In which Alex rassles death-- and wins!

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the title of my last post. I was singing that quietly in my head all the day of the show, or not so quietly when I didn't give in to my ordinary lightyear-a-minute chatter.

Secondly, I would like to say that I just got my HIV test for my multiple entry visa thing done, and despite the ENORMOUS bruise the stupid nurse left on my arm, and all the messy sloshing-around of blood that was done in the clinic, I am 100% HIV-free. Not that there was any doubt, but at moments like these there is always the running stream of stupid things I have done running through my head and the "well, what if...". I started inventing imaginary scenarios in my head. I was figuring out how to tell my mother. Should I wait until she comes to Russia, I wondered, or should I tell her right away? Re-testing would probably be necessary. Perhaps I would be deported. By lunchtime today I had convinced myself that the mosquito bites on my legs were new, special kinds of AIDS lesions and that I was going to die right then. My friend was treated to an umbrella dance when we went there and the nurse handed over my negative slip oh-so-casually like I wasn't sitting next to all my former lovers in a hospital, in my imagination.

Oh the happiness of having lucked out. Not that there's a fear, or like I go around sleeping with everyone who looks remotely in my direction, but... when you have to get tested, the Health class litany always comes back into your head. "It could be anyone," Ms. Watkins the Wombat intoned. "You never know unless you see their tests."

If you'll excuse me, I have a lot of sleeping around to go and do.

I'm clean!

I'm clean!