ashamed of weakness

This is that man I love when he was in the Corp of Cadets. Citadel men initiated the Civil War, according to Southern histories, and their gray uniforms maintain that Confederate symbolism.

He's not a phone person. We never had to talk on the phone. I suspected he wouldn't be. Tonight he'll be out drinking, so will I, and I anticipate it will be one of our best conversations so far. Maybe get a little racy. Last night I got him to go for forty-five minutes - our record - and then I couldn't sleep.

I read from this book Mike gave me, a novel about the Citadel called The Lords of Discipline. I did a little yoga. I layed out todays schedule on my bathroom mirror with a dry-erase marker. I read some journals. Read an article in Harper's.

Then I reached for my emergency non-filter Luckies I keep in the freezer and smoked one. It made my hands tingle and I fell asleep after making my room freezing cold then nestling underneath my comforter.

But sleep wasn't restful. Just as I feared would happen when Mike left. I'm back to dreams that keep my mind from resting. Last night I remember just going through a list of words:

in-animate

in-bred

in-corrigible

in-decisive

in-edible...

I went through the entire alphabet until deciding there were only two letters that didn't work (but there are probably actually three).

Why does my brain do that? Does anyone else have dreams like that? Am I the only one who recites nonsense while sleeping?

It's like counting sheep, and then striking up every chorus of 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

This is sick: a woman my age should be able to sleep alone.

My nature is to win at endurance challenges. Not so much endurance against another person, but against myself. This generally results in me later asking myself, "why did you drink so much? Stay out so late? etc."

Usually it's what I call a staring-contest with myself. Where I end up both the winner and the loser. The victorious one and the sufferer. I make myself go all day long without calling Mike to make sure I prove to myself that I'm strong enough to wait 24 hours, despite the fact that I'm suffer under the suffocating pain of loss.

So it's enigmatic, like I tend to be, and foolish. This inexplicable sleep deprivation I'm causing myself, though, makes me want to endure it alone until it goes away, but I cannot function without proper sleep. Right now I'm okay, but it'll snow-ball - like it did earlier in the year - and lead me up to that excrutiating depression that dissipated mid-March (right before Mike came along, even though the sleep-problem was left un-conquered).

This challenge may be more than my endurance can defeat.

Like the challenge of hunger pains (am I the only one who describes hunger pain as challenging?). No matter how much I ignore hunger it will never go away. I have to eat.

I have to sleep.

In other news...

I bought two Modest Mouse tickets today. $18. No service fee.

And Holopaw's album, becuase carrythe0 is ever-influential. :)