On potatoes and bad timing

Once again, I've been shit at writing. Sorry, silent readers. It's been a pretty crazy week of me running around, desperately trying to prepare myself for my trip. There have been so many things to sort out - presents, the Tomsons, my rent money being paid... I didn't even have a suitcase. As always, my procrastinating skills are something to be admired.

In the middle of all this craziness, I wanted to take the rare chance to see Potato, and his one free time was last night, so we made plans to meet in Sangenjaya for dinner. He'd spent the day getting a health check and then reporting from the trial of an Aum Shinrikyo-member, so he was all suave in a suit and tie and stuff, and I felt like the envy of every girl in the city, and also completely underdressed. It's hard not to be completely swept away when he sits half-slouched over the bar, lazily smoking a cigarette in the sexiest way possible. Like goddamn.

The bar was a tiny, smoky one with a wooden decor and specialized in a kind of stew that apparently is famous in the Akita prefecture, where Potato is from. The food was delicious. People were looking discreetly, but I was in too good of a mood to let it make me self-conscious, the way it sometimes does. "Stare your heart out, bitches. Yes, I am a really tall white chick speaking to a really tall, ridiculously handsome Japanese guy about the election. I can do that stuff."

Getting back to his place, I was getting giddy with anticipation. Things weren't at all as awkward as they'd been that second time. He even suggested we get in the shower together and I couldn't help but feeling like one lucky son of a bitch. We move to bed, things begin to heat up, and then...

"Hey, wait, you're bleeding!"

Shit.

Fucking shit.

Fucking shitty shit.

My period decided to show up.

Guess how fucking mortified I was. On a scale from one to ten, it was somewhere up in the trillions. I wanted a time machine. I wanted to die. I wanted to bolt out the door into the night and pretend nothing happened and that it was all a bad dream. I blame the stupidity brought on by having a stupid period tracker on my phone. After inputting my three latest periods, it told me my cycle was 25 days. I believed it blindly, despite counting a 23 day cycle for years. "Well shit, the computer told me so, so..." Blinded by horniness I guess. "So, uh, let's just take it easy tonight," Potato said, before being a responsible adult and asking me if I had any pads or tampons (which I of course didn't), plopping me on the bed in one of his t-shirts and sweatpants, and then going out to buy me some fucking tampons. Not exactly the third date activity I was looking forward to.

It's hard to say if that made us closer or if that just made him go "fuck that shit" and get the hell out of dodge. Obviously I'm hoping for the earlier alternative, but hell, it's just hard to know. Come on, Potato, deliver on this.