My Irrational Fear of Desert Sex in The Stuff That's Not Interesting But Is The Most Interesting Stuff I'll Write

So next week I’m going on vacation to Palm Springs.

I have spent the entirety of quarantine listening to my poisonous mother and her down-home brand of psychotic bigotry. I know, fleeing to the desert in the middle of summer is a stupid idea, but Palm Springs is actually a really small town (comparatively in California, at least) and the resort has social distancing orders, so basically, I’ll be laying naked next to a pool in 100+ degree weather NOT listening to how Black Lives DON’T Matter or that Trump is an angel sent by God himself to exact revenge on this country for it’s progressive social reforms brought about during the satanic presidency of Barack Obama.

Yes, those are things my family has actually said. No, I’m not exaggerating. Yes, I have thought about smothering them with a pillow in their sleep.

There’s a wrinkle to my trip. I invited Jonesy. He says he’s coming, although I’ve hardly spoken to him since. He also keeps making flirty sexual advances toward me, which I’m happy about because it’s certainly a flip from just 5 years ago when I was getting nowhere in that department....

But the truth is, I’m really nervous about it. I haven’t spent significant portions of time with anyone for a long while. I also haven’t had to be sexual on a consistent basis in a VERY long time. I’m not even sure I have enough of a sex drive left to even fuck him more than once during those five days.

I just don’t know. I know less about how my body works and my mood/mental health than I did when I was in high school, and I’ve heard the opposite is supposed to be true. I really don’t know what to do but I know my anxiety about it is getting me nowhere.

Last night, I almost bought an eight ball of cocaine because I figured at least having drugs would give me something to do in the desert. I didn’t, but the fact that I would even consider that as a possibility shows how desperately I am reaching for something to soothe my anxiety.

The one really bright spot is that while conferring with a colleague about where to go from here, Thailand is back on the table as a very real possibility. Obviously, with COVID-19 being a developing crisis, there won’t be any movement in the immediate future, but the information I was given previously turns out to be incorrect. So I might move to Bangkok yet!

God, what if I move to Bangkok and there’s all that sex going on and.....

See, I’m having panic attacks about sex. This is all bad. Why are my thirties like this? (Although, as my mother likes to remind me constantly, I’m almost 40!)