, that's where i posted the pic on out facebook message thread at haha.

that's a volunteer on stage in the jock strap, the tied him up, whipped him, punched him in the gut, slapped him, and burned his back using a match and some mixture in a spray bottle lol. it kinda took us a little by surprise so we finished our drinks and went to charlies, bartenders western bar.

this is roomates face when we walked outside and saw what was happening :)

a little after we got there BF got tired so he went home and left us there. We watched a little bit of a drag show put on by the flag football league that bartender is in. It was all guys who play flag football so was funny to see them in drag after seeing them as a man first.

we danced a lot that night too, and had a great time! i have a new drink that i love which is really simple but never had it, just a tecate or with a shot of kettle (or other vodka) citrone in it. tastes great and packs a punch! Here are a couple pictures of the night

us on the dance floor, that's his roomate on the left in the picture

us in the bathroom, not sure what the guys behind us are doing.... hahaha

sunday we slept almost the entire day, really. we woke up at about 9am messed around some, then went back to sleep, we napped until about 5pm! hahaha but we didn't get home till about 5 so that makes it a little better! then we got up and went to the gym (all 4 of us) roomate and BF did cardio and bartender and i did arms. was really fun and nice, but made me sad i don't have someone to workout with in Prescott! After we got back bartender made us some spam fried rice

was my first time eating spam, but it was pretty good. way better than i thought it would be. Bartender is samoan, actually grew up in samoa, and they ate spam every day so he loves it haha

then that night his roommate wanted to go out, so roomate and BF went to a strip club, and then to charlies, bartender had homework he needed to do and told me to stay with him so i did. we ended up just cuddlin and watching water for elephants and a couple other shows all night though. was a nice relaxing night after another fun weekend! then i came home the next morning!

The elections in kenya just happened, but we still don't know anything, we have some speculation, but i'll write a whole blog about the outcome and stuff about it as soon as i know things for sure!

so for now i leave you with a picture of me in my triad.....(no i'm not really in a triad)

love you guys! miss you tons!