11.02.2004 - 11:18 a.m.

When he called me on my way out from work, we decided to have an away night. That I would sleep here.

I wanted to sleep there.

I cleaned my room over the weekend. It�s pretty now. Comfortable. I needed a night to hang out with the cat, to pay the cable bill and read the Scientific American.

I wanted to sleep there.

I don�t actually sleep very well over there; the way his bed sags makes my shoulders cramp, there are too many cats, and after he leaves at 6:10 I have two hours in which my choices are leave and don�t sleep, or stay and don�t sleep. If I leave, the drive wakes me up too much, and if I stay the cats think I will play with them. Also it is cold with him gone.

I still wanted to sleep there.

I told myself that I would go, after I finished everything. I had soup to make and a roommate I hadn�t seen in over a week. I told myself that if I went to the gym and got my oil changed, if I emptied the litterbox and processed the new pile of mail, I could go. It was a Cinderella promise.

But I did want to sleep there.

The problem is that I don�t live there. There, I live out of a pile of accumulated clothes and junk in the corner by his closet. I use boy soap and a spare razor head to shave. I have no breakfast food, and even if I did, even though he lives so much closer to my work than I do, I still have to swing by my own apartment to feed the cat, who is lonely. Who needs me around.

So I slept here. It was comfortable. I forgot to set my alarm, but my cat woke me up just when I needed to. It is time, for a while, to live where I live. Maybe sometime soon to live in the same place he lives, but for now, staying over at his place, cooking meals and spending quiet evenings, it�s all just pretending.

I still want to sleep there.

-stonebridge

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