I'M NOT TIRED!!! Oh holy crap I am NOT! TIRED!!! 

IRON LEVELS SUCK IT!
I've slept my way though SO many days and now I am AWAKE and Uncertain and OVERWHELMED and READY TO PAAAARRRTAAAAY WITH THE BEST OF THEMMMMMM!


I feel like I imagine Lance Armstrong did after probably blood doping!
Like Columbus when he discovered the wrong continent!
Like a 5 year old on Christmas morning!
A middle schooler trying energy drinks for the first time!
The Mariners getting their first home run after a decade of walks!
Like the first time I cleared the high jump bar at 4'4!

Like I am going to be in one of my dearest friend's wedding and dance wild with other dear friends and hop on the plane to germany with a dear friend the next day!

Queen size.

I've haven't gotten over my fear of sleeping in marriage beds. The mattress continent to the left still scares me. I only sleep on the wife's side, because anything further would feel indelicate. I want to treat their sex as sacred. I have been awoken by a golden retriever licking my ear. Fat cat flopped on my face with a paw to the jugular and by the 4th night I didn't even scream. After 3 years sleeping in the same room and 9 months in this queen bed, Liz mostly refuses to cuddle with me but we've had our pillow chats and she amuses my insomnia with semi-conscious mutterings.

I just don't know what to do with all that extra space, you know?

My childhood loft is perched upstairs with the names of first crushes scratched into the rails.

I felt protected by those boards. A sleeping ship on the monster's high seas. Used the space well-- me, Spot, BunBun and KeeKee, Crayola Bear, Kissybears and Ladybug.

The perfect height for hug-mug-mug and a reading nook below.

I am a hugging little kicker. I have a sleeping affinity for the diagonal, the criss-cross, the slant-ways. I steal the sheets and leave the covers, tasting the midnight air for better dreams.

fwends

Carmen is like a cat. I am like a horse. We get along swell! She's always got my back, and to carry her is never a burden.

 

I'm coming out of the country-pop closet.

I effing like Rascal Flatts. Drat that!

paws

putsy putsy p.o.s.

The long surrender

All my favorite people are broken
Believe me, my heart should know
Some prayers are better left unspoken
I just want to hold you and let the rest go

All my friends are part saint and part sinner
We lean on each other, try to rise above
We are not afraid to admit we are all still beginners
We are all late bloomers when it comes to love

All my favorite people are broken
Believe me, my heart should know
Awful believers, skeptical dreamers, step forward
You can stay right here, you don't have to go

Is each wound you've received just a burdensome gift?
It gets so hard to lift yourself up off the ground
But the poet says we must praise a mutilated world
We're all working the graveyard shift
You might as well sing along

Cause all my favorite people are broken
Believe me, my heart should know
As for your tender heart, this world's going to rip it wide open, 
It aint gonna be pretty, but you're not alone

All my favorite people are broken
Believe me, my heart should know
Awful believers, skeptical dreamers, you're welcome
Yeah, you're safe right here, you don't have to go

Cause all my favorite people are broken
Believe me, I should know
Some prayers are better left unspoken
I just want to hold you and let the rest go



-Over the Rhine, "All My Favorite People"

Alrighty Almighty--

the rest is up to you.